Gun linked to Fort Erie double murder surfaces in 11th hour of trial

A .40-calibre Glock handgun linked to the 2021 Fort Erie double murder was identified two months into the jury trial, days before the Crown closed its case in Welland Superior Court.

The discovery came in the ninth week of trial against Toronto rapper Christopher Lucas, charged with two counts of second-degree murder in the 2021 shootings on Niagara Parkway.

The late-breaking gun evidence, first reported by Niagara Falls Review reporter Alison Langley, fills a gap that had persisted since the trial began on October 20 and arrives as closing arguments are expected late this week or early next week.

Jurors heard that cartridge casings recovered from the Fort Erie rental home matched casings from a Glock seized during a York Regional Police traffic stop in East Gwillimbury in August 2022.

The handgun sat in a York police evidence lockup for more than three years before being sent to the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto as part of a backlog review of seized firearms.

Preliminary test results were uploaded to a national database in early December, according to testimony, prompting Niagara Regional Police to be notified days later of a possible link to the Fort Erie homicides.

Mellanie Parchment, a forensic scientist with the Centre of Forensic Sciences firearms unit, told the jury she compared bullets and cartridge casings from the seized Glock with evidence from the murder scene at the request of Niagara police.

“That firearm was responsible for discharging those cartridge cases,” said Parchment.

Parchment testified the bullet comparisons were inconclusive but said the cartridge case match met accepted standards within practical certainty.

She had previously testified earlier in the trial that the fatal bullets were fired from a Glock-style pistol, and was recalled after the link was identified.

Following her testimony on Tuesday, the Crown closed its case.

Lucas, 27, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of second-degree murder.

The trial has spanned nine weeks with dozens of witnesses and more than 100 exhibits, including scene photographs, DNA samples, phone records, forensic pathology evidence and wiretapped jail calls from August to September 2021.

No one who attended the house party said they saw the shooting or identified the shooter, and none of the attendees were from Niagara.

The case centres on a birthday party at a short-term rental on Niagara Parkway where Christine Crooks, 18, of Toronto, and Juliana Pannunzio, 20, of Windsor, were shot and killed in the early morning hours of January 19, 2021.

The court heard Lucas, then 22, invited Crooks to the gathering, and Crooks invited Pannunzio, whose only connection to the party was through Crooks.

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