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Joshua Biernacki was found guilty of selling heroin to his former girlfriend, but not guilty in her death.
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A Superior Court jury in London acquitted Biernacki, 32, of Toronto of manslaughter Friday in the death of Deborah (Debb) Beer, 28, who was found dead of a heroin overdose at her London home on Nov. 7, 2021.
He was found guilty of the included, but lesser offence of trafficking in heroin.
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Biernacki’s manslaughter trial was a London first. He was the third drug dealer charged in the city with manslaughter related to selling drugs that directly led to a death.
The manslaughter charges were reduced or withdrawn in other cases and the accused convicted on other charges. But Biernacki’s charge continued through the system and was the first of its kind to be tried in front of a jury in London.
The trial, which began two weeks ago, focused on the short, troubled life of Beer, who grew up in Oshawa and was an addict starting at age 14. She had turned her life around and was clean during her pregnancy and after the birth of her daughter in 2017.
By then, she’d moved in with her mother at an apartment at Adelaide Street and Commissioners Road. After the birth of her daughter, she began working for Tim Hortons, often leaving for work at 4 a.m.
The jury heard that Beer spent the rest of her time caring for and raising her daughter. They shared a bedroom and slept in the same bed.
That’s why it was strange when Beer’s mother, Cindy, who testified at the trial, heard her then-three year-old granddaughter crying just before 5 a.m. on Nov. 7, 2021. She told the jury she went into the bedroom and found Deborah slumped in the closet with a needle in her arm. She was blue and unresponsive.
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While cleaning out the apartment, Beer’s sister Pamela discovered an open Canada Post Xpress envelope sent to Beer from a Mississauga address from someone named Candy Appolon. She turned it over to the police.
Biernacki had sent Beer the drugs in that envelope. The crux of the case hinged on thousands of text messages sent between himself and Beer, in which they discussed Beer acquiring heroin for a friend and ultimately some of it for herself.
Biernacki and Beer had been in an on-again, off-again relationship that lasted for nine years and since they were young teenagers growing up in Oshawa. Her mother described the relationship as “toxic.”
The jury was presented some of the text messages that were sent back and forth between Biernacki and Beer right up to the night she died. The last one was sent by Beer at about 10:30 p.m.
She was found dead of an overdose the following morning.
A pre-sentence report was ordered for Biernacki. A sentencing hearing is slated for Feb. 11.
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