Judge Orders Bitcoin Wallet Returned to Family of Convicted Killer
Justice John Bodurtha ruled the Crown failed to prove a Bitcoin wallet on a seized laptop was tied to Taylor Samson's 2015 killing. The device goes to William Sandeson's family; C$5,000 in cash stays forfeited. Estimates of the wallet's value range from C$8,000 to over C$200,000.
Prosecutors in Nova Scotia could not show that a Bitcoin wallet on a seized laptop had anything to do with the 2015 killing of Taylor Samson, and so the device is going back to the family of the man serving a life sentence for his murder, William Sandeson. Justice John Bodurtha of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court issued the ruling on Tuesday, November 3.
The decision turned on the Crown's burden of proof. In his ruling, Bodurtha said:
"The Crown has not met its burden to demonstrate the cryptocurrency was used as part of the drug transaction, proceeds of crime, or otherwise tainted by criminality"
Justice John Bodurtha
The judge called the potential use of the Bitcoin in the drug deal "hypothetical." The laptop and its contents were never introduced as evidence at Sandeson's criminal trial, so a device that was contested for years played no part in the case that put him behind bars.
The family did not get everything back. About C$5,000 (roughly $3,600) in cash found in Sandeson's Halifax apartment was ruled offence-related property, and that forfeiture stands. Sandeson, who appeared virtually at the hearing in Halifax, had filed a motion in April seeking the return of personal items seized after his arrest in 2015.
How much is in the wallet?
Nobody agrees. Sandeson has put the value at C$8,000 to C$10,000, while a lawyer for Samson's family says it could now exceed C$200,000, about $144,000. Global News, which first reported the ruling, did not say how much Bitcoin the wallet actually holds.
The underlying case
Samson, a fellow university student, was killed on August 15, 2015, during a cannabis deal. His body has never been found.
Sandeson was convicted of first-degree murder in 2017, but an appeals court overturned that verdict in 2020. At a second trial in 2023 he admitted the shooting and claimed self-defense; he was convicted of second-degree murder, which carries an automatic life sentence. He is serving that sentence in Quebec and becomes eligible for parole in 2030.
What it means
The ruling underscores how hard it can be to tie digital assets to a crime, even when they sit on a device seized in a murder investigation. Forfeiture requires the Crown to show a connection to the offence, and the presence of a wallet in the case file does not supply that connection on its own. Here the judge found the Crown's theory never got past the hypothetical.
The fight may not end with this hearing. Samson's family has a separate wrongful death civil suit in which the wallet was central, and it previously sought an injunction in that case. The forfeiture ruling is likely to complicate that effort, though any further move would play out on the civil track rather than in the criminal forfeiture proceeding.
