How an undercover Toronto cop secured a murder confession

While the 18-year-old Warner had emerged as a person of interest in the December 2022 shooting of 20-year-old Jai Parker-Ford, investigators weren’t quite ready to charge her.

Two months after the shooting, Warner was arrested on unrelated charges, and investigators saw an opportunity. They had an undercover officer known only as “TJ” build a rapport with the friendless Warner, cultivating a relationship that would pay off on April 7, 2023, when Warner invited TJ into her bedroom and told her that she was the one who shot Parker-Ford.

“It was one bullet,” she said. “I didn’t want to waste any.”

TJ, who was wearing a wire, got it all on tape.

This is the story of how an undercover police officer managed to quickly build a friendship with her target, bringing a killer to justice and getting closure for a grieving family, told through the testimony of TJ and her handler during pre-trial hearings in early October. The proceedings had been covered by a standard publication ban until the conclusion of the jury trial.

The full versions of TJ’s recordings were also played during those hearings, as TJ testified behind a screen, hidden from the view of the courtroom’s public gallery. The recordings are now sealed, meaning they will never be publicly accessible.

Would anyone expect a small 18-year-old woman to “pull this off?” he asked. “She nearly did. Until the police got creative and invented TJ.”

Testifying at trial, TJ simply told the jury that she had first met Warner in February 2023 and they engaged in “general girl chit chat” — boys, hair, nails.

What she didn’t tell the jury was where she met her target. Warner and a male companion had been pulled over following a police chase on Feb. 19, 2023, and she was charged with drug and firearm possession offences, unrelated to the killing of Parker-Ford.

Police inserted two undercover officers, including TJ, into Warner’s cell at the police station as newly arrested individuals. They were given no details of the homicide, including the victim’s name, and were told not to bring up anything that would allude to it. The goal was simply to gain Warner’s confidence.

TJ’s cover story was that she was at the apartment of a man she was dating when police suddenly executed a search warrant, arresting her and the other undercover officer. She claimed she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Within minutes of the officers being put into the cell, Warner began sharing intimate details about her life with them, and provided her Instagram handle, inviting them to get in touch once they were released from custody.

She told them she had been making “a band a day” — $1,000 a day — selling tasers and pepper spray on Kijiji until her account was cancelled. For her part, TJ told Warner she worked as a bartender for events and offered to help get her a “high-paying job.”

TJ’s handler testified that police would find excuses to periodically remove the officers from the cell to write notes. They were also wearing “officer protection kits,” which allowed the handler to hear what was happening, though nothing was being recorded, as police didn’t yet have judicial authorization.

The handler said he soon realized that of the two officers, TJ had the strongest rapport with Warner, even though she also had the least experience as an undercover cop. At one point, TJ even let Warner braid her hair in the holding cell.

Warner was eventually taken to the Lindsay jail; TJ remained on the outside and kept in touch. She was soon speaking to Warner by phone, and was put on the visitors’ list at the jail.

Asked how she kept the conversation going, TJ testified: “I knew she liked talking about her boyfriends, so I tried to make sure I talked about that.”

From jail, Warner told TJ that she didn’t really have any friends. As far as the officer knew, no one else had gone to visit Warner in jail aside from her and Warner’s mother.

“She said that I was a good friend,” TJ testified. 

“Did it seem unusual that the friendship blossomed so quickly?” asked lawyer Myles Anevich, who handled some of the defence’s pre-trial applications.

On April 6, 2023, TJ drove Warner’s mother to the jail to pick Warner up after she had been released on bail. By that point, police had received judicial authorization to secretly record TJ’s conversations with Warner. On the drive back to Scarborough, the recording captured a heated argument between Warner and her mother.

“Mom, listen,” Warner says in the recording. “Remember when you asked me who shot that guy in the head? I did that. I have anger issues, so leave me the f—- alone.” 

That clip was played for the jury, though they were given no context as to why the three women were in the car together.

