Tommy Kane

Thomas Henry Kane (born January 14, 1964 in Montreal, Quebec) is a former professional American football player who played wide receiver for the Seattle Seahawks and Toronto Argonauts.

Football career
Prior to playing in the NFL, Kane played college football at Syracuse University.

A third-round draft pick, Kane played for the Seahawks from 1988 to 1992, when his season ended early due to ankle and knee injuries. The Seahawks cut him during training camp in the following year, and Kane moved to the Canadian Football League. He played five games for the Toronto Argonauts in 1994.

At the end of his pro career, Kane, born in Canada, volunteered at youth football camps sponsored by Montreal's Westend Sport Association, which he had attended himself as a youth. While with the Argonauts, he donated a year's salary to the Centre. Kane is of African Nova Scotian descent.

Crime and legal proceedings
On November 30, 2003, Kane stabbed his wife Tammara Shaikh in his own mother's house in Lasalle, Quebec. Shaikh, 35, died in the hospital soon after. The couple had recently separated. She had come to his mother's house to help take him to a drug-rehabilitation center.

According to witnesses at the scene and the Crown prosecutors, Kane had been discussing suicide before his wife arrived. While arguing about the possibility of divorce, he dragged her into the kitchen by the hair, slammed her head on the floor, punched her repeatedly in the face, and stabbed her in the throat.

Originally charged with second-degree murder, Kane pleaded guilty to manslaughter for the act. Prosecutors took his depression and drug use into account when permitting him to plead to the lesser count.

Canadian Superior Court Justice Fraser Martin described Kane as "narcissistic" and "manipulative." He also said, "By your act, Mr. Kane, four children are deprived of their mother. The circumstances of the homicide were particularly shocking." He sentenced Kane to 18 years in prison, which Kane's attorney told the press was "unusually harsh."

Shaikh's family filed a 1.1 million-dollar lawsuit against the jailed Kane. On May 11, 2010, the Quebec Superior Court awarded $590 000 to Kane's four children, and his former sister-in-law Ava Shaikh for the pain and suffering they endured because of Kane's action.

In popular culture
Inevitably, the Kane-Shaikh murder has been compared to the O.J. Simpson case in the United States.

The Canadian television series Un tueur si proche aired a documentary re-enactment of the case on September 16, 2005. The episode title is "Tommy 'Co' Kane."