MANDEL: Bloody knife blade found in accused double killer's gym bag

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You had to feel for the novice cop testifying for the first time.

Toronto Police Const. Rani Omar appeared understandably nervous in the downtown courtroom as she was questioned Thursday at the double murder trial of Godfrey Sig-Od, 48, who has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the brutal stabbing deaths of his ex-wife Elvie Sig-Od, 44, and their 20-year-old daughter, Angelica.

His offer to plead guilty to manslaughter was rejected by prosecutors who told the jury they will argue the slayings were planned and deliberate, pointing to a recorded complaint by Elvie two years earlier to York Regional Police where she claimed Sig-Od had allegedly told her, “It is my plan to kill you.”

It was just after 3:30 p.m. on Aug. 26, 2022. Omar had been on the job for a year when she and her partner responded to reports that a male had pulled two women out of a car on Bathurst St., north of Sheppard Ave. W., stabbed them and threw a knife in the bushes.

The uniformed officer testified the victims appeared to be dead with multiple stab wounds while the suspect had blood all over his hands as he was being arrested by her partner.

Her tasks included going through Sig-Od’s Goodlife gym bag. There were the usual contents – a water bottle, weight belt and gloves, as well as his wallet and some mail. But on her body-worn camera, Omar can also be seen emptying an outside pocket of the bag and unwrapping a face mask.

And this is not what you’d expect in a gym bag: a bloody Cuisinart knife blade of about five inches. But to her obvious embarrassment, her discovery didn’t seem to register at the time for the novice officer.

“At the time it did not,” she said.

Sig-Od was taken to 32 Division for booking on two counts of murder and on the video shown to the jury, Omar was again itemizing the gym bag’s contents.

“Is that the first time you noticed the blade?” asked Crown attorney Rochelle Liberman.

Or as the booking officer said on the video, “What’s that? Oh, a blade with blood on it,” he said with understatement. “That might have some evidentiary value.”

And its handle? It would be discovered later by police inside the Lexus. How violently hard would someone have to stab their victims for the blade to actually break?

“It was a very irregular break with a very rough edge to it,” explained Jeffrey Johnston, a forensic officer with Toronto Police.

Johnston was describing for the jury the many photos he’d taken of the crime scene and of the Lexus that had been stopped on the west sidewalk.

Particularly gruesome was Angelica’s flowered wallet soaked in blood on the red-stained front passenger seat and the long, dark hair that was still attached to the black knife handle found on the floor of the back seat.

Johnston showed the jury more blood staining inside and outside the Lexus, a shattered pair of sunglasses and a slice through the leather of the front passenger seat.

Whatever ended on Bathurst St. appeared to have begun inside the vehicle that seemed to belong to Sig-Od – in the console, police found his Philippines passport and his permanent residency card.

Court has heard Elvie suffered 14 wounds and Angelica had 19 – but the horrific reality of those unbelievable numbers was laid bear in the courtroom as Johnston went through the grim photos of the women’s bloody clothing.

There was Angelica’s sweatshirt covered in dark red stains, the material ripped on the front by the neck and 16 penetrating tears all down the back. Her Aeropostale sweatpants were blood-stained on both legs.

Her mother Elvie’s camouflage T-shirt had four tears in the upper chest and shoulder area, and five more on the back. Her pants were drenched with staining on the front.

A bloodbath of mother and daughter.

The trial continues.

mmandel@postmedia.com