“I’m glad you’re out. Stay out, I’m serious,” TJ tells Warner at the very end of the full, four-hour recording, as she drops Warner and her mother off at their home. “I’ll be here for as long as you need me.”

Warner responds: “Love you.”

TJ’s objective had now changed; she was to not only maintain a rapport with Warner, but also “build on” the April 6 statement. She testified that she was to “go with the flow” of the conversation during her next encounter with Warner and see if the shooting came up; if it didn’t, she was told to raise it. Homicide investigators were now hoping to get enough specific details out of Warner to tie her to the murder.

The next day, TJ visited Warner and her mother at their home bearing gifts: Fiji water for Warner and Easter chocolates for her younger siblings; TJ’s “boyfriend” — another undercover officer — dropped her off and went for a drive. 

Based on Warner’s statement in the car, TJ was worried, wondering if there were weapons in the house. She was given safety words to say in case she was in danger, which would be picked up on the officer protection kit. 

An undercover surveillance crew remained in the area and, if necessary, “there would be an entry to extract her,” the handler testified.

In the full version of the recording, once TJ and Warner had retreated to the latter’s bedroom alone, TJ asks for her help: “Your mom’s saying you’re into makeup; can you do my makeup today?” she asks, explaining that she’s going to be seeing her boyfriend’s family later.

“Like, maybe eye shadow and stuff, if you can?”

Warner then begins to show TJ some of her art, telling her she’s thinking of going to college to become an esthetician, and they move on to discuss men, Warner’s time in jail, and her mother and stepfather. Warner’s dog comes in and out of the bedroom throughout the conversation. Finally, they come to the topic of nails.

“I have to get my nails done too, they’re so gross,” TJ tells Warner, who responds that she knows a good place.

“OK, let’s go, we’ll go next week or something,” TJ says, and then adds with a laugh: “Me and your mom, it’s like a triple date.”

The conversation then suddenly takes a sharp turn, as TJ says in the part of the recording played for the jury: “I wanted to ask you something about yesterday, because you said something … Like, do you know what I’m going to ask about? What was that about?”

Warner then reveals her involvement in Parker-Ford’s shooting, telling TJ the name of the victim, when and where it happened, and that she used an ex-boyfriend’s gun. Through bursts of laughter, she shows TJ news articles about the incident, and says she’s written a rap about it called “Braindead.” She says she shot him in the back of the head as they exited the elevator in his apartment building.

“I was so happy, but he didn’t die right away,” Warner said, with the officer testifying that Warner mimed firing a gun.

Parker-Ford, who was himself a rapper under the name Aveboy SK, died in hospital three days after being shot. 

In the recording, TJ feigns surprise and frequently laughs — she later told the jury she was just acting.

The Crown never specified how Warner and Parker-Ford knew each other, nor was a motive established; it’s not something the prosecution is required to prove. In the clip played for the jury, Warner tells TJ that she and Parker-Ford had sex when she was 12 and he was 14, and that “he took advantage of me,” but no evidence was presented at trial about that.

In part of the recording not played for the jury, Warner says: “Before, I was gang-affiliated, but now I’m literally a gang member because I killed the s—- out of that guy.”

TJ then tells her: “That’s f—-ed up. OK, so from now on, we’re not doing that s—-. I don’t want you getting into any s—-. That’s my job here, to make sure you don’t get into any s—-.”

At this, Warner responds: “But I’m not finished yet. I need to kill the friend that got me pregnant.”

Toward the end of the recording, Warner takes a call in the bathroom while TJ quickly takes a photo of the handwritten lyrics for “Braindead” on Warner’s bed. What the jury didn’t know is that Warner’s caller was a man in jail who then peppered TJ with questions.

“He wants to talk to you,” Warner says, as the man then asks TJ:

“Where are you from?”

“The east end,” TJ replies.

“Where in the east end?” he asks.

“It’s a lot of questions,” she replies with a laugh, telling him she’s from Pickering.

Warner interjects: “He’s just trying to figure out who you are.”

