Supreme Court dismisses killer’s appeal

Haiden Suarez Noa will be retried in stabbing death of Tania Cowell

The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed a request by killer Haiden Suarez Noa to allow an appeal on a decision that overturned his manslaughter conviction and put him on trial again.

The Hamilton prosecutor at his 2015 trial argued Suarez Noa should be convicted of seconddegree murder in the stabbing death of his partner, Tania Cowell, in their Stoney Creek apartment while their infant son was there.

A jury however, acquitted him of second-degree murder and instead found him guilty of manslaughter.

The verdict outraged Cowell’s family and many others in the community.

At his sentencing, the Hamilton Woman Abuse Working Group — a coalition of 20 Hamilton agencies — gave a then-unprecedented victim statement on the harm of Suarez Noa’s actions to the community as a whole.

The Hamilton Crown’s office and Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General appealed the verdict to the Ontario Court of Appeal. In July last year, the high court overturned the manslaughter conviction and ordered a new trial.

Suarez Noa then applied for leave to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The appeal, if leave had been granted to Suarez Noa to file one, would have argued against a new trial.

The new trial had been scheduled to start in a Hamilton courtroom on Monday, but because the Supreme Court decision had not been made by last Friday, it was rescheduled to Nov. 5 in the event it was allowed to go ahead, said deputy Crown Janet Booy.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court dismissed the application for leave to appeal, thereby ensuring the new trial will proceed.

Suarez Noa, at his 2015 trial, admitted to stabbing Cowell, his partner and the mother of his son, who was five months old at the time.

Suarez Noa said he “lost it” when, according to him, she threatened to leave him and keep their son from him.

He was sentenced to 11 years in prison.