A Windsor woman has five years of prison left to serve for shooting a bullet into the head of another mom at close range in 2020 — but it’s a life sentence of disfigurement and “constant pain” that lies ahead for the victim.
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“My life is destroyed,” the victim said in an impact statement read into the court record Thursday by assistant Crown attorney Iain Skelton.
“Yes, I survived. Yes, it’s a miracle to be here … (but) my life will never be the same.”
Talita Campbell, 33, was sentenced by Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia last week after earlier pleading guilty to recklessly discharging a firearm as well as unlawful possession of a restricted weapon. She originally faced seven criminal counts, including attempted murder.
Carroccia agreed to a six-year sentence recommended in a joint submission by Crown and defence. The judge reduced the prison time left to be served to five years after giving enhanced credit for 140 days spent in pre-sentence custody, as well as for the past four years spent under “strict” bail conditions, including having to wear a GPS monitoring bracelet.
Both women attended a Leamington house party after they and mutual friends encountered each other at a bar the night of July 18, 2020. At the private residence, there was a physical altercation involving some of the partygoers, but Campbell was not among them.
According to an agreed statement of facts, Campbell was departing when one of the partygoers — not the shooting victim — “poured a bucket of ‘jungle juice’ (an alcoholic beverage) on Campbell.” As she was cleaning her glasses, she was threatened and pushed. That was when Campbell “removed a handgun, which was concealed in her waist area.”
The woman who ended up being shot was then seen “running towards her. Campbell raised the firearm with the intention of discharging it in the air.” But someone “lunged onto her,” and the firearm discharged.
Campbell fell to the ground with the victim, the latter seriously wounded by a bullet that struck her left temple and became lodged in her head.
“My life is destroyed, devastated … I am now handicapped and disabled,” she said in her victim impact statement. The victim described having undergone more than 20 surgeries, suffering seizures and hearing loss and being hospitalized “too many times to count.”
She described feeling “ugly” by now living with “half a skull” after part of it had to be removed to dislodge from her brain bullet and bone fragments, some of which remain. She had to re-learn to speak and walk, has memory loss and suffers PTSD, anxiety and depression. The former personal support worker who worked with local seniors said she can no longer hold a job, no longer has friends “due to all I went through” and that she lives in fear.
Skelton had to pause at one point from reading two impact statements as the young mother, sitting in the courtroom, broke down in uncontrollable sobbing.
“The impact of this offence cannot be understated,” the prosecutor told the judge.
Skelton listed the offender’s “mitigating” factors, including the lack of a prior criminal record and her guilty plea, which courts view as an expression of remorse.
He said Campbell grew up in Toronto’s “very dangerous neighbourhood” of Jane Street and Finch Avenue, with two of her friends gunned down when she was 18. Despite being abused by her stepfather and being kicked out of her home before finishing high school, Campbell completed college programs before entering the skilled workforce.
Despite a “very difficult upbringing,” defence lawyer Robert DiPietro Jr. said his client was employed in the construction industry and that she has “a great relationship” with family members, some of whom were present in the courtroom.
Carroccia described the shooting as “extremely serious” and that the only reason for the matter being in court was the offender’s decision to have an illegal handgun in her possession.
“You chose to take that gun out and fire it … with serious consequences,” said the judge, citing as primary sentencing considerations the need for denunciation and sending a message of deterrence to others.
Wanted on a Canada-wide arrest warrant, and described as armed and dangerous, Campbell was arrested by the OPP in the Greater Toronto Area in September 2020, nearly two months after the near-fatal party shooting.
Six years is “an appropriate sentence,” said Justice Carroccia, who also ordered a blood sample for a police DNA databank and issued a 10-year weapons ban.
The Crown’s Skelton later told the Star it would have been challenging for the prosecution to secure a conviction if the matter had gone to trial on the original and much more serious charge of attempted murder. He said it was “extremely dark” during the outdoor “melee” that night and that the witnesses, at the preliminary hearing stage, offered multiple different versions of what happened.
“The Crown has the burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.