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Secret recording details alleged murder plot, Sask. court hears

Curtis Vey and Angela Nicholson, accused of murder plot, heard in secretly recorded audio

A woman who was one of the intended victims of an alleged murder conspiracy appeared today in a Prince Albert, Sask., courtroom, testifying that her suspicion her husband was having an affair led her to secretly record a meeting between her husband and his mistress, who discussed a plan to kill their respective spouses.

Curtis Vey, 52, and Angela Nicholson, 51, are charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Police allege the two were having an affair and plotted to kill their spouses in 2013.

On Wednesday morning, Curtis Vey's wife, Brigitte, appeared in the witness box.

The court heard how Brigitte's suspicions about her husband grew after she caught him texting in the tub and would not say who he was communicating with. Brigitte told the court how she approached her son to ask about the possibility of an affair. At one point she confronted her husband about whether he was having an affair, but he denied it.

In her testimony, Brigitte described how the marriage began to crumble in October 2012, and that she continued to believe her husband was having an affair.

Brigitte said she started to make recordings around the house in December 2012, and January and June 2013. But an incriminating recording wasn't recorded until July 1.

In July 2013, Brigitte hid an iPod under her kitchen table and left it to record while she was away at work, hoping to find evidence of an affair. But what she captured instead was an alleged murder plot.

Prosecutors said Brigitte recorded Vey and Nicholson plotting to kill their spouses. The plan was to have Vey die in a house fire and Nicholson's husband, Jim Taylor, die from a drug overdose on Halloween.

Recording plays in court

The audio recorded on Brigitte's iPod played in the courtroom. In the recording, Vey and Nicholson are heard planning on getting into Nicholson's house while wearing gloves and doctoring his coffee.

The court heard the two accused talk about starting a fire in the Vey home, and how to keep it burning while leaving evidence of a grease fire on the stove. During the exchange, Vey, a farmer, is heard talking about using the Crop Production Show as his alibi during the fire.

During the recording, the two accused talk about getting together after their partners are gone and deciding on what would be an appropriate amount of time.

Brigitte told the court how she played the audio recording to her family, without her husband. The family decided to take the recording to police, and Vey and Nicholson were arrested on July 6, 2013.

Crown's opening arguments

In her opening remarks to a six­-man, six-­woman jury, prosecutor Lori O'Connor laid out the basics of the Crown's case. In addition to the iPod audio, O'Connor also plans to tender recordings that Vey and Nicholson made unwittingly with undercover police officers who had been placed in their cells after they were arrested.

The Crown's first witness on Tuesday was RCMP Cpl. Dereck Wierzbicki.

He described how officers kept Vey and Nicholson under surveillance for three days before arresting them and seizing a variety of cellphones and computers.

Officers also searched their homes, vehicles and property. Under cross­-examination by defence lawyer Aaron Fox, Wierzbicki said officers found no paperwork or other recordings where the couple discussed murdering their spouses.

The trial is scheduled to run nine days at the Court of Queen's Bench in Prince Albert.