behind the investigation into the death of Monica Chisar

Need to pay attention as an alternative? Click on or faucet play above.

*Warning: This story accommodates graphic particulars which may be upsetting.

SOUTHGATE – One of many final photographs Monica Chisar posted to Fb was on July 3, 2018.

She seems to be mendacity down, posed with pursed lips. Her eyes are obscured by a face filter including digital results to the picture. The caption reads: “Manchester Airport huge delay.”

Three days later, Monica publishes a selfie on Instagram – it too with a face filter. It’s hash-tagged “airplane” and “sleepytime.”

It could be the final time the 29-year-old would ever submit about her life. After July 6, 2018, her accounts go quiet.

Monica was a prolific consumer of social media, utilizing filters and emoticons to specific herself on-line.

She was the sort to share a photograph of her morning espresso, or sojourns by means of locations similar to Portugal and Cuba.

In unfiltered photographs, Monica’s piercing eyes, framed by darkish eyeliner, look immediately into the digicam; her straight, darkish hair runs previous her shoulders.

“She beloved utilizing social media,” her half sister Amanda Chisar instructed the Advertiser by telephone.

Monica’s mom immigrated to Canada from Moldova in 1979. She later relocated to Ontario from Manitoba, with Monica’s Romanian father, in 1986. They later break up in 1990.

 

Amanda was 11 when she first met Monica, who was 14 on the time, in Toronto. The 2 turned inseparable.

“She taught me learn how to do my make-up, learn how to gown,” Amanda stated.

When Monica turned pregnant along with her son, Ethan, the 2 moved in collectively.

“She was so loving, she did a lot for her household; she was a enjoyable, energetic, stunning particular person,” Amanda stated.

Monica beloved getting dressed as much as exit and dance to salsa, samba and bachata.

She was outgoing and all the time the lifetime of the social gathering, Amanda stated. “That was Monica.”

Amanda turned anxious after Monica’s social media posts stopped and she or he heard nothing from her sister after Monica returned from her journey.

She saved saying “one thing’s improper.” Amanda’s concern grew after household and buddies hadn’t heard from her both.

However Monica was a “free-spirited particular person” who lived her personal life and would drop off the radar solely to later pop up once more.

Monica was final seen by a pal after being dropped off on the nook of Barton Avenue and Parkdale Avenue in Hamilton on the evening of July 11, 2018.

It wasn’t till Sept. 28 of that 12 months Amanda reported Monica as lacking to Hamilton police.

 

A November 2018 press launch said police have been in search of a 5’7”, 170-pound girl with inexperienced eyes and shoulder-length reddish/brown hair.

She had a small star tattoo on the left aspect of her neck, a crown on her left wrist, and tattooed on her higher again have been “Ethan” and “I like my daddy FC.”

Amanda questioned if her sister was locked in a basement, crying for assist.

She described it because the “worst doable feeling I’ve ever had.”

* * *

It was slightly below freezing on a transparent Christmas Eve afternoon in 2019.

Trevor Caudle and his son crunched by means of the snow on the again fringe of his wooded property, about 10km north of Mount Forest in Southgate Township.

Caudle swung a hatchet, chopping blazes into the cedar bushes.

Over the fence line he seen a purple suitcase strapped to a rusted inexperienced transferring dolly poking out from the snow and brush.

The realm is a daily dumping floor, with litter strewn alongside a slim gravel roadway operating west to east between Freeway 6 and Sideroad 33.

Caudle sliced into the suitcase nylon together with his hatchet, by means of the floral patterned cloth inside, and peered by means of the slim opening.

Inside was a human cranium. Caudle had simply found Monica Chisar’s stays.

“It’s not very nice,” Caudle stated by telephone.

 

Sitting across the dinner desk that Christmas Eve evening, the household spoke in regards to the grisly discovery.

Caudle had discovered useless animals, together with deer and canine carcasses he stated have been dumped within the space, however by no means a human physique.

He owned the agricultural property for greater than a decade, however has since moved.

