NTSB Identification: WPR13LA222
14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Wednesday, May 08, 2013 in Honolulu, HI
Aircraft: ROBINSON HELICOPTER R22 BETA, registration: N5ZK
Injuries: 1 Minor,1 Uninjured.
This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed. NTSB investigators may not have traveled in support of this investigation and used data provided by various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report.
On May 08, 2013, about 1520 Hawaiian standard time, a Robinson R22 Beta, N5ZK, collided with an unoccupied parked automobile following a total loss of engine power while maneuvering over Honolulu, Hawaii. HLM Aviation owned the helicopter, and Hawaii Pacific Aviation (doing business as Mauna Loa Helicopters) was operating the helicopter under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91. The certified flight instructor (CFI) was not injured and the passenger sustained minor injuries; the helicopter sustained substantial damage. The local aerial observation flight departed from Honolulu International Airport about 1455. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan had been filed.
The CFI stated that the purpose of the flight was for her to orbit the helicopter over an area known as Punchbowl, located about 5 nautical miles south of the airport. She departed as planned and proceeded to Punchbowl, completing two orbits before deciding she needed to add carburetor heat. The CFI slowed the helicopter to about 35 knots in an effort to help facilitate the passenger in taking his aerial photographs. While maneuvering about 3,000 feet above ground level (agl), the engine suddenly experienced a total loss of power, which was immediately followed by the low rpm light and horn activating.
The CFI further reported that in response to the engine failure she lowered the collective and entered an autorotation. She configured the helicopter at a 60-knot airspeed and maneuvered to land on a one-way street below that had no wires in the flight path. She began to flare about 40 knots agl and the helicopter touched down on the road and skidded into a parked automobile.
The wreckage was taken to a hangar for further examination.
The mechanic who is taking the blame for last week's helicopter crash in downtown Honolulu says he's buying a new copter for the company that leased the aircraft. He's also buying a new car for the college student whose parked Mazda was badly damaged when the helicopter skidded down a street.
Brant Swigart said Tuesday he's making the purchases to make up for not seeing the problem that caused the small helicopter's engine failure. No one was badly hurt when the pilot was forced to crash-land on the street, but Swigart said he feels terrible that it could have been deadly.
Buying a replacement helicopter for Mauna Loa Helicopters shows Swigart's character, said the company's president, Benjamin Fouts.
"He's just trying to take responsibility for what happened and make sure he does the right thing," Fouts said. "He's truly one-of-a-kind."
Soon after last week's crash, Swigart came forward to say the engine failure was his fault because he overlooked incorrect rigging that caused a cable to snap.
Fouts said while a brand-new Robinson R22 Beta can cost $270,000, Swigart will buy something that's similar to the condition of the 1992 copter. Fouts said he doesn't know how much that will cost.
Pilot Julia Link was a bit apprehensive about getting back in the pilot's seat, but she flew a helicopter Monday for the first time since the emergency landing. Fouts said he and Link went on a flight over Punchbowl Crater, which is where she was flying last week with a photographer taking aerial shots.
When the helicopter lost power, her knowledge of the area helped her land on a street that she knew was a one-way and had no overhead wires, Fouts said.
"I just couldn't believe how well she handled it," he said.
Swigart called the Hawaii Pacific University student Monday about replacing his car.
"I figure he's pretty much an innocent victim," he said.
Matthew Lau was taking final exams when the helicopter damaged his 2012 Mazda 6. He said he's not sure if he'll take Swigart up on his offer or go through insurance.
Lau, 28, said his insurance company is determining whether the car is a total loss.
"I respect he took responsibility for this," Lau said. "It's great that Brant came out and said he'd buy me a new one outright."
Lau said he had saved up while serving in the Army National Guard and doing three tours in Iraq to buy the brand new car.
Swigart said he doesn't have the $22,000 in cash to replace that car, but he'll either take out a loan or take care of Lau's new car payments.
"I'm trying to find money all day," he said. "I'll make it happen."
Swigart has been commended for taking responsibility, but he said he's just trying to do what's right.
"If his insurance company is going to sue, I might as well buy him a car," he said. "What's the point in me running and hiding?"
He said he also wants to try and prevent insurance rates from increasing for Fouts and Lau.
He said he doesn't regret coming forward and taking blame: "I just feel that's the way everybody should be."
Story and Reaction: http://www.staradvertiser.com
http://registry.faa.gov/N5ZK
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Cape Canaveral residents worry helicopter tours could disrupt peace
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —
Some residents of Cape Canaveral, in Brevard County, are worried that a plan to start a helicopter tour business will disturb the peace in their neighborhood.
Florida Biplanes and Helicopters pilot Mark Grainger disagrees.
Tuesday, he put on a test flight demonstration east of State Road A1A.
Residents weren't the only ones watching the demonstration of the four-seater Robinson R-44. The proposal has to get through planning and zoning and the City Council. Representatives from both were at the landing pad.
Grainger hopes to operate his chopper seven days a week between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.
Resident Marlene Woodside has concerns.
"It is close. They are noisy. The second reason (is) sometimes flights have accidents. I would not want that to happen anywhere," Woodside said.
Resident Barbra Nyberg said it would be good for the area.
"So long as we could keep the noise down and keeping the helicopters from flying over our sanctuary," Nyberg said.
Ultimately, the Cape Canaveral City Council has to approve or reject the plan.
"There are other places that are probably suitable for it as well. But a residential seaside community may not be the best place," Mayor Pro Tem John Bond said.
Grainger said he would have no desire to be in any business if it wasn't safe.
"I'm a 22-year pilot. I actively fly for a major airline now. My whole life, I've been actively trained in mitigating risks and maintaining safety," Grainger said.
There's no word yet on when the City Council will take its vote.
Story and Video: http://www.wftv.com
Some residents of Cape Canaveral, in Brevard County, are worried that a plan to start a helicopter tour business will disturb the peace in their neighborhood.
Florida Biplanes and Helicopters pilot Mark Grainger disagrees.
Tuesday, he put on a test flight demonstration east of State Road A1A.
Residents weren't the only ones watching the demonstration of the four-seater Robinson R-44. The proposal has to get through planning and zoning and the City Council. Representatives from both were at the landing pad.
Grainger hopes to operate his chopper seven days a week between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.
Resident Marlene Woodside has concerns.
"It is close. They are noisy. The second reason (is) sometimes flights have accidents. I would not want that to happen anywhere," Woodside said.
Resident Barbra Nyberg said it would be good for the area.
"So long as we could keep the noise down and keeping the helicopters from flying over our sanctuary," Nyberg said.
Ultimately, the Cape Canaveral City Council has to approve or reject the plan.
"There are other places that are probably suitable for it as well. But a residential seaside community may not be the best place," Mayor Pro Tem John Bond said.
Grainger said he would have no desire to be in any business if it wasn't safe.
"I'm a 22-year pilot. I actively fly for a major airline now. My whole life, I've been actively trained in mitigating risks and maintaining safety," Grainger said.
There's no word yet on when the City Council will take its vote.
Story and Video: http://www.wftv.com
Unattended chopper takes off without pilot
The Civil Aviation Authority has called for a report from the pilot of a helicopter that took off without him, at Tarras.
CAA spokesman Matthew Shore told the Otago Daily Times the Robinson R22 helicopter had been ''left unattended'' with the engine running on April 10.
''It became airborne, spun around and struck the ground.''
In the process, the helicopter's tail clipped the pilot on the back of the head.
The pilot was shocked but not injured, Mr Shore said.
The ODT understands the pilot was Dan Perriam, of Wanaka. Mr Shore said the matter was regarded as a ''relatively routine incident''. Most likely once the authority had seen the report and all questions had been answered, no further investigation would be required.
''We will get a full report from the operator and we will review it from there and see if we need to take any more action.''
He would not provide the name of the pilot and could not say how much damage was done to the helicopter although it ''nosed down and overturned''.
Mr Shore said there had been ''a couple'' of similar incidents recently and it was ''remarkably common''.
Source: http://www.odt.co.nz
CAA spokesman Matthew Shore told the Otago Daily Times the Robinson R22 helicopter had been ''left unattended'' with the engine running on April 10.
''It became airborne, spun around and struck the ground.''
In the process, the helicopter's tail clipped the pilot on the back of the head.
The pilot was shocked but not injured, Mr Shore said.
The ODT understands the pilot was Dan Perriam, of Wanaka. Mr Shore said the matter was regarded as a ''relatively routine incident''. Most likely once the authority had seen the report and all questions had been answered, no further investigation would be required.
''We will get a full report from the operator and we will review it from there and see if we need to take any more action.''
He would not provide the name of the pilot and could not say how much damage was done to the helicopter although it ''nosed down and overturned''.
Mr Shore said there had been ''a couple'' of similar incidents recently and it was ''remarkably common''.
Source: http://www.odt.co.nz
Taxpayers foot the bill to fly near-empty airplanes (With Video)
By Scott MacFarlane, WHIO-TV
Millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent to fly near-empty commercial airplanes into small town airports around the country.
It is all because of a controversial federal program called "Essential Air Service," a program we put to the test.
It cost me just $100 to get on a plane to Staunton, Virginia. It cost taxpayers $133. Why are taxpayers picking up so much of the tab for passengers who fly into small airports like Staunton, Great Bend, Kansas and Altoona, Pennsylvania? A federal program that pays 200-million tax dollars a year to subsidize passengers tickets at 118 tiny airports nationwide.
It's done to make it cheaper for the passengers and to keep the airports in operation.
Dan Ronan, of the American Bus Association said, "Can we really afford as a nation to keep subsidizing people to fly on empty airplanes, when there are better ways to get them there?"
I took two flights. The first one from Washington D.C. to Staunton, Virginia. Then I traveled from Staunton to Beckley, West Virginia. The first flight was so empty, the crew asked the passengers to evenly distribute the weight. The second leg to Beckley cost taxpayers $500. There was only one other passenger onboard. There were only two passengers at the airport when I arrived and I was told that on some days planes depart completely empty.
When we tested the flight from Atlanta to Athens, Georgia, the time from check-in to arrival was not much faster than a car ride.
Seventeen cities get Essential Air Service, costing taxpayers between one and three million dollars a year. In cities like Johnstown and Altoona, Pennsylvania, the airports are heavily promoted to attract business.
"They have economics that can benefit from having that air service available," said Sen. Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania.
One passenger on the flight to Staunton, Virginia said his town is proud and pleased to have these lower cost flights. .
"It's a good commute for workers to go back and forth or for business people. It helps industry and CEO's," said Charles Grimm, a Virginia businessman.
In part, because each of the 118 small airports has a congressman, the program will continue this year despite stiff government budget cuts.
Story and Video: http://www.whiotv.com
Millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent to fly near-empty commercial airplanes into small town airports around the country.
It is all because of a controversial federal program called "Essential Air Service," a program we put to the test.
It cost me just $100 to get on a plane to Staunton, Virginia. It cost taxpayers $133. Why are taxpayers picking up so much of the tab for passengers who fly into small airports like Staunton, Great Bend, Kansas and Altoona, Pennsylvania? A federal program that pays 200-million tax dollars a year to subsidize passengers tickets at 118 tiny airports nationwide.
It's done to make it cheaper for the passengers and to keep the airports in operation.
Dan Ronan, of the American Bus Association said, "Can we really afford as a nation to keep subsidizing people to fly on empty airplanes, when there are better ways to get them there?"
I took two flights. The first one from Washington D.C. to Staunton, Virginia. Then I traveled from Staunton to Beckley, West Virginia. The first flight was so empty, the crew asked the passengers to evenly distribute the weight. The second leg to Beckley cost taxpayers $500. There was only one other passenger onboard. There were only two passengers at the airport when I arrived and I was told that on some days planes depart completely empty.
When we tested the flight from Atlanta to Athens, Georgia, the time from check-in to arrival was not much faster than a car ride.
Seventeen cities get Essential Air Service, costing taxpayers between one and three million dollars a year. In cities like Johnstown and Altoona, Pennsylvania, the airports are heavily promoted to attract business.
"They have economics that can benefit from having that air service available," said Sen. Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania.
One passenger on the flight to Staunton, Virginia said his town is proud and pleased to have these lower cost flights. .
"It's a good commute for workers to go back and forth or for business people. It helps industry and CEO's," said Charles Grimm, a Virginia businessman.
In part, because each of the 118 small airports has a congressman, the program will continue this year despite stiff government budget cuts.
Story and Video: http://www.whiotv.com
Pilot communications system installed at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport (KLBE), Latrobe, Pennsylvania
Westmoreland County Airport Authority officials, relieved that the air traffic control tower at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport will remain open at least through September, are installing a system to improve communications safety even while the tower is in operation.
Authority Chairman Don Rossi said he is glad to have the additional GroundLink system in place but hopes the tower remains a main line of communication.
“It's a sad and a hard thing to talk about with no towers, but we're ahead of the ball,” he said.
The system, purchased from a Minneapolis-based company, allows pilots to communicate directly with airports in Johnstown and Cleveland from the aircraft. Previously, a pilot had to call the airports using a public telephone to receive permission and a time for takeoff, Rossi said.
“This gives the pilot a direct line to Johnstown and Cleveland, and he does it when he's ready,” he said.
The $10,000 system will be paid for with part of an equipment grant. The $8,950 unit cost $1,200 to install.
Until September, the new system will be used when the tower is closed overnight, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
In late March, federal funding cuts due to budget sequestration threatened to close the tower at the Unity airport, which was among 149 on the closure list at regional airports throughout the country.
On Friday, the federal Department of Transportation announced that all towers will remain open at least through Sept. 30, the end of the federal budget year.
“That's great news for everybody, especially us,” said Gabe Monzo, executive director of the authority. “We'll see what's going to happen in September.”
Source: http://triblive.com
Authority Chairman Don Rossi said he is glad to have the additional GroundLink system in place but hopes the tower remains a main line of communication.
“It's a sad and a hard thing to talk about with no towers, but we're ahead of the ball,” he said.
The system, purchased from a Minneapolis-based company, allows pilots to communicate directly with airports in Johnstown and Cleveland from the aircraft. Previously, a pilot had to call the airports using a public telephone to receive permission and a time for takeoff, Rossi said.
“This gives the pilot a direct line to Johnstown and Cleveland, and he does it when he's ready,” he said.
The $10,000 system will be paid for with part of an equipment grant. The $8,950 unit cost $1,200 to install.
Until September, the new system will be used when the tower is closed overnight, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
In late March, federal funding cuts due to budget sequestration threatened to close the tower at the Unity airport, which was among 149 on the closure list at regional airports throughout the country.
On Friday, the federal Department of Transportation announced that all towers will remain open at least through Sept. 30, the end of the federal budget year.
“That's great news for everybody, especially us,” said Gabe Monzo, executive director of the authority. “We'll see what's going to happen in September.”
Source: http://triblive.com
Jefferson County Airpark (2G2), Steubenville, Ohio: Airport looks to cut runway costs
WINTERSVILLE - The Jefferson County Airport Authority still is looking at ways to bring cost estimates in line with the grant money it has to spend on the runway extension.
Authority members were updated on the runway project's status at Monday's meeting. Members also witnessed the swearing-in of Geno Morelli at the start of the meeting and, later, accepted the resignation of longtime member Earl Muenze.
Jefferson County Commissioner Tom Gentile said they need to find ways to bring the project in line with available funding.
"It's almost a $5 million project when you look at the overlay and widening (too)," he said.
Brad Homan of Michale Baker Jr., the engineering consultant, said there are a number of ways to bring costs in line, not least of which is pricing certain tasks by the hour rather than paying a lump sum.
"One of the things to keep in mind is that we actually designed more than a $2 million project for you," Homan added. "Now we're starting to pull back to bring it within your budget."
The state doesn't want grant money used to pay engineering costs for the project, which are expected to be in the $287,000 range, though so far the authority's members aren't sure if they can use local matching funds to cover the expense.
The engineers will continue to rework the numbers to see what can be cut to bring the project cost in line with the grant.
The authority, meanwhile, will ask for the county's help in relocating a water line that runs through the area where the runway extension will be going.
In other business, the authority will ask Jefferson County commissioners to pay a nearly $5,172 invoice for ecological survey and environmental assessment work and another $28,868 for preliminary engineering and field services done by Baker Engineering; and a $4,716 invoice from Richland Engineering for updating the airport's master plan.
The board also authorized purchase of a used 2007 International truck for $37,850, which will be equipped with a fuel tank that will be adapted for use as a fuel truck at a cost of $129,100.
Plans are in the works for a joint open house with the Jefferson County Port Authority, possibly to be held the third week of June.
Story and Photo: http://www.hsconnect.com
Authority members were updated on the runway project's status at Monday's meeting. Members also witnessed the swearing-in of Geno Morelli at the start of the meeting and, later, accepted the resignation of longtime member Earl Muenze.
Jefferson County Commissioner Tom Gentile said they need to find ways to bring the project in line with available funding.
"It's almost a $5 million project when you look at the overlay and widening (too)," he said.
Brad Homan of Michale Baker Jr., the engineering consultant, said there are a number of ways to bring costs in line, not least of which is pricing certain tasks by the hour rather than paying a lump sum.
"One of the things to keep in mind is that we actually designed more than a $2 million project for you," Homan added. "Now we're starting to pull back to bring it within your budget."
The state doesn't want grant money used to pay engineering costs for the project, which are expected to be in the $287,000 range, though so far the authority's members aren't sure if they can use local matching funds to cover the expense.
