True Crime/Paranormal/Conspiracy Theories Part VII

Crimes of Dellen Millard & Mark Smich

Dellen Millard (born August 30, 1985) and Mark Smich (born August 13, 1987) are two Canadian convicted murderers from Toronto, Ontario, who together murdered Laura Babcock and Tim Bosma in separate killings in July 2012 and May 2013 respectively. They were both convicted of the murders in December 2017 and June 2016, respectively. Millard has also been convicted individually of first-degree murder for the 2012 death of his father, Wayne Millard, which was initially deemed a suicide, but was later reinvestigated. The guilty verdict for that charge was delivered on September 24, 2018.

Background

Dellen Millard

Dellen Millard was born on August 30, 1985, to Wayne Millard and Madeleine Burns. Wayne was a pilot who had worked at both Air Canada and Millardair, an aviation firm founded by his father, Carl. Burns was a flight attendant at Air Canada when they met. Millard grew up in Toronto, Ontario, the only child of his wealthy parents. In 1999, at age 14, Millard set a world record for the youngest person to fly both a helicopter and a fixed-wing plane solo on the same day.

Millard owned several properties in the Toronto area, including a $1.2 million home in Etobicoke, a $500,000 condominium in an unspecified location, a $2 million residential rental property, and an $850,000 hundred-acre farm in Ayr. In May 2013, he finalized the purchase of a $627,000 condo in Toronto's Distillery District.

Mark Smich

Smich was born on August 13, 1987. Unlike Millard's parents, Smich's parents were middle-class. He had a criminal record involving petty offenses such as drug possession, driving impaired, mischief, failure to appear, and breach of conditions. Smich sold drugs and cigarettes for a living and occasionally worked odd jobs in Millard's hangar.

Millard and Smich's relationship

Millard and Smich were introduced around 2006. Friends described their friendship as initially one-sided: "Mark worshipped Dell, but Dell hated him". By 2011, they had grown closer, and in 2012 Smich and his girlfriend Marlena Meneses moved into the basement suite of the Millard family house. Around the same time, Millard began to arrange for Smich and other friends to accompany him on what he termed "missions": night-time excursions to steal items such as Bobcat construction equipment, lawnmowers, and even trees. A friend later described these "missions" as being strictly "for the thrill of it", as Millard had more than enough money to have purchased such things if he had wanted to.

Murder of Tim Bosma

The night of the murder

32-year-old Tim Bosma was a Canadian citizen from Ancaster, a small community within the city of Hamilton, Ontario. Bosma had not previously known Millard or Smich. The pair contacted Bosma by phone to arrange a test drive of a pickup truck he had been selling online on Kijiji. Millard and Smich arrived on foot for the test drive just after 9:20 pm on May 6, 2013, telling Bosma's wife Sharlene they had been dropped off by a friend. Bosma told his wife he would be right back, but none of the three men returned. After several hours, Sharlene contacted the police to report her husband missing.

During the test drive, Bosma was shot and killed. It is unclear whether it was Smich or Millard who ultimately pulled the trigger. Bosma's body was incinerated that night at the Millard hangar.

Investigation

The Hamilton Police Service treated the Bosma case as "a missing person's investigation with unusual circumstances". They conducted a ground search of the area around Bosma's home with the assistance of a canine unit and local search and rescue and held a press briefing on May 7. Police quickly discovered that the phone used to contact Bosma had been a burner phone. On May 9, Bosma's deactivated cell phone was found in an industrial area on the west side of nearby Brantford.