'My whole life just stopped': Victim impact statements, sentencing for Windsor murder

Victim impact statements heard at sentencing Kahli Johnson-Phillips has been given a life sentence for the murder of a University of Windsor student. Rich Garton has details.

The Brampton man convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated assault in the 2018 shooting death of a 20-year-old University of Windsor student and injury of his girlfriend has been given a life sentence and concurrent eight year sentence.

Kahli Johnson-Phillips was found guilty in November, 2023 during a jury trial which lasted nearly three months. The jury believed Johnson-Phillips was one of two men who shot more than a dozen rounds at Jason Pantlitz-Solomon and his then girlfriend, Camila Lufitha-Molima on Aug. 27, 2018 in downtown Windsor.

Pantlitz-Solomon took at least 12 shots to his body and died of his injuries that night. Lufitha-Molima took a bullet to the leg, but the shot was “through-and-through” and she survived her injuries.

In court Friday, victim impacts statements were read before the court by Pantlitz-Solomon’s mother, Alicia Pantlitz, his aunt, Roslyn Solomon, and crown attorney Bryan Pillon read two other statements from Jason’s friends at the University of Windsor.

“Jason is confident, ambitious, loving, charming, opinionated, strong and responsible,” his mother Alicia Pantlitz said, sobbing tearfully throughout the delivery of her statement to court. “Those characteristics make him the first to rescue people he cared about. He is known for being their champion.”

She spoke of his character, his ambitions to study law and to one day, raise a family of his own.

“I imagined one day Jason would get married and have children of his own. I imagined what kind of husband and father he would be,” Pantlitz said. “He was so proud of himself, and I was so proud of him. I couldn’t help but image what his life would be like.”

Pantlitz recounted her time at the courthouse in Windsor, staring longingly at the walls, which feature pictures of judges past and present. She envisioned one day seeing a picture of her son on a wall, just like that.

“Jason is not a thug. He worked so hard to be identified as Jason Solomon, as someone who is more than meets the eye. Someone you’d want to get to know,” she said. “I couldn’t help but imagine but seeing Jason’s picture on the wall, with the title Justice Solomon.”

She reckoned back to the early morning of Aug. 27, when she received the phone call that her son had been shot in Windsor.

“I dropped to my knees and I screamed and went blank. My whole life just stopped,” she said. “For so long, every time I would breathe, I just couldn’t understand how I could breathe and my baby not be breathing.”

“How could this be?” She asked herself. “All the things I imagined. I never imagined this.”

She addressed the shooting, which she called a deliberate and malicious act that stole a life.

“Someone plotted to murder my son although he’d done nothing to him,” she said. “Jason was trying to change the way the world views young black men, instead he was gunned down and hunted like an animal.”

Pantlitz told court that five years later, she still lives with the pain and loss of her son to this day, as well as the trauma of the incident.

“I am constantly trying to let go of the sadness and let go of the loss and emptiness of the missing person in my heart,” she said.

“Jason is gone. He cannot come back... there is nothing I can ever do to change it,” she said. “What is often overlooked is that lives change lives. Jason’s life changed my life, and losing my son has changed all of our lives.”

SENTENCING DECISION

While Superior Court Justice Pamela Hebner acknowledged the first-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence without parole eligibility for the duration of the sentence, there was the matter of the aggravated assault conviction.

The Crown and defence attorneys agreed on a joint-submission of eight years, to run concurrently with the life sentence, and Justice Hebner agreed.

She said aggravating factors include the injury to the victim, which was significant, calling the shooting “an unprovoked act of extreme violence.” Justice Hebner called the impact to friends and family “incalculable” in the aftermath.

Justice Hebner noted at the time of the murder, Johnson-Phillips was 22 years old, was on probation and had a weapons prohibition, spending much of his adult life behind bars for various previous convictions, including kidnapping, obstruction of a peace officer, robbery under $5,000, failure to comply with a release order and failure to attend court.

On July 13, 2018, just six weeks prior to the murder, Justice Hebner said Johnson-Phillips was convicted in Thunder Bay of material benefit from sex services.

“He had a consistent disregard for the law and security of others,” she said in her sentencing. “Kahli Johnson-Phillips does not have a strong potential for rehabilitation.”

“I expect he will eventually be released into the public. If he takes advantage of some education, maybe he will chose a different path,” said Hebner before delivering the sentence to the now 27-year-old Johnson-Phillips.

After the sentence was handed down, defence lawyer Michael Moon said he feels for the family of the victim.

As part of the sentence, Johnson-Phillips will be prohibited from possessing any firearm for the rest of his life. He is also required to provide samples of his DNA and is prohibited from communicating with the Pantlitz-Solomon family or Camille Lufitha-Molima’s family during his sentence.