An Edmonton man who murdered his wife and dismembered her body was sentenced on Wednesday to life in prison with no chance of applying for parole for 17 years.
Tesfai Negasi, 56, was convicted by a jury in June of second-degree murder for the death of his wife, Selamawit Negasi, and indecent interference with her remains. The couple had four daughters, one of whom was six years old at the time of her mother’s murder.
Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Janice Topolniski called the killing a “brutal crime that’s the most reprehensible and extreme form of domestic violence.”
Family and friends of Selamawit Negasi filled several rows in the courtroom. Several watched Tesfai Negasi, who sat calmly in the prisoner’s box and expressed no emotion during the sentencing decision. He appeared to have no supporters in the courtroom.
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The sentencing decision comes after a summer trial, during which court heard that Tesfai and Selamawit Negasi had had a troubled relationship for years. Their three adult daughters testified that their father was the aggressor during arguments. In the weeks before her death, Selamawit Negasi had told several people she thought her husband was following her.
She was preparing to divorce him at the time of her death on July 5, 2009. That’s when Negasi killed her in the family’s Cherry Grove home on the city’s north side, dismembered her body and placed the pieces into plastic bags. The medical examiner could not determine the cause of her death.
Tesfai Negasi tried to clean the blood from the family home, but when his daughters came home and found what they suspected to be blood and signs of a struggle in their mother’s bedroom, they called police. He eventually learned officers were at the scene, then drove to police headquarters and told them he had killed his wife.
Officers discovered several plastic bags in the trunk of his car. Selamawit Negasi’s body had been cut into 10 parts, then wrapped in plastic and bed sheets. She was unrecognizable.
A second-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence, but offenders may be eligibly to apply for parole at between 10 and 25 years. The maximum sentence for indecent interference with human remains is five years, which Topolniski handed to Negasi. The five years must be served concurrently to his life sentence for the murder conviction.
The Crown had asked for parole ineligibility to be set at 20 years, while Tesfai Negasi’s defence lawyer had argued it be set at 12 years.
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