Brkti Berhe had been separated from her eldest daughter since the girl was two. The girl reached Canada at 15, and three months later her mother was dead.
On Saturday, an Ottawa jury found Fsha Tekhle, 38, guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of Berhe, an Eritrean-born mother of four. The 12 jurors were unanimous and deliberated for five days. The conviction carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Berhe, 36, was attacked on Oct. 24, 2024, in Paul Landry Park in Ottawa’s south end, with two of her children beside her. Police said she died in front of them and called the killing a femicide. Her children were 15, 10, 3 and 8 months old.
A fight over a woman who left
The Crown argued that Tekhle had become obsessed with getting back his estranged fiancée, Ngsti Berhe, who is Brkti’s aunt. She had left their Montreal home on Oct. 7 after two alleged physical assaults, and prosecutors said Brkti was sheltering her. When Ngsti would not return, the Crown said, his anger turned on the relatives who had taken her in.
Tekhle admitted causing Berhe’s death but pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. Testifying through interpreters, he said he had no anger toward anyone and no plan to kill. The jury did not accept that.
Berhe’s husband, Waldab Goitom, spoke after the verdict. “The pain that my wife’s death has caused will stay with me for the rest of my life,” he said.
Friends remembered a woman who belonged to her neighbourhood. “She was kind. She was caring. She would easily light up a room when she came in,” Lewam Kidane told Global News after the killing. Neighbours held a vigil at the park days later, and a GoFundMe was set up to cover her funeral and help her husband care for the children.
Who protects the family that takes her in
The Berhe family had come to Canada from Eritrea only a few years earlier. A Black immigrant family that new to a city leans on relatives, and that is what Ngsti Berhe did when she left Montreal. It is also what put her niece in the path of a man who would not accept that she had gone.
The conviction answers who killed Brkti Berhe. It does not answer what protection exists for the relatives who open their door to a woman fleeing abuse, or whether newcomer families in Ottawa and Montreal are told where to turn before it is too late. Those are questions for the city, the province and the governments that fund the shelters and settlement services these families depend on.
The 25-year wait for parole eligibility is automatic. Her youngest child was 8 months old when she died.
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