In less than a month, the financial advisor convicted of setting a bomb on the doorstep and ultimately killing a former client will have his appeal heard.
Brian Andrew Malley, 59, of Innisfail will go before the Calgary Court of Appeal on Sept. 14. He was convicted of first-degree murder on Feb. 24, 2014 by a jury and sentenced to life in prison, without the possibility of parole for 25 years, by Justice Kirk Sisson.
Victoria Shachtay, 23, was killed on Nov. 25, 2011 opening a gift left on her doorstep. The paraplegic single mother opened the gift disguised as a bomb, it went off and killed her instantly.
A 2004 car collision left Shachtay confined to a wheelchair. In 2007, she received a large settlement from the crash and invested $575,000 of the money and a $264,000 loan at Malley’s recommendation through the company Assante Wealth Management.
By the spring of 2011, the money had run out. Between April and November 2011, Malley made $30,000 in payments to Shachtay from his own debit and credit card accounts, even going into overdraft.
Malley was arrested on May 27, 2012, following a six-month investigation by the Innisfail RCMP, RCMP post blast national response team, explosive disposal and technology section, tech crimes, special tactical operations, criminal analysis section, special surveillance units and forensic labs.
Malley’s counsel has maintained throughout the proceedings that investigators had tunnel vision and focused in on Malley without considering other alternatives. After the conviction defence counsel Bob Aloneissi, of Edmonton, said his client was wrongfully convicted and compared it to the convictions of Guy Paul Morin and David Milgaard. Milgaard was acquitted after serving 20 years in prison for a murder he did not commit while Morin was exonerated by DNA evidence.
“The Canadian Justice System’s Hall of Shame for Wrongful Convictions has a new candidate for induction: Brian Malley,” he wrote in an email to the Advocate.
“Malley’s credentials are that he was accused of a horrific murder, and he suffered the injustice of a tunnel vision investigation which skewed the facts to fit their suspect.”