A Toronto-area man has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years after killing and dismembering two women a decade apart.
Adam Strong received the life sentence Friday for his first-degree murder conviction in the killing of Rori Hache in 2017.
He also received 18 years in prison, to be served concurrently, for his manslaughter conviction in the death of 19-year-old Kandis Fitzpatrick in 2008.
Hache's godmother welcomed Friday's sentencing.
"It does not change the fact our girls are not coming home, but today we let them rest," Krysia Meeldyk told reporters outside court in Oshawa, Ont.
"Today this monster is off our street and is no longer a part of our day, he's no longer a part of our lives."
The two women disappeared roughly a decade apart -- Fitzpatrick was last seen in 2008, while Hache, who was 18 and pregnant, went missing in August 2017.
Hache's torso was found in Lake Ontario about a month after she vanished.
Police did not link her death to Strong until later that year, after plumbers working on the house where he lived found a flesh-like substance in the pipes.
Fitzpatrick's body was never found, but court heard police found her DNA in Strong's basement, including on a hunting knife.
During the trial, Strong acknowledged the Crown had proven he dismembered the women, but argued they failed to prove he killed them.
Bill Fitzpatrick told court in a victim impact statement Thursday that he scoured the streets of Oshawa and other cities after his daughter vanished.
He said he was devastated when police told him nearly 10 years later they found her DNA in Strong's home and believed she was dead.
"After all the years of searching, this was not the outcome I expected. I was shattered by the news,'' he told court.
Hache's mother, Shanan Dionne, who could not make it to court because she had tested positive for COVID-19, delivered a victim impact statement via videoconference and detailed the family's extensive search for her daughter.
Fishermen found a torso in the Oshawa harbour on Sept. 11, 2017, court heard. Several months later, DNA on the torso matched Hache's DNA, court heard.
"This is when I knew this was a nightmare I was never going to wake from," Dionne said in her statement.
Data from Google showed Strong's phone at the harbour a week earlier, court heard.
Months later, in late December, police caught a break in the case.
Strong's upstairs neighbours called plumbers over to fix blocked pipes. The plumbers found the problem in Strong's apartment and pulled a fleshy-like substance from the pipes.
They put that in a bag, brought it outside and called police, who arrived quickly.
Officers then knocked on Strong's door.
"OK, you got me, the gig’s up, it’s a body," an officer testified Strong told him. "If you want to recover the rest of her, it’s in my freezer."
Inside, officers found the rest of Hache's body in the freezer in Strong's bedroom. DNA testing from the apartment also later revealed a match for Fitzpatrick.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2021.
Liam Casey, The Canadian Press
