The defence opened its case in William Sandeson‘s first-degree murder trial Monday, saying he acted in self-defence when he killed Taylor Samson in the summer of 2015.
Sandeson’s lawyer, Alison Craig, told the courtroom there is “no dispute” that Sandeson shot Samson, killing him, but said he didn’t intend to end his life.
Sandeson, now 30, is accused of killing 22-year-old Samson during a 20-pound cannabis deal.
Samson was last seen on security footage entering Sandeson’s apartment the evening of Aug. 15, 2015. His body has never been found.
Sandeson took the stand in his own defence Monday, which opened the fifth week of the trial. During his testimony, he said he shot Samson in a struggle over a gun and dumped his body in the Bay of Fundy.
Sandeson said he began selling cannabis in the summer of 2014. At the time of Samson’s death the following year, he was selling cannabis, magic mushrooms and MDMA out of his apartment on Henry Street.
While he had debt, Sandeson said he was “doing very well” financially, making about $8,000 per month through drug deals and three jobs.
Sandeson said he got a gun license in 2015, because he said the people he “dealt with” in Montreal were “uncomfortable” with him driving back and forth between Halifax and Montreal without protection.
After buying his gun, Sandeson said he brought it to Montreal once and to the gun range twice. Other than that, “it didn’t leave my safe” in his bedroom, he said.
Sandeson said he didn’t want people to know he had a gun, as he didn’t want any of his friends or acquaintances handling it or “playing with it.”
Sandeson said he met Samson a total of three times. The first time they met was on Aug. 5, 2015 after being introduced by a man named “Jeff,” whom Sandeson knew through the drug trade.
Sandeson told the court that he was looking for someone who would deal cannabis in units of 20 pounds, that he was tired of the commute to Montreal and looking to “wrap up my drug dealing in Halifax.”
He said he spoke with “everyone I knew dealing in pound quantities” to find someone who could supply 20 pounds. Samson dealt in those quantities, Sandeson testified.
After an initial introduction at Jeff’s apartment on Aug. 5, Sandeson said he met Samson for the second time on Aug. 13. The two met at Samson’s apartment on South Street, where he looked at Samson’s products and discussed prices.
Sandeson said he was able to negotiate the price to $2,000 per pound — down from $2,100 — on a lower-grade strain of weed, but he said no commitments were made that night.
Expressing a fear of being robbed, Sandeson said he often pretended to work for someone else for his own safety — “people wouldn’t necessarily want to follow around and rob an intermediary who’s working on behalf of other people,” he said — and told Samson that he would need to consult the person he represented, who did not actually exist.
He and Samson texted each other during Aug. 14, and a deal eventually came together on Aug. 15.
The night of Samson’s death
That night, Sandeson said he went out to dinner with his girlfriend at the time, Sonja Gashus, around 7 or 8 p.m.
He said she had plans later to watch a TV show with one of her friends, which would give him time to do the deal with Samson, he testified.
However, Sandeson said he “wasn’t entirely convinced” that he wanted to meet up with Samson. He said Samson was “speeding things up on short notice” and wanted to sell more weed than was initially discussed.
Sandeson explained the two had previously talked about moving five to 10 pounds of cannabis at a time, but Samson indicated on Aug. 15 that he had 20 pounds ready to go.
Sandeson said he felt safer when “there’d be less money and drugs in one place at any one time.”
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He also told the court that he told Samson his apartment was a “safe house” — not wanting Samson to know where he lived — which Samson appeared “put off” by.
Sandeson said while the deal was $40,000 for 20 pounds, he didn’t have all the cash with him at the time. Sandeson told the court he was only intending on giving Samson $10,000 that night.
He said he also planned to confront Samson about “something else that happened earlier in the week” — an alleged home invasion and robbery at an acquaintance’s apartment that Samson was purportedly involved in.
After dinner, Sandeson said he asked Gashus to park their car on the street, rather than in their driveway, “to keep the car unassociated” with the apartment.
“If in confronting Taylor, things ended on a sour note, I didn’t want him leaving with the thought in his mind that I lived there, or that the car was associated with me or that address,” he testified.
While Gashus previously testified that Sandeson had asked her to leave, Sandeson says he doesn’t recall asking her to leave.
However, he said he believes he told her that a drug meeting would occur “to end my involvement in drug trafficking.”
Sandeson said after Gashus left to go to her friends’ place, he worked to “anonymize” the apartment — removing and hiding any references to himself and Dalhousie University.
He also prepared his apartment for a potential robbery, hiding his cash and MDMA. He said he had robbery on his mind because Jordan MacEwan, whose home was allegedly invaded and robbed by Samson, had warned him the previous day.
Sandeson said the evening of Aug. 15, he went to the apartment of Pookiel McCabe, who lived across the hall, asking him to hang around that evening in case something happened.
“I thought someone might try to rob the apartment,” he told the jury.
‘I pulled the trigger’
Security video footage from Sandeson’s apartment building’s hallway shows Sandeson entering around 10:25 p.m., with Samson walking behind him, carrying a large black duffel bag.
Sandeson told the court he had installed security cameras in his apartment in late spring or early summer to keep track of who was coming in and out.