He adopted information reporting within the years after, listening to Monica’s identify for the primary time on the radio.

Greater than a 12 months later, he stated, “you continue to consider it, particularly with a reputation.”

* * *

Gray-Bruce detective sergeant Byron Schwass was working Christmas Eve when the decision came visiting the radio.

“I began driving in direction of it, by no means pondering it was really going to be this,” Schwass stated in an interview.

He had handled many requires discovered stays over his 35 years in policing; more often than not bones got here again to decomposed animals.

Together with forensic identification officer Peter Peschke, Schwass arrived to discover a suitcase wrapped with completely different materials, secured to a transferring dolly with straps and a sequence.

“As quickly as I seen the suitcase, and the very fact it was tied onto a transferring dolly, and the place it was, mainly I didn’t just like the look of that in any respect,” Schwass stated.

 

Schwass and Peschke appeared on the decomposing stays inside by means of the sliced opening.

The officers had no thought who it was, or how the stays bought there.

“I’m all the time drawn to determine who it’s, and ‘what occurred right here, what led to this particular person being right here like this?” Schwass stated.

The dolly and suitcase had lengthy since settled into the smooth floor of the cedar bush and have been frozen there.

With the scene secured, and a tent positioned over the proof, police spent the Christmas holidays within the bush as propane and electrical heaters wore away on the chilly.

Two days later, on Dec. 27, Monica’s stays have been despatched to the province’s Forensic Pathology lab in Toronto for a postmortem.

The coroner’s identification tag learn: “unidentified.”

* * *

In an investigation in opposition to the chances, police did get a major fortunate break early on.

A bit of Monica’s identification was discovered within the suitcase.

“I Googled her identify, and she or he’s a lacking particular person out of Hamilton,” Schwass stated.

“That’s how we believed we had Monica Chisar.”

A DNA pattern from Monica’s father later confirmed her identification, however police have been nonetheless with out suspects in what had grow to be an lively murder investigation.

A plea for tips about Might 12, 2020 by Hamilton police workers sergeant Jim Calendar and OPP detective Scott Moore, with the Felony Investigation Department (CIB), appeared to fall on deaf ears.

 

“We have been hoping that the massive press launch after we recognized her physique and all that was going to generate some exercise,” Schwass stated.

“It actually didn’t … This was a chilly case.”

* * *

Brad Olsen, a brand new detective in Schwass’ unit on the time, was tasked because the lead investigator.

He couldn’t let go of the case, his first murder.

Whilst Gray-Bruce was hammered with new instances in 2020, Olsen continued working quietly within the background to deliver justice for Monica, constructing what ultimately turned a large file.

Following the snap retirement of Moore, the CIB detective initially tasked with managing the case, detective MaryLouise Kearns agreed to return on at Olsen’s behest.

Kearns, along with her perception in “old-school policing,” reinvigorated the case, ultimately resulting in a suspect.

To work a resource-intensive investigation, Kearns wanted buy-in from Hamilton.

She started connecting with outdated contacts there, shaped over greater than three many years behind the badge, to reignite curiosity within the case.

Town and province agreed to a joint investigation, however it might in the end be the OPP that took the lead, constructing on the early floor work laid by Hamilton police.

Kearns requested Hamilton for detectives skilled within the methods of “old-school policing,” earlier than a reliance on expertise turned the norm.

By the point Monica’s stays have been discovered, digital data that will have assisted investigators have been gone.

Kearns needed cops who, armed with nothing, may hit the bottom and work sources, shaking data free to maneuver the investigation ahead.

Hamilton detective Angela Abrams and Bez Imeri, a comparatively inexperienced uniform cop, have been assigned.

By the spring of 2021, investigators have been working the case out of a Wilson Avenue workplace area in Hamilton, together with 4 detectives from the OPP: Jillian Serkowney, Brad Olsen, Paula King and Mike Waechter (the latter two have since retired).