The engineers will continue to rework the numbers to see what can be cut to bring the project cost in line with the grant.
The authority, meanwhile, will ask for the county's help in relocating a water line that runs through the area where the runway extension will be going.
In other business, the authority will ask Jefferson County commissioners to pay a nearly $5,172 invoice for ecological survey and environmental assessment work and another $28,868 for preliminary engineering and field services done by Baker Engineering; and a $4,716 invoice from Richland Engineering for updating the airport's master plan.
The board also authorized purchase of a used 2007 International truck for $37,850, which will be equipped with a fuel tank that will be adapted for use as a fuel truck at a cost of $129,100.
Plans are in the works for a joint open house with the Jefferson County Port Authority, possibly to be held the third week of June.
Story and Photo: http://www.hsconnect.com
Final Frontier Flight Departs from Columbia Regional Airport (KCOU), Missouri
COLUMBIA - Frontier Airlines' final flight departed from Columbia Regional Airport Monday morning.
Airport personnel said 95 passengers were on board this last flight to Orlando. Each ticket cost $25 for one way.
The flight departed at 10:10 a.m. with many upset passengers on board. They told KOMU 8 News they still do not know how they're getting home from Orlando.
Airport personnel said Frontier is leaving Columbia to move to larger cities to make more money. Some passengers said the airline should increase its ticket prices and stay in Columbia.
KOMU 8 News spoke with Jefferson City resident Tom Neely, who took the first Frontier flight at Columbia Regional Airport and now the last. Neely said he's disappointed because it will be more difficult to see his family, but he's trying to remain optimistic. "I'll travel further I guess to St. Louis and make the best out of it," Neely said.
Neely said he will fly into St. Louis on his way home from Orlando. However, he said he wants to wait to book his flight until he can find a rate that compares to the ones Frontier offered him.
Story and Video: http://www.komu.com
DC-10 aircraft company announces move to Casper/Natrona County International Airport (KCPR), Wyoming
The company behind a DC-10 tanker aircraft that helped battle Casper Mountain's Sheep Herder Hill Fire in September will relocate its company headquarters to Casper, airport officials announced Tuesday.
The Casper/Natrona County International Airport will become home base for the currently California-based 10 Tanker Air Carrier LLC and its two DC-10 aircraft, airport manager Glenn Januska said.
One of the company's massive tankers made round trips from the Casper airport during September's Sheep Herder Hill Fire, lugging nearly 12,000 gallons of fire retardant to the blazes and returning to refuel in as few as 18 minutes.
"Last year, we were able to utilize them and accommodate them here," Januska said. Having headquarters in the Rocky Mountain region is a smart move for a company that dispatches its firefighting resources frequently in the arid West, he said.
In a press release, 10 Tanker Air Carrier President and CEO Rick Hatton called the Casper/Natrona County International Airport an "ideal location" to improve the company's response times in the mountain west.
The move means new revenue potential for the airport in the form of water and fuel sales to the company, Januska said. But more important, he said, is bringing firefighting resources to where they will be needed in the future and a new business to the Casper community.
"It's a nice feeling to be doing something you know is going to bring the resources that would be necessary in the event you would need them in central Wyoming," Januska said.
Source: http://trib.com
Audio: http://k2radio.com
The Casper/Natrona County International Airport will become home base for the currently California-based 10 Tanker Air Carrier LLC and its two DC-10 aircraft, airport manager Glenn Januska said.
One of the company's massive tankers made round trips from the Casper airport during September's Sheep Herder Hill Fire, lugging nearly 12,000 gallons of fire retardant to the blazes and returning to refuel in as few as 18 minutes.
"Last year, we were able to utilize them and accommodate them here," Januska said. Having headquarters in the Rocky Mountain region is a smart move for a company that dispatches its firefighting resources frequently in the arid West, he said.
In a press release, 10 Tanker Air Carrier President and CEO Rick Hatton called the Casper/Natrona County International Airport an "ideal location" to improve the company's response times in the mountain west.
The move means new revenue potential for the airport in the form of water and fuel sales to the company, Januska said. But more important, he said, is bringing firefighting resources to where they will be needed in the future and a new business to the Casper community.
"It's a nice feeling to be doing something you know is going to bring the resources that would be necessary in the event you would need them in central Wyoming," Januska said.
Source: http://trib.com
Audio: http://k2radio.com
Chehalis Waits for State Audit Before Pursuing Airport Ownership: Chehalis-Centralia (KCLS), Washington
The city of Chehalis is waiting on a state audit of the Chehalis-Centralia Airport to determine if it wants to move forward as sole owner of the airport.
City Manager Merlin MacReynold said he expects the audit, which is underway, to take between two and four weeks and hopes to have results ready for the City Council within the month.
Source: http://www.chronline.com
City Manager Merlin MacReynold said he expects the audit, which is underway, to take between two and four weeks and hopes to have results ready for the City Council within the month.
Source: http://www.chronline.com
Millard murder ruled a suicide inside two days
Once upon a time, there was a mantra within the coroner’s office and the city’s homicide squad: 'Think dirty,' it held. In other words, be suspicious and curious
TORONTO — It is trite knowledge that what happens in police investigations bears little resemblance to what happens in television police investigations, where things move along at a proper clip and unfold neatly.
But still, the story of Wayne Millard’s death on Nov. 29, 2012 is a story of a non-investigation, or at best an investigation that really wasn’t.
It is a tale of the incurious.
Millard was a former pilot and owner of Millardair, the family business and former aviation company he was attempting to turn into a maintenance repair facility when, at the age of 71, he was found dead in his bed at his Etobicoke, Ont., bungalow.
His only child, the 32-year-old twice-convicted killer Dellan Millard (who with his pal Mark Smich was convicted and sentenced to life for the slayings of Laura Babcock and Tim Bosma), is charged with first-degree murder in Wayne’s death too, and is now on trial before Ontario Superior Court Judge Maureen Forestell.
He is pleading not guilty.
To understand how sleepy was the original probe of Wayne’s death, the graphic pictures now in evidence are the best evidence.
They show Wayne lying on his left side, his right hand under his face, his left arm and hand outstretched.
There is blood on the pillow his face rests upon, and a great thick trail of it drips down the side of the mattress and box spring.
Because the left side of his face is buried in the pillow, it isn’t jump-out-at-you obvious that he had been shot through the left eye, but neither is it a supremely difficult feat to see it.
In fact, to the dopey layman, untrained in investigative techniques, it looks for all the world like the poor man was shot or, assuming he was more lithe and flexible than his general appearance and age suggested, that he shot himself in the head via the left eye while simultaneously cradling his face in his right hand.
And yet, when the first paramedic to arrive at the scene — the call came in from Wayne’s long-time ex-wife, who had been called to the house by Dellen after his purported discovery of the body — was asked if he observed “any injuries,” his reply was that he had not.
Medic Bill Smith told the judge, in cross-examination by defence lawyer Ravin Pillay, that he’d been told that Wayne was an alcoholic and, he said, it was not unheard of for long-time alcoholics to have blood and vomit coming from their mouths. Sometimes, apparently, the blood vessels there burst.
In any case, Smith said, he knew straight off that Wayne was dead — by his dark skin colour, which means a lack of circulation, by how cold he was — and touched his neck, to confirm there was no pulse.
Next on the scene was a series of Toronto Police officers: a supervisor in the form of Sgt. Richard Nimmo and a couple of folks to preserve the integrity of the place.
None of those who testified Friday appeared to have noticed that at the side of the bed where Wayne lay dead in his black underpants and a T-shirt, between the bed and a dresser, was a Lululemon bag (it had the brand’s usual slogans on it, such as LOVE DEEPLY) with blood at one end and on the top of it, a six-shot revolver.
It was the coroner, Dr. David Evans, who spotted the wood-handled black gun.
(It was later swabbed for DNA by the extremely competent and thorough forensic officer, Det.-Const. Jeffrey Johnston, and later still, after Dellen was under investigation for the Babcock and Bosma murders and the Toronto Police had another look at Wayne’s death, Dellen’s DNA was found on the grip.)
In any case, the discovery of the gun was highly alert of Evans, but it appears that thereafter, his alertness or at least his inquisitiveness vanished.
In less than two days, on Dec. 1, he had concluded that the death was a suicide, and that, at least until police re-opened the case in the spring of 2013, was that.
How ironic it is that so many of those involved in the original investigation of Wayne’s death appeared to have been very keen to avoid suspicious thinking. Nimmo, for instance, even had a line in his notebook that read, “Nothing appeared suspicious.” He even gave Dellen and his mother space and time to grieve.
Once upon a time, there was a mantra within the coroner’s office and the city’s homicide squad: “Think dirty,” it held. In other words, be suspicious and curious.
The saying fell into disrepute after the downfall of disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith, who took it to the extreme and was harshly and properly criticized for the wrongful convictions that followed.
But holy moly, a fellow who looked like he somehow managed to shoot himself in the eye while appearing for all the world like he was peacefully asleep doesn’t warrant a smidgen of suspicious thinking?
Dr. Evans is scheduled to testify Monday.
http://nationalpost.com
Supplied evidence photo from Toronto Police at the Etobicoke home of Wayne Millard father of two-time convicted son Dellen.
In this artist's sketch, Dellen Millard (left) appears in court in Toronto on Thursday, May 31, 2018 for his judge-only trial for the murder of his father, Wayne Millard
But still, the story of Wayne Millard’s death on Nov. 29, 2012 is a story of a non-investigation, or at best an investigation that really wasn’t.
It is a tale of the incurious.
Millard was a former pilot and owner of Millardair, the family business and former aviation company he was attempting to turn into a maintenance repair facility when, at the age of 71, he was found dead in his bed at his Etobicoke, Ont., bungalow.
His only child, the 32-year-old twice-convicted killer Dellan Millard (who with his pal Mark Smich was convicted and sentenced to life for the slayings of Laura Babcock and Tim Bosma), is charged with first-degree murder in Wayne’s death too, and is now on trial before Ontario Superior Court Judge Maureen Forestell.
He is pleading not guilty.
To understand how sleepy was the original probe of Wayne’s death, the graphic pictures now in evidence are the best evidence.
They show Wayne lying on his left side, his right hand under his face, his left arm and hand outstretched.
There is blood on the pillow his face rests upon, and a great thick trail of it drips down the side of the mattress and box spring.
Because the left side of his face is buried in the pillow, it isn’t jump-out-at-you obvious that he had been shot through the left eye, but neither is it a supremely difficult feat to see it.
In fact, to the dopey layman, untrained in investigative techniques, it looks for all the world like the poor man was shot or, assuming he was more lithe and flexible than his general appearance and age suggested, that he shot himself in the head via the left eye while simultaneously cradling his face in his right hand.
And yet, when the first paramedic to arrive at the scene — the call came in from Wayne’s long-time ex-wife, who had been called to the house by Dellen after his purported discovery of the body — was asked if he observed “any injuries,” his reply was that he had not.
Medic Bill Smith told the judge, in cross-examination by defence lawyer Ravin Pillay, that he’d been told that Wayne was an alcoholic and, he said, it was not unheard of for long-time alcoholics to have blood and vomit coming from their mouths. Sometimes, apparently, the blood vessels there burst.
In any case, Smith said, he knew straight off that Wayne was dead — by his dark skin colour, which means a lack of circulation, by how cold he was — and touched his neck, to confirm there was no pulse.
Next on the scene was a series of Toronto Police officers: a supervisor in the form of Sgt. Richard Nimmo and a couple of folks to preserve the integrity of the place.
None of those who testified Friday appeared to have noticed that at the side of the bed where Wayne lay dead in his black underpants and a T-shirt, between the bed and a dresser, was a Lululemon bag (it had the brand’s usual slogans on it, such as LOVE DEEPLY) with blood at one end and on the top of it, a six-shot revolver.
It was the coroner, Dr. David Evans, who spotted the wood-handled black gun.
(It was later swabbed for DNA by the extremely competent and thorough forensic officer, Det.-Const. Jeffrey Johnston, and later still, after Dellen was under investigation for the Babcock and Bosma murders and the Toronto Police had another look at Wayne’s death, Dellen’s DNA was found on the grip.)
In any case, the discovery of the gun was highly alert of Evans, but it appears that thereafter, his alertness or at least his inquisitiveness vanished.
In less than two days, on Dec. 1, he had concluded that the death was a suicide, and that, at least until police re-opened the case in the spring of 2013, was that.
How ironic it is that so many of those involved in the original investigation of Wayne’s death appeared to have been very keen to avoid suspicious thinking. Nimmo, for instance, even had a line in his notebook that read, “Nothing appeared suspicious.” He even gave Dellen and his mother space and time to grieve.
Once upon a time, there was a mantra within the coroner’s office and the city’s homicide squad: “Think dirty,” it held. In other words, be suspicious and curious.
The saying fell into disrepute after the downfall of disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith, who took it to the extreme and was harshly and properly criticized for the wrongful convictions that followed.
But holy moly, a fellow who looked like he somehow managed to shoot himself in the eye while appearing for all the world like he was peacefully asleep doesn’t warrant a smidgen of suspicious thinking?
Dr. Evans is scheduled to testify Monday.
http://nationalpost.com
TORONTO — The grieving parents of a young Toronto woman who disappeared five years ago said a guilty verdict of first-degree murder Saturday for two men accused of killing their daughter brought justice but little joy.
It was the second such conviction for Dellen Millard and Mark Smich, who are serving life sentences for the 2013 murder of a Hamilton man, a fact the jury at their latest trial didn't hear.
Tears were shed and quiet cheers let out in a downtown Toronto courtroom as the pair was found guilty in the death of 23-year-old Laura Babcock, whose body has not been found. Millard and Smich pleaded not guilty in the case.
Clayton Babcock, who attended every day of the trial with his wife, said the verdict, while welcome, did not ease his family's suffering.
"We've sat through a six-week funeral for our daughter Laura, and you all know what a wonderful woman she was, as well as all the pains and struggles that she faced. You also know about the evil beings that took her life, and if society's lucky, we will not see them again on the streets," he said outside court as his wife held on to him.
"Today's verdict really brings us little joy. The loss of Laura is no easier today than when it was realized five years ago."
Crown prosecutor Jill Cameron thanked the jury for their verdict.
"Today was about justice for Laura and justice was served," she said. "We just feel so badly that (the Babcocks) had to go through this and that Laura had to suffer at the hands of these two."
Millard, 32, of Toronto, and Smich, 30, of Oakville, Ont., were automatically sentenced to life in prison for Laura Babcock's death. A sentencing hearing to sort out the details of their parole eligibility is expected in the new year.
The jury that found them guilty didn't know that the pair were convicted last year of killing Tim Bosma, a 32-year-old man who disappeared in May 2013 while trying to sell his pickup truck, and burning his body in the same animal incinerator the Crown said was used to dispose of Babcock's body.
The jury was also kept in the dark about Millard facing another first-degree murder charge, this one in the 2012 death of his father, Wayne Millard, which was initially deemed a suicide. That trial is scheduled for March 2018.
In the Babcock case, the Crown alleged the woman was killed in July 2012 because she had become the odd one out in a love triangle with Dellen Millard and his girlfriend.
Prosecutors said Millard and Smich planned the murder for months and covered up their crime by burning Babcock's body in the animal incinerator that was later found on Millard's farm.
Babcock has not been heard from since July 2012. Earlier that year, she became involved in a feud with Millard's girlfriend — Christina Noudga.
The animosity between the two women, who had been sleeping with Millard at the same time, hit its zenith in mid-April. That's when Millard sent a text to Noudga that the Crown referred to time and again.
"First I'm going to hurt her. Then I'll make her leave," read his message. "I will remove her from our lives."
Millard told court he didn't care much about his girlfriend, or her feud with Babcock. He said he was sleeping with other women at the time, and his messages to Noudga were simply an attempt to placate a jealous girlfriend.
Court heard that Babcock's life began to unravel in the months leading up to her disappearance. Her friends testified that she was using cocaine and struggled with her mental health, but was hopeful about a recent diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.
She fell out with her family and became transient, bouncing from place to place with her small dog. She couldn't find work and in June 2012 began working as an escort.
A former boyfriend, Shawn Lerner, told court he put her up in a hotel in late June for two nights and lent her his iPad to help her search for apartments.
On June 30, Babcock and Millard exchanged text messages, according to cellphone data police found on Millard's computers. Two days later, Millard purchased a gun from Matthew Ward-Jackson, who testified at trial.
Cellphone data shows that on July 3, the Babcock and Millard met near a subway station around 6:30 p.m. Both their cellphones then moved to Millard's house, where Smich's phone pinged off a nearby cell tower.
Babcock's last outgoing call was made to voicemail at 7:03 p.m. that same day. Her phone has not been found.
On July 4, Millard sent Smich a photograph of a large object wrapped in a blue tarp. The Crown said it was Babcock's body.
The iPad she borrowed from Lerner was connected to Millard's computer on July 4. Police later found the iPad and Babcock's red bag at Smich's house.
On July 5, the incinerator, which Millard referred to as the "BBQ," arrived at his hangar at the Region of Waterloo International Airport.
On July 23 Millard wrote to Smich: "bbq has run its warm up, it's ready for meat."
Court saw photos of a smiling Smich in front of the incinerator that night taken with Millard's phone.
They also saw a photograph of objects inside the incinerator that two expert witnesses said were bones. However, due to the poor quality of the photo, they couldn't say if they were human or animal bones.
