Cowan found guilty of second-degree murder

Andrew Cowan, who launched his best friend’s pickup into a building at high speed — killing Ed Witt in the process — was convicted Wednesday night of second-degree murder in his 2012 death.

“This was a very difficult trial,” Superior Court Justice Kelly Gorman said after the 12-member jury delivered its verdict almost a month after the trial’s start. An hour earlier, the jury had asked Gorman to explain the difference again between first-degree and second-degree murder.

“They obviously reasoned this very carefully,” assistant Crown attorney Tom Meehan told the Star.

A date for a sentencing hearing will be set Sept. 8. Cowan, 45, will be handed an automatic life sentence, but the judge must still decide how long he must serve before being eligible for parole, with a range between 10 and 25 years.

After a night of drinking and gambling at Caesars Windsor on Oct. 21, 2012, Cowan was behind the wheel of Witt’s Ford F-150 when he drove it full-speed over a ramp-shaped flower bed and into the second-storey of a vacant commercial building.

Cowan did not testify at trial, but his defence argued he and Witt had made a suicide pact. Meehan told the Star the verdict likely meant the jury felt Cowan had planned the killing but that the actual action taken that night was more spur-of-the-moment than deliberate.