MANDEL: Man accused of killing wife and daughter testifies 'my anger exploded'

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His anger exploded.

That was Godfrey Sig-Od’s only explanation for why he viciously stabbed his estranged wife and daughter more than a dozen times each in North York after they picked him up on the afternoon of Aug. 26, 2023.

Testifying in his own defence with nary a hint of emotion, the accused killer lay all the blame at the feet of the women who were slaughtered – and his question to them that horrific day was actually: “Why did you do this to me?”

Sig-Od, 49, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the deaths of Elvie Sig-Od, 44, and daughter Angelica, 20. His attempt to plead to manslaughter was rejected by prosecutors, who argue the stabbings were planned and deliberate.

At the scene on Bathurst St. near Ellerslie Ave. – north of Sheppard Ave. W. – where Elvie Sig-Od’s Lexus had jumped the curb and both bloodied bodies lay on the pavement, horrified witnesses recall the killer saying his ex had cheated on him.

Through a Tagalog interpreter, Sig-Od added other complaints in his testimony: He said he’d been hounding Elvie to help renew his Philippine’s passport but she told him he first had to repay the $3,500 he owed her for sponsoring him to come to Canada in 2019.

Sig-Od also was enraged at his daughter, he explained, because she hadn’t sent money to his mother in the Philippines as he’d asked.

“My anger exploded. I do not know what happened. What I noticed next is they were all lying down and my hands have blood. And I was saying, ‘Why did you do this? Why? I was only asking for my passport and my PR (permanent resident) card,'” he testified.

“This is the fate of people who are only after money. Then I was saying, ‘You cheated on me and you were just after money.'”

Sig-Od painted Elvie as an uncaring mother who left them in the Philippines to work for three years in Hong Kong, and she didn’t send money to help support their only child. She then immigrated to Canada without informing him, he claimed, and on a visit home, tricked him by taking Angelica back with her.

He found a new woman and had another child.

After many years, Sig-Od said he was surprised Elvie agreed to sponsor him here. He was upset they didn’t share a bedroom but everything else was fine, he insisted, until he asked her to send money back for his 86-year-old mom.

Elvie demanded he first pay back what he owed her.

“I got mad, I got pissed off,” Sig-Od said.

When Angelica refused to help him convince Elvie, Sig-Od said he told her that if it hadn’t been for her grandmother taking care of her when her mom left, she’d be “long dead.”

“Were you threatening Angelica?” defence lawyer Daniel Brodsky asked.

“No, I was not threatening,” Sig-Od insisted. “And then I told her, you’d better be careful.”

If his mother died because they hadn’t sent her money, he warned they’d “feel the wrath from me.”

Court has heard Elvie filed for divorce in 2020 and told York Regional Police that when she went to collect his signature on the papers, Sig-Od threatened to kill her.

“He said, ‘I’ve been planning to kill you before, before, even before I came here, it’s my plan to kill you,” Elvie told police on Nov. 20, 2020 in a statement played for the jury.

Three weeks earlier, his daughter accused him of abusing her.

“Stop hurting me emotionally because you are the reason I am having suicidal thoughts,” Angelica texted. “So leave us alone if you haven’t realized your mistakes.”

Sig-Od maintained the person at fault for breaking up their family was Elvie – she admitted having an affair and told him she didn’t love him anymore, he said. He challenged the other man to a fist fight, and then turned his anger on his ex.

“I feel like really punching her,” he said.

The day before the slayings, Sig-Od was pleading with Elvie over text to get together, renew his passport, buy him a new cellphone and help him find a job because he’d been unemployed for three weeks.

“I said pay first. Until you pay, we will not renew your passport,” Elvie replied over text.

On the day of the killings, Sig-Od’s entreaties continued as he begged her to come over.

“When will we get married again? I miss hugging and kissing you so much,” he texted repeatedly in between complaints about how hard he had it.

Finally, she agreed that she and Angelica would pick him up after 3 p.m.

Half an hour later, both were dead.

mmandel@postmedia.com