Andrew Gerber has been sentenced to life in prison without any chance of parole for a minimum of 12 years after he admitted to brutally assaulting his girlfriend, 42-year-old Jennyfer Lachapelle, in their west-end apartment on March 13, 2019, in a harrowing incident that shook the community.
“I have considered mitigating factors that Mr. Gerber’s addiction, his intoxication, and his untreated mental illness played critical roles in the commission of the offence,” Superior Court Justice Maureen Forestell stated resolutely while delivering her sentence in a Toronto courtroom on Friday. This acknowledgment sheds light on the complex interplay of mental health and substance addiction that contributed to the tragedy.
As detailed in a statement read in court on Sept. 18, 2024, when Gerber pleaded guilty, the couple met in February 2019, a relationship that quickly escalated as they began cohabitating almost immediately at a Toronto Community Housing Building located on Pelham Park Gardens. The rapid development of their relationship, however, was overshadowed by the struggles both faced with addiction and mental health issues.
Gerber, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, was not adhering to his prescribed medication regimen, worsening his condition. Meanwhile, Lachapelle battled significant health challenges, including Crohn’s disease, chronic back pain, and muscular dystrophy, compounding the vulnerabilities faced by both individuals.
On March 12, 2019, the day preceding the assault, Gerber and Lachapelle received crack cocaine from a fellow resident in their building. Gerber’s agitation about how Lachapelle acquired the drugs fueled a tumultuous day and night for the couple, during which they consumed the narcotics together.
The ensuing toxicology report revealed that Lachapelle had drugs in her system at the time of her death. That evening, when she stepped out to visit someone, Gerber locked her out of the apartment, an act that escalated the tension between them.
Video footage from the hallway captured the moment Lachapelle returned, desperately knocking on the door and peeking through the mail slot for over 20 minutes. Following persistent banging and brief departures, she was eventually allowed back inside the apartment, adding to the tense atmosphere of their tumultuous relationship.
After Lachapelle re-entered, Gerber later reported that they watched wrestling, a seemingly innocuous activity that soon took a menacing turn.
“Mr. Gerber wanted and started to act out wrestling maneuvers on Ms. Lachapelle,” Justice Forestell recounted as she detailed the shocking events that followed. “These maneuvers included jumping off the coffee table onto Ms. Lachapelle while she was prone on the floor. While his judgment and thoughts were impaired by the untreated mental health issues along with crack cocaine use, he also recognized he was highly upset, desired to inflict harm, and was aware of the possible fatal consequences of his actions. He was reckless as to whether death occurred.”
Gerber claimed that after executing these troubling movements, he lost consciousness.
Upon waking, he found Lachapelle motionless and assumed she had died. In a panic, he called 911 at 2:46 a.m., feigning innocence by claiming he had just returned from a bar and discovered his girlfriend lifeless on the floor.
When paramedics arrived on the scene, they pronounced Lachapelle dead. In a further attempt to obscure the truth, Gerber told police officers that he believed there had been an intruder in their home.
A post-mortem examination unequivocally identified the cause of death as “blunt force injuries to the chest and abdomen.” A forensic pathologist detailed extensive trauma to Lachapelle’s body, including severe hemorrhaging, bruising, rib fractures, and a notably catastrophic injury to her thoracic spine. Such injuries were described as being consistent with cases of severe trauma, reinforcing the brutality of Gerber’s assault.
During the preliminary hearing, the pathologist articulated that the type of spinal injury observed was typically associated with extreme violence or accidents, likening it to impacts from a high fall or a train collision but cautiously noting that it could not be definitively ruled out that Gerber jumping off a table onto Lachapelle while she lay on her stomach could have caused the injuries.
Forestell emphasized that Lachapelle’s brother described her in his victim impact statement as an individual who was especially susceptible to manipulation, underscoring the vulnerability she faced in a troubled environment.
It was also revealed that Gerber’s biological parents were both Indigenous, and he and his sister had been adopted shortly after enduring reports of early physical abuse by their biological parents. By the age of 19, he had been diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder, which contributed to his struggles over the years.
By the time he was 21, Gerber had begun to regularly use crack cocaine, MDMA, and cannabis, with his substance abuse escalating to include crystal meth by the age of 33. This cycle of addiction persisted right up until the tragic incident resulting in Lachapelle’s death.
Forestell detailed Gerber’s history of being non-compliant with his prescribed medication for bipolar disorder, particularly when under the influence of illicit drugs, which was unfortunately the case when he killed Lachapelle. His criminal history included two prior convictions for uttering threats, one of which was a 2017 conviction for threatening another woman he lived with, further bolstering the case for a significant penalty.
In court, Gerber took the opportunity to express remorse for his actions and accepted responsibility, yet the judge noted that societal issues surrounding intimate partner violence remained a grave concern. Justice Forestell characterized the killing of Lachapelle as “particularly brutal,” highlighting Gerber’s tendency to lie to evade accountability and his previous record of threatening conduct.
Throughout the sentencing, Forestell weighed mitigating factors such as mental illness, addiction, and the challenging conditions Gerber faced while awaiting the sentence, ultimately determining that his parole ineligibility should fall at the lower end of the spectrum. The judge emphasized the importance of access to appropriate rehabilitation services, urging that Gerber serve a significant portion of his sentence in an institution equipped with an Aboriginal Pathways unit, providing specialized support and resources for Indigenous offenders seeking to address their underlying challenges.
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