Warning: Story contains graphic images

Every morning around 4 a.m., Tiffany Moreau and her husband wake up, turn over in bed and ask each other, "Are you OK?"

Two years ago, in the dead of night, Moreau was shot by a stray bullet while sound asleep in her Ottawa apartment. The bullet blew through the ceiling and lodged into her foot.

It's a memory her mind and body can't shake.

"I had no idea what was going on," she said. "I was just numb. Completely numb."

The 27-year-old shared her story with CBC News because she says justice wasn't served in her case.

The young man accused of firing the gun was scheduled to stand trial in Ottawa this month, but the Crown and defence struck a plea deal beforehand. All of the gun-related charges were dropped.

Meanwhile, Moreau is still left with her pain.

"Nobody is going to be held accountable," she said. "I'm the only one that's going to be paying the price every day, living with the physical, mental, emotional side-effects of this."

'I was very much in shock'

Moreau and her husband Michael used to live on the third floor of an apartment building at 1400 Appleton Dr. in the Pineview neighbourhood.

They were both fast asleep after 4 a.m. ET on Dec. 19, 2015, when they heard two loud bangs. They didn't know what happened. They thought for a second it was their bedroom wardrobe falling over.

They tried to go back to sleep, but Moreau's foot started feeling cramped. She rolled around in bed for about five minutes, tossing and turning.

One of the two bullet holes in the ceiling of Moreau's old bedroom. (Tiffany Moreau)

"Then the numbness came, then the burning came," Moreau said. "I knew that was not normal. Something was wrong."

That's when her husband jumped up and turned on the light to see what was going on.

There was drywall dust covering their bed. They looked up and saw two bullet holes in their bedroom ceiling.

"I was very much in shock," Moreau said. "I had no issues with any of my neighbours, everybody was perfect."

'Oh my God, you've been shot'

Moreau's husband whipped off their bedding. They realized the bullet had pierced through their comforter and bed sheet, lodging into Moreau's left foot.

"There was blood everywhere," she said.

There was also a bullet hole in the curtain by the windowsill — an arm's-length away from Moreau's chest.

Michael started to panic and scream.

"Oh my God, you've been shot," Moreau recalled her husband yelling. "You've been shot. My wife's been shot."

That's when Moreau said she heard people scrambling in the unit above.

"It was just chaos above us."

The bullet entered through the top of Moreau's foot. It separated one of her toe joints and stopped just short of her big toe. (Tiffany Moreau)

Police and paramedics arrived on scene and rushed Moreau to the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus. She said doctors were "blown away" by the way the bullet lodged into her foot, mangling the soft tissue and just missing the bone.

The velocity of the bullet pulled her bedding with it into the wound.

An X-ray shows the bullet just missed hitting bone. It caused a trail of destruction to her foot tissue before stopping near her big toe. (Tiffany Moreau)

Doctors pulled out the bullet and most of the material during surgery. But they weren't able to retrieve all of the bedding debris. Hospital staff told Moreau it's organic material so her body would naturally absorb it or force it out on its own. Moreau was told doctors didn't want to go back in since her foot had already suffered so much trauma.

For two years, that debris has painfully worked its way to the top of her foot.

3 people in apartment above

When Ottawa police arrived at the fourth-floor unit, only one person was inside — Derrick Bone. Police arrested Bone and interviewed him at length.

According to court documents, Bone told police he was sleeping when he heard a loud bang. He got up and confronted his roommate, Tyler Meehan, as he was coming out of his room. Meehan was with another, unidentified male. Bone said Meehan told him, "Don't worry about it, it was just a blank."

Meehan and the unidentified friend quickly left, Bone told police.

Police executed a search warrant and determined the gun was fired in Meehan's bedroom. That's where officers also found a few loose rounds of ammunition and brass knuckles.

What investigators didn't find was the .22-calibre gun — the main piece of evidence they were looking for.

Teen charged with firing gun

The police force's guns and gangs unit got involved and by the next day, Dec. 20, 2015, Meehan was under arrest and facing eight charges.

The then 19-year-old, who goes by the name Ty, comes from a police family. His grandfather, who passed away in 2011, was an inspector with the Ottawa police.

Meehan was charged with seven firearm offences, including possession of a loaded, prohibited firearm and discharging a restricted firearm while being reckless to the life and safety of Moreau.

Moreau gave police the bullet pulled from her foot so they could use it as evidence. (Tiffany Moreau)

An eighth charge was laid for the possession of another prohibited weapon — a set of brass knuckles.

On New Year's Eve, Meehan was released on bail. For the next two years, he was under house arrest at his parents' home, just around the corner from the apartment building.

Meanwhile, Moreau slept on the couch in her living room for more than a year. Her husband made a bed on the floor beside her. It was the only place they felt safe enough to sleep and eventually moved.

"Your bed is somewhere you go as a child to hide under the blankets, and hide from the monsters and everything scary," said Moreau.

"To have that ripped away from you one night, all the sudden without reason, is very hard to wrap your mind around and ever gain that comfort, that security again. It's still hard to sleep. We wake up constantly."

Plea deal

Almost two years after the shooting, Moreau was hoping for some closure from Meehan's three-day trial that had been scheduled for the end of this month.

But more than a month before the trial, the Crown told Moreau a plea deal had been reached.

All of the firearm charges would be dropped. One charge would remain: possession of brass knuckles.

Her heart sank.

Court documents show on Dec. 14, 2017, Crown prosecutor Lisa Miles told the court there were three people in the apartment unit above Moreau when the shooting occurred, but she can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt who is responsible.

Police never found the third unidentified male who was in the apartment. Miles said if he had given a statement, it might have helped the case.

Miles's key witness, Bone, had gunshot residue on his hands, which she said "muddied the waters of the case." Meehan was arrested later but wasn't tested for gunshot residue.

The lead investigator told CBC News he can't comment on the challenges of the case until he sits down with Moreau.

'I'm merely a judge; I'm not an oracle'

During the same hearing, Meehan pleaded guilty to possession of brass knuckles.

Moreau was in the courtroom, facing Meehan for the first time. The judge called on Moreau to talk about how she's doing.

"I'm dealing with more than just the physical side of it," she told the court. "[I] still have pain every day with my foot. I still don't sleep at night. Being woken up in the middle of the night like that, it plays with your head."

Moreau said she used to be social and outgoing, a happy-go-lucky person. But she has changed since the shooting and doesn't like to go out anymore.

"I wish somebody could be held accountable for everything I've had to go through."

Ottawa shooting victim describes what it was like being struck by a bullet in the foot 2:03

Judge Vincent Clifford said he's "terribly sorry" for the pain she has suffered.

"I'm merely a judge; I'm not an oracle," he said. "I can't look into the past and tell you what happened."

He said he has a "pretty clear sense of what probably happened that night," but he can't "impact somebody's life for the rest of their years based on a hunch or a well-placed suspicion, nor can Crown counsel."

"One of the beautiful things about our criminal justice system in this country — and this may sound very difficult for you to accept — is that accused persons are entitled to the presumption of innocence. That says a lot about who we are as a society."

'I feel horrible about what happened'

The judge sentenced Meehan to 12 months' probation.

"I feel horrible about what happened to Tiffany," Meehan, now 21, told the court. "I wouldn't wish that upon anyone. And that's really all I have to say."

Meehan is not allowed to possess a weapon and must pay a $100 victim fine surcharge.

Moreau says her pain is a constant reminder that whoever shot her was never punished.

"The people in the apartment know exactly what happened," she said. "They could do the right thing and step up and say what happened. That's the most frustrating part about all of this, is that the truth is out there, they're just not willing to speak."