Sandeson said Samson made a remark about the cameras with “some discomfort,” and he said he made a “lame joke” in an attempt to put him at ease.
He said once they were inside the apartment, he offered Samson a beer, in an attempt at a “diplomatic interaction, for lack of a better term.”
Sandeson said Samson “shot that down,” saying he wanted to “get this the f— over with.”
He testified that he went to his bedroom, where he had $10,000 in cash, and set it in front of Samson and told him to count it.
As Samson counted, Sandeson said he dumped the cannabis out of the duffel bag, put five pounds of cannabis back inside, and set it on a chair.
“The next thing I remember, he asked me where the rest of the money is, and I told him that he already got the rest of the money from Jordan,” said Sandeson, referring to the alleged home invasion two nights earlier.
He said Samson became agitated, “swearing in pretty much every exchange going forward.” Sandeson said he told Samson he was “lucky” to be getting anything at all.
That’s when, Sandeson testified, he lifted the baggy sweatshirt he was wearing to show him the gun he had in the front right pocket of his pants.
Asked by Craig why he showed Samson the gun, Sandeson said he “thought it would defuse the situation.”
“If you see a gun, then you’re going to listen to the person with the gun,” he told the court.
Sandeson claimed Samson eventually said something to the effect of “Is your pretty girlfriend home?”
“That stunned me, because I didn’t think he knew that was my home,” Sandeson testified.
He alleged Samson began lunging at him in an attempt to get the gun, and at some points both of their hands were on the firearm as they jostled for it.
Eventually, following an attempt to grab the gun, Sandeson said he shot Samson.
“I pulled the trigger,” said Sandeson, his voice breaking.
“Next thing I remember is, I couldn’t hear anything. I remember voicing the words, ‘What the f—?’ and I couldn’t hear it.”
He said Samson was slumped in a chair, and he said he heard a breath come from him that “didn’t sound natural.”
Sandeson said he checked Samson’s neck for a pulse and noticed there was blood “everywhere all over his head and neck.”
He described the rest of the night as “blurry.” He said he ran to McCabe’s apartment across the hall and told him and visitor Justin Blades to get out, as he didn’t want them to get in trouble.
McCabe and Blades had previously testified they saw a man slumped over in Sandeson’s apartment that night.
Sandeson said he felt “terrified, in total shock.”
“I didn’t know what to do, what to think. It didn’t seem real,” he said.
Asked why he did not call for help, Sandeson said once he saw how much blood there was, he knew there was nothing he could do for Samson.
He indicated he didn’t call the police because he knew he would get in trouble, noting there was “bloody drugs and money everywhere.”
“There was so much in there. … I was definitely going to go to jail for something,” he said.
That’s when he set to work cleaning the apartment, he said.
“I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Like a chicken with its head cut off,” said Sandeson.
He said he turned off his cameras around 11:30 p.m. because that’s when he started taking out the garbage and moving Samson’s body.
The “bloodiest” of the garbage, Sandeson said, he bagged up and put in a green bin outside his apartment.
He said he put Samson inside the black duffel bag and put the bag in the trunk of his Mazda.
Gashus had previously testified that when she returned, the apartment smelled like bleach and Sandeson appeared “rattled.”
During his testimony Monday, he said he told her someone at the meeting “freaked out,” there was a fight and it got bloody.
That night, Sandeson said he was unable to sleep and texted a number of people. He also said he texted Samson’s number, in what he described as a “lame attempt” to make it seem like he didn’t show up that night.
‘I didn’t know what to do’
The next morning, Sandeson said he drove around with Samson’s body in his car, unsure of where to leave it.
He said he went to a gas station in the Stewiacke area and bought a drink. After pouring it over Samson’s phone, he said he left it in a garbage can.
Sandeson testified he pulled into a parking lot near Truro, and carried Samson’s body onto a dike, placing it in the tides of the Bay of Fundy.
“I had been raised cautiously to fear the Fundy bay,” he said, referencing its strong tides.
He said he kept the duffel bag, thinking it would “stand out” if he left it.
“Taylor was covered in garbage bags, and I didn’t think someone would be as likely to take (them),” he said.
Sandeson described taking more garbage out on Aug. 18 – this time, to Truro, where his parents lived.
“I wanted to talk to my dad,” Sandeson told the jury. “I was scared, I didn’t know what to do.”
He said he didn’t end up talking to his father, but disposed of the garbage in a “structure” on the farm.
Sandeson was arrested the same day. He admitted to “not entirely” telling the truth to the officer who interviewed him.
“I was a drug trafficker. My gun had been out of the safe at a time that it shouldn’t have been,” he said.
“There were other crimes I could’ve been in trouble for.”
‘Someone’s son’
During cross-examination, Crown lawyer Carla Ball asked more questions about the disposal of Samson’s body.
“Did it ever occur to you that it was someone’s son … brother … boyfriend?” she asked.
He responded: yes.
By dumping him in the bay, “you knew that nobody would ever recover the remains of Taylor Samson,” Ball said.
Ball also reviewed Sandeson’s medical school experience at the Saba University School of Medicine in the Caribbean.
She suggested that Sandeson would have taken courses that would have trained him how to dissect a body.
Sandeson’s cross-examination is expected to continue Tuesday morning.
— with files from Callum Smith
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