Omar Watson was having a smoke in the driveway when he heard someone call his name.
It had been one of the hottest nights of the summer in the Brampton neighbourhood, and Watson had played with his three-year-old daughter, Aria, after supper.
Then he went outside while his wife, Melissa John — more tired than usual due to being pregnant — lay down with Aria to sleep in the bedroom of their rented basement apartment.
“Smoke, fire, come quick!” yelled the tenant who lived above Watson’s family.
He followed her to the backyard, where black smoke billowed out of a basement window.
“I can still remember the smell, that awful smell. I can never get that out of my head,” Watson later told a court.
“I ran into the house many times to try and get my family,” he said. “I begged and pleaded with the crowd that was gathering to help.”
Watson was unable to enter the home because of fireballs. He could feel his skin on fire.
“The heat, the unbearable heat, and my heart breaking knowing that no matter how much I tried, I could not get to them. Couldn’t save them. This is something that I relive every day.”
Watson collapsed outside the house before the fire trucks arrived around 11 p.m. on June 2, 2023, to try to put the fire out.
It was too late. John was pronounced dead at the scene and Aria, carried out of the house by firefighters, later died in hospital.
Earlier this month, after a lengthy trial, the family’s landlord, Meskerem Kassay, was sentenced to 135 days in custody and $60,000 in fines and victim surcharges for failing to install smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and failing to put in proper fire separation between units at the 47 Jade Cres. house. It’s the first time anyone has been sentenced to jail for these offences in Brampton — and may be the longest such sentence yet handed down in Ontario.
The sentence is seen by some as a sign that courts are cracking down more harshly on landlords who cut corners for profit and fail to take the most basic steps to ensure their units are safe — a long-standing issue in Brampton where an unaffordable rental market has forced newcomers and students into precarious and dangerous rentals.
“Those who violate the legislation and put lives at risk will be held accountable,” Brampton fire Chief Andy Glynn said in a statement following the sentencing decision.
Kassay, who maintained in court there was a working smoke alarm in the unit that she inspected annually, is currently out on bail pending her appeal. She is also fighting lawsuits by both Watson and John’s family, filing a statement of defence in which she denies any responsibility for the fire, which left the neighbourhood traumatized and a family devastated.
A family torn apart
Watson and John felt “love at first sight,” and when he held Aria in his arms for the first time he made a promise to “always protect my little family,” according to the victim impact statement he gave at Kassay’s sentencing.
But it was his wife who died trying to shield Aria from the blaze with her own body, he said. She was a “fiercely protective, fiercely loving woman,” he said. She was also smart and ambitious, with big plans for her future.
Aria’s life was “taken from her before it even got started,” he said. “She was just exploring the world.”
John’s family remains too devastated to speak much about her and Aria.
“Melissa was a most compassionate and loving person,” said her father, Eappen K. John, in a message from Malaysia, where he lives. “First things she did after graduating with a degree in psychology and getting a job was to sign up as an organ donor as well as a member of World Wildlife Fund. Her love for all living things was so dear to her.”
Both he and Watson hold onto how — in some way — their family’s loss means other lives may have been saved. While John’s organs were too damaged to be donated, Aria’s could go to other children.
“Aria was still able to be a superhero in this life,” Watson said. She gave “someone else a future, a chance, something that was not given to her.”
Watson’s injuries from the fire have left him unable to walk for more than a few minutes at a time, or do daily tasks on his own, such as bathing or writing. He cannot breathe properly and is fearful of being in public due to the scarring on his face.
Melissa John with her father, Eappen.
John Family
He is also terrorized every night by his memories of the fire.
“Most days, I’m stuck in misery as I will never see my family again,” he said.
Were there smoke alarms in the unit?
Kassay had bought the 1.5-storey house on Jade in the Bramalea area of Brampton in 2016 for $573,000 with the intent of being a landlord.
The house was a legal two-unit home that had been converted to three units. Kassay went on to renovate the basement unit and add a garage unit, according to the reasons for judgment and sentencing by Justice of the Peace Sandra Damota.
