A jury has convicted a man of second-degree murder for stabbing his broken-hearted lover 126 times at a northwest Toronto park.

Jurors deliberated for about a day and a half before finding Nicholas Johnson, 25, guilty of the savage slaying of Virgil Jack, 31, on Aug. 18, 2017. Her body was discovered two days later in a stream in Derrydowns Park, near Jane St. and Finch Ave. W.

His conviction carries an automatic sentence of life in prison, with no parole eligibility for between 10 and 25 years. That period remains to be determined by Superior Court Justice Faye McWatt.

Johnson stood motionless beside defence lawyer Tony Bryant when the verdict was announced late Wednesday afternoon.

In her closing address, prosecutor Allison MacPherson told the jury that Jack had lied when she told Johnson she was pregnant with his baby. The pressure Jack was placing on Johnson drove him to attack her in “one frenzied episode,” MacPherson said.

“Virgil clearly was very fond of Mr. Johnson and in fact he said that she had told him that she loved him,” MacPherson told jurors. “She was obviously hoping to lure him into a relationship with a fake pregnancy. She is not the first woman in human history to attempt such a thing. People sometimes do and say nasty things when they are hurt.”

Johnson confirmed to police that he was never going to leave his girlfriend, Elizabeth Owusu Bempah, for Jack. Her emotionally charged text messages to Johnson and Owusu Bempah showed a woman increasingly desperate and angry.

Evidence presented at trial showed Johnson picked up Jack from her apartment and drove her to the park, where he “overpowered her,” and stabbed her to death in the water so there would be no blood trail, MacPherson said. In addition to 126 stab wounds, Jack had 30 incised wounds, but only three defensive wounds.

The jury heard that Johnson and Jack were co-workers at a company in northwest Toronto that refurbished modems, and had had a fling while Owusu Bempah, who also worked at the facility, went on vacation for a few weeks in the summer of 2017.

Jack wasn’t pregnant, but told Johnson, Owusu Bempah and others that she was. Jack, who had no children, was married to a man who lived in St. Vincent.

The jury watched Johnson’s two videotaped statements to police.

In the first, a few days after Jack’s body was recovered, Johnson told police Jack had told him she was pregnant with his baby, but denied ever being in Derrydowns Park or having anything to do with her death. Tire tracks from his car were found at the park.

MacPherson told jurors that in the second statement, recorded Jan. 11, 2018, Johnson confessed to the murder in response to questions by Toronto police homicide Det. Sgt. Terry Browne.

For instance, Browne asked Johnson if he acted alone.

“No one was there, sir,” Johnson said.

“So I take it that you acted alone, that’s your way of responding, that no one else was there?” Browne asked.

“Yes sir,” Johnson replied.

At another point in the interview, Browne explained the difference between first- and second-degree murder. Johnson told him, “It wasn’t planned for her.”

Bryant argued those statements weren’t sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Johnson had committed the offence.

In addition to the videotaped statements and extensive cellphone, text and What’s App messages, the jurors heard from witnesses about some of the things Jack did to convince people she was pregnant with Johnson’s baby. That included asking a friend for her urine, showing a co-worker a positive pregnancy test and sharing a cellphone video of herself purportedly breastfeeding her own baby, which turned out to be her sister’s.

At one point during the trial, MacPherson expressed concern to the judge, without the jury present, that the victim’s “unusual” and “somewhat eccentric” behaviour would “make it seem … her death is not worthy of sympathy.”

Johnson did not testify.

During his closing arguments Monday, Bryant said the Crown failed to establish a credible proof of motive. Johnson had accepted the prospect that Jack was pregnant, he said, and was working through the difficulties it presented.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Johnson also had no history of violence, the defence lawyer noted, and did not have a criminal record.

Bryant spent half of his closing address providing jurors “a crash course in criminal law” that included an explanation of the concept of the presumption of innocence.

The veteran defence lawyer told the judge he will be submitting a psychological report on his client in advance of sentencing Jan. 30.