 

The detectives centered on individuals recognized by Hamilton police as individuals of curiosity when Monica was thought-about a lacking particular person.

Police began speaking to Monica’s household earlier than transferring on to her associates in Hamilton.

“It led us into this Albanian group,” Schwass stated, including investigators confronted “an enormous language barrier.”

“It turned very apparent that individuals weren’t telling us the reality,” Schwass stated.

Imeri, paired up with detectives Abrams and King, acted as a translator, permitting police to make inroads.

“We really began growing some connections and leads … one attention-grabbing factor led to a different,” Schwass stated.

Finally police bought a nickname: Blerim.

“We didn’t know who this man was,” Schwass stated.

“We wound up having the ability to bounce from one particular person to the subsequent, to the subsequent … we have been getting nearer and nearer to the place he was,” Schwass stated.

Previous-school policing could have introduced the case again to life, however expertise would hold it going.

With out warrants and authorization from the courts to faucet cellphones, the case would have remained chilly.

“We might have identified we have been trying on the proper individuals, however mainly it was all of the warrant writing behind the scenes that led to it,” Schwass stated.

Police realized Blerim switched telephones frequently, and was a giant social media consumer and on-line dater.

It could be his on-line exercise that allowed police to maneuver past a nickname and uncover Blerim’s true identification.

Ahmet Nikci, a Kosovo expat, entered Canada illegally from the U.S. in 2012.

On the time, he was going through as much as seven years in a U.S. jail after being convicted for punching and severely injuring somebody in New York state.

In line with Schwass, Hamilton’s Albanian group has a behavior of harbouring illegals from the U.S. in change for under-the-table work right here.

Nikci was put up in a Melvin Avenue residence in Hamilton, the place Monica wound up staying inside every week of returning to Ontario.

Monica’s diluted blood would later be discovered on a baseboard within the residence, probably from a cleanup job after she died there.

* * *

On July 19, 2021, Nikci was being watched by a surveillance group whereas he smoked outdoors on a balcony.

Police couldn’t but pin him with Monica’s dying, however they have been capable of arrest him on immigration grounds.

“As quickly as he got here out onto the sidewalk, we arrested him,” Schwass stated.

Nikci was being held at Milton’s Maplehurst Correctional Complicated when he gave a three-hour assertion to OPP detective Steve Coburn admitting to being with Monica within the early morning hours of July 11, 2018.

He claimed Monica was excessive on medication and struck her head on a mirror when leaping. There was blood and what he believed to be brains coming from her head, he said.

“I used to be the one one who knew what occurred,” he instructed Coburn, including he was “along with her when she took her final breath.”

However Nikci by no means known as 911 or reported what he claims occurred.

As an alternative, Monica’s physique remained within the residence for 2 days.

 

He known as a contact often called Rahoul, who Nikci said had “moved our bodies” in Mexico, to assist eliminate Monica.

Nikci paid Rahoul $1,700 and inspired him to dismember Monica’s physique to suit it into her suitcase.

A postmortem examination by forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Pollanen and forensic anthropologist Dr. Kathy Gruspier revealed a 3.5-centimetre chop to Monica’s cranium, operating from her nostril to her brow.

The postmortem additionally famous 4 reduce marks, and blunt impacts to a aspect of her cranium, in addition to six reduce marks to the higher half of her thighbone.

Days after Monica took her last breath in June 2018, her damaged physique is pushed 120km from Hamilton.

Her stays are discarded within the woods, her belongings strewn throughout the nation street.

Police cost Nikci with second-degree homicide and interfering with Monica’s stays.

Nikci by no means admits to killing her.

* * *

The second-degree cost was later diminished in Hamilton courtroom to a rely of counselling somebody to intervene with human stays.

Pollanen, the forensic pathologist, concluded Monica died due to a head damage, probably as a consequence of mind trauma and bleeding.

However as a result of her stays have been so decomposed, it couldn’t be definitively concluded when her accidents occurred – earlier than or after dying.

“We’re not going to get him for second-degree homicide, what else can we get him for?” Schwass stated.

