Ironically, it was a man named Lawless who got lawyer Sarah Jackson to admit what she had twice lied to police about: that she had in fact injected one of the three doses of heroin that first-time user Edward Cieslik took the night he died in her Mountain bungalow.

Jackson's trial for manslaughter in the 2013 death began Friday in a nearly empty second-floor courtroom of the John Sopinka Courthouse.

The story of Cieslik's death - and Jackson's alleged role in it - was detailed in a stark summary offered by assistant Crown attorney Nancy Flynn at the trial's opening.

Flynn told Justice Bernd Zabel that the evidence would show that Cieslik, 36, died of "acute morphine/heroin poisoning" resulting from his apparent first experimentation with the drug, a final, fatal high in a weekend of "partying" with Jackson.

Listening from the front row was Cieslik's sister, white-faced and clutching a framed photo of her brother, broadly smiling in happier times. At one point, hearing that, on the night of his death the accused texted a photo of her unconscious brother to a friend, she stormed noisily out of the courtroom. She did not return after the midday break.

Jackson, 36, and Cieslik were old friends who'd both grown up in Oshawa and arrived separately in Hamilton years later; Jackson as a personal injury lawyer living in a LeClaire Street bungalow and Cieslik as an employee of National Steel Car living in an Ottawa Street apartment.

Jackson, Flynn told the court, was unemployed and on a methadone program in January 2013 when she reached out through Facebook to renew her old friendship with Cieslik. For his part, the court heard that Cieslik had used marijuana and crack in the months leading up to his death and, after connecting with Jackson, began showing curiosity about heroin.

According to Flynn, at least one of Cieslik's friends tried hard to dissuade him, getting him to promise on two occasions that he wouldn't try the drug; another friend - unemployed artist and addict Michael Savoie - testified he also advised Cieslik to stay away from it. Savoie, who admitted to smoking crack cocaine with, and sometimes selling crack to, Cieslik, said he told his friend "it was a bad idea - don't even attempt to get involved with it. Period."

But Cieslik pressed ahead and, on Jan. 19, 2013, Jackson called acquaintance and fellow addict Ryan Sanderson, and together they bought $200 worth of heroin - half of it for Cieslik, half for Sanderson.

"He was excited to try it," Sanderson, 33, testified. "The heroin wasn't for her. It was for him. He wanted to experiment."

Relying on three video statements given by Jackson, Flynn told the court that Cieslik, after consulting Jackson, divided his half-gram of heroin into three doses that night at Jackson's house. He botched the first injection and asked Jackson to do the second. She injected him and later he injected himself a third time, finishing the dose and passing out on Jackson's bed.

Sanderson, who'd gone home to his room in his parent's Dundas home and shot up his share of the heroin ("it wasn't very good; it wasn't very strong" he testified), told the court that Jackson texted him a picture of the unconscious Cieslik and asked if he wanted to come over.

He did and the pair had sex on the living room couch as Cieslik lay "snoring" in the bed. According to Sanderson, the pair started "dating" that night.

When Sanderson and Jackson went to bed sometime before 5 a.m. that morning, Cieslik was still alive and snoring, Sanderson testified.

Seven hours later, when the pair got out of bed and tried to wake Cieslik, they found him "cold and unresponsive."

"He was freezing cold," Sanderson said. They called 911, administered chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth breathing at the instruction of the operator until EMS arrived minutes later.

Initially, both Sanderson and Jackson lied to police about their roles in providing Cieslik with the heroin. But days later, three mutual friends of Jackson and Cieslik from Oshawa confronted her and the pair admitted their involvement. One of the trio, Brandon Lawless, alerted police.

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Jackson was arrested four months later, charged with manslaughter and has been in custody ever since. Sanderson was not charged.

The trial is slated to resume Tuesday and is expected to run through to the end of next week.