In the early hours of July 24, a note was created on Smich's iPad. It read:
"The bitch started off all skin and bone,
Now the bitch lay on some ash stone,
Last time I saw her was outside the home,
And if u go swimming u can find her phone"
Court also saw video of the rap by Smich, taken with Millard's phone. Two witnesses said Smich performed the same song for them. Smich told them it wasn't just a rap, but was, in fact, true.
After the guilty verdict came down, Millard, who represented himself at trial, swivelled in his chair and stared at Babcock's mother and shook his head.
Linda Babcock smiled.
Liam Casey, The Canadian Press
The ex-girlfriend of accused killer Mark Smich told jury members at the Laura Babcock murder trial about a night when Smich and co-accused Dellen Millard told her they were testing out a towering animal incinerator.
Marlena Meneses, 23, described in Ontario Superior Court in Toronto a late-night trip to Millard's airport hanger in the Waterloo Region, where she saw the machine smoking and heard a "crackling noise."
After four weeks of testimony, Meneses is one of the Crown's final witnesses.
She was 18 and dating Smich in the summer of 2012 when Babcock, who had been romantically involved with Millard, vanished.
Millard, 32, of Toronto, and Smich, 30, of Oakville, Ont., have both pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder. Babcock's body has never been found. The Toronto woman's phone records and bank accounts haven't been touched since early July 2012.
'Like brothers'
Meneses, now an assistant retail manager, spent much of Friday morning in the witness box, giving insight on the dynamics between Millard and Smich.
"They were best friends, like brothers," she testified.
She met Smich at a Tim Hortons in Oakville, Ont., in May 2012. Almost immediately, they started living together — her stepfather, she explained, was too controlling — splitting their time between Smich's mother's house and Millard's bungalow in Etobicoke, Ont.
'His new toy'
It was Meneses's account of a large black piece of farm machinery, called The Eliminator, that dominated much of her testimony.
When she first saw the machine at Millard's airport hangar, she says the accused killer told her it was his new toy.
Meneses said she later asked Smich about it and he said it was for farm animals.
"I thought it was weird because Dellen didn't have any farm animals," she told the court.
The night she saw the incinerator in use, the trio had picked up the machine from Millard's hangar, towing it to his farm property, which was also in the Waterloo Region.
"They told me to stay in the car and wear my earphones and wait there," she said, explaining Smich and Millard often gave her these sort of instructions.
"I didn't have a choice," she said.
After a while, she says Millard and Smich returned explaining they needed a power cord, so they drove back to Millard's airport hangar about 10 minutes away.
Now it was really late, she told the jury, she just wanted to go home. Smich threatened to take her back to her parents' place. Millard offered her some marijuana.
That's when she says she walked by the incinerator — now smoking and crackling.
She said she never looked inside.
"They said they were trying to test out the machine," she told the court.
BBQ mission
While Meneses couldn't give the court an exact date when she first saw the incinerator, throughout the trial the Crown has attempted to build a timeline.
The Crown contends Babcock was killed on July 3rd or 4th, 2012.
Last week, court saw text messages between Millard and Smich from July 21, 2012.
Millard wrote: "Tomorrow after dark, BBQ mission, (I won't want Marlena there … think on it)"
"I don't think taking marlena will be a problem. She can wait in the front while we r out back talkin to that girl… if u kno what I mean," Smich responded.
'I want to talk about tools'
Earlier Friday, Millard, who is acting as his own lawyer, and Thomas Dungey, Smich's lawyer, tried to debunk testimony from a Toronto police detective, who is an expert in deciphering street slang.
Det. Gavin Jansz presented several messages to the jury Thursday, between Millard, Smich and a man so far only identified as "Isho."
On July 1, 2012, Millard wrote: "tell him i want to talk about tools."
Jansz explained to jury members "tools" refers to firearms.
On the same day, Isho wrote, ".32 but its a really nice nice compact piece im sure ud like it."
Janz said a ".32" refers to a 32-calibre firearm and a "really nice nice compact piece" is slang for a gun.
Both Millard and Dungey suggested slang can often have multiple interpretations.
The trial is not sitting Monday and will resume Tuesday at 9:45 a.m. ET.
Read more here: http://www.cbc.ca
Blood, treated with a chemical that makes it glow blue in the dark, is seen in the truck bed of Tim Bosma's pickup after it was found by police.
Dellen Millard and Mark Smich have been found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Ancaster dad Tim Bosma.
The slain Ancaster man's family erupted in cheers and cries as the jury foreperson read out the verdict — “guilty” is a word they've longed for three years now to hear.
“For three years, we have been in and out of this courthouse, forced to look at and breathe in the same space with the utter depths of depravity in our society,” his widow Sharlene Bosma said in a speech outside the courthouse after the verdicts were read in, surrounded by family and friends.
“For Tim's murderers, their life sentence begins now. Ours began over three years ago,” she said.
“But I made a choice a long time ago...to remind myself that through everything that has happened in the last three years, I am blessed. I still have much for which to be thankful...I am grateful for the time that Tim and I were able to spend together as our own little family,” she said.
“While Tim may have been stolen, that time never will be.”
The 32-year-old HVAC contractor left his house — and Sharlene and their 2-year-old daughter — on May 6, 2013 to take Millard and Smich on a test drive of the pickup truck he was selling online.
He just wanted to sell his truck. Instead, he was shot in the passenger seat by the two strangers, who then incinerated his body in an animal cremator at Millard's air hangar at the Region of Waterloo airport.
Read more here: https://www.thestar.com
Dellen Millard, the man accused at he centre of the murder case of Hamilton man Tim Bosma, is now charged with the death of his father and former girlfriend.
The OPP announced Thursday that Millard, 28, is now charged with first-degree murder in the death of Wayne Millard and Toronto woman Laura Babcock, who was last seen in 2012.
Millard’s lawyer, Deepak Paradkar told the Star his client will plead not guilty to all charges. “We will defend them zealously,” Paradkar said.
Mark Smich, 26, who is co-accused in Bosma’s murder is now also charged with first-degree murder in Babcock’s death — police alleging the two also planned to kill her.
Millard’s 21-year-old girlfriend, Christina Noudga, was also charged with accessory to murder after the fact in Bosma’s death.
Babcock, 23, was last seen in by her former boyfriend Shawn Lerner on June 26, 2012 when he dropped her off at a hotel in the Queen St. and Roncesvalles Ave. area. Her phone records, obtained by Lerner who said he passed them to Toronto police investigators, showed Babcock and Millard exchanged several calls after her disappearance.
Babcock’s parents earlier told the Star that they had for months received no updates from police on their daughter’s disappearance and believed the case had fallen off the radar when the officer in charge moved to a new post.
On Thursday, her father Clayton Babcock told the Star he was informed of a pending announcement about his daughter.
“There’s always a glimmer of hope,” Babcock told the Star dejectedly from his Etobicoke home. “Even though it may seem far fetched.”
It’s not yet clear if Babcock’s remains have been found. Police do not need a body to lay murder charges, although it is unusual to do so in the absence of one.
Wayne Millard’s death was originally deemed a suicide by Toronto Police when he was found shot inside the home he shared with his only son in November 2012.
Police later reopened the case following Millard’s charges in the Bosma murder.
The older Millard was the heir to his father, Carl Millard’s airline dynasty, Millardair — which Dellen inherited upon his father’s death. When he was found dead, Wayne Millard had just recently completed the building of a massive million-dollar hangar at Waterloo Regional Airport and was planning for the grand opening.
Bosma put his pickup truck up for sale when two men arrived at Ancaster, Ont. home for a test drove on May 6. He never returned and was reported missing — launching a massive search that captivated international attention. Bosma’s remains were later found on a rural property in Ayr, Ont. belonging to Millard.
Story and photos: http://www.thestar.com
Dellen Millard’s strange obituary for his father Wayne: http://www.annrbrocklehurst.com
Dellen Millard has always had ambition — in his younger years as a record-breaking pilot, and more recently as an off-road racer.
The 27-year-old has the word ambition tattooed boldly on his wrist.
The Toronto man made headlines in 1999 at age 14 for breaking the record as the youngest Canadian to fly solo in both an airplane and a helicopter on the same day.
Flying is in his blood. His grandfather, Carl Millard, founded the Millard Air private commercial airline. Wayne Millard, Dellen’s father, was also an accomplished pilot.
Both of the senior Millards watched proudly on that day as the then 14-year-old took flight at the Brampton Flying Club, where Dellen studied.
“It’s in the blood. It’s an addiction,” eighty-five-year-old Carl Millard told The Canadian Press at the time.
On Sunday, Hamilton Police were guarding the Millard Air Hangar 53 in Breslau, which sits independently at the northwest corner of the Waterloo Region International Airport property.
Police were seen searching the area Saturday.
Millard, the heir to the flying dynasty — now in custody at Barton Street Jail — is facing charges of forcible confinement and theft over $5,000 in relation to the disappearance of Tim Bosma.
He appeared in court Saturday morning, and is expected to return for an appearance on Wednesday.
Investigators have been on the hunt for two men who visited Bosma at his rural Ancaster home last Monday night, looking to test drive his 2007 Dodge Ram 3500 pickup truck that was advertised for sale on Kijiji and Auto Trader.
Bosma told his wife he’d be right back when he took the two men out just before 9:30 p.m. Family and friends have not seen him or the truck since.
One of the suspects was described as having a unique “ambition” tattoo on his wrist. Millard — who police believe had been driving the vehicle — has such a tattoo, police said Saturday.
Millard’s father was operating a 50,000 square-foot aircraft maintenance facility in Breslau before his death last December, according to Canadian Skies, an aviation trade publication.
“He was a good man in a careless world. He was my father. A Master pilot,” Millard — an only child — wrote in an obituary for his dad, adding that he was carrying his dad’s pilot licence in his wallet.
The Brampton Flying Club, where Millard flew as a teenager, refused to comment over the weekend. They told a reporter to call back Monday when a manager would be available.
His old flying teacher, Marilyn Daigle, said in an interview that, as a boy, the Toronto French School student was “sweet, smart, really lovely to teach.”
She thought for sure he’d end up at an airline one day.
“I just hope it doesn’t end up being true,” she said of the charges.
In recent years, Millard’s interests seem to have shifted from the skies to off-road racing — road-tripping to Mexico with friends in 2011 for the famous Baja 500 desert race.
Photos on the Facebook page of Andrew Michalski — apparently Millard’s Baja co-driver — show the two building their car for that race — a souped-up, bright yellow Jeep — in the Millard Air hangar.
It’s unclear what, if any, business is operating out of the hangar today.
An online ad dated March 23 said the space was available as the family was closing it down, due to Wayne Millard’s death.
Michalski’s Facebook photos from the event show Millard, sporting a red Mohawk hairdo, standing in front of a massive red Dodge Ram pickup that is towing their Jeep in a trailer — a similar truck to the one police allege he stole from Bosma.
Other photos show the two — as well as other friends — dismantling cars.
“Dell trying to pull the engine out,” reads one caption.
As of Sunday, police had not announced whether the second suspect had been identified.
He was described previously as white, in his early 20s and between five-foot-nine and five-foot-10 with a small to medium build and dark hair. He was last seen wearing a red sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over his head.
Source: http://www.therecord.com
After four months of testimony, the jury has finally heard all the evidence in the murder trial of the two men accused of killing Hamilton resident Tim Bosma in 2013.
The trial is in its final stages, with the jury close to beginning deliberations in Superior Court in Hamilton to determine the fate of Mark Smich and Dellen Millard.
Smich, 28, of Oakville, Ont., and Millard, 30, of Toronto have both pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
Bosma vanished on May 6, 2013, after taking Smich and Millard on a test drive in a pickup truck he was trying to sell. Investigators later found charred human remains, believed to belong to Bosma, in a livestock incinerator on the Millard farm in Ayr, Ont.
Here's a look at 10 key exhibits that will play a role when jurors begin deliberations:
While Millard was in jail, he managed to pass along letters to his girlfriend at the time, Christina Noudga, despite a court order that the two not communicate. He told her to destroy the letters, but she didn't, and they became part of the Crown's case.
The significance: As Millard didn't testify, the letters from jail represent the closest the jury got to learning something about his character and thinking. The letters do not contain a smoking gun per se, but do show how Millard planned to defend himself, and reveal his extensive attempts to try to co-ordinate statements and actions by potential witnesses from behind bars.
The Eliminator is the brand name of a livestock incinerator found on Millard's farm in Ayr, Ont.
The significance: The incinerator is central to the Crown's theory that after Bosma was shot and killed, his body was burned. The Crown presented evidence of Millard and his friends searching for and buying the unit, and talking about it during a series of texts. Among the group it was known as "the BBQ."
Cellphone records
A detailed and lengthy presentation outlined the movements of several cellphones during the day and evening Bosma disappeared. Their locations were tracked by the cell towers they pinged off.
The significance: With this presentation, the Crown tried to connect the movements of Millard and Smich with those of the phone that had been used to call Bosma to arrange the truck test drive. The jury was shown how the phone making the test drive arrangements moved in concert with the phones of Millard and Smich on the night of May 6. The Crown suggested this placed both men at Bosma's home. Later in the trial, it was acknowledged that both were there.
Multiple exhibits were presented as a series of photographs. The Crown introduced a range of evidence showing traces of blood inside and outside Bosma's pickup truck.
It was the second such conviction for Dellen Millard and Mark Smich, who are serving life sentences for the 2013 murder of a Hamilton man, a fact the jury at their latest trial didn't hear.
Tears were shed and quiet cheers let out in a downtown Toronto courtroom as the pair was found guilty in the death of 23-year-old Laura Babcock, whose body has not been found. Millard and Smich pleaded not guilty in the case.
Clayton Babcock, who attended every day of the trial with his wife, said the verdict, while welcome, did not ease his family's suffering.
"We've sat through a six-week funeral for our daughter Laura, and you all know what a wonderful woman she was, as well as all the pains and struggles that she faced. You also know about the evil beings that took her life, and if society's lucky, we will not see them again on the streets," he said outside court as his wife held on to him.
"Today's verdict really brings us little joy. The loss of Laura is no easier today than when it was realized five years ago."
Crown prosecutor Jill Cameron thanked the jury for their verdict.
"Today was about justice for Laura and justice was served," she said. "We just feel so badly that (the Babcocks) had to go through this and that Laura had to suffer at the hands of these two."
Millard, 32, of Toronto, and Smich, 30, of Oakville, Ont., were automatically sentenced to life in prison for Laura Babcock's death. A sentencing hearing to sort out the details of their parole eligibility is expected in the new year.
The jury that found them guilty didn't know that the pair were convicted last year of killing Tim Bosma, a 32-year-old man who disappeared in May 2013 while trying to sell his pickup truck, and burning his body in the same animal incinerator the Crown said was used to dispose of Babcock's body.
The jury was also kept in the dark about Millard facing another first-degree murder charge, this one in the 2012 death of his father, Wayne Millard, which was initially deemed a suicide. That trial is scheduled for March 2018.
In the Babcock case, the Crown alleged the woman was killed in July 2012 because she had become the odd one out in a love triangle with Dellen Millard and his girlfriend.
Prosecutors said Millard and Smich planned the murder for months and covered up their crime by burning Babcock's body in the animal incinerator that was later found on Millard's farm.
Babcock has not been heard from since July 2012. Earlier that year, she became involved in a feud with Millard's girlfriend — Christina Noudga.
The animosity between the two women, who had been sleeping with Millard at the same time, hit its zenith in mid-April. That's when Millard sent a text to Noudga that the Crown referred to time and again.
"First I'm going to hurt her. Then I'll make her leave," read his message. "I will remove her from our lives."
Millard told court he didn't care much about his girlfriend, or her feud with Babcock. He said he was sleeping with other women at the time, and his messages to Noudga were simply an attempt to placate a jealous girlfriend.
Court heard that Babcock's life began to unravel in the months leading up to her disappearance. Her friends testified that she was using cocaine and struggled with her mental health, but was hopeful about a recent diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.
She fell out with her family and became transient, bouncing from place to place with her small dog. She couldn't find work and in June 2012 began working as an escort.
A former boyfriend, Shawn Lerner, told court he put her up in a hotel in late June for two nights and lent her his iPad to help her search for apartments.
On June 30, Babcock and Millard exchanged text messages, according to cellphone data police found on Millard's computers. Two days later, Millard purchased a gun from Matthew Ward-Jackson, who testified at trial.
Cellphone data shows that on July 3, the Babcock and Millard met near a subway station around 6:30 p.m. Both their cellphones then moved to Millard's house, where Smich's phone pinged off a nearby cell tower.
Babcock's last outgoing call was made to voicemail at 7:03 p.m. that same day. Her phone has not been found.
On July 4, Millard sent Smich a photograph of a large object wrapped in a blue tarp. The Crown said it was Babcock's body.
The iPad she borrowed from Lerner was connected to Millard's computer on July 4. Police later found the iPad and Babcock's red bag at Smich's house.
On July 5, the incinerator, which Millard referred to as the "BBQ," arrived at his hangar at the Region of Waterloo International Airport.
On July 23 Millard wrote to Smich: "bbq has run its warm up, it's ready for meat."
Court saw photos of a smiling Smich in front of the incinerator that night taken with Millard's phone.
They also saw a photograph of objects inside the incinerator that two expert witnesses said were bones. However, due to the poor quality of the photo, they couldn't say if they were human or animal bones.