Schwass and Kearns stated the prosecution was salvaging what it may from the case to place Nikci away for so long as doable.

“The counselling to commit an offence — I’ve by no means seen that achieved earlier than by a Crown, and that was her thought,” Schwass stated of prosecutor Cheryl Gzik.

(Gzik didn’t reply to an e mail from the Advertiser.)

Nikci pleaded responsible in Hamilton courtroom on Dec. 6, 2022 to the lesser counselling cost, and to interfering with Monica’s stays.

Gzik and Nikci’s defence lawyer David Newton each requested for a sentence of three years on the lesser cost, and the utmost of 5 years on the interference cost, for a complete of eight years.

 

“It was very quick time after I met Monica, it was not even two weeks; [she] was good particular person,” Nikci instructed the courtroom.

“It was not meant to be,” he stated, including he hoped to satisfy her “in paradise someplace.”

“In some instances like this one, the reality of what occurred has been eradicated,” Justice Anthony Leitch stated.

“Precisely how she met her dying can’t be ascertained from the stays themselves.”

The courtroom, he continued, was pressured to just accept “the defendant’s model of Monica Chisar’s final moments.”

“I’ve deep suspicions that one thing else occurred to Monica Chisar,” the choose stated.

“I deeply suspect you recognize greater than what you admitted to police.”

“She deserved, as all individuals do, to have her stays handled in a dignified means, as her household noticed match,” he continued.

“You stole that from her and all of those that beloved her.”

“I’m certain everybody on this room needs you had not chosen to return to our nation,” Leitch stated.

The choose accepted the joint crown-defence sentencing submission.

With credit score for time already served and harsh jail situations, Nikci was handed 5 years and eight months to serve in a federal penitentiary.

After his sentence expires on Aug. 5, 2028, it’s anticipated he might be turned over to U.S. authorities to be handled there, and ultimately deported to Kosovo.

* * *

In her sufferer affect assertion, learn aloud in courtroom, Amanda stated Monica’s younger son “won’t ever get an opportunity to know his mom.”

“I do know one of many kindest individuals to stay won’t ever be seen once more, and all I’ve left of her is photos, her inspirational messages of affection and hope, and my reminiscences of her,” Amanda instructed the courtroom.

She shared with the Advertiser a message Monica wrote when she was 16:

I like you very, very a lot, don’t neglect that. Come and discuss to me everytime you need, I’m not far-off, I’m simply within the subsequent mattress to yours. Love your sister, Monica.

Amanda stated her sister was portrayed in courtroom as a drug-addled partier who caused her personal struggling.

“Monica deserved higher,” she remarked.

“I feel Monica didn’t get justice; I don’t suppose the sentencing was even remotely truthful,” she stated as she broke down and sobbed.

“I feel my sister was brutally murdered. I miss my sister a lot.”

 

Today Amanda is attempting to mourn Monica much less and have fun the life she did have.

“I’ve tried to stay my life along with her like a guardian angel of kinds,” Amanda stated. “She’s actually part of all the things.”

Amanda plans on spreading Monica’s ashes in Mexico, the place her son now lives together with his father, and has began a GoFundMe marketing campaign to boost cash for the journey there.

* * *

“Justice isn’t becoming to the crime, actually it by no means is, particularly for a household,” Kearns stated.

Solace can maybe be discovered figuring out police caught somebody who on the very least performed a task in Monica’s dying.

“I’m glad we have been capable of deliver some peace to her and the household,” Kearns stated.

The detectives are each satisfied there’s extra to the case that couldn’t be confirmed in courtroom.

“We all know she was murdered,” Schwass stated.

“And we additionally know that there’s a minimum of one different particular person concerned,” Kearns added.

Neither was prepared to reveal extra, they stated to guard the integrity of a case years within the making.

“We now have one shot at making one thing stick, and if you happen to miss it, you miss it,” Schwass stated.

“Somebody within the Hamilton group is aware of,” Kearns stated.