A jury found Wazhir Gafoor guilty as charged of the first-degree murder of Christina Yadram in what an Owen Sound trial judge called “the very worst of intimate partner violence.”
He was sentenced Wednesday to life without the chance of parole for 25 years, the mandatory period prescribed by law for a first-degree murder, which was committed more than three years ago in a rented van where he forcibly attempted to abort their unborn child.
A jury took about three hours Wednesday afternoon to find Gafoor guilty of first-degree murder of Yadram, a 36-year-old Toronto mother of three girls who was pregnant with Gafoor’s son. The trial stretched over six weeks.
Gafoor was 32 and of Shelburne when charged two days after Yadram’s Oct. 9, 2021 death. Her body was found under an abandoned trailer in Northern Bruce Peninsula. Her hands and feet were bound, she had been gagged and her pants pulled down to her knees.
Yadram suffered 11 fractured ribs, a broken nose and sternum, and injuries to her neck which contributed but did not cause her death. Her death was by suffocation, the doctor who did the autopsy concluded.
Superior Court Justice Gisele Miller told Gafoor he took away Yadram’s choice to keep her unborn child, and then he took her life. She said he abused Yadram’s trust by getting her alone on the pretense that they were going away together for Thanksgiving weekend, then by what he did in the van in Moonstone, Ont., north of Barrie.
Miller said she couldn’t imagine the fear and pain Yadram must have felt when Gafoor took her to a remote area where he’d parked a U-Haul van. He bound and gagged her and performed “unspeakable actions on her body” in the back of the van, she said.
Text messages were entered during the trial in which Gafoor expressed anger with Yadram for her wanting to keep the baby, which Gafoor repeatedly called a “paracite.”
He purchased supplies, including a speculum medical instrument. Yadram could not be excluded as the source of DNA found on it. He searched online how to cause an abortion and just before his arrest, he searched penalties for murder and manslaughter.
The jury heard testimony that Gafoor confessed to the killing to his brother, who thought he remembered Gafoor also telling him he’d choked Yadram. Gafoor also confessed to the killing to a police officer but said he hadn’t meant to kill her.
Miller heard from four members of Yadram’s family from Toronto, some of whom wore white hoodies with a picture of her with angel wings and the words “Justice For Christina.” The judge told Gafoor she wanted him to hear the impact his murder had on them.
Yadram’s eldest daughter said her mother was beautiful and bright and she lit up a room. The 20-year-old said she felt like a kid crossing the road alone for the first time when she learned her mother was dead. It’s particularly hard to see the harm her murder has caused her little sisters.
One of Yadram’s sisters who is caring for Yadram’s kids now, said it’s been an emotional, mental and physical struggle. Another sister said she was “so sad and heart-broken” and said Yadram “always made me feel better.”
Yadram’s friend called her an “angel on earth” and called Gafoor a “selfish, arrogant psychopath.” She’s seen the hurt he caused Yadram’s kids and said “I can only be there for them.”
Miller finished addressing Gafoor by telling him she hoped he would find peace.
Lead defence lawyer Tony Bryant, who conceded on the last day of trial that his client committed manslaughter while trying to abort the fetus, said outside the courtroom that an appeal is possible.
Miller ordered Gafoor not to communicate with a list of people but decided to leave an exception for the daughter he shared with Yadram. Gafoor must not contact her but should she one day wish to reach out to him, the order won’t prevent it. Miller also imposed a DNA order and lifetime firearms and other weapons ban on Gafoor.
The facts weren’t so much in contention as whether they amounted to murder. The jury’s job was to determine which facts to adopt and whether they fit murder’s legal definition.
Bryant said he agreed with Crown attorney Patrick Clement on a lot of what happened. But he rejected that Gafoor was guilty of murder, saying that’s not what his client intended.
Miller’s address to the jury provided detailed steps to follow and questions to answer as they sifted through the evidence to see whether it amounted to murder in the first degree, second degree or manslaughter.
A manslaughter conviction would have meant that Gafoor caused Yadram’s death unlawfully. However, the Crown argued that even though Gafoor didn’t intend to kill Yadram, he meant to perform an abortion of their unborn child, it was still murder.
Yadram died by suffocation from gagging and the Crown argued Gafoor was reckless or should have known that Yadram was likely to die by his actions, which would make it murder.
A conviction on second-degree murder requires that Gafoor applied force to Yadram that he knew could kill her. The Crown argued that by covering Yadram’s mouth and nose, her death was inevitable.
A conviction on first-degree murder requires, in this case, proof that Gafoor either forcibly confined Yadram or that he sexually assaulted her. Both routes to first-degree murder involved gagging among actions that restricted her breathing and led to death.
If either were found to be true by the jury, the Crown then had to show that the forcible confinement or the sexual assault were separate acts from the mechanism of her death, which was the gagging.
If the jury believed first-degree murder was via sexual assault, such as by using the speculum medical device, that would have been a distinct act from the gagging, even though it all happened at the same time, the Crown argued.
If murder by the confinement route, the Crown argued binding Yadram’s hands and feet was one act, and gagging her was the second act, because Gafoor didn’t need to gag to forcibly confine Yadram.