Trial for North York man accused of murdering female roommate begins

Julianna Fodor was near tears in a downtown Toronto courtroom Thursday as she recalled coming home from work on the evening of Jan. 21, 2021 and finding her roommate, Leah St. Jean, dead.

It was just after 9 p.m. when Fodor said she discovered St. Jean, 32, lying face down, in the fetal position, next to the bed in a bedroom in suite 908 at 500 Murray Ross Pkwy., which Fodor also shared with her boyfriend, Soreeysa Abdi.

The testimony was heard at the jury trial for Abdi, who’s accused of the second-degree murder of St. Jean. He has pleaded not guilty.

The jury has already heard that St. Jean’s cause of death was gunshot wounds to the back of her head and lower back.

Video surveillance from the early morning hours of Jan. 21, 2021 was also shown to the jury. It captured St. Jean walking down a few storeys of the stairwell in the apartment building on Murray Ross Parkway around 5:50 a.m. before turning around and walking back up a few stairs.

While there is no audio, St. Jean can be seen looking up the staircase and appears to be listening. A man identified by Fodor as Abdi is seen at the top of the stairwell at the same time, speaking to someone down the stairwell. Abdi appears to be upset, his arms flailing as he talks. St. Jean then turns and walks back down the stairwell and out of the building. Abdi can be seen walking out of the stairwell and down the ninth-floor hallway, disappearing into what appears to be his unit.

The security video shows Fodor leaving for work around 6:20 a.m. and St. Jean returning to the apartment building around 6:45 a.m. St. Jean is never seen outside the apartment again. A person is seen on video surveillance leaving the apartment at approximately 9:05 p.m. At approximately 9:10 p.m, Fodor is seen returning to the apartment building. Roughly 30 minutes later, first responders can be seen in the ninth-floor hallway. St. Jean was pronounced dead at the scene.

Crown prosecutor Barry Stagg asked Fodor if she had ever seen guns in the apartment. She testified she had once seen Adbi with a gun in the bedroom, and once saw St. Jean empty out her purse and put a silver handgun by the side of her bed. Stagg questioned if Fodor remembered that during the preliminary inquiry, she testified she had never seen Abdi nor St. Jean with a gun.

Fodor said she did tell the truth at the preliminary inquiry but remembered certain details that she didn’t remember then.

“Like I said, this is the hardest time of my life. I have been struggling with a lot. My memory is not the same. Trying to remember certain specific details. When I think about it, it comes and goes,” Fodor said.

Stagg questioned: “Seeing Ms. St. Jean with a gun, wouldn’t that be something you would remember?

“Probably, but again, how can you tell your memory to work?” Fodor replied.

Fodor testified she tried to reach Abdi many times by phone but was unsuccessful. The following day, she said she got a call from her boyfriend and he sounded incoherent. “When I was talking to him, it didn’t make sense. He asked me, ‘Where’s Leah?’ and I was like, ‘What do you mean, where’s Leah?'”

Fodor is expected to be cross-examined next week.

Stagg told the jury in his opening address that the day after St. Jean’s body was discovered, shortly before 7 p.m., an ambulance was called to pick up Abdi at a home in Parkdale. He was wearing clothing that will be compared with clothing won by the person seen on video leaving apartment 908 at 500 Murray Ross Pkwy. at 9:05 p.m. on Jan. 21.

Not far from where Abdi was picked up by paramedics, a car was found — one that Adbi had access to. In it, a handgun was found. The Crown said evidence will be called to show that the firearm was used to shoot St. Jean.

St. Jean’s father and stepmother have travelled to Toronto from North Bay for the trial. Lloyd St. Jean said he won’t bury his daughter until he has justice.

They believed she was beginning to turn her life around and when they travelled to Toronto in November 2020 for a visit, she had never looked better.

“I still have my daughter sitting at home, I can’t bury her here until it’s all done,” Lloyd St. Jean said outside court.

The jury has not heard a motive for the fatal shooting.