Double-murder accused found quickly by police, tactical officer testifies

Double-murder suspect Emanuel Kahsai was arrested in an Edmonton apartment by tactical unit officers just hours after his alleged victims were found slain in their Calgary home.

Const. Jason Ludvig testified the Edmonton Police Service’s TAC team was requested by Calgary homicide investigators to assist in Kahsai’s arrest following the Oct. 19, 2015, discoveries of the bodies of Selamawit (Selma) Alem and Julie Tran.

Ludvig said the request came in around 7 p.m. that day to arrest Kahsai at an Edmonton apartment complex.

The bodies of Alem, 54, Kahsai’s mother, and Tran, 25, a mentally disabled woman living with the mother at her Coventry Close N.E. home, were discovered that morning.

Kahsai is charged with first-degree murder in his mother’s death and second-degree in the killing of Tran.

Ludvig said a TAC team squad went to the apartment complex in northwest Edmonton, but had to wait several hours to determine what suite Kahsai was in. Shortly after midnight, using a key supplied to Det. Kurt Martin, officers entered the suite, where they eventually found Kahsai lying in bed.

“We were just front of the suite,” Ludvig said, of the heavily armed TAC members.

“We would be announcing loudly that we were the police and having the subject … call out to us,” he told Crown prosecutor Matt Dalidowicz, of the team’s normal practice.

“Did the target do that?” the prosecutor asked.

“No,” Ludvig said.

The team then entered the suite to find Kahsai, with members eventually making their way to a back bedroom.

“I could see a person laying in the bed,” he said. “I yelled loudly for him to show me his hands. He began asking me how we got into the suite.

“We just walked towards him and I pulled him off the bed and put him in handcuffs,” Ludvig said. “It was later determined to be Emanuel Kahsai.”

Under questioning by lawyer Mark Takada, Ludvig said he was only physical with the accused when he pulled him off the bed. Takada has been appointed by Justice Glen Poelman to assist in the proceedings, since Kahsai is unrepresented and has been removed from the courtroom because of disruptive behaviour.

Kahsai has been placed in a second courtroom and has watched proceedings on CCTV.

Meanwhile, Det. Martin testified he provided “continuity” for a vehicle found in a separate apartment complex parking lot about six blocks from where Kahsai was arrested. The Dodge Journey, which was discovered parked there two days earlier by the resident whose parking spot it occupied, was registered to Alem.