Texas man accused of killing his wife was able to flee to Italy — allegedly on an Air Canada flight

A Texas murder suspect’s escape to Italy via Toronto could potentially lead to a protracted legal battle over his extradition, in a case that, as of Friday, is now a People magazine cover story on newsstands in many North American regions.

But so far, numerous questions posed to Public Safety Canada, Canada Border Services Agency and airline officials by CBC News have not shed any light on how it is that Lee Gilley, facing an imminent trial in Houston, managed to board an Air Canada flight earlier this month from Canada’s busiest airport to Milan.

Gilley, 39, arrived at Milan Malpensa Airport on May 3 and presented a passport and other identification documents from Belgium in the name of Lejeune Jean Luc Olivier, according to an affidavit filed by a U.S. marshal to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He was then taken into custody by Italian immigration officials, and U.S. officials were notified a day later through Interpol.

Gilley arrived in Italy via Air Canada Flight 894, according to the affidavit. That flight originates in Pearson airport in Toronto, with a stop in Montreal, before continuing to Milan.

Air Canada declined comment on Gilley’s travels in response to CBC News, citing it as a “police matter.”

CBSA cites Privacy Act

The outstanding questions regarding Gilley’s escape are numerous, beginning in Texas. Gilley was not jailed ahead of trial even after mid-April news reporting, based on court documents, revealed he had allegedly discussed with an unidentified woman online the possibility of fleeing to Mexico or other countries.

It is not clear how he got from Texas to Canada, though he removed his GPS ankle monitor on May 1, according to court documents, and was in northern Italy just two days later. He removed his ankle monitor on a Friday night, but according to a report from the Houston Chronicle, the judge and lawyers in Gilley’s case weren’t made aware of the tampering until the following Monday.

Whether he presented the Belgian passport or other identification documents at Air Canada kiosks or to Canadian immigration officials is also not known, though it is known he was required to surrender his authentic U.S. passport when he was released on $1-million US bond in mid-October 2024.

Public Safety Canada, in response to CBC News, deferred questions to Canada Border Services Agency. A spokesperson for the CBSA said that they couldn’t publicly comment on the Gilley case, citing the Privacy Act. The CBSA said it “works regularly and closely with domestic and international law enforcement partners in a joint effort to assist with investigations, and we regularly share relevant information on border and national security issues.”

Gilley is accused in the 2024 strangulation homicide of his pregnant wife, Christa. Born Christa Bauer, the victim lived in Ohio, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, where she first met Gilley while attending university. Years later, according to Houston media reports, they reconnected and decided to move to Texas in 2014.

They were raising their two children and preparing for the arrival of a third when the Houston Police Department was advised of a report of a possible suicide at their northwest city residence late on Oct. 7, 2024. Gilley was transported to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Within days, the 38-year-old woman’s death was instead ruled a homicide caused by compression of the neck, and Gilley was charged with capital murder, a charge in which prosecutors are eligible to seek the death penalty. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office hadn’t declared whether they would do so, even as Gilley’s trial had been scheduled to begin in a matter of weeks before he absconded.

Tim Ballengee, lawyer representing the victim’s family has said, in statements to the media, that Gilley’s stunning escape from pretrial monitoring has been “devastating to the family.”

“The Bauers are profoundly disappointed by the breakdown of the system,” Ballengee told the Chronicle.

Gilley’s legal representation was being led by Dick DeGuerin, arguably the most well-known lawyer in Texas after having represented in his career, among others, Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh, former U.S. congressman Tom DeLay and Robert Durst, whose history of homicidal violence was depicted in the HBO series The Jinx.

DeGuerin on May 4 told Bryce Newberry — a reporter for Houston’s ABC News affiliate who has spoken to CBC News by email about the Gilley case — that he was concerned “that the prosecution will try to say that it’s evidence of consciousness of guilt that he’s running from it, but I think he’s just scared.”

Read the U.S. marshal’s allegations regarding Gilley’s escape:

Extradition process unclear at his point

Gilley declared his innocence at a preliminary court hearing in Turin, Italy, this week. He said he was seeking asylum there, according to an NBC News report, to escape a possible death sentence and chose Italy “because there is strong public opposition to the death penalty.”

“I did not kill my wife,” said Gilley. “The only crime I committed was fleeing. I fled to avoid being killed.”

Gilley has now been charged in the U.S. with the federal crime of interstate flight to avoid prosecution, in addition to his state murder charges.

Italy and the U.S. have an extradition treaty last updated in the 1980s, but like a number of countries, Italy balks at sending suspects to a country where they could face the death penalty. Similar battles over defendants facing the possibility of execution if convicted have historically played out within North America, as well. Convicted California serial killer Charles Ng and convicted Pennsylvania murderer Joseph Kindler each spent about six years in Canadian custody before being extradited to the U.S. to be found guilty of their crimes.

The most famous case involving an American fugitive who transited Canada before being caught in Europe is arguably that of James Earl Ray, later convicted in the 1968 assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Ray, who spent weeks in Toronto, used a living police officer’s name to obtain a passport — the surname was misspelled, for good measure — from a travel agency.

Ray was subsequently detained in England. The failure to stop Ray in Canada caused the federal government great embarrassment and led to a number of changes in the issuance of passports.