Randall McKenzie and Brandi Stewart-Sperry have been found guilty of first-degree murder in the 2022 shooting death of Ontario Provincial Police Const. Grzegorz Pierzchala.
The jury at their trial in Cayuga, Ont., handed down the verdict late Thursday after deliberating for about six hours following a four-week trial.
The judge who presided over the case said the mandatory sentence for both is life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Pierzchala was shot on Dec. 27, 2022, while responding to a vehicle in a ditch west of Hagersville, Ont., near Brantford.
McKenzie, 28, and Stewart-Sperry, 32, had both pleaded not guilty.
The Crown had argued that McKenzie was the shooter and that Stewart-Sperry intentionally helped him.
Video footage of the shooting captured on Pierzchala's body camera was a key piece of evidence in the trial.
McKenzie's lawyer had tried to cast doubt on the Crown's case, arguing that some of the witnesses' descriptions of the shooter did not match his client's appearance at the time of the incident, and that multiple DNA profiles were found on the gun.
Meanwhile, Stewart-Sperry's lawyer argued that the Crown's case against his client was based on speculation and that there was no evidence she knew the shooting would happen.
The trial heard from multiple witnesses, including some who had stopped at the side of the road after spotting the car in the ditch, law enforcement officials involved in the investigation and relatives of McKenzie who testified they had seen the accused pair the afternoon of the murder.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 24, 2025.
The Canadian Press
