A Toronto man found guilty of two counts of second-degree murder in the shootings of two young women at a Fort Erie, Ont., house party will spend 22 years in prison before he’s eligible for parole.
At the sentencing hearing Monday in Welland, Superior Court Justice James Ramsay cited rapper Christopher Lucas’s long history of violence and firearms-related convictions, the execution-style killing of one of the women and the impact the killings have had on the victims’ families.
Christine Crooks, 18, of Toronto and Juliana Pannunzio, 20, of Windsor were shot during the birthday party at a rental property on the Niagara Parkway in Fort Erie on Jan. 19, 2021.
Niagara police say 2 women, aged 20 and 18, are victims of Fort Erie double homicide
Lucas, whose rapper name is El Plaga, was convicted by a jury in January.
Family members at the sentencing hearing read victim impact stories, citing their grief at losing loved ones.
The police investigation was hampered from the get-go by unco-operative witnesses: Ramsay said 13 people at the party committed perjury to protect Lucas.
On Monday, court heard that Lucas, who was in a relationship with Crooks, got into an argument with her at the party and shot her in the hand with the Glock handgun he was carrying.
Ramsay said it’s believed Crooks yelled out for someone to call 911 before Lucas turned around and shot her two more times.
The judge said it’s likely Lucas knew that Pannunzio, who was unknown to most people at the party, was the only one likely to call 911.
Crown lawyer Jody Ostapiw said in her sentencing submission Monday that Lucas then went to Pannunzio, who was sitting in the living room, and fired seven more shots at her. Four bullets hit her in the head and neck and the other three lodged in the wall just above her head in an “execution-style” killing, Ostapiw said.
Ramsay said the killing of Crooks showed how easily Lucas could be pushed to lethal violence.
The killing of Pannunzio, in particular, was “cold and calculated,” Ramsay said.
“I find beyond a reasonable doubt that he did so because as a stranger, he did not trust her not to tell the police about the shooting of Christine Crooks.
“It shows a chilling indifference to life.”
In imposing the sentence, Ramsay noted that Lucas, who emigrated from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Canada when he was 10, grew up in a disadvantaged area where gangs were common.
Ostapiw said three of Lucas’s friends were killed violently and Lucas was once shot in the leg.
Court heard that Lucas has a criminal record of violence and firearms-related offences dating back to his teens, and it continued into his adult life.
“He has spent over half his adult life” in custody, said Ostapiw.
A second-degree murder conviction in Canada comes with an automatic life sentence, but judges decide parole eligibility, which ranges from 10 to 25 years.
Lucas’s lawyers asked that he be eligible for parole after 18 years.
Ostapiw asked Ramsay to not allow him to be eligible for parole until he spends 25 years behind bars.
She told Ramsay that Niagara residents wanted him to denounce the importation of gun violence from Toronto into Niagara.
“We don’t want it here,” she said.
She noted nine of the 12 jurors at his murder trial called for Lucas to spend 25 years in jail before being eligible for parole and the other three jurors abstained from making a recommendation.
Ramsay gave Lucas the opportunity to address the sentencing hearing, but he declined and showed no emotion as he was led out of the courtroom.
Shellie Pannunzio, Juliana’s stepmother, declined to speak with CBC News after the sentencing.
“It’s too overwhelming,” she said.
But in her victim impact statement she read in court, Shellie said her family will be forever haunted by the knock on the door by detectives who informed them that Juliana, who loved animals, was dead.
“It has taken a toll on our family, our mental health and our souls. Our grief is everlasting. It is not a pain I would want to inflict on even my worst enemy.”
Mark Pannunzio told court that as a father, he was supposed to be “a hero, a protector and shield” for Juliana.
While she often ran to him as a little girl to protect her from imaginary monsters, at that fateful party, “she met a monster that I could not keep her safe from,” he said.
He laments the fact he will never walk his daughter down the wedding aisle, and now only has an urn holding her ashes that’s sitting on the dining room table.
“I know that the urn and ashes are not really my daughter, but they are all we have left.
“Nothing in this world is the same without her.”
Juliana’s younger brother, Gabriel, said he’s haunted by the killing of his sister, who he’d cuddle up with while watching movies and eating popcorn.
“I have this aching I hold in my heart and I am angry that I never had the chance to say goodbye to her,” he told court.
Lisa Mulcaster, Juliana’s biological mother, said she’s left with “overwhelming grief,” anger, isolation and guilt.
“How did I fail to protect my child?” she said in court. “Guilt is a poison that eats away at your soul until you are nothing more than a ghost of who you used to be.”
Mulcaster said she keeps some of her daughter’s clothes in a Ziploc bag so that on her birthday, she can open it and breathe in her scent, and continues to pay for Christine’s cellphone service.
“I just can’t bring myself to cancel it.”
