An assistant to a financial advisor charged in a bomb-murder plot said the victim was considered a difficult client.
Brian Malley, 57, who took care of murder victim Victoria Shachtay’s finances, was planning to drop her as a client once he had recouped money lost on her investments, said his former assistant Barbara Tblus in Red Deer Court of Queen’s Bench on Friday.
Tblus said Shachtay typically called the office for money and was often upset that funds were not in her account.
Shachtay was especially upset in the last phone call Tblus took from her a few months before Shachtay was killed on Nov. 25, 2011 by a pipe bomb disguised as a present that was left at the door of her Innisfail home.
“She was curt and upset before. But this one was different. She was really upset,” Tblus said during often emotional testimony.
Defence lawyer Bob Aloneissi pressed Tblus on why she had not told police the same story, suggesting she was making it up.
“I’m not making it up,” said Tblus.
Earlier in her testimony she said she and Brian Malley’s wife Christine had been best friends. They hunted, fished, ran and did yoga together.
She said she looked up to Brian, for whom she worked from June 2009 until his arrest in May 2012.
But over time her feelings changed and told police she no longer considered herself on “Team Malley”
It was also revealed that Tblus had complained to a labour board about not getting a final pay cheque from Malley.