Stella Tetsos was a vibrant 82-year-old woman who lived independently in the small, modest bungalow in Scarborough where she and her late husband raised their two children, who are now adults with kids of their own.

She loved daily walks and working in the garden outside the home on Elfreda Blvd., near St. Clair Ave. E. and Birchmount Rd.

“She lived a life in that house, and in November 2015 that life was taken from her in that house,” Crown attorney David Steinberg told a Toronto jury Tuesday during his opening address at the trial of Sinbad King Simba Marshall.

The Crown alleges that Marshall, now 24, beat Tetsos to death. Prosecutors say he was wearing the victim’s favourite ring when he was arrested the day after her body was found.

Wearing a blue shirt, black rim glasses and thick wavy hair pulled back into a ponytail, Marshall pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.

The Crown alleges that at some unspecified time before Nov. 11, 2015, Marshall kicked in a basement window to enter Tetsos’s home before killing her in the basement, “where she rarely goes.”

When the elderly woman’s body was found, she was wearing her bed clothes and did not have her dentures in. The cause of death was blunt force trauma injuries to her brain and body, the jury heard.

Steinberg told jurors the perpetrator sliced the phone line in the kitchen and several cordless handsets were taken from throughout the house, “never to be seen again.”

When the victim’s personal support worker arrived on the afternoon of Nov. 11 for one of three weekly visits, she immediately sensed something was wrong and contacted family members. Tetsos’s son-in-law rushed over and discovered her lying in the basement on her side.

The house had been ransacked, with furniture moved, and dresser drawers and purses lying upside down on the floor.

A pop can was found close to her body. Tetsos was diabetic and didn’t drink soda.

The following day, police officers observed and photographed Marshall standing near the intersection of Woodbine Ave. and O’Connor Dr. He was smoking a cigarette and wearing what appeared to be a ring with a gold band and turquoise stone, the prosecutor said.

Tetsos’s two children will testify their mother’s favourite ring had a turquoise stone and gold band, Steinberg said.

When Marshall was arrested, he was also in possession of a gold cross and chain similar to one Tetsos had worn around her neck. Part of the chain’s clasp was snapped off.

Police collected Marshall’s DNA from a discarded cigarette, the jury heard. When scientists compared it to the DNA found on the pop can, Steinberg said they concluded the odds of it being from anyone other than Marshall at one in 100 trillion.

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The prosecutor also said that when Marshall was arrested and searched, a single earring fell from his coat. It matched another single earring found in Tetsos’s bedsheets. “They appear to be a set,” he said.

The trial before Justice Robert Goldstein is scheduled to last up to six weeks.