In the early hours of July 24, a note was created on Smich's iPad. It read:
"The bitch started off all skin and bone,
Now the bitch lay on some ash stone,
Last time I saw her was outside the home,
And if u go swimming u can find her phone"
Court also saw video of the rap by Smich, taken with Millard's phone. Two witnesses said Smich performed the same song for them. Smich told them it wasn't just a rap, but was, in fact, true.
After the guilty verdict came down, Millard, who represented himself at trial, swivelled in his chair and stared at Babcock's mother and shook his head.
Linda Babcock smiled.
Liam Casey, The Canadian Press
Meneses testified Friday she never met Laura Babcock, and had never heard of her until charges were laid against her ex.
Two incinerators, including this one, were found on Millard's property during a police search.
Meneses said one of the jobs she did for Millard was cleaning the washrooms at his airport hangar. In this photo she poses near the animal incinerator, called The Eliminator.
The ex-girlfriend of accused killer Mark Smich told jury members at the Laura Babcock murder trial about a night when Smich and co-accused Dellen Millard told her they were testing out a towering animal incinerator.
Marlena Meneses, 23, described in Ontario Superior Court in Toronto a late-night trip to Millard's airport hanger in the Waterloo Region, where she saw the machine smoking and heard a "crackling noise."
After four weeks of testimony, Meneses is one of the Crown's final witnesses.
She was 18 and dating Smich in the summer of 2012 when Babcock, who had been romantically involved with Millard, vanished.
Millard, 32, of Toronto, and Smich, 30, of Oakville, Ont., have both pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder. Babcock's body has never been found. The Toronto woman's phone records and bank accounts haven't been touched since early July 2012.
'Like brothers'
Meneses, now an assistant retail manager, spent much of Friday morning in the witness box, giving insight on the dynamics between Millard and Smich.
"They were best friends, like brothers," she testified.
She met Smich at a Tim Hortons in Oakville, Ont., in May 2012. Almost immediately, they started living together — her stepfather, she explained, was too controlling — splitting their time between Smich's mother's house and Millard's bungalow in Etobicoke, Ont.
'His new toy'
It was Meneses's account of a large black piece of farm machinery, called The Eliminator, that dominated much of her testimony.
When she first saw the machine at Millard's airport hangar, she says the accused killer told her it was his new toy.
Meneses said she later asked Smich about it and he said it was for farm animals.
"I thought it was weird because Dellen didn't have any farm animals," she told the court.
The night she saw the incinerator in use, the trio had picked up the machine from Millard's hangar, towing it to his farm property, which was also in the Waterloo Region.
"They told me to stay in the car and wear my earphones and wait there," she said, explaining Smich and Millard often gave her these sort of instructions.
"I didn't have a choice," she said.
After a while, she says Millard and Smich returned explaining they needed a power cord, so they drove back to Millard's airport hangar about 10 minutes away.
Now it was really late, she told the jury, she just wanted to go home. Smich threatened to take her back to her parents' place. Millard offered her some marijuana.
That's when she says she walked by the incinerator — now smoking and crackling.
She said she never looked inside.
"They said they were trying to test out the machine," she told the court.
BBQ mission
While Meneses couldn't give the court an exact date when she first saw the incinerator, throughout the trial the Crown has attempted to build a timeline.
The Crown contends Babcock was killed on July 3rd or 4th, 2012.
Last week, court saw text messages between Millard and Smich from July 21, 2012.
Millard wrote: "Tomorrow after dark, BBQ mission, (I won't want Marlena there … think on it)"
"I don't think taking marlena will be a problem. She can wait in the front while we r out back talkin to that girl… if u kno what I mean," Smich responded.
'I want to talk about tools'
Earlier Friday, Millard, who is acting as his own lawyer, and Thomas Dungey, Smich's lawyer, tried to debunk testimony from a Toronto police detective, who is an expert in deciphering street slang.
Det. Gavin Jansz presented several messages to the jury Thursday, between Millard, Smich and a man so far only identified as "Isho."
On July 1, 2012, Millard wrote: "tell him i want to talk about tools."
Jansz explained to jury members "tools" refers to firearms.
On the same day, Isho wrote, ".32 but its a really nice nice compact piece im sure ud like it."
Janz said a ".32" refers to a 32-calibre firearm and a "really nice nice compact piece" is slang for a gun.
Both Millard and Dungey suggested slang can often have multiple interpretations.
The trial is not sitting Monday and will resume Tuesday at 9:45 a.m. ET.
Read more here: http://www.cbc.ca
Blood, treated with a chemical that makes it glow blue in the dark, is seen in the truck bed of Tim Bosma's pickup after it was found by police.Dellen Millard and Mark Smich have been found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Ancaster dad Tim Bosma.
The slain Ancaster man's family erupted in cheers and cries as the jury foreperson read out the verdict — “guilty” is a word they've longed for three years now to hear.
“For three years, we have been in and out of this courthouse, forced to look at and breathe in the same space with the utter depths of depravity in our society,” his widow Sharlene Bosma said in a speech outside the courthouse after the verdicts were read in, surrounded by family and friends.
“For Tim's murderers, their life sentence begins now. Ours began over three years ago,” she said.
“But I made a choice a long time ago...to remind myself that through everything that has happened in the last three years, I am blessed. I still have much for which to be thankful...I am grateful for the time that Tim and I were able to spend together as our own little family,” she said.
“While Tim may have been stolen, that time never will be.”
The 32-year-old HVAC contractor left his house — and Sharlene and their 2-year-old daughter — on May 6, 2013 to take Millard and Smich on a test drive of the pickup truck he was selling online.
He just wanted to sell his truck. Instead, he was shot in the passenger seat by the two strangers, who then incinerated his body in an animal cremator at Millard's air hangar at the Region of Waterloo airport.
Read more here: https://www.thestar.com
Dellen Millard, the man accused at he centre of the murder case of Hamilton man Tim Bosma, is now charged with the death of his father and former girlfriend.
The OPP announced Thursday that Millard, 28, is now charged with first-degree murder in the death of Wayne Millard and Toronto woman Laura Babcock, who was last seen in 2012.
Millard’s lawyer, Deepak Paradkar told the Star his client will plead not guilty to all charges. “We will defend them zealously,” Paradkar said.
Mark Smich, 26, who is co-accused in Bosma’s murder is now also charged with first-degree murder in Babcock’s death — police alleging the two also planned to kill her.
Millard’s 21-year-old girlfriend, Christina Noudga, was also charged with accessory to murder after the fact in Bosma’s death.
Babcock, 23, was last seen in by her former boyfriend Shawn Lerner on June 26, 2012 when he dropped her off at a hotel in the Queen St. and Roncesvalles Ave. area. Her phone records, obtained by Lerner who said he passed them to Toronto police investigators, showed Babcock and Millard exchanged several calls after her disappearance.
Babcock’s parents earlier told the Star that they had for months received no updates from police on their daughter’s disappearance and believed the case had fallen off the radar when the officer in charge moved to a new post.
On Thursday, her father Clayton Babcock told the Star he was informed of a pending announcement about his daughter.
“There’s always a glimmer of hope,” Babcock told the Star dejectedly from his Etobicoke home. “Even though it may seem far fetched.”
It’s not yet clear if Babcock’s remains have been found. Police do not need a body to lay murder charges, although it is unusual to do so in the absence of one.
Wayne Millard’s death was originally deemed a suicide by Toronto Police when he was found shot inside the home he shared with his only son in November 2012.
Police later reopened the case following Millard’s charges in the Bosma murder.
The older Millard was the heir to his father, Carl Millard’s airline dynasty, Millardair — which Dellen inherited upon his father’s death. When he was found dead, Wayne Millard had just recently completed the building of a massive million-dollar hangar at Waterloo Regional Airport and was planning for the grand opening.
Bosma put his pickup truck up for sale when two men arrived at Ancaster, Ont. home for a test drove on May 6. He never returned and was reported missing — launching a massive search that captivated international attention. Bosma’s remains were later found on a rural property in Ayr, Ont. belonging to Millard.
Story and photos: http://www.thestar.com
Dellen Millard’s strange obituary for his father Wayne: http://www.annrbrocklehurst.com
Wayne Millard with young Dellen Millard
Dellen Millard, 14,
stands with his grandfather, Carl Millard, 85, at Brampton Airport in
1999. Dellen rivaled his grandfather's notoriety as the oldest
commercial pilot when the teenager became the youngest Canadian to fly
solo in both an airplane and a helicopter.
Dellen Millard in 1999.
Facebook photo
Dellen Millard, 27
Dellen Millard at the hangar at Waterloo International Airport.
Dellen Millard has always had ambition — in his younger years as a record-breaking pilot, and more recently as an off-road racer.
The 27-year-old has the word ambition tattooed boldly on his wrist.
The Toronto man made headlines in 1999 at age 14 for breaking the record as the youngest Canadian to fly solo in both an airplane and a helicopter on the same day.
Flying is in his blood. His grandfather, Carl Millard, founded the Millard Air private commercial airline. Wayne Millard, Dellen’s father, was also an accomplished pilot.
Both of the senior Millards watched proudly on that day as the then 14-year-old took flight at the Brampton Flying Club, where Dellen studied.
“It’s in the blood. It’s an addiction,” eighty-five-year-old Carl Millard told The Canadian Press at the time.
On Sunday, Hamilton Police were guarding the Millard Air Hangar 53 in Breslau, which sits independently at the northwest corner of the Waterloo Region International Airport property.
Police were seen searching the area Saturday.
Millard, the heir to the flying dynasty — now in custody at Barton Street Jail — is facing charges of forcible confinement and theft over $5,000 in relation to the disappearance of Tim Bosma.
He appeared in court Saturday morning, and is expected to return for an appearance on Wednesday.
Investigators have been on the hunt for two men who visited Bosma at his rural Ancaster home last Monday night, looking to test drive his 2007 Dodge Ram 3500 pickup truck that was advertised for sale on Kijiji and Auto Trader.
Bosma told his wife he’d be right back when he took the two men out just before 9:30 p.m. Family and friends have not seen him or the truck since.
One of the suspects was described as having a unique “ambition” tattoo on his wrist. Millard — who police believe had been driving the vehicle — has such a tattoo, police said Saturday.
Millard’s father was operating a 50,000 square-foot aircraft maintenance facility in Breslau before his death last December, according to Canadian Skies, an aviation trade publication.
“He was a good man in a careless world. He was my father. A Master pilot,” Millard — an only child — wrote in an obituary for his dad, adding that he was carrying his dad’s pilot licence in his wallet.
The Brampton Flying Club, where Millard flew as a teenager, refused to comment over the weekend. They told a reporter to call back Monday when a manager would be available.
His old flying teacher, Marilyn Daigle, said in an interview that, as a boy, the Toronto French School student was “sweet, smart, really lovely to teach.”
She thought for sure he’d end up at an airline one day.
“I just hope it doesn’t end up being true,” she said of the charges.
In recent years, Millard’s interests seem to have shifted from the skies to off-road racing — road-tripping to Mexico with friends in 2011 for the famous Baja 500 desert race.
Photos on the Facebook page of Andrew Michalski — apparently Millard’s Baja co-driver — show the two building their car for that race — a souped-up, bright yellow Jeep — in the Millard Air hangar.
It’s unclear what, if any, business is operating out of the hangar today.
An online ad dated March 23 said the space was available as the family was closing it down, due to Wayne Millard’s death.
Michalski’s Facebook photos from the event show Millard, sporting a red Mohawk hairdo, standing in front of a massive red Dodge Ram pickup that is towing their Jeep in a trailer — a similar truck to the one police allege he stole from Bosma.
Other photos show the two — as well as other friends — dismantling cars.
“Dell trying to pull the engine out,” reads one caption.
As of Sunday, police had not announced whether the second suspect had been identified.
He was described previously as white, in his early 20s and between five-foot-nine and five-foot-10 with a small to medium build and dark hair. He was last seen wearing a red sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over his head.
Source: http://www.therecord.com
This security camera photo shows two men inside the MillardAir hangar in the early morning hours of May 7, 2013, just hours after Hamilton resident Tim Bosma disappeared. (Court exhibit)
After four months of testimony, the jury has finally heard all the evidence in the murder trial of the two men accused of killing Hamilton resident Tim Bosma in 2013.
The trial is in its final stages, with the jury close to beginning deliberations in Superior Court in Hamilton to determine the fate of Mark Smich and Dellen Millard.
Smich, 28, of Oakville, Ont., and Millard, 30, of Toronto have both pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
Bosma vanished on May 6, 2013, after taking Smich and Millard on a test drive in a pickup truck he was trying to sell. Investigators later found charred human remains, believed to belong to Bosma, in a livestock incinerator on the Millard farm in Ayr, Ont.
Here's a look at 10 key exhibits that will play a role when jurors begin deliberations:
While Millard was in jail, he managed to pass along letters to his girlfriend at the time, Christina Noudga, despite a court order that the two not communicate. He told her to destroy the letters, but she didn't, and they became part of the Crown's case.
The significance: As Millard didn't testify, the letters from jail represent the closest the jury got to learning something about his character and thinking. The letters do not contain a smoking gun per se, but do show how Millard planned to defend himself, and reveal his extensive attempts to try to co-ordinate statements and actions by potential witnesses from behind bars.
The Eliminator is the brand name of a livestock incinerator found on Millard's farm in Ayr, Ont.
The significance: The incinerator is central to the Crown's theory that after Bosma was shot and killed, his body was burned. The Crown presented evidence of Millard and his friends searching for and buying the unit, and talking about it during a series of texts. Among the group it was known as "the BBQ."
Cellphone records
A detailed and lengthy presentation outlined the movements of several cellphones during the day and evening Bosma disappeared. Their locations were tracked by the cell towers they pinged off.
The significance: With this presentation, the Crown tried to connect the movements of Millard and Smich with those of the phone that had been used to call Bosma to arrange the truck test drive. The jury was shown how the phone making the test drive arrangements moved in concert with the phones of Millard and Smich on the night of May 6. The Crown suggested this placed both men at Bosma's home. Later in the trial, it was acknowledged that both were there.
Multiple exhibits were presented as a series of photographs. The Crown introduced a range of evidence showing traces of blood inside and outside Bosma's pickup truck.
The significance: The evidence was among the most graphic presented. It was used by the Crown to support the core of its case that Bosma was shot inside his own truck. The evidence demonstrated where Bosma was sitting, the jury was told. A blood spatter expert testified it was clear a "bloodletting" event had happened inside the truck and there was evidence of attempts to clean up the blood.
Two bone fragments, about 10 cm and 20 cm long, and a tooth were found inside The Eliminator incinerator.
The significance: They were the only identifiable pieces of remains found during the investigation. Though scientists tried various methods of identification through DNA and dental records, the bone shards and a piece of a tooth found in the incinerator were too damaged to conclusively identify the person linked to them. Presentation of the bone shards and tooth piece in court was among the most difficult moments for the family during the trial.
A toolbox, in which a single gunshot residue particle was found, was seized in connection with the case.
The significance: The toolbox evidence shows the movements of what is believed to be the murder weapon after Millard was arrested. Court heard that Millard gave the toolbox to friend Matt Hagerman, right before his arrest. Hagerman and another friend, Andrew Michalski, passed it on to Smich, along with a bag of marijuana. Smich testified he was surprised to get the gun and thought Millard might be trying to frame him.
The significance: This video was also among the most chilling presented by the Crown. Does it show the moment that Bosma's body was being incinerated? Beyond that, it shows Millard and Smich moving around the hangar in the early morning hours after Bosma's disappearance.
When police arrested Millard, they found black nitrile gloves in his possession. Inside those gloves, they found DNA that with a very high degree of probability belonged to Millard, and DNA that was similarly linked to Noudga. On the outside, they found blood stains, that again, with a high degree of probability contain Bosma's DNA.
The significance: One of the many puzzle pieces that the Crown is using to try to place Millard at the centre of the crime. The combination of likely DNA matches has Millard wearing the gloves that came into contact with Bosma, or at least Bosma's blood.
The picture of Bosma's truck in the Millard Air hangar was taken by an employee, Arthur Jennings. He went to the police with his suspicions.
The significance: This represents a key break in the early stages of the investigation, further linking Millard to the probe (along with the cellphone records and his ambition tattoo). Jennings had seen news reports about Bosma's disappearance, saw the truck at his work a few days later and did what no one else with peripheral connections to the accused did — he contacted police. He took a photo and recorded the VIN number. His recounting of his thinking: "Oh my God, could that be the truck?" was one of the most dramatic moments of the trial.
The jury has heard all the evidence they will hear at the Tim Bosma murder trial.
After nine days on the stand, Mark Smich wrapped up his testimony Wednesday. This marks the end of his case, and of evidence as a whole, in the trial, which has gone on for four months.
Smich, 28, and his co-accused Dellen Millard, 30, are on trial together for the first-degree murder of Bosma.
And the two men have pointed the finger squarely at one another.
But the Crown says the pair came up with the plan together.
Assistant Crown attorney Craig Fraser suggested Wednesday that Bosma was killed within minutes of leaving his house on May 6, 2013 to take the two men for a test drive of his truck he was selling online.
The Ancaster dad would have been on “high alert” that night, suspicious of his late-night visitors who showed up after 9 p.m. to see a truck, Fraser argued.
He suggested there was no test drive that night — that Bosma only got as far as a field around the corner from his Trinity Road home before he was shot inside his truck.
Smich has insisted that he got out of the truck when they reached that field at Trinity and Book Roads.
Bosma was still alive at that point, he said. He added that Millard had made up a story about a friend dropping them off that night, getting lost and parking in a field.
