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Convicted Killer Seeks Return of Seized Property and Crypto Laptop

The filings test how far police must keep a convict’s belongings, including cryptocurrency locked on a laptop.

William Sandeson, left, arrives for his preliminary hearing at provincial court in Halifax on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016. Sandeson is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Taylor Samson, a fellow Dalhousie University student, who was last seen on Aug. 15, 2015 and whose body has not been found. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese
William Michael Sandeson is escorted into the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal in Halifax in October 2023 to seek bail pending an appeal of his conviction for second-degree murder in the August 2015 shooting death of fellow Dalhousie University student Taylor Samson. Sandeson's bail application was unsuccessful. The Appeal Court upheld his conviction in a December 2025 decision.
William Michael Sandeson arrives at Halifax provincial court in September 2015 to face a charge of first-degree murder in the August 2015 disappearance of fellow Dalhousie University student Taylor Samson.
Taylor Samson was shot and killed on the night of Aug. 15, 2015, after going to William Sandeson’s apartment on Henry Street in Halifax to sell him 20 pounds, or about nine kilograms, of marijuana for $40,000. Samson’s remains have not been recovered. Sandeson is serving a life sentence for second-degree murder.

Overview

  • William Sandeson is asking the Nova Scotia Supreme Court to order police to return belongings seized from his Halifax apartment, including up to US$300 in cash, to him or his immediate family.
  • In his affidavit, he excludes certain items from the request, such as his handgun, ammunition, any controlled substances, and bloodstained Canadian cash, and he asks that any knives be transferred to a family member.
  • He has also launched a separate bid to recover a laptop that he says holds the digital keys to cryptocurrency, which his family has been unable to fully access.
  • A judge said in a 2024 hearing that Sandeson held at least $443,000 in bitcoin and $198,000 in cash at the time he was incarcerated in 2015.
  • Sandeson is serving a life sentence for killing fellow Dalhousie student Taylor Samson in 2015, and he testified that he disposed of the body in a tidal river, which has left the remains unrecovered.