Joseph Chang found guilty of 2nd-degree murder of his girlfriend in Mississauga in 2018

A Toronto drug dealer who shot his longtime girlfriend Alicia Lewandowski to death in Mississauga in March 2018 has been found guilty of second-degree murder.

Joseph Chang, 42, who has been in custody ever since his arrest 14 hours after the fatal shooting, showed little emotion as the judge delivered her decision. Chang was tried for first-degree murder.

Madam Justice Jennifer Woollcombe, who presided over the five-week trial via zoom, said the Crown failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the murder was planned and deliberate. But she also rejected the defence’s argument that Chang was in a hallucinogenic state and did not intend to kill Lewandoski.

Instead, Woollcombe concluded that Chang knew what he was doing when he shot his long-time girlfriend in the head with the intent to kill her, finding him guilty of second-degree murder.

It was just before 5 a.m. on March 5, 2018, when police received a panicked 911 call from Lewandowski, who had been staying with her mother at a townhouse complex. That call was played at the trial.

Lewandowski was in the parking lot of the townhouse near Rathburn and Dixie roads and told the call taker that Chang had shot her in the head, that she was bleeding and needed help.

Just over three minutes later, Lewandowski reported that Chang had shot her again and stopped communicating with the 911 operator. Chang drove away.

Minutes later, police arrived and found Lewandowski face down and unconscious on the ground. She had no vital signs and was pronounced dead on the scene. She had been shot three times. Once in the back of the neck, once in the upper abdominal area and once in the back.

Chang was arrested at 8 p.m. that night at a McDonald’s in Toronto. He had been in the restaurant, or in his Infiniti in its parking lot since 7:22 am.

The Crown relied on the history between Lewandowski and Chang in support of its assertion that the murder was planned and deliberate, stating that Chang was angry at Lewandowski for her role in him having been charged with drug and proceeds of crime offences in July 2016. Chang had been committed to trial and the Crown argued that Chang thought that his girlfriend wanted to hurt and destroy him.

The Crown also pointed out that just two days before the murder, Chang told Lewandowski that “he would put a bullet to her head.” On that day, she went to Chang’s apartment on Balliol Street in Toronto and called police when he refused to let her into the apartment.

The defence argued that at the time of the killing, and indeed for several days before and for a period after, Chang was in a drug-induced psychosis and as a result, he was both incapable of forming the intent to kill, and did not form the intent to kill Lewandowski.

Her honour rejected that notion, writing “his mind was functioning in a competent manner and there is nothing to indicate he was delusional or experiencing any hallucinations.”

Chang did not testify at trial.

“The fact that he (Chang) fled the scene, rather than offering assistance to the woman he supposedly loved, supports the logical inference that he had done as he had intended to do and that he had intended to kill her,” Woollcombe wrote.

“I do not accept that Mr. Chang was motivated to plan her killing because of concerns that Ms. Lewandoski was a ‘rat’ respecting the July drug charges or because she had given the police a link between him and the Balliol St. unit.

“I have rejected the Crown’s submission that Mr. Chang’s comment about putting a bullet in Ms. Lewandowski’s head was a threat to actually do so or evidence of an intention to kill her.”

Chang will be sentenced in November at which time victim impact statements will be heard. While a conviction of second-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence, the judge will have to decide on when he can apply for parole, which can be between 10 and 25 years after his arrest.