Smich says Millard suggested that he get out and go with this fictional friend, to follow behind the truck so they wouldn’t have to come back after the test drive.
Smich says he got out and hopped in the Yukon, where the keys had been left in a cup-holder.
He says Millard then did a U-turn in Bosma’s truck on the road, and that he pulled out of the field and followed.
But Fraser referred earlier to testimony by Rick Bulman, a man who had been walking his dogs that night when he noticed two vehicles pulling out of the field.
“And you know why they were in that field? Because that’s where you and Mr. Millard shot Mr. Bosma,” Fraser suggested.
Smich disagreed.
He insists he only discovered Bosma had been shot when he pulled over behind the truck when it stopped suddenly in Brantford.
Fraser suggested they pulled over there because they needed to do some “repositioning of the body.”
He said that if Smich had truly been “in fear” of Millard as he claims, he would have driven away. But he followed.
“You followed him, sir. That was a choice you made, because it was part of the plan,” Fraser said.
Smich continued to “play along,” Fraser argued, in the days after the murder, repeatedly calling and texting Millard.
Smich says he was trying to be normal so as not to raise suspicion, but Fraser says the messages show a comfort between them.
On May 10, just after police visited the hangar, but before Millard was arrested, he paid Smich a 50-minute visit at his girlfriend’s sister’s apartment in Oakville.
Fraser suggested Millard was there to tell him police were onto him and that they discussed what to do next.
Smich disagreed, and could recall only that Millard told him he was getting a lawyer.
Fraser pointed to evidence from several past witnesses in this trial whose stories contradicted the account Smich gave. He suggested that Smich is saying these witnesses all got it wrong.
His girlfriend, Marlena Meneses, for example, testified that Smich and Millard were “very happy” and ready to celebrate when they picked her up early on May 7, 2013.
“They just said that the mission went well,” she testified.
Smich said he doesn’t know where that description came from.
“She got that from you, inside that truck,” Fraser replied.
When the Crown wrapped up their cross-examination, Smich’s lawyer, Thomas Dungey, got up briefly.
Smich agreed with his lawyer when he suggested he must be exhausted after nine days on the stand.
“Did you kill Mr. Bosma?” Dungey asked him, his last in a series of rapid-fire questions.
“No,” Smich said.
https://www.thestar.com
Accused killer Mark Smich spent the entire week at the Tim Bosma trial in Hamilton being cross-examined by the lawyer representing Dellen Millard, his co-accused.
Nadir Sachak's questioning of Smich focused mostly on his testimony about what happened the night Bosma died after taking two strangers on a test drive of a pickup truck he was trying to sell. And who shot the father of one.
Smich testified that he wasn't in the truck when Millard shot Bosma, but in previous testimony about text messages Millard sent to his girlfriend at the time, he indicated Smich was the shooter.
Smich, 28, of Oakville, Ont., and Millard, 30, of Toronto, have both pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
Bosma vanished on May 6, 2013, never returning from the test drive. Investigators later found charred human remains, believed to belong to Bosma, in a livestock incinerator on Millard's farm in Ayr, Ont.
Millard has chosen not to testify at the trial.
Smich previously told the jury that he was surprised a friend of Millard's gave him the gun, which he believed was the one used to kill Bosma, after the aviation heir was arrested. He said he panicked and buried it in a forest in Oakville, but couldn't remember where.
Sachak suggested that he must have buried the gun in "some magical forest."
"Is this some gun burial induced amnesia?" Sachak asked in court Monday. "You seem to have forgotten every detail except it's buried in some magical forest."
Violent rap lyrics
On Tuesday, the jury heard that Smich wrote rap lyrics about killing people and running from the police. Sachak displayed some of the lyrics for the jury to see.
"Get slapped with my gun hand muthaphuka! Leave you dead, with some contraband muthaphuka!" Smich wrote.
"My 380 is NO stranger, when Im angered you're in danger."
"You know what the word slapped means on the street?" Sachak said. "You know for a fact that slapped is street slang for murder and kill."
Smich said no, and maintained that his lyrics were just an artistic expression.
"It's rhyme sir," Smich said. "It has nothing to do with reality."
Sachak also showed the jury a video of Smich rapping.
The accusation
Sachak told the jury mid-week that Smich's story "doesn't make any sense." He continued to attempt to discredit Smich's version of events from the night Bosma was killed.
Sachak said that Millard "has, in essence, destroyed the very item he was so desperate to drive away with, according to your version of events," and added that the truck's carpet and seats had to be stripped out because of all the blood.
"It must be so difficult for the Bosma family to hear this," Sachak said, after describing the bloody scene inside the truck.
Smich, however, said losing the carpet and seats wouldn't have mattered to Millard.
"Dell's vehicles, what he prefers in his vehicles is leather seats and no carpets," Smich said. "The carpets and the seats would've been changed anyway."
The testimony during the week built to an accusation on Thursday. Sachak told the jury that Smich, not Millard, was the one who pulled the trigger and shot Bosma after a struggle broke out inside the Hamilton man's truck on a highway.
It was the first time Sachak presented his narrative as to what he believes happened on the night Bosma died.
While on the highway, Sachak suggested, Smich pulled out a gun and said, "We're going to take the truck,' and Millard said, 'Oh no.'
"Mr. Bosma grabbed the gun that was pointing at him. At that point there was a struggle, and the gun was discharged ... I'm going to suggest to you Mr. Bosma was struck and the window was shattered," Sachak said. Smich denied all of that outright.
The argument
On Friday, Sachak suggested there was an argument between Smich and Millard at the Millardair hangar in Waterloo, Ont., after Bosma was shot.
Sachak went on to say that Smich told Millard during the heated argument that Bosma's death wasn't his fault.
"Dell said 'what did you do, why did you mess this up?' ... and you said something along the lines of 'it's not my fault, he grabbed the gun,'" Sachak said, adding that Millard then took off to "cool down."
Smich denied the argument took place.
The Crown will begin its cross-examination of Smich on Tuesday.
Dellen Millard's lawyer alleges that Mark Smich shot Tim Bosma after a struggle broke out inside the Hamilton man's truck on an Ontario highway.
For the first time Thursday, Nadir Sachak presented his narrative as to what he believes happened on the night Bosma died after taking two men on a test drive of a pickup .
Sachak said that on May 6, 2013, while on a test drive of Bosma's pickup truck, Millard was driving and wanted to take the vehicle out onto Highway 403 near Bosma's home.
While on the highway, Sachak suggested, Smich pulled out a gun and said, "We're going to take the truck,' and Millard said, 'Oh no.'
"Mr. Bosma grabbed the gun that was pointing at him. At that point there was a struggle, and the gun was discharged ... I'm going to suggest to you Mr. Bosma was struck and the window was shattered," Sachak said.
Smich denied all of that outright.
Smich, 28, of Oakville, Ont., and Millard, 30, of Toronto, have both pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. They are being tried before a jury in Ontario Superior Court.
Millard was 'furious,' lawyer says
In his fourth day of cross-examination, Sachak presented an alternate theory to Smich's story that he wasn't in the truck when Bosma was shot.
"Mr. Millard was furious as to what had transpired," Sachak said in court. "There was reference to getting an ambulance or something, and you said, 'He's dead.'"
"Absolutely not," Smich said.
Sachak suggested that Millard panicked, and drove back towards Bosma's home in the dead man's truck, with him inside.
"I'm going to suggest the plan was Dell wanted his GMC Yukon out of the field area because he was concerned he'd be caught red-handed," Sachak said.
Smich replied that isn't what happened. "Your suggestions are incorrect," he said.
"I know the truth of what happened, so I don't need to pay attention to your so-called suggestions, which, if I might say so, sound an awful lot like you're reading from Dellen Millard's letters to Christina Noudga."
Smich told the court that he is testifying as an innocent man. "If you want stories, you can ask your client Walt Disney over there," Smich said, before being cautioned by Justice Andrew Goodman.
'I was on the side of a road with a crazy person'
Sachak also tried to poke holes in the details Smich has previously testified about. According to Smich, he was driving behind Millard and Bosma in Millard's SUV when Millard got out of the pickup truck holding a gun, and said he was taking the truck.
Smich said that's when he saw Bosma slumped over the dashboard, but didn't ask too many questions.
"I'm on the side of a dark road with a crazy person who just killed a man," Smich said.
He claims Millard told him to swap the licence plates on Bosma's truck for the plates off Millard's red truck.
Sachak asked Smich why he didn't say no to Millard when he asked.
"He has a gun!" Smich shouted, appearing rattled for the first time.
"Did he point the gun at you … did he threaten to kill you?" Sachak asked in a patronizing tone.
"He did not say that sir, I felt threatened from what just happened."
Security camera video examined
In court's morning session, Sachak told the court that security camera footage bolsters his version of events, and discredits Smich.
The video shows the movement of a truck "consistent" with Bosma's truck on May 6.
Sachak said a pickup truck is seen going north on Trinity Road in Ancaster, Ont., near Bosma's home at 9:05 p.m., and then going south at 9:15 p.m.
It then goes north again at 9:20 p.m. followed by Millard's GMC Yukon. Video expert Michael Plaxton previously said the truck was "consistent" with the Bosma truck, and the other vehicle was "consistent" with Millard's SUV.
"In that 10-minute test drive you shot Mr. Bosma, and you were coming to retrieve the GMC Yukon," Sachak said. "That's absolutely incorrect," Smich responded.
"That's not the Bosma vehicle, it's not an uncommon vehicle, especially for the area," Smich said.
An 'impossible scenario,' Smich says
He also said the scenario Sachak described would be "virtually impossible because of the times," when compared to cellphone records.
"Forget the times," Sachak said. He later said that he and fellow lawyer Ravin Pillay have shown over the course of the trial that there were issues with video timestamps.
According to phone records, a call was made to Bosma's phone at 9:05 p.m., and the Crown has alleged Millard was the one who made that call. That would put Millard and Smich in Bosma's driveway at that time, and not driving on Trinity Road.
In an objection to a line of Sachak's questioning, Smich's lawyer, Thomas Dungey, said, "Mr. Plaxton only stated it was a vehicle similar to the other vehicle ... it proves nothing."
Sachak repeatedly asked Smich why he didn't call 911 at some point on the night that Bosma died. "Why not pull over at somebody's house, and knock on the doors and say there's a guy who just murdered somebody, call 911?" Sachak asked. "He told me what to do, I was scared," Smich said.
Sachak also asked him why he didn't run, or take off in Millard's SUV. "It didn't occur to you to take another road, drive away and get help?" Sachak asked.
Again, Smich said no.
Millard's lawyer also told the court that it would be almost impossible for Millard to lift Bosma's body into the incinerator alone as Smich has alleged.
"Not at all," Smich says. "Dell was a lot bigger than he is right now ... he is very capable."
Sachak's cross-examination has been repetitive at times, as he continuously questions Smich about his testimony. That cross-examination will stretch into its fifth day on Friday.
http://www.cbc.ca
The former girlfriend of a man facing a murder charge in the death of Tim Bosma will be back on the witness stand today.
On Wednesday, Christina Noudga told the Hamilton court she helped Dellen Millard move his animal incinerator, dubbed “The Eliminator,” from the barn on his property near Waterloo, Ont., to the middle of the bush on the sprawling property.
She said she put on gloves, as did Millard, to help him move the huge piece of machinery.
Millard, 30, of Toronto, and Mark Smich, 28, of Oakville, Ont., have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in Bosma's death.
The Crown alleges Bosma was shot at point-blank range in his truck and his body later burned in that incinerator. Investigators later found two human bones and numerous bone fragments in the incinerator and blood, likely Bosma's according to a DNA analysis, was found on the outside of the machine.
Bosma vanished on May 6, 2013 after taking two strangers for a test drive in the truck he was trying to sell.
Noudga, expected to be one of the prosecution’s star witnesses, often had trouble recalling details under questioning by Crown attorney Tony Leitch.
Court heard that Noudga has been charged as an accessory after the fact to the murder of Bosma and will have her own trial in November.
When asked by Leitch why they moved the incinerator, she said Millard “said he wanted to move it because the floor boards (in the barn) were getting creaky, so we should move it.”
She testified earlier Wednesday about wanting to see Millard that week, but he was tied up on a lengthy “mission” that began the night of May 6, 2013.
On May 9, court heard, Millard picked her up at her home in Toronto and gave her a digital video recorder. She said she hid it in her closet, where it remained for nearly a year until she was arrested in connection with the murder.
She said she thought nothing of it even after her boyfriend was charged with the murder of Bosma in 2013.
“Ever consider taking it to police?” Leitch asked.
“Honestly, I didn’t think it was related,” Noudga said, adding she thought it was a stereo.
Court has already seen video extracted from the device that showed a truck hauling what appears to be “The Eliminator” outside Millard’s hangar in Waterloo, Ont.
The video also shows two men walking through the hangar early on May 7, hours after Bosma disappeared. Flares are seen coming from the incinerator.
After she put the device in her closet, Noudga said she drove with Millard in his truck — hauling a large trailer — to his mother’s house in Kleinburg, Ont.
She said she helped him park the trailer against the garage, so close the back doors couldn’t be opened.
She said Millard’s mother came out and asked why he was leaving the trailer there, which he didn't answer.
“At this point, we are both extremely stoned,” Noudga said, laughing.
Then the pair drove to Millard’s hangar — he inherited his father’s aviation business — and she said she never discussed the “mission” Millard said he had been conducting the previous days. Those were the days after Bosma disappeared.
Court saw numerous text messages between Noudga and Millard, many of them discussing the “mission” Millard was conducting. She said she didn't have much time to discuss why he had been so aloof the previous days because of a “sexual act” on that ride to the hangar.
She said she never asked him details about the mission and was not aware of Millard’s plans to steal a truck, which others have testified about.
Earlier, a Hamilton police officer testified about seizing letters in Noudga’s bedroom that appeared to come from Millard while he was in jail.
http://www.thestar.com
The former girlfriend of a man facing a murder charge in the death of Tim Bosma says she helped her boyfriend move a key piece of evidence days after the Hamilton man disappeared.
Christina Noudga told a Hamilton court she helped Dellen Millard move his animal incinerator, dubbed “The Eliminator,” from the barn on his property near Waterloo, Ont., to the middle of the bush on the sprawling property.
She said she put on gloves, as did Millard, to help him move the huge piece of machinery.
Millard, 30, of Toronto, and Mark Smich, 28, of Oakville, Ont., have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in Bosma’s death.
The Crown alleges Bosma was shot at point-blank range in his truck and his body later burned in that incinerator. Investigators later found two human bones and numerous bone fragments in the incinerator and blood, likely Bosma’s according to a DNA analysis, was found on the outside of the machine.
Bosma vanished on May 6, 2013 after taking two strangers for a test drive in the truck he was trying to sell.
Noudga, expected to be one of the prosecution’s star witnesses, often had trouble recalling details under questioning by Crown attorney Tony Leitch.
Court heard that Noudga has been charged as an accessory after the fact to the murder of Bosma and will have her own trial in November.
When asked by Leitch why they moved the incinerator, she said Millard “said he wanted to move it because the floor boards (in the barn) were getting creaky, so we should move it.”
She testified earlier Wednesday about wanting to see Millard that week, but he was tied up on a lengthy “mission” that began the night of May 6, 2013.
On May 9, court heard, Millard picked her up at her home in Toronto and gave her a digital video recorder. She said she hid it in her closet, where it remained for nearly a year until she was arrested in connection with the murder.
She said she thought nothing of it even after her boyfriend was charged with the murder of Bosma in 2013.
“Ever consider taking it to police?” Leitch asked.
“Honestly, I didn’t think it was related,” Noudga said, adding she thought it was a stereo.
Court has already seen video extracted from the device that showed a truck hauling what appears to be “The Eliminator” outside Millard’s hangar in Waterloo, Ont.
The video also shows two men walking through the hangar early on May 7, hours after Bosma disappeared. Flares are seen coming from the incinerator.
After she put the device in her closet, Noudga said she drove with Millard in his truck — hauling a large trailer — to his mother’s house in Kleinburg, Ont.
She said she helped him park the trailer against the garage, so close the back doors couldn’t be opened.
She said Millard’s mother came out and asked why he was leaving the trailer there, which he didn’t answer.
“At this point, we are both extremely stoned,” Noudga said, laughing.
Then the pair drove to Millard’s hangar — he inherited his father’s aviation business — and she said she never discussed the “mission” Millard said he had been conducting the previous days. Those were the days after Bosma disappeared.
Court saw numerous text messages between Noudga and Millard, many of them discussing the “mission” Millard was conducting. She said she didn’t have much time to discuss why he had been so aloof the previous days because of a “sexual act” on that ride to the hangar.
In the texts, Millard also mentioned his finances — debts he inherited after his father’s death, a new accountant’s upcoming visit to the hangar, and a condo he was closing a deal on.
She says he was “very private” about his finances, only sharing details during his “little rants.”
“Subtle annoyances were mentioned, but he never elucidated on them,” she testified.
The jury has heard throughout the trial that Millard was not as rich as many of his friends thought and that he was “scrambling” to secure financing on a condo in the days before Bosma disappeared.
Noudga also told the court about her relationship with Millard, saying they met in high school and she was 18 when they started dating in 2010.
In her mind, it was an exclusive relationship. They were in love.
“But I had my suspicions,” she told the court.
She said she knew Millard’s mom, Madeleine Burns — whom he nicknamed “Rabbit,” after a childhood story — but only saw her once or twice a year at family get-togethers. But she said she grew close to Burns after Millard’s arrest.
