Saskatchewan pair pleads not guilty in alleged plot to murder their spouses

PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. — The father of an NHL player and his alleged lover have pleaded not guilty to charges that they plotted to murder their spouses.

The trial has started for Curtis Vey, the father of Vancouver Canucks forward Linden Vey, and Angela Nicholson, who each face two charges of conspiracy to commit murder.

Crown prosecutor Lori O’Connor said in her opening address that in July 2013, Curtis Vey’s wife, Brigette, suspected her husband was cheating on her. She hid her iPod under the kitchen table and set it to record when she went to work.

“She turned it off when she returned at the end of the day. What she heard as she listened to the iPod recording shocked her,” O’Connor told the jury.

“Not only were her fears confirmed — he had been unfaithful to her — but he and the woman he was involved with, Angela Nicholson, were discussing a detailed plan to kill their spouses.”

O’Connor said the jury will hear that the plan was to kill Brigette Vey in a house fire and Nicholson’s husband by overdose.

The first witness Tuesday was RCMP Cpl. Dereck Wierzbicki, who was with the major crime unit at the time.

Wierzbicki arranged searches of Vey’s farmhouse in the Wakaw area and Nicholson’s home in Melfort to look for laptops, computers and cellphones. He also looked at their phone and text message records, but admitted under cross-examination from Vey’s lawyer, Aaron Fox, that nothing was found.

“Would I be correct as well that looking at them that you did not find a plan to murder these people?” Fox asked Wierzbicki.

“Correct,” the officer replied.

Fox also questioned why Wierzbicki wrote, in a technical request for review of the electronic devices, that the defence would be “it was just a conversation, a fantasy that they were playing out.” Wierzbicki acknowledged they were looking for evidence to solidify the charge.

“Surely your role should have been to look at all of the evidence to see whether it supports the charge or doesn’t support the charge,” pressed Fox.

Wierzbicki said police were looking for evidence to “corroborate” the charge. They were to “find evidence, not create evidence,” said the officer.

Undercover officers were also put in the cells with Vey and Nicholson after they were arrested on July 6, 2013. Those recordings were entered as evidence Tuesday, but not yet heard.

O’Connor said the past three years have been hard on Brigette Vey, who at that point had been married to Curtis Vey for 28 years.

Brigette Vey is scheduled to testify Wednesday.

The trial is expected to last two weeks in Court of Queen’s Bench in Prince Albert.

Jennifer Graham, The Canadian Press