On the second day of Nikolas Ibey’s first-degree murder trial, the jury was shown a bloodied piece of wood found in the bedroom of the Inuk woman he’s accused of killing two years ago.
Crown prosecutors paced slowly before the 14 jurors, holding that key piece of evidence and pointing out spots of blood, a hole from which a screw had protruded, and places where the timber fibres were missing.
Pictures shown earlier in the trial showed what looked to be the same piece of wood located in the rental unit’s basement, where Ibey had been living and working on renovations.
On Friday, members of the Ottawa Police Service’s forensics division are expected to continue testifying and introduce evidence related to the piece of wood, blood stains and other items recovered from the scene.
The five-week trial started Wednesday with the Crown alleging Ibey, now 35, was drinking, taking drugs, and was frustrated in his efforts to find an escort late into the night of Sept. 10 and early morning of Sept. 11, 2022, before sexually assaulting and killing his new roommate.
Savanna Pikuyak, 22, had recently moved to Ottawa from Nunavut, and had moved in with Ibey just four days earlier.
‘I killed my roommate’
On Thursday, the jury saw text messages Ibey sent to his father on the morning of Sept. 11, 2022, confessing to killing his housemate.
“I’m in big, big trouble,” and “I killed my roommate,” the messages read in part.
Ibey’s father testified for the prosecution, recalling the frantic moments between receiving those texts, realizing it wasn’t a joke, calling emergency services and driving to the scene.
Ibey’s messages to his dad also included suicide threats, instructions to “call the cops,” and the assertion that he was “going to jail until I die.”
Earlier in the trial the jury heard how prior to his text confession, Ibey had searched online about the lengths of sentences for murder and first-degree murder.
Father, brother of accused testify
Pikuyak answered an ad on Facebook to rent a room in the three-bedroom row home on Woodvale Green in Ottawa, the Crown told the jury earlier in the trial.
Ibey’s brother had bought the home the previous month. He offered Ibey the basement room and put him in charge of finding other tenants and collecting rent.
Their 68-year-old adoptive father James Ibey was in Ottawa to help with renovations at the investment property. He testified he was having coffee and a cigarette when the texts from his son started arriving.
His initial response was to tell Ibey, “lol stop the bullshit,” but he soon went into what he described as shock as he realized it wasn’t a joke.
He said he woke Ibey’s brother Christopher Ibey, who then called emergency services. The two then drove to the rental property where they found police had already arrived.
Near the end of the day Thursday, the jury was shown graphic photos of the crime scene.
Nikolas Ibey, now 35, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in Ottawa’s Superior Court at the outset of his trial this week, after the Crown rejected his guilty plea to the lesser offence of second-degree murder.
On Thursday he sat slouched forward in the prisoner’s box wearing a white T-shirt and grey pants, his arms resting on his knees for much of the proceedings.