Earlier in the day the jury heard that letters written by Millard, from jail, were found on a bedside table in Noudga’s bedroom. Hamilton Police Const. Kerry Duench took the stand briefly on Wednesday to testify about the seizure of those letters, during the execution of a search warrant at Noudga’s home following her arrest on April 10, 2014.
In these letters, the Crown said in their opening statement, Millard encouraged her to convince a friend to change his testimony to police. He also instructed her to burn the letters after reading — but she did not. She hung on to them.
Original article can be found here: http://www.thestar.com
One of two women Crown prosecutors say were in some sort of relationship with Dellen Millard around the time Hamilton man Tim Bosma disappeared testified in court Tuesday about text messages she exchanged with the accused killer.
Though Toronto real estate agent Lisa Whidden classified her relationship with Millard as "intimate," the text message exchanges shown to the jury were not. Most centred on a condo deal Millard was attempting to broker back in 2013 — and one sent just before he was arrested claiming someone "set him up."
Whidden told the court that she and Millard met in 2012 when she was "cold calling real estate ads." She said their relationship progressed, but ended when he was arrested in 2013. She is on a court-ordered no contact order with him now.
The Crown has also talked about a second woman being romantically linked to Millard — Christina Noudga of Toronto, who prosecutors have described as his girlfriend. She is charged with being an accessory after the fact in Bosma's slaying and is also expected to testify at the trial of Millard, 30, of Toronto, and Mark Smich, 28, of Oakville, Ont.
The men are on trial in Ontario Superior Court accused of killing Bosma, 32, who lived in the suburban Ancaster area of Hamilton. Both have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
Bosma left his home around 9 p.m. on May 6, 2013, to take two men on a test drive of a Dodge Ram pickup truck he was trying to sell, and was never seen alive again. The Crown alleges he was shot inside his truck and then his body burned in a livestock incinerator on a farm in Ayr, Ont., owned by Millard.
Much of Whidden's testimony Tuesday centred on text messages recovered from her cellphone. During cross-examination, jurors heard that she was handcuffed by police officers who had come to question her.
Handcuffs made her bleed, woman says
"They put me in handcuffs and took my belongings," Whidden testified.
"What crime did you commit?" Millard's lawyer Nadir Sachak asked.
"None that I knew of ... They took my purse and my phone. I did ask them to please get a warrant and I'd give it to them," said Whidden, who also told the court the handcuffs "made her bleed."
Whidden testified under subpoena, as she refused to give a statement to police and didn't speak to the Crown before trial, court heard.
In the end, a warrant was obtained and her phone searched, the jury heard.
One of the texts shown in court from Millard to Whidden was dated May 5, 2013 — the day before Bosma disappeared. It said, "Working on trading one of my gas trucks for a diesel."
The jury has already been told that a red Dodge Ram pickup truck with a gas engine was registered to MillardAir. Bosma's truck was a similar make and model, but was black with a diesel engine.
May 5 was also the day that two men — who the Crown believes were Smich and Millard — went on a test drive of a similar truck with ex-Israeli soldier Igor Tumanenko.
'I'm too hot, stay away'
In another text from Millard to Whidden on May 9, 2013, he wrote "Let him know I'm too hot, stay away," speaking about a mutual friend.
She responded: "Okay. How hot are you, are you going to be okay?" He responds: "Looks bad, I think someone I work with has set me up, I'm not sure why."
On May 11, 2013, she texted Millard one last time: "Cops are here waiting to ask about you. Are you okay?" she wrote. Millard was in custody by then.
Much of Whidden's texts introduced in court involved a condo deal Millard was working on. "Builders have me until May 9 as hard deadline to close or else," one of his texts read.
In cross-examination, Sachak described the condo, in Toronto's Distillery District, as "one of those condos where you purchase it from the design and they build it up."
"So he can only sell it if he pays off the builder?" Sachak asked, to which Whidden responded yes. Court heard Millard paid off the builder three days before the deadline.
Relationship kept casual
Whidden didn't handle the sale of the condo after Millard was arrested, she testified, but said she did receive a commission after another agent closed the deal. She estimated her payout was in the $7,000 to $10,000 range.
Smich's lawyer, Thomas Dungey, asked about that commission in his cross-examination. "Pretty nice gift — you date a guy for a year, don't sell anything, and get $10,000," he said.
Dungey asked Whidden if her relationship with Millard was "serious."
"I wouldn't call it serious, no," she said.
"You have an intimate relationship for a year and it's not serious?" the lawyer shot back.
"It was purposely kept very casual," Whidden responded.
Original article can be found here: http://www.cbc.ca
Dellen Millard, the man accused at he centre of the murder case of Hamilton man Tim Bosma, is now charged with the death of his father and former girlfriend.
The OPP announced Thursday that Millard, 28, is now charged with first-degree murder in the death of Wayne Millard and Toronto woman Laura Babcock, who was last seen in 2012.
Millard’s lawyer, Deepak Paradkar told the Star his client will plead not guilty to all charges. “We will defend them zealously,” Paradkar said.
Mark Smich, 26, who is co-accused in Bosma’s murder is now also charged with first-degree murder in Babcock’s death — police alleging the two also planned to kill her.
Millard’s 21-year-old girlfriend, Christina Noudga, was also charged with accessory to murder after the fact in Bosma’s death.
Babcock, 23, was last seen in by her former boyfriend Shawn Lerner on June 26, 2012 when he dropped her off at a hotel in the Queen St. and Roncesvalles Ave. area. Her phone records, obtained by Lerner who said he passed them to Toronto police investigators, showed Babcock and Millard exchanged several calls after her disappearance.
Babcock’s parents earlier told the Star that they had for months received no updates from police on their daughter’s disappearance and believed the case had fallen off the radar when the officer in charge moved to a new post.
On Thursday, her father Clayton Babcock told the Star he was informed of a pending announcement about his daughter.
“There’s always a glimmer of hope,” Babcock told the Star dejectedly from his Etobicoke home. “Even though it may seem far fetched.”
It’s not yet clear if Babcock’s remains have been found. Police do not need a body to lay murder charges, although it is unusual to do so in the absence of one.
Wayne Millard’s death was originally deemed a suicide by Toronto Police when he was found shot inside the home he shared with his only son in November 2012.
Police later reopened the case following Millard’s charges in the Bosma murder.
The older Millard was the heir to his father, Carl Millard’s airline dynasty, Millardair — which Dellen inherited upon his father’s death. When he was found dead, Wayne Millard had just recently completed the building of a massive million-dollar hangar at Waterloo Regional Airport and was planning for the grand opening.
Bosma put his pickup truck up for sale when two men arrived at Ancaster, Ont. home for a test drove on May 6. He never returned and was reported missing — launching a massive search that captivated international attention. Bosma’s remains were later found on a rural property in Ayr, Ont. belonging to Millard.
Story and photos: http://www.thestar.com
Dellen Millard’s strange obituary for his father Wayne: http://www.annrbrocklehurst.com
Trust Fund Information
Here’s how you can make a donation to the “In Memory of Tim Bosma” fund:
1. Make an email transfer. Log on to your bank website and follow the instructions to send an Interac e-transfer to email address inmemoryoftimbosma@gmail.com
2. Make a direct deposit to TD Canada Trust account number 2047-6332096.
3. Visit a TD Canada Trust bank and make a donation to the Tim Bosma fund.
The forensic investigation examining the death of Hamilton, Ont. man Timothy Bosma is expected to wrap up today, as tips from the public continue to pour in.
Hamilton police say the forensic analysis of two properties in the Waterloo area, along with three vehicles seized by police in the course of the Bosma investigation, are expected to be completed by Saturday.
Police say the properties are owned by 27-year-old Dellen Millard, who is charged with first-degree-murder in Bosma’s death.
Flowers are left at a North Dumfries farm property, Saturday, May 18, 2013.
More than 700 tips have been provided to police since Bosma disappeared May 6 after taking two strangers on a test drive of a pickup truck he had posted for sale online.
On Tuesday, police announced Bosma’s burned remains had been located in the Waterloo area. Investigators said the married father of one was likely murdered shortly after heading out for the drive.
Police investigating other cases
Homicide detective are now investigating whether Millard is connected in any way to his father’s death and the disappearance of a Toronto woman.
Laura Babcock was 23 years old when she went missing last July.
Babcock’s ex-boyfriend, Shawn Lerner, told CTV Toronto on Friday that Babcock was in contact with Millard shortly before her disappearance.
Lerner said Babcock’s phone records show that she had called Millard a number of times before her disappearance.
The phone records show that her very last call was made to Millard on July 3.
Police from Toronto’s homicide squad confirmed to CTV News that as far as they were concerned, nothing seemed suspicious about Babcock’s case until Millard was arrested in connection with Bosma’s death last week.
Also, Det. Sgt. Matt Kavanagh told the Hamilton Spectator that since Millard’s arrest, Toronto police have opened an investigation into the death of his father, Wayne Millard.
The cause of his death last December has been reported as a suicide.
Millard took over as the company’s CEO after his father’s death in December.
Questions about Millard’s past emerge
Millard’s lawyer Deepak Paradkar has described his client as a “humble” and “unassuming” person.
Paradkar said Millard intends to plead not-guilty to the charges laid against him, and he is maintaining his right to remain silent
Meanwhile, a photo gallery posted on a paid adult website credit Dellen Millard as the photographer.
A profile on Suicide Girls — a soft-core pornography website that “celebrates alternative beauty and alternative culture from all over the world” —shows a young model named “Josie” posing in and around a vintage DC-4 airplane.
The name on the plane reads “MILLARDAIR” – the chartered airline company founded by Millard’s grandfather.
The profile says the photo gallery was posted Feb. 17, 2005.
Another gallery of photos by Millard featuring the same model, but shot in a warehouse-like location, was posted Dec. 30, 2005.
After the search for Tim Bosma ended tragically with the discovery of his remains in Waterloo, police now say they are investigating a murder.
“This is now a homicide investigation,” Hamilton Det.-Sgt. Matt Kavanagh told a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
He revealed Bosma’s body was “burned beyond recognition” and a cause of death has not yet been determined.
Dellen Millard, the 27-year-old man in custody in connection to the case will have his charges upgraded to first-degree murder on Wednesday when he appears in Hamilton court, the detective said.
Millard was previously charged with forcible confinement and theft of Bosma’s truck 2007 black Dodge Ram 3500 following the Ancaster man’s disappearance on May 6.
Kavanagh said based on video evidence they now know when Bosma left his home with two males to test drive the truck, a second vehicle — which may have been an SUV — followed them.
It is now confirmed Bosma’s black pickup truck was found inside a trailer that police say is registered to Millard’s company parked at his mother’s home in Kleinburg.
“I believe he died shortly after he was abducted,” Kavanagh said.
Based on the new evidence, they are now considering at least three suspects, including Millard, in the murder.
Kavanagh said he still cannot say what motive the suspects may have had in kidnapping Bosma — who he said was targeted.
“I wish I could. I don’t know the motive at this time,” he said. “This has been a terrible crime.”
Kavanagh would not confirm where Bosma’s remains were found in Waterloo.
Police have executed two search warrants in the Waterloo Region and officers were seen at both a farm property owned by Millard and the Waterloo Regional Airport hangar where Millard’s aviation company is headquartered.
A forensics team continues to work on the case, Kavanagh said, as the search turns to finding the other suspects involved with help from police forces across the GTA.
Kavanagh said there are search warrants being executed on three vehicles in the Hamilton region.
On Monday, the search had extended to a rural farm property owned by the Millard family.
Several vehicles including Hamilton police cruisers and a forensics van were seen at the field at 2548 Roseville Rd. in North Dumfries Township, where a laneway leading to a large wooden barn was cordoned off with yellow police tape.
Monday marked a week since Bosma’s disappearance and it remains a mystery what anyone would have wanted with the 32-year-old father or his truck.
Police say Bosma posted his truck for sale online and was contacted by two men in their mid-20s, who arrived at his home on foot. After leaving with them for a test drive, he never returned.
Just a day earlier, police allege the same men arrived at an Etobicoke business to test a newer Dodge Ram model, but returned that man and departed.
Millard himself appears to have already owned a Dodge truck.
A cherry red 2005 Dodge Ram 3500 was registered to Millard Holdings Ltd., an amalgamated company formerly helmed by his late grandfather, Carl Millard, and father Wayne Millard.
On Monday, Hamilton police confirmed a large covered trailer they say is registered to Millard’s company was found in Kleinburg, Ont. with a black pickup truck inside. Police did not say whether the truck is Bosma’s as they sought a search warrant.
A neighbour who lives next door to the Tinsmith Crt. address where the trailer was found said it first appeared in the driveway late Thursday. The home belongs to Millard’s mother, Madeleine Burns, who is listed as the sole owner.
“It was suspicious in that it was parked right up against the garage,” said Frank Cianfarani, who called the police to have them check out the trailer.
Kavanagh said Tuesday Burns has nothing to do with the case.
In court documents, Millard is listed as living on Maple Gate Crt. in Etobicoke, which was transferred from grandparents Carl and Della to Dellen and his father in April 2008.
He was also listed on a Derry Rd. W. home in Mississauga alongside his father in April 2008. That property was sold for $795,000 in June 2012, several months before his father’s death.
Millard purchased a rural Waterloo Region property on Roseville Rd. in 2011 for $835,000. That property is also being searched, Hamilton police confirmed Monday night.
According to Paradakar, Millardair performed aircraft maintenance with several staff at the Waterloo hangar, which was modernized after the company moved from a Pearson airport hangar in 2012.
But a Transport Canada spokesperson confirmed the company’s certification as an approved maintenance organization was cancelled this past February at the company’s request.
The maintenance and manufacturing branch of the government department oversees standards for aircraft operations in Canada and gives approval to do specific maintenance work.
It is not clear what work Millardair was continuing to do at the hangar.
Pictures posted to a Facebook page between March 2010 and February 2012 show Millard working on several cars inside what appears to be an airport hangar. A video posted March 2012 on the same page shows Millard inside a small helicopter, its propellers rotating as it sits on the tarmac.
On Monday afternoon, forensic identification officers were seen entering the hangar and taking photographs around the perimeter as a police van remained parked outside the building’s door.
Source: http://www.thestar.com
The search for Tim Bosma has ended with the horrifying news that he is dead, his burned body found at a location that Hamilton police have not yet disclosed.
"It is with heavy heart that we announce the death," Police Chief Glenn De Caire told a press conference following more than a week of "exhaustive investigative efforts."
Police from numerous forces have been searching multiple locations related to Dellen Millard, the 27-year-old aviation heir arrested last weekend and now awaiting a court appearance Wednesday in Hamilton.
"This investigation is long from over," De Caire said as he announced the gruesome reality that "human remains have been located."
"Evidence indicates the remains have been burned."
De Caire said police "require more time to find those responsible. We will continue to follow every single lead."
After the announcement, family spokesperson Peter Lowe posted on the official Tim Bosma Facebook page: "The agony in this house is indescribable. There will be no further updates from this page. My prayers are with this wonderful family."
Homicide Det. Sgt. Matt Kavanagh said yesterday that the search of a black pickup, retrieved from the driveway of a Kleinburg home belonging to Millard's mother, was expected to be done first thing Tuesday.
The search for Bosma extended to a rural farm property owned by the Millard family, as police narrowed in on Waterloo Monday.
Several vehicles including Hamilton police cruisers and a forensics van were seen at the field at 2548 Roseville Rd. in North Dumfries Township, where a laneway leading to a large wooden barn was cordoned off with yellow police tape.
Robert Shantz, fire chief for the North Dumfries fire department, said there have been no callouts for fires to the farm property in the last several days.
He said burning is normal in the area, which is rural.
As of 12:45 p.m. Tuesday, police were still combing the Roseville Road property. There have been no further updates on the whereabouts of Bosma's body.
Police are using forensics, mounted police and a search team on foot to scour the site.
Within the last hour, locals and nearby residents have been stopping and getting out of their vehicles to look at the property and talk to media.
John Kucik, from Cambridge said his father owned a farm less than a kilometre away.
"This is crazy," he said. "Nothing like this ever happens here."
According to Kucik, the farms on Roseville Road are estimated on average to be 30 acres in size.
"Most of these farms would grow corn or barley," he said.
Of the surrounding neighbors, two weren't home and one declined to comment.
Source: http://www.thespec.com
By Daniel Schwartz and Amber Hildebrandt, CBC News
Posted: May 14, 2013 5:05 AM ET
Last Updated: May 14, 2013 7:04 AM ET
Dellen Millard, the man charged by Hamilton police in connection with the disappearance of Tim Bosma, made the headlines in 1999, with a story fitting for a teenager from an aviation family.
On his 14th birthday, he became the youngest Canadian to pilot solo both a helicopter and an airplane on the same day.
Millard's grandfather, Carl, was a Canadian aviation legend. He started his own charter airline in 1954, Rob Seaman wrote in Wings Magazine in 2005. Before that, Carl had been a pilot for Tran-Canada Airlines, which became Air Canada.
Millard also told Seaman that he was "a direct descendant of Chief Joseph Brant," the Mohawk leader who aided the British forces during the American Revolution in the mid-1700s.
Millard Air was incorporated in 1963 and eventually had a fleet of 21 planes. The charter airline was based at Toronto's main airport, operating until it went into bankruptcy in 1990.
Later, the Millard family owned an aircraft servicing and maintenance company, also based at Toronto's Pearson International Airport. Carl died in 2006 and his son Wayne, took over the business.
