RED DEER, Alta. – A jury will soon decide whether a financial adviser killed his disabled client with a pipe bomb that was disguised as a Christmas gift and left on the front step of her central Alberta home.
Closing arguments began Monday in the trial of Brian Malley, 57, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, causing an explosion and sending a person an explosive device.
Crown prosecutor Anders Quist alleges Malley lost all of Victoria Shachtay’s money, resorted to paying her out of his own pocket and wanted her dead to “cut his losses.”
READ MORE: Murder trial continues in bombing death of woman with disabilities
Defence lawyer Bob Aloneissi told the jury that motive doesn’t make sense.
“There’s an easier way to cut your losses – you just stop paying,” he said.
“Mr. Malley is being prosecuted because he cares for people, in this case, a single mom in a wheelchair.”
Shachtay had been paralyzed in a car crash in 2004, when she was 16 and pregnant. Left a quadriplegic, she later delivered a daughter.
Court heard she received a $575,000 court settlement in 2007 and turned to Malley, a family friend, to help her invest the money. She also borrowed another $264,000 to bump up the fund.
But by April 2011, it was all gone.
READ MORE: Accused put pipe bomb in Christmas gift bag, says Crown
Court heard Shachtay phoned Malley’s office a few months later and sounded surprised to find out her account had been closed.
Then on Nov. 25, 2011, a green-and-gold gift bag was delivered to the door of her fourplex apartment in Innisfail, just south of Red Deer. Her caregiver brought the package inside and Shachtay opened it while sitting in her wheelchair at the kitchen table.
The 23-year-old was killed instantly. The blast shattered a window, blew holes through the ceiling and walls and turned other items into confetti-size debris.
Aloneissi said it takes a “particularly despicable” person to kill a disabled mother and put others in danger. Luckily, Shachtay’s caregiver wasn’t hurt and her daughter wasn’t home at the time.
The lawyer told the jury that Shachtay’s mother gave Malley $15,000 to keep for her daughter. When the woman later died of cancer and Shachtay’s money was gone, he gave her the nest egg and another $30,000 of his own.
Malley made about $600,000 a year and could afford to be generous, said Aloneissi.
He also told the jury that Malley is not a “criminal mastermind” and has no bomb-making skills. Police who seized his computer and searched his home and office found no evidence that he had been reading about explosives.
Malley did do home renovation work though, and owned part of a real estate development company. Aloneissi said receipts showing Malley had purchased some of the same parts used to make the bomb can be explained by his construction work.
A piece of metal pipe and an end cap were dug out from a concrete slab at his mother-in-law’s house, where he had used the pieces to cover a natural gas line, said Aloneissi. A canister of gun powder also found in his home was sealed and never used.
“We simply don’t have the right person,” said the lawyer.
The jury is to begin deliberations on Tuesday.
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