Jury deliberations begin in trial of pair accused of killing Ontario Const. Greg Pierzchala

Justin Chandler · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 24, 2025 3:04 PM EDT | Last Updated: 11 minutes ago

A assemblage successful Cayuga, Ont., is deliberating connected whether Randall McKenzie and Brandy Stewart-Sperry are blameworthy of murdering Ontario Provincial Police Const. Greg Pierzchala.

Both person pleaded not blameworthy successful the Dec. 27, 2022, roadside shooting of the 28-year-old officer, who responded to the co-accused crashing a stolen car into a ditch extracurricular Hagersville. 

Their Superior Court proceedings began successful precocious March and heard from aggregate witnesses, including respective who were astatine the country of the shooting, constabulary progressive successful the response, and experts connected topics including integer video, toxicology and DNA.

The 12 jurors began deliberating Thursday afternoon.

During the trial, Crown prosecutors argued McKenzie changeable Pierzchala, and Stewart-Sperry helped him. Neither of the co-accused took the stand. 

McKenzie's defence told the assemblage determination should beryllium tenable uncertainty arsenic to whether McKenzie was the shooter captured connected the officer's bodycam arsenic helium changeable the antheral six times. 

Stewart-Sperry's defence argued she was not a subordinate successful the transgression and that prosecutors' grounds of her consenting information was "nothing much than speculation and conjecture."

Justice Andrew Goodman charged the assemblage implicit 2 days, instructing them successful however to use the instrumentality arsenic they determined their verdict. For McKenzie, the jurors person lone to determine whether they believed, beyond a tenable doubt, that McKenzie was the shooter, Goodman said. 

For his co-accused, the assemblage indispensable measurement respective factors.

The justness provided members with a travel illustration taking them done a bid of questions and asking whether Stewart-Sperry helped oregon encouraged the shooter to perpetrate first-degree murder, oregon was engaged successful a committing different transgression for which the shooting was a apt consequence.

The assemblage whitethorn scope respective imaginable verdicts.

• They may find McKenzie not blameworthy oregon blameworthy of first-degree murder.
• They whitethorn find Stewart-Sperry not blameworthy of first-degree murder, not blameworthy of first-degree execution but blameworthy of manslaughter, oregon blameworthy of first-degree murder.

Jurors could deliberate into the nighttime Thursday and proceed successful the pursuing days if they haven't made a decision.