Before his own death in December 2012, Wayne was starting up Millardair MRO, which described itself as "a new provider for aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul service." It was based at Waterloo International Airport in Ontario and had the largest hangar at the airport, with plans to employ 40 to 90 people, Canadian Skies magazine reported at the time.
In an obituary of his father that appears in the Toronto Star, Dellen writes: "For father piloting wasn't just his job, it was his freedom."
Wayne had learned to fly when he was five, sitting in his father's lap. Wayne's son, Dellen, also learned about flying when he was very young but only began formal flying lessons in the months before his record flights.
The day after setting that record, the 14-year-old told CTV News, "It was just incredible flying alone. You look over at the seat and there's nobody there."
"It felt great and free. You can do anything up there," Dellen added. At the time, he was a student at the Toronto French School.
Dellen has flying in his background on his mother's side, too. Madeleine Burns is a former Air Canada flight attendant. (On Sunday, in Kleinburg, Ont., police found a trailer, containing a black pickup truck, in Burns's driveway.)
When he was 21, Wayne told the Toronto Star that Dellen wanted to start a helicopter business.
In 2011, Dellen, along with co-driver Andrew Michalski competed in the Baja 500 desert off-road race in Mexico. Michalski's Facebook page has photos of him and Dellen working on the bright yellow jeep before the race. The photos were taken at the Millardair hangar at the Waterloo airport.
As of Monday morning, police were still on scene at the hangar, CBC News reported.
On Friday, police arrested Millard "without incident while driving" in Mississauga, Ont. According to a statement by Hamilton police Supt. Dan Kinsella, "Dellen Millard, 27 years old, from Toronto, has been charged with forcible confinement and theft over $5,000."
Kinsella said that police believe Millard was the driver in a test-drive in Toronto that had similarities to the one that led to Bosma's disappearance. "Millard is the suspect with the 'Ambition' tattoo," Kinsella added, referring to the word on his wrist.
Millard's lawyer, Deepak Paradkar, told CBC News his client isn't the type of person to commit such crimes.
"He's a very unassuming, humble person. He's intelligent, well-educated and financially well off, so there's no motive here," Paradkar said.
"He's never had a brush with law, never been to jail," Paradkhar added.
Timeline of events in Tim Bosma's disappearance
April 28 — Tim Bosma posts an ad for his truck online.
May 6, 9:30 p.m. — Bosma leaves his home in Ancaster with two men for a test drive.
May 6, 10:10 p.m. — Bosma's truck is seen in West Brantford.
May 7 — Homicide unit called in to investigate.
May 8 — Hamilton police release descriptions of two suspects.
May 9 — Bosma's wife, Sharlene, makes a plea for his safe return.
May 10 — Police announce they have found Bosma's cellphone in Brantford.
May 10, p.m. — Police arrest Dellen Millard in Mississauga.
May 12 — Police locate what they believe to be Bosma's truck in Kleinburg, north of Toronto.
Story and Photos: http://www.cbc.ca
Two bone fragments, about 10 cm and 20 cm long, and a tooth were found inside The Eliminator incinerator.
The significance: They were the only identifiable pieces of remains found during the investigation. Though scientists tried various methods of identification through DNA and dental records, the bone shards and a piece of a tooth found in the incinerator were too damaged to conclusively identify the person linked to them. Presentation of the bone shards and tooth piece in court was among the most difficult moments for the family during the trial.
A toolbox, in which a single gunshot residue particle was found, was seized in connection with the case.
The significance: The toolbox evidence shows the movements of what is believed to be the murder weapon after Millard was arrested. Court heard that Millard gave the toolbox to friend Matt Hagerman, right before his arrest. Hagerman and another friend, Andrew Michalski, passed it on to Smich, along with a bag of marijuana. Smich testified he was surprised to get the gun and thought Millard might be trying to frame him.
The jury saw a series of pictures obtained during the investigation of a gun, a Walther PPK. The Crown suggested it was likely the gun used to kill Bosma.
The significance: The pictures show Millard and Smich had access to a gun. That's important because a murder weapon was never found. Smich says he buried it and can't recall where. The gun also uses the ammunition that matches a shell casing found inside Bosma's truck. Each accused pointed the finger at the other as the one who brought a gun to the test drive of Bosma's truck.
Security video seized from a business near the Millard Air hangar shows the arrival of a truck and a trailer. It also shows a flash of light believed to be the igniting of the incinerator hours after Bosma was killed.
The significance: The pictures show Millard and Smich had access to a gun. That's important because a murder weapon was never found. Smich says he buried it and can't recall where. The gun also uses the ammunition that matches a shell casing found inside Bosma's truck. Each accused pointed the finger at the other as the one who brought a gun to the test drive of Bosma's truck.
The significance: This video was also among the most chilling presented by the Crown. Does it show the moment that Bosma's body was being incinerated? Beyond that, it shows Millard and Smich moving around the hangar in the early morning hours after Bosma's disappearance.
When police arrested Millard, they found black nitrile gloves in his possession. Inside those gloves, they found DNA that with a very high degree of probability belonged to Millard, and DNA that was similarly linked to Noudga. On the outside, they found blood stains, that again, with a high degree of probability contain Bosma's DNA.
The significance: One of the many puzzle pieces that the Crown is using to try to place Millard at the centre of the crime. The combination of likely DNA matches has Millard wearing the gloves that came into contact with Bosma, or at least Bosma's blood.
The significance: This represents a key break in the early stages of the investigation, further linking Millard to the probe (along with the cellphone records and his ambition tattoo). Jennings had seen news reports about Bosma's disappearance, saw the truck at his work a few days later and did what no one else with peripheral connections to the accused did — he contacted police. He took a photo and recorded the VIN number. His recounting of his thinking: "Oh my God, could that be the truck?" was one of the most dramatic moments of the trial.
The jury has heard all the evidence they will hear at the Tim Bosma murder trial.
After nine days on the stand, Mark Smich wrapped up his testimony Wednesday. This marks the end of his case, and of evidence as a whole, in the trial, which has gone on for four months.
Smich, 28, and his co-accused Dellen Millard, 30, are on trial together for the first-degree murder of Bosma.
And the two men have pointed the finger squarely at one another.
But the Crown says the pair came up with the plan together.
Assistant Crown attorney Craig Fraser suggested Wednesday that Bosma was killed within minutes of leaving his house on May 6, 2013 to take the two men for a test drive of his truck he was selling online.
The Ancaster dad would have been on “high alert” that night, suspicious of his late-night visitors who showed up after 9 p.m. to see a truck, Fraser argued.
He suggested there was no test drive that night — that Bosma only got as far as a field around the corner from his Trinity Road home before he was shot inside his truck.
Smich has insisted that he got out of the truck when they reached that field at Trinity and Book Roads.
Bosma was still alive at that point, he said. He added that Millard had made up a story about a friend dropping them off that night, getting lost and parking in a field.
Smich says Millard suggested that he get out and go with this fictional friend, to follow behind the truck so they wouldn’t have to come back after the test drive.
Smich says he got out and hopped in the Yukon, where the keys had been left in a cup-holder.
He says Millard then did a U-turn in Bosma’s truck on the road, and that he pulled out of the field and followed.
But Fraser referred earlier to testimony by Rick Bulman, a man who had been walking his dogs that night when he noticed two vehicles pulling out of the field.
“And you know why they were in that field? Because that’s where you and Mr. Millard shot Mr. Bosma,” Fraser suggested.
Smich disagreed.
He insists he only discovered Bosma had been shot when he pulled over behind the truck when it stopped suddenly in Brantford.
Fraser suggested they pulled over there because they needed to do some “repositioning of the body.”
He said that if Smich had truly been “in fear” of Millard as he claims, he would have driven away. But he followed.
“You followed him, sir. That was a choice you made, because it was part of the plan,” Fraser said.
Smich continued to “play along,” Fraser argued, in the days after the murder, repeatedly calling and texting Millard.
Smich says he was trying to be normal so as not to raise suspicion, but Fraser says the messages show a comfort between them.
On May 10, just after police visited the hangar, but before Millard was arrested, he paid Smich a 50-minute visit at his girlfriend’s sister’s apartment in Oakville.
Fraser suggested Millard was there to tell him police were onto him and that they discussed what to do next.
Smich disagreed, and could recall only that Millard told him he was getting a lawyer.
Fraser pointed to evidence from several past witnesses in this trial whose stories contradicted the account Smich gave. He suggested that Smich is saying these witnesses all got it wrong.
His girlfriend, Marlena Meneses, for example, testified that Smich and Millard were “very happy” and ready to celebrate when they picked her up early on May 7, 2013.
“They just said that the mission went well,” she testified.
Smich said he doesn’t know where that description came from.
“She got that from you, inside that truck,” Fraser replied.
When the Crown wrapped up their cross-examination, Smich’s lawyer, Thomas Dungey, got up briefly.
Smich agreed with his lawyer when he suggested he must be exhausted after nine days on the stand.
“Did you kill Mr. Bosma?” Dungey asked him, his last in a series of rapid-fire questions.
“No,” Smich said.
https://www.thestar.com
Mark Smich, left, and Dellen Millard are accused of the first-degree murder of Hamilton man Tim Bosma. Smich spent all week in the witness box being cross-examined by Millard's lawyer. (Court exhibit)
Accused killer Mark Smich spent the entire week at the Tim Bosma trial in Hamilton being cross-examined by the lawyer representing Dellen Millard, his co-accused.
Nadir Sachak's questioning of Smich focused mostly on his testimony about what happened the night Bosma died after taking two strangers on a test drive of a pickup truck he was trying to sell. And who shot the father of one.
Smich testified that he wasn't in the truck when Millard shot Bosma, but in previous testimony about text messages Millard sent to his girlfriend at the time, he indicated Smich was the shooter.
Smich, 28, of Oakville, Ont., and Millard, 30, of Toronto, have both pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
Bosma vanished on May 6, 2013, never returning from the test drive. Investigators later found charred human remains, believed to belong to Bosma, in a livestock incinerator on Millard's farm in Ayr, Ont.
Millard has chosen not to testify at the trial.
Smich previously told the jury that he was surprised a friend of Millard's gave him the gun, which he believed was the one used to kill Bosma, after the aviation heir was arrested. He said he panicked and buried it in a forest in Oakville, but couldn't remember where.
Sachak suggested that he must have buried the gun in "some magical forest."
"Is this some gun burial induced amnesia?" Sachak asked in court Monday. "You seem to have forgotten every detail except it's buried in some magical forest."
Violent rap lyrics
On Tuesday, the jury heard that Smich wrote rap lyrics about killing people and running from the police. Sachak displayed some of the lyrics for the jury to see.
"Get slapped with my gun hand muthaphuka! Leave you dead, with some contraband muthaphuka!" Smich wrote.
"My 380 is NO stranger, when Im angered you're in danger."
"You know what the word slapped means on the street?" Sachak said. "You know for a fact that slapped is street slang for murder and kill."
Smich said no, and maintained that his lyrics were just an artistic expression.
"It's rhyme sir," Smich said. "It has nothing to do with reality."
Sachak also showed the jury a video of Smich rapping.
The accusation
Sachak told the jury mid-week that Smich's story "doesn't make any sense." He continued to attempt to discredit Smich's version of events from the night Bosma was killed.
Sachak said that Millard "has, in essence, destroyed the very item he was so desperate to drive away with, according to your version of events," and added that the truck's carpet and seats had to be stripped out because of all the blood.
"It must be so difficult for the Bosma family to hear this," Sachak said, after describing the bloody scene inside the truck.
Smich, however, said losing the carpet and seats wouldn't have mattered to Millard.
"Dell's vehicles, what he prefers in his vehicles is leather seats and no carpets," Smich said. "The carpets and the seats would've been changed anyway."
The testimony during the week built to an accusation on Thursday. Sachak told the jury that Smich, not Millard, was the one who pulled the trigger and shot Bosma after a struggle broke out inside the Hamilton man's truck on a highway.
It was the first time Sachak presented his narrative as to what he believes happened on the night Bosma died.
While on the highway, Sachak suggested, Smich pulled out a gun and said, "We're going to take the truck,' and Millard said, 'Oh no.'
"Mr. Bosma grabbed the gun that was pointing at him. At that point there was a struggle, and the gun was discharged ... I'm going to suggest to you Mr. Bosma was struck and the window was shattered," Sachak said. Smich denied all of that outright.
The argument
On Friday, Sachak suggested there was an argument between Smich and Millard at the Millardair hangar in Waterloo, Ont., after Bosma was shot.
Sachak went on to say that Smich told Millard during the heated argument that Bosma's death wasn't his fault.
"Dell said 'what did you do, why did you mess this up?' ... and you said something along the lines of 'it's not my fault, he grabbed the gun,'" Sachak said, adding that Millard then took off to "cool down."
Smich denied the argument took place.
The Crown will begin its cross-examination of Smich on Tuesday.
Accused killer Mark Smich was back in the witness box at the Tim Bosma murder trial today in a Hamilton courtroom.
Nadir Sachak, Dellen Millard's lawyer, is seen here leaving the courthouse on Thursday. His cross-examination of Mark Smich will stretch into a fifth day on Friday.
Dellen Millard's lawyer alleges that Mark Smich shot Tim Bosma after a struggle broke out inside the Hamilton man's truck on an Ontario highway.
For the first time Thursday, Nadir Sachak presented his narrative as to what he believes happened on the night Bosma died after taking two men on a test drive of a pickup .
Sachak said that on May 6, 2013, while on a test drive of Bosma's pickup truck, Millard was driving and wanted to take the vehicle out onto Highway 403 near Bosma's home.
While on the highway, Sachak suggested, Smich pulled out a gun and said, "We're going to take the truck,' and Millard said, 'Oh no.'
"Mr. Bosma grabbed the gun that was pointing at him. At that point there was a struggle, and the gun was discharged ... I'm going to suggest to you Mr. Bosma was struck and the window was shattered," Sachak said.
Smich denied all of that outright.
Smich, 28, of Oakville, Ont., and Millard, 30, of Toronto, have both pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. They are being tried before a jury in Ontario Superior Court.
Millard was 'furious,' lawyer says
In his fourth day of cross-examination, Sachak presented an alternate theory to Smich's story that he wasn't in the truck when Bosma was shot.
"Mr. Millard was furious as to what had transpired," Sachak said in court. "There was reference to getting an ambulance or something, and you said, 'He's dead.'"
"Absolutely not," Smich said.
Sachak suggested that Millard panicked, and drove back towards Bosma's home in the dead man's truck, with him inside.
"I'm going to suggest the plan was Dell wanted his GMC Yukon out of the field area because he was concerned he'd be caught red-handed," Sachak said.
Smich replied that isn't what happened. "Your suggestions are incorrect," he said.
"I know the truth of what happened, so I don't need to pay attention to your so-called suggestions, which, if I might say so, sound an awful lot like you're reading from Dellen Millard's letters to Christina Noudga."
Smich told the court that he is testifying as an innocent man. "If you want stories, you can ask your client Walt Disney over there," Smich said, before being cautioned by Justice Andrew Goodman.
'I was on the side of a road with a crazy person'
Sachak also tried to poke holes in the details Smich has previously testified about. According to Smich, he was driving behind Millard and Bosma in Millard's SUV when Millard got out of the pickup truck holding a gun, and said he was taking the truck.
Smich said that's when he saw Bosma slumped over the dashboard, but didn't ask too many questions.
"I'm on the side of a dark road with a crazy person who just killed a man," Smich said.
He claims Millard told him to swap the licence plates on Bosma's truck for the plates off Millard's red truck.
Sachak asked Smich why he didn't say no to Millard when he asked.
"He has a gun!" Smich shouted, appearing rattled for the first time.
"Did he point the gun at you … did he threaten to kill you?" Sachak asked in a patronizing tone.
"He did not say that sir, I felt threatened from what just happened."
Security camera video examined
In court's morning session, Sachak told the court that security camera footage bolsters his version of events, and discredits Smich.
The video shows the movement of a truck "consistent" with Bosma's truck on May 6.
Sachak said a pickup truck is seen going north on Trinity Road in Ancaster, Ont., near Bosma's home at 9:05 p.m., and then going south at 9:15 p.m.
It then goes north again at 9:20 p.m. followed by Millard's GMC Yukon. Video expert Michael Plaxton previously said the truck was "consistent" with the Bosma truck, and the other vehicle was "consistent" with Millard's SUV.
"In that 10-minute test drive you shot Mr. Bosma, and you were coming to retrieve the GMC Yukon," Sachak said. "That's absolutely incorrect," Smich responded.
"That's not the Bosma vehicle, it's not an uncommon vehicle, especially for the area," Smich said.
An 'impossible scenario,' Smich says
He also said the scenario Sachak described would be "virtually impossible because of the times," when compared to cellphone records.
"Forget the times," Sachak said. He later said that he and fellow lawyer Ravin Pillay have shown over the course of the trial that there were issues with video timestamps.
According to phone records, a call was made to Bosma's phone at 9:05 p.m., and the Crown has alleged Millard was the one who made that call. That would put Millard and Smich in Bosma's driveway at that time, and not driving on Trinity Road.
In an objection to a line of Sachak's questioning, Smich's lawyer, Thomas Dungey, said, "Mr. Plaxton only stated it was a vehicle similar to the other vehicle ... it proves nothing."
Sachak repeatedly asked Smich why he didn't call 911 at some point on the night that Bosma died. "Why not pull over at somebody's house, and knock on the doors and say there's a guy who just murdered somebody, call 911?" Sachak asked. "He told me what to do, I was scared," Smich said.
