MANDEL: Man guilty of ex-wife and daughter’s ‘grotesque’ murders sentenced to life

May Godfrey Sig-Od never see the light of day.

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It’s bad enough that he planned and executed the horrific stabbing death of his ex-wife Elvie, whom he blamed for “cheating” on him when in reality he just wouldn’t accept that their marriage had been over long, long ago.

But that selfish, self-centred monster also killed his own daughter, Angelica, in what the judge called a “vicious and brutal attack” – first stabbing the beautiful young woman from behind as she sat in the front passenger seat of her mother’s Lexus.

“She was in a most vulnerable, defenceless and confined position,” Superior Court Justice Alfred O’Marra said. “But the attack did not end there.”

Sig-Od then dragged his bleeding 20-year-old daughter out of the car to finish the job, stabbing her over and over again with a large hunting knife as she lay on the ground on Bathurst St. in full public view of horrified witnesses. An autopsy would find her enraged father stabbed the poor girl 19 times – with seven wounds to her head and neck, six to her torso and six to her limbs.

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“He cut her down in the spring of her life,” O’Marra said Thursday.

And Sig-Od has never uttered a word of remorse. If anything, O’Marra noted, the double killer cast himself as the victim, testifying “look what (they) made me do.”

Last month, a jury convicted Sig-Od of first-degree murder for the August 2022 slaying of Elvie, 44, which carries an automatic life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years. Jurors, though, found him guilty of second-degree murder when it came to his daughter, not believing that it involved the same planning and deliberation.

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Second-degree murder also carries an automatic life term, but parole eligibility can be set between 10 and 25 years.

Defence lawyer Daniel Brodsky called for 12 years. When polled after their verdict, eight of the jurors recommended the maximum 25, as did Crown attorneys Rochelle Liberman and Victoria Di Iorio in their sentencing submissions.

“I accept that the recommendations convey cogently the community’s shock and horrified reaction to the offender’s grotesque killing of his daughter,” the judge said, “requiring a strong message to denounce what the offender did.”

Yet, O’Marra found 25 years of parole ineligibility was “too high” when compared to other cases and imposed 18 years instead.

In the end, though, it is all symbolic. Because he’s also serving a sentence for first-degree murder, the earliest Sig-Od can apply for parole is after 25 years.

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So ends this tragic story – another domestic homicide that may have been preventable if police had done their job.

The couple married in 2001 in the Philippines and had Angelica the same year. They essentially separated in 2004 when Elvie left to work in Hong Kong and when she returned, found her husband had taken up with another woman and had another child.

Elvie eventually immigrated to Canada to work as a personal support worker and brought Angelica to join her in 2011. She had virtually no contact with Sig-Od until 2019 when her mother-in-law urged her to sponsor him to Canada.

Elvie brought her killer here – and two-and-a-half years later, both she and her daughter were dead.

Sig-Od, a sometime bouncer and construction worker, arrived in January 2020 and an attempted reconciliation soon disappeared in the face of his explosive anger. He was so emotionally abusive that Angelica told him she was having suicidal thoughts.

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Mother and daughter met with police in October 2020 in hopes of obtaining a restraining order after Sig-Od said he should have killed Angelica long before. They were told they’d have to apply to the court.

The following month, Elvie decided to begin divorce proceedings and arranged to meet Sig-Od at his work to get the signed papers. When she arrived, he told her that not only wouldn’t he sign, but he planned to kill her and take out her eyes.

Once again, Elvie turned to the police. She gave a detailed, videotaped statement to York Regional Police about her fears and her ex’s death threats.

“Investigating officers instituted a warrant to arrest Godfrey,” O’Marra said, “however, it was never served.”

Allowing the humiliated and rejected husband and father to plot his bloody revenge.

mmandel@postmedia.com

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