A Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge has ordered that a laptop containing a Bitcoin wallet be returned to the family of William Sandeson, who is serving a life sentence for the 2015 murder of fellow university student Taylor Samson during a drug deal.

Justice John Bodurtha ruled on Tuesday that prosecutors had failed to prove the cryptocurrency was connected to the killing, Global News reported. Sandeson, who appeared virtually at the hearing in Halifax, had filed a motion in April seeking the return of personal items seized when police searched his apartment after his arrest in 2015. The laptop holding the Bitcoin wallet was among the items, which have remained in the possession of authorities since the search.

"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," Bodurtha said, adding that its potential use in the deal was "hypothetical."

The wallet has been valued at anywhere from C$8,000 to more than C$200,000, and has been at the center of a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Samson's family. Sandeson has said the Bitcoin was worth between about $5,800 and $7,200 (C$8,000 to C$10,000), according to Global News, while a lawyer representing Samson's family in the separate civil action has said it could now be worth more than $144,000 (C$200,000). Global News did not report how much Bitcoin the wallet holds.

Bitcoin traded at only a few hundred dollars per coin in 2015, when the laptop was seized. The roughly ten years the laptop has spent in the possession of authorities are what turned a wallet once valued in the thousands of dollars into an asset that could now be worth six figures.

Bodurtha did rule, however, that about $3,600 (C$5,000) in cash found in Sandeson's apartment after the murder was "offence-related property," meaning it will not be returned.

The Sandeson case

Sandeson, then 23 and about to start medical school at Dalhousie University, arranged for Samson, a 22-year-old student at the same Halifax university, to come to his apartment on August 15, 2015, to sell him cannabis that Sandeson had arranged to buy for C$40,000, according to prosecutors at his 2023 trial.

Sandeson shot Samson, kept the drugs and the money, and later admitted to dumping his body in a river that feeds the Bay of Fundy. Samson's remains have never been found.

Sandeson was convicted of first-degree murder in 2017, but an appeals court overturned the verdict in 2020. At a second trial in 2023, he admitted to shooting Samson but said he acted in self-defense. A jury found him guilty of second-degree murder, which carries an automatic life sentence. He is serving his sentence in Quebec and will be eligible for parole in 2030.

The ruling clears the way for the laptop to be handed over to Sandeson's family, while the cash stays with the Crown. The decision addressed the criminal seizure only; the wallet's role in the wrongful death lawsuit brought by Samson's family remains a separate, unresolved question.