by Seamus McGraw

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CLEVELAND, Ohio (Crime Library) — Moments before Rosemarie Essa collapsed and died last year while on her way to see a movie with her sister, she made two quick cell phone calls, authorities say.

The first was to a dear friend, to whom she confided that she believed the calcium pills she had just taken were poisoning her, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office told Crime Library.

The second, authorities say, was to her accused killer. She knew the man's phone number by heart, of course. It was her home phone, and authorities say that the man who laced her calcium pills with deadly cyanide was her husband, a local doctor.

Last week, nearly a year after her death, a grand jury in Cuyahoga County formally charged 37-year-old Dr. Yazeed Essa with aggravated murder in the death of his wife.

Essa, a Detroit native, fled Cuyahoga County not long after his wife's death. Authorities believe that in the days after her death, he and a group of companions returned to his hometown where they indulged in an all-night gambling spree that, according to some accounts, cost one member of the party $50,000 in losses. Authorities now believe that the fugitive physician then hopped across the Canadian border, headed to Toronto and boarded a plane for Cyprus. Since then, authorities have been looking for clues to his whereabouts. Authorities suspect that he may have hidden in the Palestinian territories where his family owns property, or that he may have slipped into Syria, a nation that has no extradition treaty with the United States.

But investigators have also not ruled out the possibility that Essa may have returned to the United States. Last week, acting on a tip, FBI agents raided a home in Miami where they believed Essa might have been hiding. Although Essa was not there when the agents arrived, investigators have not ruled out the possibility that he may still be in Florida.

Although authorities had not formally charged Essa with his wife's death until last week, he had been a suspect almost from the beginning. An avid entrepreneur, Essa had registered 11 separate businesses in the state of Ohio, including a division of a satellite television operation and a pager company. He also apparently had a taste for women and booze. In 2002, he was arrested and charged with driving under the influence, according to The Associated Press. Authorities now believe that Essa was having an affair with a nurse at the time of his wife's death, and that his desire to slip out of his five-year marriage without damaging his fortune may have been the motive for the slaying.

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Contact Seamus McGraw at seamusm@ptd.net