by Gary Dimmock
Ottawa Citizen
Adrian Daou was working as a dishwasher and drug dealer when he hatched a murder plot in the summer of 2010 with the hopes that killer status would launch his dream career as a hip hop star, court heard Tuesday.
“He believed that murder would open up that world. He thought murder would reach his goal,: prosecutor Louise Tansey told a hushed courtroom at Daou’s first-degree murder trial.
The prosecutor detailed the accused’s murder plot for stardom that left Jennifer Stewart, 36, axed to death in a darkened parking lot on Alice Street in Vanier on Aug. 20, 2010.
Earlier that summer, Daou, 25, went on what the prosecutor called a shopping trip for murder at Canadian Tire, where he bought an axe, protective eye gear, mask and gloves.
But it would be two more months before he found “the perfect score” for his killing pot, the prosecutor told the jury.
And his perfect target was Stewart, a drug-addicted sex trade worker, the court heard.
It was under the pretext of a bogus drug deal that Daou was able to kill Stewart, said the prosecutor, adding that Stewart tried in vain to defend herself. When a dog walker found her body around 7 a.m. on Aug. 20, 2010, Stewart’s wrists were almost severed and her skull was shattered.
The accused went undetected for almost three years until he stepped forward in February 2013 and confessed to police. Daou was serving time at the Innes Road jail on an unrelated case when he told a guard he wanted to confess to an unsolved murder, the jury heard.
Daou later confessed to the killing in a videotaped police interview and accompanied detectives on a drive-thru of the crime scene, the prosecutor told the jury. The accused laid it all out for detectives, right down to this shopping trip.
Tansey told the court that Daou has also confessed to another murder, one she said he didn’t commit. But in this case, she said Daou gave details only the killed would know – including the choice of weapon that was never revealed publicly.
The jury trial, presided by Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger, continues Tuesday afternoon.