WELLAND — There was more than a dozen of them.
Witnesses who claim they didn’t see a damn thing.
Only two young women and the person who shot them to death on a chilly January night know for certain who their murderer is.
HORROR SHOW
Cops and prosecutors have not been stricken with amnesia or ambiguity. They allege that Christopher “El Plaga” Lucas, 23, of Scarborough, squeezed the trigger on a Glock and turned a birthday bash into a horror show.
He is charged with two counts of second-degree murder in the brutal Jan. 19, 2021, shooting deaths of Juliana Pannunzio, 20, of Windsor, and her friend Christine Crooks, 18, of Toronto. The killings unfolded in the early morning hours at a Fort Erie Airbnb .
The prosecution delivered its opening arguments on Tuesday afternoon, outlining the horrific events for the jury.
GLOCK VIDEO
Crown attorney Jodi Ostapiw said that Crooks invited her friend Pannunzio to attend what was to be a 19th birthday party for Trevor Barnett. Crooks had allegedly been invited by Lucas. When cops arrived, they found Pannunzio shot to death in a living room chair while her friend, Crooks, was dead in a bedroom.
According to the prosecution, Lucas had filmed a video months before the double murders, holding a Glock. Niagara Regional Police homicide detectives zeroed in on Lucas after they found his DNA on a joint lying next to Crooks’ body.
By July 2021, the walls were closing in. He had also stopped going to court for other legal matters he was dealing with, the jury was told.
Jurors also heard a chilling nine-minute 911 call. The call had been placed by the party hostess, Heidi Bahler. According to the Crown, she dialed cops 80 minutes after the shooting, and it took the Scarborough woman several minutes to even mention that there had been a shooting.
She gave the 911 operator the address of the faux chateau — 4197 Niagara Pkwy.— and moaned that there were “people there that I didn’t know.” Bahler’s frantic conversation with the operator is punctuated by “likes” and “you know.”
“I just wanted to have a good time. I didn’t know anyone who came (she posted the party notice on social media),” she said on the call, adding she was outside having a smoke when she heard shots fired.
The triggerman? “No clue.”
When the operator asks if she is alright, she replies: “I’m freaked out.”
Throughout the conversation, Bahler is seemingly evasive with the operator and running around in circles, leading nowhere. On Tuesday, the prosecution called Bahler’s too-little-too-late phone call nothing more than a “cover.”
In the early morning hours of Jan. 19, 2021, prosecuters say obfuscation was the order of the day.
“I just heard pops, like fireworks,” Bahler said in the call played in court. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE
Indeed. She and Barnett pleaded guilty in October 2024 to obstruction of justice. Still, no memories were jogged.
“Nearly five years later, not one of the partygoers there has identified the shooter,” the prosecutor said.
Lucas is being tried in Welland. The jury trial is expected to last six to nine weeks.
