Ohio prosecutor calls cyanide death ‘evil at work’; defense says husband incapable of murder

Trial begins for Ohio man in wife’s cyanide death

CLEVELAND — A prosecutor on Monday portrayed a doctor charged in the cyanide-poisoning death of his wife as a womanizer trapped in a loveless marriage who fled the country when investigators closed in, while his defense attorney called him a loving family man incapable of murder.

“This is evil at work,” Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Steve Dever told jurors during opening statements in the aggravated murder trial of Yazeed Essa.

Essa’s defense attorney, Steven Bradley, displayed photos of a smiling Essa family.

“There was no reason for him to have committed this crime,” Bradley told the jury as relatives of the couple listened intently. By court order they were kept apart — Essa’s family sitting behind him, his wife’s family behind the prosecutor.

Authorities say Rosemarie Essa, 38, crashed her vehicle into oncoming traffic after taking a cyanide-laced calcium capsule provided by her husband on Feb. 24, 2005. She called a friend and, gasping for air, said that her husband made her take the pills and that she didn’t feel well.

Essa, a Detroit native whose family is from a Palestinian territory, was an emergency room doctor at Akron General Medical Center. He fled to Lebanon shortly after police seized drug bottles at his home. He gave up a long extradition fight and was returned from Cyprus to Ohio last year.

Essa, 41, has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, with the possibility of parole after 20 years. On Monday, he rocked impassively in his chair, occasionally taking notes.

Emotions between the two sides of the family have been running high. Essa’s brother and sister were fined and placed on probation for helping Essa while he was a fugitive.

Dever said evidence at the trial, expected to last up to seven weeks, would show that Essa was motivated to kill his wife because he feared divorcing her would cost him financially and hurt his image.

The prosecutor, trying to deflect any suggestion of product tampering, said jurors would hear detailed testimony on the manufacture and packaging of the calcium tablets that Essa allegedly spiked with cyanide.

“This was not tampering,” Dever said.

Essa’s mistress will testify about weekly trysts and a trip to New York City when she began to question whether Essa was willing to divorce his wife and marry her, Dever said. That rejection, Dever said, “really fueled the fire” for Essa to kill his wife.

Dever also said that the prosecution would try to show that, as a fugitive overseas, Essa tried to frame his mistress for his wife’s death.

Bradley said repeatedly in his opening statement that Essa was a happily married man, enjoying a comfortable family life in the upscale suburb of Gates Mills and had no reason to do anything to damage his lifestyle.

The Essas were trying to have a third child and were planning a Florida vacation at the time of his wife’s death, Bradley said.

He said the prosecution case was circumstantial and said there would be no evidence showing Essa ever possessed cyanide.

Bradley showed the jury the names of various Rosemarie Essa relatives and friends and said they would testify about the couple’s happiness.