Man admits in court that he’d dismembered woman
Prosecutors say Melissa Cooper, 30, was killed sometime between April 15 and April 19, 2016.
Ian Albert Ohab has admitted in court he dismembered the body of a 30-yearold woman whose partial remains were found behind a meat shop in Riverdale and on a conveyor belt at a North York recycling plant.
But while the 41-year-old pleaded guilty to indignity to a body, he pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder of Melissa Cooper sometime between April 15 and 19, 2016.
Ohab originally pleaded not guilty to both charges last week as jury selection was getting underway.
On the opening day of the jury trial Monday, the prosecution outlined the anticipated evidence in a case Crown attorney Bev Richards said is “about a young woman who is killed by a man she encounters by chance in the elevator of an apartment building.”
“The man who killed and cut up her body with a hack saw is the accused in this trial, Ian Albert Ohab,” Richards said.
Cooper went to that building at 220 Oak St., near Gerrard and River Sts., around midnight April 14, 2016, to visit a friend who, like herself, battled alcohol and drug addiction. Richards said that friend, Maurice Liberty, will testify Cooper left his 18th-floor apartment after about a half-hour and told him “I’ll be back.”
Cooper, who had other friends in the building, appeared fine, was not high or drunk and left her backpack behind, Richards told the jury.
Surveillance footage shows Ohab joined by Cooper on an elevator on the 15th floor around 1:35 a.m., Richards said. “There appears to be some interaction between them. A minute later both Melissa and Ian Ohab get off the elevator at the 23rd floor and turn left in the direction of Ian Ohab’s apartment,” she said. “She is never seen alive again.”
On Saturday, April 16, 2016, security footage recorded Ohab “coming and going” in various locations throughout the building, Richards said.
On one occasion, she said, Ohab was captured carrying a distinctive large gym bag, and other times he can be seen with a large shopping cart wheeling out an item wrapped in a plastic bag. He was also seen throwing items into garbage dumpsters at 220 Oak St., the prosecutor said.
But he says he did not kill woman whose remains were behind a Riverdale meat shop
The Crown also alleges Ohab that day rode his bicycle to a hardware store on Parliament St. and purchased a 10-inch tubular hacksaw that he used to cut up Cooper’s body and dispose of in various locations, including the lower half of her torso in a waste bin behind Charlie’s Meat Shop at 383 Broadview Ave.
Her arm was discovered in a bag on a conveyor belt at the North York recycling plant. No other body parts, including her head, have been found.
A neighbour will testify Ohab came to his apartment around that time, although he does not remember the exact date, twice asking to borrow soap and bleach, Richards said.
A forensic pathologist will testify he cannot provide a cause of death “given the limited tissues” available, nor was he able to rule out any cause of death, nor pinpoint the time of death. Cooper’s mother, Michelle Ball, reported her daughter missing after she failed to show up for dinner at her grandmother’s or respond to phone calls or texts.
Cooper’s DNA was also found under floor tiles in the Ohab’s bathroom, Richards told the jury.
Richards said while Cooper struggled with addiction issues since she was 14, and was living on the streets for a period of time, she had begun rebuilding her life. She had her own basement apartment where she lived with her cat and was going to counselling for severe anxiety issues. She was also learning to manage her money and budget wisely and volunteering at a mission with her grandmother.
Ohab is a tall man who wears his thick black hair swept back. He was wearing a dark suit, glasses and took notes during Richards’ opening address.
The Crown’s case will include witness testimony, video surveillance footage, diagrams and photographs, Richards said.