The following is a timeline of the events around the bombing death of Victoria Shachtay, the charging of Brian Malley with first-degree murder, and the subsequent trial and conviction.
2004 — Shachtay is involved in a single-vehicle crash. Pregnant at the time, she is severely injured and paralyzed from the neck down. She gives birth to her daughter Destiny a month later.
2007 — Shachtay receives a settlement that after lawyer fees and other expenses is worth $575,000. She invests that money with Malley. An additional $265,000 is borrowed to increase the size of the investment.
2008 — The investment earns money. It peaks at $839,000.
October and November 2008 — The investment loses $390,000 due to economic pressures. Close to 92 per cent of the investment is in one stock, Enervest Diversified Income Trust. Shares were purchased at $6.31 but were sold at a loss of $3.18 per share.
April 2011 — The investment account is closed as the money is gone.
July 2011 — Malley purchases a six-inch-long, two-inch-wide galvanized steel-nipple pipe with threading at both ends and one end cap.
July or August 2011 — Shachtay calls Malley at his Assante Wealth Management office to ask for money to be transferred into her account. Malley is on a fishing trip and his assistant Barbara Tblus answers the phone. Tblus tells Shachtay the account is closed and Shachtay is shocked.
Oct. 15, 2011 — Malley makes his last payment to Shachtay. From 2007 to 2011, Malley had transferred more than $44,000 from his own accounts to Shachtay.
Nov. 25, 2011 — Shachtay opens a Christmas gift left on her doorstep. The gift disguises a pipe bomb that detonates when she opens it, killing her instantly.
Nov. 28, 2011 — Malley is first interviewed by police. He says Shachtay was not financially responsible and that’s why the account was drained. He also says police should look at Shachtay’s brother Derek, who fought over money; or a possible drug connection.
January to May 2012 — Police conduct 10 non-consecutive days of surveillance on Malley. DNA evidence is obtained by police from a napkin used by Malley at Wendy’s restaurant.
May 25, 2012 — Malley is arrested and police search his residence. DNA evidence found at the blast scene is matched to the evidence from the Wendy’s. Malley is charged with first-degree murder.
June 2012 — Malley’s friend and business partner Bob Yanew visits him in the Red Deer Remand Centre. Malley asks Yanew to buy a canister of gunpowder from a store they both went to a year prior.
June 29, 2012 — Malley is released on $20,000 bail. He goes to live with his mother-in-law in Edmonton.
September 2013 — Defence offers to provide investigators with what they say is the pipe Malley purchased in 2011.
October 2013 — While doing home renovation work at his mother-in-law’s residence, Malley said he protected the house’s natural gas line with the steel pipe and two end caps he purchased in July 2011.
May 2014 — ATCO comes to move the gas meter at the Edmonton residence. A day before, Malley with defence counsel Bob Aloneissi and Don Christal, a hired private investigator, video tape the cutting of concrete and the extraction of a steel pipe with two end caps.
September 2014 — Christal turns the pipe and end caps over to RCMP investigators.
Jan. 15, 2015 — The trial starts in Red Deer Court of Queen’s Bench with jury selection.
Feb. 24, 2015 — After six hours of deliberation, a jury of eight women and four men finds Malley guilty of first-degree murder, causing an explosion and sending an explosion. The murder conviction carries an automatic sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. Mr. Justice Kirk Sisson also sentences Malley to two years each, to be served concurrently, on the other two charges.