Watson, John and Aria moved into the basement unit in December 2020.
During the 13-day trial, Kassay testified there was a smoke alarm at the top of the steps leading down to the bedroom and living room level of the basement unit, and a carbon monoxide detector in the living room. She said she demonstrated the smoke alarm worked to Watson before the family moved in, and that she checked it yearly on Jan. 7, along with smoke and carbon monoxide alarms in the other units in the house.
However, when asked in court to describe how she changed the batteries in the alarms, Damota said Kassay struggled to answer.
Watson denied that Kassay showed him a working smoke alarm and said he never saw one in the unit, but assumed his home was properly equipped.
The defence argued the tenants must have removed the alarms, but Damota said no evidence was provided to show there was ever any in the basement unit.
The fire investigators did find a working smoke alarm in the upper floor unit and one with a depleted battery in the middle floor unit.
“There was simply no smoke alarm located in the basement unit, in any location, let alone outside the bedrooms where one is required to be,” Damota said.
Renovations without a permit
Kassay testified she didn’t know she needed permits for the renovations she had done to the house, including the basement. She also did not know if the contractor she used was licensed and did not receive a certificate for the safety of the electrical work completed.
“I find that Ms. Kassay was extremely negligent in her role as a landlord,” Damota concluded in her sentencing decision.
“The evidence before this court demonstrates that her primary motivation was financial gain. In pursuing that objective, she made a series of decisions between when the property was purchased to the date of the fire without taking even the most basic steps to ensure the property complied with applicable legal and safety requirements. Had it not been for those choices, we may not be here today.”
Omar Watson and Melissa John moved into the basement unit at 47 Jade Cres. in December 2020.
Alyshah Hasham
Kassay continues to rent out two units at 47 Jade Cres., which have been inspected by the city, according to the sentencing decision. She has applied for a licence under Brampton’s landlord licensing program.
At the sentencing hearing, Kassay, a hairdresser for 30 years, said she is not a heartless person and that she considered her tenants part of her family. She offered prayers and condolences to Watson.
In her decision, Damota noted letters describing Kassay’s work as a volunteer and church member.
“I don’t believe that Ms. Kassay is a bad person or that she intended for these tragic consequences,” wrote Damota, but added that did not change her finding of negligence.
A fire marshal investigation determined the fire started in the basement unit. In the words of Marcel Chiasson, an investigator from the Office of the Fire Marshal, the cause of the fire was “the ignition of combustible material (thermoplastic insulation on wiring) from an arc in the electrical circuit wiring positioned against the polyurethane foam sectional at the east enclosing wall of the family room.”
An alternative scenario suggested in a report written by a fire investigator hired by an insurance company — that Watson fell asleep on the couch while smoking marijuana and lit himself and the couch on fire — was given little weight by Damota, as it contained “significant contradictions,” including from witness testimony from the night of the fire.
‘Is this a just and fit sentence?’
Vartan Manoukian, the paralegal who represented Kassay at trial, said the sentence is far too long. Kassay was not charged with any criminal offences, only fire code violations.
“It’s not only unusual — it is uncalled for and it’s outside the permissible range, in my opinion,” he said.
The only other similar provincial offences case he could find was a 2024 fire in Guelph. In that case, two died and two were injured in a townhouse blaze. The husband of the landlord couple was given 50 days in jail, and the wife $30,000 in fines plus additional costs after they entered a guilty plea for failing to install smoke alarms.
Kassay’s jail term is more than twice as long and with higher fines, in part Damota said, because Kassay presented herself “as a very resourceful individual” who was able to hire and work with realtors, lawyers and a contractor.
Manoukian said he thinks this case shows the courts are moving toward harsher sentences for failing to install smoke alarms — recognizing that landlords have the responsibility to make sure their tenants are safe — but hopes the appeal court will provide more clarity on penalties.
“The question now is, is this a just and fit sentence?”