Nikolas Ibey guilty of 1st-degree murder for killing Savanna Pikuyak
Jury took just over 3 hours to find Ottawa man guilty in 2022 killing of his new roommate
A jury in Ottawa's Superior Court has found Nikolas Ibey, 35, guilty of first-degree murder for killing Inuk woman Savanna Pikuyak in September 2022.
After receiving instructions from Justice Robert Maranger on Tuesday morning, the jury deliberated for just over three hours before returning its verdict just before 4 p.m. Supporters of Pikuyak cheered and sobbed in the courtroom when the verdict was read.
Following the verdict, the court heard victim impact statements.
As the court heard how Pikuyak's murder impacted her community, her family members in the courtroom sat wearing red T-shirts emblazoned with "Justice for MMIW," referring to murdered and missing Indigenous women.
Pikuyak's sister Geneva stood holding a photo of Pikuyak as the Crown read her victim impact statement into the record.
"I feel like all the colours have been stripped from me; I only see black and white," the statement said. "I feel numb most of the time."
The statement continued: "She wasn't just my sister, but my best friend.... I'm grateful for the 22 years I got. She was a bright, silly soul. There is yin and yang, and then there's a Geneva and Savanna."
After the statements were read, Justice Maranger asked Ibey if he had anything to say, to which he replied: "No."
The judge called the murder of Pikuyak a "monstrous, inexcusable crime."
"Her loss will leave a deep emotional scar that will never completely heal," the judge said.
Noting that first-degree murder is the most serious crime in Canada's code, Justice Maranger then pronounced the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment with a minimum 25 years without parole.
Ibey did not outwardly express emotion and remained motionless, as he had throughout the proceedings.
Only question one of degree
Ibey's culpability for murder was never in doubt during the trial, with the only question being whether he committed first- or second-degree murder when he killed his new roommate on Sept. 11, 2022, days after she had moved to Ottawa to study nursing.
The Crown had argued that Ibey also sexually assaulted and unlawfully detained the 22-year-old Inuk woman, elevating his offence to the more serious crime of first-degree murder.
But the defence had argued that while Ibey admitted to second-degree murder, the Crown had been unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the aggravating elements of sexual assault or forcible confinement — this despite police finding Pikuyak's body splayed facedown and naked on her bed, her head tightly bound with a makeshift gag.
Crown rejected guilty plea
The trial began Nov. 13 and closing submissions were made on Monday. Ibey had initially offered to plead guilty to second-degree murder but this was rejected by prosecutors who argued that he had also sexually assaulted and unlawfully confined Pikuyak.
In his instructions to the jury on Tuesday, Maranger noted that the Crown and defence were in agreement on many elements in the case, including that Ibey had killed Pikuyak.
"This is probably why the trial was shorter than five weeks," he said, referring to the period for which proceedings had originally been scheduled.
Pikuyak, a 22-year-old Inuk woman, had arrived in Ottawa from Sanirajak, Nunavut, just days before the killing.
She had enrolled at Algonquin College to study to become a nurse and had messaged Ibey after he listed a room for rent in the home he was living in at 34C Woodvale Green.
On the night of the killing, just days after Pikuyak moved in, Ibey went on a cocaine and drinking binge and spent hours online searching for sex, exchanging nearly 1,000 messages with sex workers, the court heard.
A sex worker testified during the trial that she had met with Ibey on the night before the killing but left after about 15 minutes because he was unable to maintain an erection.
After the sex worker left, Ibey continued searching online for sex and began scrolling photos of Pikuyak on her Facebook account.
Sometime later he went to Pikuyak's bedroom, beat her about the head and body with a piece of wood then gagged and strangled her.
Defence presented various scenarios
Crown attorneys Michael Purcell and Sonia Beauchamp maintained that only a sexual assault could explain the condition in which Pikuyak's body was found.
But defence lawyer Ewan Lyttle proposed several scenarios in which Ibey might have killed Pikuyak without sexually assaulting her, including that she could have been naked before he attacked her, or that they had a consensual sexual encounter that later turned violent.
In instructing the jury on how to establish whether the Crown's case was proven beyond a reasonable doubt, Maranger said they must take all evidence into account. He noted that Pikuyak's DNA was found on Ibey and his on her body, though he highlighted that this could have happened through non-violent contact.
Justice Maranger told the jury that if they find Ibey exually assaulted Pikuyak then he's guilty of first-degree murder and their deliberations would be over. If they conclude he had not sexually assaulted her they must also consider whether he had unlawfully detained Pikuyak prior to her killing, Maranger instructed.
The murder of someone who has been previously deprived of liberty and subjected to the whims of the offender elevates a second-degree murder to first-degree, the judge explained.
To obtain a conviction, the Crown had to show that Ibey had murdered Savanna Pikuyak while he was committing the offence of unlawful confinement, and that the offences were two discrete acts that were part of the same chain of events.
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