The courtroom froze as a father’s tears became the only sound that mattered. Sadiki Bacchas had just heard his own words read aloud—words he’d written for his four-month-old son, Azuri, who was thrown down an eighth-floor garbage chute by the boy’s own mother.
Karessa Edwards, 31, was found not criminally responsible for the murder. Superior Court Justice Jane Kelly accepted an uncontested psychiatric report: Edwards was “floridly psychotic” when she heard voices commanding her to toss her baby away. She couldn’t grasp the moral wrongfulness of her actions.
Mental illness may explain the unexplainable. It doesn’t soothe the wound left behind.
“My son—I only have pictures now,” Bacchas wrote. “A frozen piece of time to remind me of how it was when you were here and mine. I see your beautiful eyes each time I close mine. How I wish I could change the course of time.”
The father’s tears began to fall as his words echoed through the stillness. The mother, dressed in a prison-green sweatshirt and black head scarf, showed no emotion at all.
On the morning of November 20, 2024, Bacchas left their Roselawn Avenue apartment at 8:23 a.m. to run errands. His baby boy was alive, well, and being fed by Edwards. Within hours, everything shattered.
Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Mark Pearce testified that Edwards heard voices telling her to throw Azuri down the garbage chute. She tried to ignore them at first—then obeyed. When she realized what she’d done, she climbed into the chute after him. She couldn’t see him. She returned to the apartment alone.
Bacchas called to check on Azuri. Edwards said she didn’t know where he was—maybe with her mom. The grandmother said she didn’t have the baby. Imagine that terror: your infant son vanished, and the person you trusted most had no answer.
When Bacchas rushed home, Edwards suggested the baby might be in the garbage chute. He raced down to the garbage room and found some of his son’s belongings. He called Toronto Police. At 11:46 a.m., Azuri’s dead body was discovered inside the dumpster.
An autopsy revealed the cause: blunt-impact injuries from the fall down the chute, or compression from the compactor mechanism, or both.
The psychiatrist’s report detailed Edwards’ long history of mental illness. She was first diagnosed with depression in 2018 after a boyfriend died in a motorcycle accident. By 2022, she was twice hospitalized involuntarily for aggression, diagnosed with substance-induced psychosis after using three grams of cannabis daily. Schizophrenia and a moderately severe cannabis-use disorder followed.
Edwards had an 11-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. The Children’s Aid Society had documented that Edwards should never care for her daughter unsupervised. In March 2023, the young girl called 911 because her mom was screaming and breaking things, claiming people were spying on her. Edwards was hospitalized again.
Edwards’ mother sought full custody of the granddaughter. The CAS closed the file on November 1, 2024—just 19 days before Azuri’s death. Bacchas said he didn’t know Edwards wasn’t supposed to be alone with her daughter when she visited every other weekend.
When Azuri was born in July 2024, a hospital social worker advised Bacchas of Edwards’ history. He said he’d be there to support her. They took their baby home. Where was child welfare? Why did no one step in to protect that helpless infant?
Now medicated, Edwards will remain hospitalized under the jurisdiction of the Ontario Review Board. She will not have unsupervised access to her daughter until the board determines she is well enough. But shockingly, the 11-year-old hasn’t been told what her mother did. The CAS is standing by the grandmother’s decision to keep the secret. The girl was denied her only chance to tell the court about her baby brother.
All that remained was a grieving father’s voice. “The angels came and took my only son, it’s really not fair. They took my one and only son, my future, my life, my heir,” Bacchas wrote, words that brought the judge to tears as well.
“I know you’re watching from above and seeing my pain is true. Please, my son, always know daddy loves you. I am so proud of you, my little Azuri. Rest well.”