“So you were out before (Warner)?” the caller asks TJ.

She responds that she doesn’t have any pending charges, and almost immediately, Warner’s mother announces that TJ’s boyfriend has returned to pick her up. The recording stopped.

The following day, Warner was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

Undercover police operations are not uncommon. Nor is it rare for an officer to testify with their identity protected, ensuring they’re free to work again on the next case. What made this case unusual was the inexperience of the officer, the age of the subject, and the fact that she spoke about the murder so readily. 

The Supreme Court of Canada has found that a statement made to an undercover agent while the accused is detained may be admitted into evidence if the officer didn’t actively elicit the information — akin to an interrogation. At trial, the judge must consider whether the undercover officer exploited special characteristics of their relationship with the accused, and whether the accused was in a vulnerable position. 

The defence pushed to have Warner’s confession thrown out by arguing the police had violated her right to silence. They characterized what happened as “interrogation by subterfuge,” saying TJ had “exploited” a vulnerable 18-year-old woman with no friends; even though the confession was made in Warner’s home, the defence urged the judge to consider the fact that TJ cultivated her friendship with Warner while she was detained in jail, and that the confession was made less than 24 hours after Warner had been released. 

“We know that society has an interest in a justice system that is above reproach, and that prosecutes people fairly and doesn’t trick them,” Anevich said.

TJ was not “sitting patiently” waiting to see if Warner brought up the homicide, Anevich continued, but rather, “like the dam of the Yangtze River,” she blocked the flow of conversation and redirected it to a topic she wanted to go to: “One second, TJ and Ms. Warner are discussing nails, the next, they’re discussing a murder.” 

He argued this was all part of a “pre-determined plan” to get a confession, given to a “relatively inexperienced undercover officer” by her handler.

Anevich argued that Crown attorneys Rob Fried and Perry Rutherford would still have an “overwhelmingly strong case” without the confession: surveillance footage near Parker-Ford’s apartment building around the time of the shooting showing an individual the Crown argued was Warner, and Snapchat messages presumably sent between Warner and Parker-Ford in the early hours of Dec. 16, 2022, about meeting at his building. 

“The confession is simply the cherry on top,” Anevich said. 

Fried argued that the Crown’s case would in fact be “significantly weaker” without the confession, saying the prosecution would face a “serious uphill battle” proving first-degree murder. 

Superior Court Justice Alfred O’Marra allowed the jury to hear the recording — albeit shortened and edited — after he found that Warner had willingly divulged plenty of damning information with hardly any prompting from TJ. Warner’s behaviour in her interactions with TJ demonstrated that she was not vulnerable, he concluded.

“Ms. Warner offers details about the murder of Jai Parker-Ford of her own choice,” O’Marra said. “In listening to the recording from April 7, 2023, Ms. Warner spoke of the homicide in an almost gleeful manner.”

TJ had simply started off by asking, “What was that about?” and then mostly just uttered expletives as Warner talked about the homicide, O’Marra noted. TJ hadn’t even specified to Warner what it was about the previous day that she wanted to talk about, yet Warner went straight to the topic of the shooting.

“Ms. Warner freely chose to describe her role in the killing,” O’Marra found. “She appears to want others to know of her accomplishments, even going to the extent of writing rap lyrics.”

At Warner’s trial, defence lawyers Katie Scott and John Filiberto tried to persuade the jury that the confession was nothing more than a story concocted by a young woman looking for validation, with details pulled from the internet and shared with someone she thought was a friend.

And Warner’s writings about the shooting, including the rap “Braindead,” were simply “artistic self-expression,” Scott argued in her closing submissions. 

“People falsely confess for many reasons and will continue to do so,” she said. 

The jury decided to take Warner’s word for it. 

“It was so quick,” a giggling Warner said on TJ’s recording, describing the moment she shot Parker-Ford. “I don’t think he even had a thought.”

Warner is now serving a life sentence in prison with no chance at parole for 25 years, with no guarantee she’ll be released at that time, if ever.