Canadian judge orders Bitcoin wallet returned to family of convicted killer William Sandeson
A Nova Scotia judge has ruled that a laptop holding a Bitcoin wallet must go back to the family of William Sandeson. Sandeson is serving a life sentence for the 2015 murder of fellow university student Taylor Samson.The reason is simple. The Crown could not prove the crypto had anything to do with the crime.Justice John Bodurtha of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court issued the decision on Tuesday, November 3, according to Global News. Prosecutors had sought to keep the device and its contents.The core finding is narrow but significant. Bodurtha determined that prosecutors had not shown the digital assets on the laptop were proceeds of crime. He also found they had not been connected to Samson's killing.Not every seized asset got the same treatment. The court upheld the forfeiture of C$5,000 in cash found in Sandeson's Halifax apartment. That money was deemed proceeds of crime.The value of the wallet is where things get murky. Sandeson himself put the figure at approximately C$8,000. Other estimates tied to civil litigation run to more than C$200,000.One more detail stands out. The laptop and its contents were never introduced as evidence during Sandeson's criminal trial. The device was a point of contention for years, yet it played no role in the case that put him behind bars.The underlying facts are grim. Samson was killed on August 15, 2015, during a cannabis transaction that went wrong. His body has never been recovered.Sandeson was convicted of second-degree murder in February 2023 for the fatal shooting. He received a life sentence.The legal fight did not end with the criminal verdict. Samson's family pursued a civil suit against Sandeson and previously sought an injunction in that case. The wallet's potential value made it a natural target in any effort to recover damages.Forfeiture law works a bit like a chain of custody for money. The state usually has to show a link between an asset and criminal activity before it can keep that asset.Bodurtha's ruling applies that principle to crypto without carving out any special exception. A Bitcoin wallet got the same evidentiary treatment a bank account or a stack of cash would get. In this case, the cash met the standard and the crypto did not.For Samson's family, the ruling likely complicates the civil fight. The wallet was at the heart of their wrongful death claim. Now it is headed back to Sandeson's family rather than staying in state custody.The family previously pursued an injunction in that case, which signals how much attention they have paid to the wallet. Any further move would play out in the civil track, not the criminal one.For prosecutors, the lesson is about evidence. Seizing a device is the easy part. Linking the crypto on it to a crime requires a trail, and the court found that trail missing here. The cash forfeiture shows the Crown can meet that bar when the facts support it.