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RED DEER — A Crown prosecutor says an Alberta financial adviser built a pipe bomb in his garage, wrapped it as a Christmas present and left it on the doorstep of a disabled client.

Anders Quist told a jury in his opening address Monday that Brian Malley wanted Victoria Shachtay dead. The man had lost all of her money and had resorted to giving her cash out of his own pocket, Quist said.

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“He was going into debt to keep her going,” the lawyer said. “He killed her to cut his losses.”

Malley, dressed in a suit and tie, stood in court and pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, causing an explosion and sending a person an explosive device.

His lawyer, Bob Aloneissi, called the charges “horrible and heinous” and told the jury someone else was out to get Shachtay or her family.

Shachtay, a 23-year-old single mother, died instantly when she opened a box inside the green-and-gold gift bag in her apartment in Innisfail, 30 kilometres south of Red Deer, on Nov. 25, 2011. She had been sitting in her electric wheelchair at a dining-room table.