Quick to stand trial for first-degree murder

Scott Douglas Quick will be made to stand trial on a charge of first-degree murder for the 2006 hit-andrun death of his estranged wife, an Ontario court judge ruled Monday.

Ontario Court Justice Lloyd Dean presided over four months of testimony in a preliminary hearing into the case. On Monday, Dean ruled there is enough evidence to proceed to trial.

A court order, standard in preliminary hearings, prohibits publication of the evidence heard. The threshold for evidence needed at a preliminary hearing to be committed to stand trial is much lower than what’s needed for a conviction at the trial itself.

Quick, 50, is accused of planning and carrying out the murder of his estranged wife, Nancy Galbraith-Quick. The 40-year-old mother was run down by a stolen van as she crossed the street in front of St. William school in Emeryville where she worked as an educational assistant. The incident occurred on Feb. 23, 2006.

Police at the time said the van sat in the church parking lot near the school, the driver waiting for Galbraith-Quick’s arrival. The van sped toward her, throwing her into a tree. She died in hospital five days later without regaining consciousness.

At the time of Quick’s arrest, police said he had been a “person of interest” from the start. But the OPP didn’t charge him until March 2015, more than nine years after his estranged wife’s death. Denied bail, Quick has been in jail since.

Quick will appear in Superior Court on Jan. 6 for a scheduling hearing.

The trial is expected to take about two months, Quick’s lawyer, Patrick Ducharme, said after Monday’s ruling.

He declined to comment on the ruling or the upcoming trial, which he said could be scheduled as early as July.

Quick was arrested at work in Belleville. He left his job at Fiat Chrysler and moved to the small town of Brighton, near Belleville, along with his two children.

Windsor’s courthouse had never seen a preliminary hearing like Quick’s. Prosecutors — two are handing Quick’s case — subpoenaed about 100 witnesses. The lineup on the first day of the preliminary hearing in January wound out the front door and down the block.

The case against Quick is circumstantial. Police, at the time of the incident, said a man was seen abandoning the stolen van near I.C. Roy Drive in Lakeshore near where it had been taken that same morning.

A year later, police re-enacted the incident to show on television. Reward money was upped to $50,000 for information leading to an arrest. Even Quick, in the early days after his estranged wife’s death, offered a reward, but never specified the amount.

Police said Quick’s arrest came without the reward money ever being claimed.