A Calgary man accused of killing five-year-old Taliyah Marsman and her mother Sara Baillie will stand trial before a jury in late November 2018.
Edward Downey is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and has pleaded not guilty to both charges.
Watch below from May 29: A decision came down in the preliminary inquiry for a Calgary man accused of killing Sara Baillie and her five-year-old daughter Taliyah Marsman. Nancy Hixt has the details.
Sara Baillie was found dead inside her northwest Calgary home on July 11, 2016. That sparked an Alberta-wide Amber Alert for her daughter.
Calgary police found Taliyah’s body three days later just outside of the city limits.
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Police said they believed the little girl was killed just hours after Baillie.
READ MORE: Family of Taliyah Marsman, Sara Baillie speak of loss: ‘they’ll always be in our hearts’
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Family of the victims told Global News Friday they are concerned the trial is still nearly a year-and-a-half away.
“The wheels of justice seem to be turning so slowly,” Taliyah’s uncle Scott Hamilton said. “We know that there’s a beast out there that’s called the Jordan application that can come into effect, and obviously we don’t want to be caught in that.”
A Supreme Court of Canada ruling called R. vs. Jordan set rules for how long a case can take from start to finish; in this case, the ceiling would be 30 months.
As of Friday, there was no indication Downey’s defence will make an application based on “unreasonable delays.” The trial will begin near the 29-month mark and if it proceeds as planned, it would be within the 30-month time limit.
Still, the issue looms for the victims’ family. They also have a number of questions, which they believe will be answered when evidence comes out in the trial.
There’s also the desire to have a sense of closure.
“It seems you get to a certain point with your grief and then all of a sudden, you have to step back and almost relive it again,” Hamilton said.
“We are going to be reliving everything again.”
Watch below: Nancy Hixt reports on the one-year anniversary of the deaths of Taliyah Marsman and Sara Baillie.
On the one-year anniversary of the tragedy, family of the victims announced several memorial tributes.
A bench in Bowness Park reads: “Your laughter will forever fill our hearts.”
Taliyah’s love for dance will also live on through the Taliyah Leigh Memorial Scholarship Award.
There will be a two-week voir dire before the trial to determine the admissibility of some evidence. A date for those pre-trial proceedings has yet to be set.
The trial is scheduled to last three weeks beginning Nov. 26, 2018.
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