Toronto man who killed, dismembered woman gets life sentence with no parole for 22 years

TORONTO – A Toronto man who killed and dismembered a woman then dumped her remains in the garbage has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 22 years.

Ian Ohab was convicted in January of second-degree murder in the death of Melissa Cooper, a 30-year-old woman last seen alive in his company.

Ohab had admitted he cut up Cooper’s body three years ago and pleaded guilty to causing indignity to a body. But he denied killing her, saying she died of a drug overdose in his apartment and he dismembered her out of panic.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, had argued Ohab lured Cooper into his home while she was looking for drugs and attacked her, then dismembered her and tossed some of her remains in the trash in an effort to conceal his crimes.

Cooper’s lower torso was found behind a butcher shop in east Toronto and one of her arms was discovered on the conveyor belt of a recycling plant, but most of her remains were never found. An autopsy conducted on what was found could not determine what caused her death.

Second-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 10 to 25 years. Ontario Superior Court Justice Suhail Akhtar said he weighed a number of factors in his decision.