Mississauga man hired hitman to shoot his ex-partner with a crossbow, Crown says

An Ontario man hired a hitman to take out" his ex-common law partner with a crossbow amid a bitter family court dispute that saw her seeking spousal support and a cut of the Mississauga home they shared, a Brampton prosecutor says.

In her closing arguments on Thursday, Crown attorney Keeley Holmes told court that Roger Jaggernauth had started concocting a plan to kill his estranged common-law spouse in the fall of 2018 and called a friend, with connections to a biker gang, to connect him with a hitman.

That friend's testimony revealed Jaggernauth, asked him if he knew someone who could take care of his ex, or take her out, or get rid of her," the Crown stated in written submissions.

But the call didn't work, the prosecutor said, and Jaggernauth sought other means to get the job done - His intention was to get a hitman and when his friend turned him down, he got someone else."

On Nov. 7, 2018, Jaggernauth's ex-partner opened the door of her Mississauga home to someone impersonating a deliveryman with a package. The man shot her in the torso with a crossbow; its bolt pierced her chest, severely and permanently damaging internal organs before lodging into a wall. She survived following three days of life-saving surgeries detailed in a Peel police video.

The shooter, who was described as white, tall and skinny was captured on surveillance video but has never been identified.

Jaggernauth, who was 50 at the time, was arrested in August 2020 following a lengthy undercover investigation. He has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and counselling an indictable offence, and is being tried before Brampton Superior Court Justice Jennifer Woollcombe alone.

In his closing arguments, defence lawyer Jordan Gold cautioned the court against reading too much into his client's words after he called up the friend to vent.

It's dangerous to look at this call in isolation," Gold said, arguing it's impossible to know if Jaggernauth was serious about following through on what he said.

The former couple, who had been in a volatile five-year relationship, had separated in the months leading up to the attack. By the summer of 2018, the woman had retained a lawyer to start ligation against Jaggernauth, who had grown angry at her decision to leave him and claim more than $330,000 in the home that was in his name.

An increasingly possessive Jaggernauth started stalking his ex-partner and turned up uninvited to numerous locations, including an address where she was meeting with another man she had started seeing, Holmes said. By Oct. 10, 2018, Jaggernauth had taken out $90,000 in untraceable money," and investigators who searched his home also found evidence on his computer that he might have been keeping tabs on her with GPS tracking, the prosecutor said.

The friend would later testify that Jaggernauth had approached him with the idea of killing his ex-partner because she was trying to take his house.

In court, the woman testified that she did not know of anyone who had the motive to kill her.

However, Holmes said, she named Jaggernauth in a 911 immediately after the attack, saying, in what was nearly a dying declaration, that she suspected her ex Roger Jaggernauth." The Crown added: She explained the motive and that he had been stalking her."

Jaggernaught's defence argued the Crown is relying on circumstantial evidence, adding that when Jaggernauth found out that his ex-partner was in a new relationship, the harassment stopped and he moved on.

There is no evidence that the shooter had anything to do with Mr. Jaggernauth," Gold argued. There is no evidence that Mr. Jaggernauth planned, executed, or participated in the attack."

Jason Miller is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering crime and justice in the Peel Region. Reach him on email: jasonmiller@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @millermotionpic