Andrew Gerber has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 12 years after he admitted assaulting his girlfriend, 42. Jennifer Lachapelle, in the western apartment where the couple lived on March 13, 2019.

“I have considered mitigating factors that Mr. Gerber’s substance abuse, his intoxication and his untreated mental illness were causative factors in the crime,” Superior Court Judge Maureen Forestell said as she handed down her sentence in a Toronto courtroom on Friday.

According to an agreed statement of facts read into the record on September 18, 2024, when Gerber pleaded guilty, the couple met in February 2019 and began living together almost immediately in a Toronto Community Housing Building at Pelham Park Gardens.

Both had substance abuse and mental health issues and Gerber, who is bipolar, was not taking his medication. Lachapelle suffered from Crohn’s disease, chronic back pain and muscular dystrophy.

On March 12, 2019, Gerber and Lachapelle obtained crack cocaine from another resident of the building. But according to Gerber, he was upset about how Lachapelle had obtained the drugs. During that day and evening they consumed the drugs.

The toxicology report prepared as a result of the autopsy confirmed that Lachapelle had drugs in his system. That evening, she left the apartment to visit someone in the building and Gerber locked her out of the unit.

Video surveillance from the hallway captured Lachapelle returning to the apartment, knocking on the door and peering through the mail slot. After 20 minutes of banging on the door, leaving and then returning again, she was granted entry.

Gerber reported that they watched wrestling after Lachapelle returned.

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“Mr. Gerber wanted and began to act wrestling maneuvers on Lachapelle,” says Forestell.

“These maneuvers included jumping from the coffee table onto Lachapelle while she was on the floor. Although his judgment and thoughts were affected by his untreated mental health and use of crack cocaine, he also admits that he was still upset, wanted to hurt her and was aware that there was a risk of death. He was reckless as to whether death occurred.”

Gerber said he passed out after practicing these maneuvers.

When he awoke, he realized Lachapelle was unconscious and thought she was dead. He called 911 at 2:46 a.m. and reported that he had just returned home from a bar to find his girlfriend passed out on the floor and she was not breathing.

When paramedics arrived, Lachapelle was pronounced dead. Gerber told officers he thought there had been a burglary.

An autopsy revealed that the cause of death was “blunt force trauma to the chest and abdomen.” The medical examiner noted extensive injuries to Lachapelle including extensive bleeding and bruising, and multiple fractures to her ribs, along with a fracture to her lower jaw and sternum.

At the preliminary hearing, the pathologist testified that the spinal injury was typically seen in someone “jumping off a tall building, a bridge, or hit by a train … hit at high speed.” He described the spinal injury as a “very unusual and unexplained injury”, but someone jumping from a table onto Lachapelle while she was prone could not be ruled out.

Forestell said Lachapelle’s brother described her, in his victim impact statement, as someone who was vulnerable to manipulation of others.

Gerber’s biological parents were both Indigenous.

He and his sister were adopted when he was two and a half years old, and his adoptive parents received reports of early physical abuse of Gerber by his biological parents. At about 19 years old, he was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder. At the age of 21, Gerber became a regular user of crack cocaine, MDMA and cannabis. At the age of 33, he began using crystal meth and continued to use crystal meth and crack cocaine until the murder.

Gerber had often been noncompliant with the prescribed medication for his bipolar disorder, particularly when he used illicit substances, as was the case when he killed Lachapelle.

Gerber had two previous convictions for uttering threats, including a 2017 conviction for threatening a woman he lived with.

Forestell noted that when he had a chance to address the court, Gerber expressed remorse for his behavior and took responsibility.

Noting that the courts have “consistently expressed that intimate partner violence is a significant and long-standing problem in our society,” the judge called Lachapelle’s killing “particularly brutal,” noting that Gerber lied to avoid arrest and had a prior record for uttering threat.

Forestell noted that mitigating factors including Gladue factors, mental illness, substance abuse and the harsh conditions of his pre-sentence custody brought parole to the low end of the range.

The judge directed Gerber to serve as much of this sentence as possible in an institution with an Aboriginal Pathways unit and access to Aboriginal programming.

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