Two years before he was charged with slaughtering his ex-wife and daughter by the side of Bathurst St. as horrified motorists looked on, Godfrey Sig-Od allegedly warned that he would end her life.
“‘I’ve been planning to kill you. It is my plan to kill you.’ This is what the accused Godfrey Sig-Od told his ex-wife, Elvie Sig-Od in 2020. He also told her that he would take out her two eyes, and he told her to enjoy driving her car,” alleged Crown attorney Rochelle Liberman in her opening statement Tuesday.
“Sadly, in August of 2022, Godfrey Sig-Od carried out his plan. He killed Elvie and he killed her right outside his car. Elvie was not his only victim. He killed their daughter, Angelica, too.”
The pair had gone to York Regional Police in October 2020 to see about getting a restraining order against him. “They were afraid,” Liberman said. The following month, she told the jury, Elvie met with a YRP detective to give a video statement that will be played for the jury where she said her ex-husband had threatened to kill her.
Showing no emotion as he listened through a Tagalog interpreter, prosecutors allege Sig-Od stabbed or cut Elvie 14 times and Angelica, 19 times. Elvie was 44 and Angelica, an aspiring flight attendant, was just 20.
Sig-Od has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder. His offer to plead guilty to manslaughter was rejected by the Crown.’
At first, witnesses testified, it looked like an accident as they drove on Bathurst St., south of Sheppard Ave., on that late summer afternoon — a silver Lexus was stopped partially on the sidewalk facing southbound — but as they neared, they were shocked to see a male attacking two women.
To their credit, many stopped to try and help.
Jose BeGoudeia parked his truck in the left-turn lane and got out after seeing the man drag a woman out of the car and inflict what appeared to be three downward motions. “The third one, she just dropped to the ground.”
Just as BeGoudeia finally connected on his fourth attempt to call 911, the second victim got out of the backseat. He then heard a “horrific scream” as she was attacked as well, he said. “I told 911 I’m witnessing a stabbing.”
Butcher Royi Flescher also stopped. “I usually walk toward an issue, not away,” he said ruefully. “It’s not always the best idea, but I do, so I started walking toward the scene.”
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The first victim, he testified, was an older woman. The attacker then moved to the younger one, who was lying face down on the ground, with her shirt pulled up and the back of her bra exposed. “He was just stabbing and stabbing and stabbing,” Flescher testified.
As a butcher, he knows knives, and to Flescher, he appeared to be wielding a hunting knife about 10 inches long. “It’s not a practical knife you’d use in a kitchen.”
When the younger victim began moving her hand, he decided she was still alive, and he had to go help her — but soon realized it was too dangerous. “The man picked up the knife and started coming towards me,” he recalled. “So as he took a step forward, I took a step backwards, and so I kept that distance between us. And unfortunately, I just have to watch.”
Sarah Mandlsohn was driving north when she saw one woman lying face down in front of the awkwardly angled car, and then a man chasing a second woman as she was trying to run away. “The man proceeded to then stab her in the back,” she testified.
The second victim fell to the ground and when she managed to get back up, her attacker came to face her. “I couldn’t see exactly where he stabbed, but I did see him use a knife again to stab her in the neck or in the face,” Mandlsohn said.
And did she hear anything? “I could hear her screaming.”
Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Daniel Brodsky, the butcher admitted describing the attacker at his preliminary hearing as appearing to be in a “blind rage.”
Asked later by the Crown what he meant, he said the stabber seemed very angry and vengeful and “super-focused on carrying out these stabbings and inflicting the most amount of trauma possible.”
But why?
BeGoudia testified the driver of a minivan pulled up and asked the attacker what happened. He then heard her scream at him: “I don’t believe you killed two people because she was cheating on you.”
The trial continues.