Ibey on cocaine and alcohol binge on night of roommate’s death, escort testifies

Nikolas Ibey spent the night of Sept. 10, 2022, binging on cocaine and alcohol while exchanging almost 1,000 texts with 30 Ottawa escorts. Hours later, that activity turned to Google searches about murder penalties and Ottawa’s jails, court heard Friday.

The lone escort to show up at Ibey’s door testified on the witness stand Friday in an Ottawa courtroom about her encounter with the 35-year-old who is on trial for first-degree murder in the death of 22-year-old Savanna Pikuyak.

Pikuyak had moved to Ottawa from Sanirajak less than a week earlier to study nursing at Algonquin College. She had rented a room from Ibey in a row house not far from the college.

The escort, who cannot be identified due to a court-ordered publication ban, said she arrived Ibey’s home around 1:16 a.m.

She testified she saw Ibey snorting cocaine almost immediately upon her arrival at his home.

Ibey offered her cocaine and alcohol, which she said she declined.

There were as many as six lines on his bedroom dresser, she said. Later during the visit, he snorted one more line and asked her if she knew where to find more cocaine.

Ibey told the woman he had been drinking and doing drugs and was too drunk and too high to perform sexually.

On cross examination, defence lawyer Ewan Lyttle asked the woman whether she had any physical contact with Ibey. The escort said she may have hugged him or shook his hand, but had no sexual contact with him.

Lyttle also asked her about possible locations she had touched, like doorhandles.

“I wasn’t there for more than 15 minutes,” the woman told the court.

The woman said Ibey was polite, she did not feel unsafe in his presence and she would have said yes if he had requested her services again that night.

After leaving, the two exchanged a few more texts and Ibey continued to search for escorts until 3:08 a.m.

There were no web searches on Ibey’s phone until at 9:03 a.m.

That’s when Ibey spent about 30 minutes searching for details on the penalties for murder, the different types of murder and for information on Ottawa jails.

At 9:56 a.m., he texted his father James Ibey and told him he had killed his roommate.