Sachak also asked him why he didn't run, or take off in Millard's SUV. "It didn't occur to you to take another road, drive away and get help?" Sachak asked.
Again, Smich said no.
Millard's lawyer also told the court that it would be almost impossible for Millard to lift Bosma's body into the incinerator alone as Smich has alleged.
"Not at all," Smich says. "Dell was a lot bigger than he is right now ... he is very capable."
Sachak's cross-examination has been repetitive at times, as he continuously questions Smich about his testimony. That cross-examination will stretch into its fifth day on Friday.
http://www.cbc.ca
Christina Noudga, left, leaves court with her mother after testifying Wednesday, April 27, 2016.
The former girlfriend of a man facing a murder charge in the death of Tim Bosma will be back on the witness stand today.
On Wednesday, Christina Noudga told the Hamilton court she helped Dellen Millard move his animal incinerator, dubbed “The Eliminator,” from the barn on his property near Waterloo, Ont., to the middle of the bush on the sprawling property.
She said she put on gloves, as did Millard, to help him move the huge piece of machinery.
Millard, 30, of Toronto, and Mark Smich, 28, of Oakville, Ont., have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in Bosma's death.
The Crown alleges Bosma was shot at point-blank range in his truck and his body later burned in that incinerator. Investigators later found two human bones and numerous bone fragments in the incinerator and blood, likely Bosma's according to a DNA analysis, was found on the outside of the machine.
Bosma vanished on May 6, 2013 after taking two strangers for a test drive in the truck he was trying to sell.
Noudga, expected to be one of the prosecution’s star witnesses, often had trouble recalling details under questioning by Crown attorney Tony Leitch.
Court heard that Noudga has been charged as an accessory after the fact to the murder of Bosma and will have her own trial in November.
When asked by Leitch why they moved the incinerator, she said Millard “said he wanted to move it because the floor boards (in the barn) were getting creaky, so we should move it.”
She testified earlier Wednesday about wanting to see Millard that week, but he was tied up on a lengthy “mission” that began the night of May 6, 2013.
On May 9, court heard, Millard picked her up at her home in Toronto and gave her a digital video recorder. She said she hid it in her closet, where it remained for nearly a year until she was arrested in connection with the murder.
She said she thought nothing of it even after her boyfriend was charged with the murder of Bosma in 2013.
“Ever consider taking it to police?” Leitch asked.
“Honestly, I didn’t think it was related,” Noudga said, adding she thought it was a stereo.
Court has already seen video extracted from the device that showed a truck hauling what appears to be “The Eliminator” outside Millard’s hangar in Waterloo, Ont.
The video also shows two men walking through the hangar early on May 7, hours after Bosma disappeared. Flares are seen coming from the incinerator.
After she put the device in her closet, Noudga said she drove with Millard in his truck — hauling a large trailer — to his mother’s house in Kleinburg, Ont.
She said she helped him park the trailer against the garage, so close the back doors couldn’t be opened.
She said Millard’s mother came out and asked why he was leaving the trailer there, which he didn't answer.
“At this point, we are both extremely stoned,” Noudga said, laughing.
Then the pair drove to Millard’s hangar — he inherited his father’s aviation business — and she said she never discussed the “mission” Millard said he had been conducting the previous days. Those were the days after Bosma disappeared.
Court saw numerous text messages between Noudga and Millard, many of them discussing the “mission” Millard was conducting. She said she didn't have much time to discuss why he had been so aloof the previous days because of a “sexual act” on that ride to the hangar.
She said she never asked him details about the mission and was not aware of Millard’s plans to steal a truck, which others have testified about.
Earlier, a Hamilton police officer testified about seizing letters in Noudga’s bedroom that appeared to come from Millard while he was in jail.
http://www.thestar.com
Christina Noudga and her mother (both with fully covered faces) arrive to court with her lawyer Paul Mergler.
Christina Noudga, middle, walks towards the John Sopinka Courthouse in Hamilton Wednesday, April 27, 2016, alongside her lawyer Paul Mergler, left. Noudga is testifying at the Tim Bosma trial.
Christina Noudga
Dellan Millard' s girlfriend (charged with accessory to murder), Christina Noudga.
Dellan Millard' s girlfriend (charged with accessory to murder), Christina Noudga.Christina Noudga told a Hamilton court she helped Dellen Millard move his animal incinerator, dubbed “The Eliminator,” from the barn on his property near Waterloo, Ont., to the middle of the bush on the sprawling property.
She said she put on gloves, as did Millard, to help him move the huge piece of machinery.
Millard, 30, of Toronto, and Mark Smich, 28, of Oakville, Ont., have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in Bosma’s death.
The Crown alleges Bosma was shot at point-blank range in his truck and his body later burned in that incinerator. Investigators later found two human bones and numerous bone fragments in the incinerator and blood, likely Bosma’s according to a DNA analysis, was found on the outside of the machine.
Bosma vanished on May 6, 2013 after taking two strangers for a test drive in the truck he was trying to sell.
Noudga, expected to be one of the prosecution’s star witnesses, often had trouble recalling details under questioning by Crown attorney Tony Leitch.
Court heard that Noudga has been charged as an accessory after the fact to the murder of Bosma and will have her own trial in November.
When asked by Leitch why they moved the incinerator, she said Millard “said he wanted to move it because the floor boards (in the barn) were getting creaky, so we should move it.”
She testified earlier Wednesday about wanting to see Millard that week, but he was tied up on a lengthy “mission” that began the night of May 6, 2013.
On May 9, court heard, Millard picked her up at her home in Toronto and gave her a digital video recorder. She said she hid it in her closet, where it remained for nearly a year until she was arrested in connection with the murder.
She said she thought nothing of it even after her boyfriend was charged with the murder of Bosma in 2013.
“Ever consider taking it to police?” Leitch asked.
“Honestly, I didn’t think it was related,” Noudga said, adding she thought it was a stereo.
Court has already seen video extracted from the device that showed a truck hauling what appears to be “The Eliminator” outside Millard’s hangar in Waterloo, Ont.
The video also shows two men walking through the hangar early on May 7, hours after Bosma disappeared. Flares are seen coming from the incinerator.
After she put the device in her closet, Noudga said she drove with Millard in his truck — hauling a large trailer — to his mother’s house in Kleinburg, Ont.
She said she helped him park the trailer against the garage, so close the back doors couldn’t be opened.
She said Millard’s mother came out and asked why he was leaving the trailer there, which he didn’t answer.
“At this point, we are both extremely stoned,” Noudga said, laughing.
Then the pair drove to Millard’s hangar — he inherited his father’s aviation business — and she said she never discussed the “mission” Millard said he had been conducting the previous days. Those were the days after Bosma disappeared.
Court saw numerous text messages between Noudga and Millard, many of them discussing the “mission” Millard was conducting. She said she didn’t have much time to discuss why he had been so aloof the previous days because of a “sexual act” on that ride to the hangar.
In the texts, Millard also mentioned his finances — debts he inherited after his father’s death, a new accountant’s upcoming visit to the hangar, and a condo he was closing a deal on.
She says he was “very private” about his finances, only sharing details during his “little rants.”
“Subtle annoyances were mentioned, but he never elucidated on them,” she testified.
The jury has heard throughout the trial that Millard was not as rich as many of his friends thought and that he was “scrambling” to secure financing on a condo in the days before Bosma disappeared.
Noudga also told the court about her relationship with Millard, saying they met in high school and she was 18 when they started dating in 2010.
In her mind, it was an exclusive relationship. They were in love.
“But I had my suspicions,” she told the court.
She said she knew Millard’s mom, Madeleine Burns — whom he nicknamed “Rabbit,” after a childhood story — but only saw her once or twice a year at family get-togethers. But she said she grew close to Burns after Millard’s arrest.
Earlier in the day the jury heard that letters written by Millard, from jail, were found on a bedside table in Noudga’s bedroom. Hamilton Police Const. Kerry Duench took the stand briefly on Wednesday to testify about the seizure of those letters, during the execution of a search warrant at Noudga’s home following her arrest on April 10, 2014.
In these letters, the Crown said in their opening statement, Millard encouraged her to convince a friend to change his testimony to police. He also instructed her to burn the letters after reading — but she did not. She hung on to them.
Original article can be found here: http://www.thestar.com
Toronto real estate agent Lisa Whidden, who had a romantic relationship with accused killer Dellen Millard before his arrest, leaves the John Sopinka Courthouse in Hamilton.
One of two women Crown prosecutors say were in some sort of relationship with Dellen Millard around the time Hamilton man Tim Bosma disappeared testified in court Tuesday about text messages she exchanged with the accused killer.
Though Toronto real estate agent Lisa Whidden classified her relationship with Millard as "intimate," the text message exchanges shown to the jury were not. Most centred on a condo deal Millard was attempting to broker back in 2013 — and one sent just before he was arrested claiming someone "set him up."
Whidden told the court that she and Millard met in 2012 when she was "cold calling real estate ads." She said their relationship progressed, but ended when he was arrested in 2013. She is on a court-ordered no contact order with him now.
The Crown has also talked about a second woman being romantically linked to Millard — Christina Noudga of Toronto, who prosecutors have described as his girlfriend. She is charged with being an accessory after the fact in Bosma's slaying and is also expected to testify at the trial of Millard, 30, of Toronto, and Mark Smich, 28, of Oakville, Ont.
The men are on trial in Ontario Superior Court accused of killing Bosma, 32, who lived in the suburban Ancaster area of Hamilton. Both have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
This police mugshot of Dellen Millard was taken after he was arrested on May 11, 2013. Millard is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Hamilton man Tim Bosma. (Hamilton Police Service/Court exhibit)
Bosma left his home around 9 p.m. on May 6, 2013, to take two men on a test drive of a Dodge Ram pickup truck he was trying to sell, and was never seen alive again. The Crown alleges he was shot inside his truck and then his body burned in a livestock incinerator on a farm in Ayr, Ont., owned by Millard.
Much of Whidden's testimony Tuesday centred on text messages recovered from her cellphone. During cross-examination, jurors heard that she was handcuffed by police officers who had come to question her.
Handcuffs made her bleed, woman says
"They put me in handcuffs and took my belongings," Whidden testified.
"What crime did you commit?" Millard's lawyer Nadir Sachak asked.
"None that I knew of ... They took my purse and my phone. I did ask them to please get a warrant and I'd give it to them," said Whidden, who also told the court the handcuffs "made her bleed."
Whidden testified under subpoena, as she refused to give a statement to police and didn't speak to the Crown before trial, court heard.
In the end, a warrant was obtained and her phone searched, the jury heard.
One of the texts shown in court from Millard to Whidden was dated May 5, 2013 — the day before Bosma disappeared. It said, "Working on trading one of my gas trucks for a diesel."
The jury has already been told that a red Dodge Ram pickup truck with a gas engine was registered to MillardAir. Bosma's truck was a similar make and model, but was black with a diesel engine.
May 5 was also the day that two men — who the Crown believes were Smich and Millard — went on a test drive of a similar truck with ex-Israeli soldier Igor Tumanenko.
'I'm too hot, stay away'
In another text from Millard to Whidden on May 9, 2013, he wrote "Let him know I'm too hot, stay away," speaking about a mutual friend.
She responded: "Okay. How hot are you, are you going to be okay?" He responds: "Looks bad, I think someone I work with has set me up, I'm not sure why."
On May 11, 2013, she texted Millard one last time: "Cops are here waiting to ask about you. Are you okay?" she wrote. Millard was in custody by then.
Much of Whidden's texts introduced in court involved a condo deal Millard was working on. "Builders have me until May 9 as hard deadline to close or else," one of his texts read.
In cross-examination, Sachak described the condo, in Toronto's Distillery District, as "one of those condos where you purchase it from the design and they build it up."
"So he can only sell it if he pays off the builder?" Sachak asked, to which Whidden responded yes. Court heard Millard paid off the builder three days before the deadline.
Relationship kept casual
Whidden didn't handle the sale of the condo after Millard was arrested, she testified, but said she did receive a commission after another agent closed the deal. She estimated her payout was in the $7,000 to $10,000 range.
Smich's lawyer, Thomas Dungey, asked about that commission in his cross-examination. "Pretty nice gift — you date a guy for a year, don't sell anything, and get $10,000," he said.
Dungey asked Whidden if her relationship with Millard was "serious."
"I wouldn't call it serious, no," she said.
"You have an intimate relationship for a year and it's not serious?" the lawyer shot back.
"It was purposely kept very casual," Whidden responded.
Original article can be found here: http://www.cbc.ca
Tim Bosma, who lived in the suburban Ancaster area of Hamilton, disappeared after taking two men on a test drive of a pickup truck he was selling in May 2013.
The OPP announced Thursday that Millard, 28, is now charged with first-degree murder in the death of Wayne Millard and Toronto woman Laura Babcock, who was last seen in 2012.
Millard’s lawyer, Deepak Paradkar told the Star his client will plead not guilty to all charges. “We will defend them zealously,” Paradkar said.
Mark Smich, 26, who is co-accused in Bosma’s murder is now also charged with first-degree murder in Babcock’s death — police alleging the two also planned to kill her.
Millard’s 21-year-old girlfriend, Christina Noudga, was also charged with accessory to murder after the fact in Bosma’s death.
Babcock, 23, was last seen in by her former boyfriend Shawn Lerner on June 26, 2012 when he dropped her off at a hotel in the Queen St. and Roncesvalles Ave. area. Her phone records, obtained by Lerner who said he passed them to Toronto police investigators, showed Babcock and Millard exchanged several calls after her disappearance.
Babcock’s parents earlier told the Star that they had for months received no updates from police on their daughter’s disappearance and believed the case had fallen off the radar when the officer in charge moved to a new post.
On Thursday, her father Clayton Babcock told the Star he was informed of a pending announcement about his daughter.
“There’s always a glimmer of hope,” Babcock told the Star dejectedly from his Etobicoke home. “Even though it may seem far fetched.”
It’s not yet clear if Babcock’s remains have been found. Police do not need a body to lay murder charges, although it is unusual to do so in the absence of one.
Wayne Millard’s death was originally deemed a suicide by Toronto Police when he was found shot inside the home he shared with his only son in November 2012.
Police later reopened the case following Millard’s charges in the Bosma murder.
The older Millard was the heir to his father, Carl Millard’s airline dynasty, Millardair — which Dellen inherited upon his father’s death. When he was found dead, Wayne Millard had just recently completed the building of a massive million-dollar hangar at Waterloo Regional Airport and was planning for the grand opening.
Bosma put his pickup truck up for sale when two men arrived at Ancaster, Ont. home for a test drove on May 6. He never returned and was reported missing — launching a massive search that captivated international attention. Bosma’s remains were later found on a rural property in Ayr, Ont. belonging to Millard.
Story and photos: http://www.thestar.com
Dellen Millard’s strange obituary for his father Wayne: http://www.annrbrocklehurst.com
Wayne Millard with young Dellen Millard
Dellen Millard, 14,
stands with his grandfather, Carl Millard, 85, at Brampton Airport in
1999. Dellen rivaled his grandfather's notoriety as the oldest
commercial pilot when the teenager became the youngest Canadian to fly
solo in both an airplane and a helicopter.
Dellen Millard in 1999.
Facebook photo
Dellen Millard, 27
Dellen Millard at the hangar at Waterloo International Airport.
Here’s how you can make a donation to the “In Memory of Tim Bosma” fund:
1. Make an email transfer. Log on to your bank website and follow the instructions to send an Interac e-transfer to email address inmemoryoftimbosma@gmail.com
2. Make a direct deposit to TD Canada Trust account number 2047-6332096.
3. Visit a TD Canada Trust bank and make a donation to the Tim Bosma fund.
Dellen Millard, left, appeared in a Hamilton court on May 15, 2013, when he was formally charged with first-degree murder in the death of Tim Bosma, 32. CITYNEWS/Marianne Boucher
Dellen Millard at the hangar at Waterloo International Airport.
The forensic investigation examining the death of Hamilton, Ont. man Timothy Bosma is expected to wrap up today, as tips from the public continue to pour in.
Hamilton police say the forensic analysis of two properties in the Waterloo area, along with three vehicles seized by police in the course of the Bosma investigation, are expected to be completed by Saturday.
Police say the properties are owned by 27-year-old Dellen Millard, who is charged with first-degree-murder in Bosma’s death.
Flowers are left at a North Dumfries farm property, Saturday, May 18, 2013.
More than 700 tips have been provided to police since Bosma disappeared May 6 after taking two strangers on a test drive of a pickup truck he had posted for sale online.
On Tuesday, police announced Bosma’s burned remains had been located in the Waterloo area. Investigators said the married father of one was likely murdered shortly after heading out for the drive.
Police investigating other cases
Homicide detective are now investigating whether Millard is connected in any way to his father’s death and the disappearance of a Toronto woman.
Laura Babcock was 23 years old when she went missing last July.
Babcock’s ex-boyfriend, Shawn Lerner, told CTV Toronto on Friday that Babcock was in contact with Millard shortly before her disappearance.
Lerner said Babcock’s phone records show that she had called Millard a number of times before her disappearance.
The phone records show that her very last call was made to Millard on July 3.
Police from Toronto’s homicide squad confirmed to CTV News that as far as they were concerned, nothing seemed suspicious about Babcock’s case until Millard was arrested in connection with Bosma’s death last week.
Also, Det. Sgt. Matt Kavanagh told the Hamilton Spectator that since Millard’s arrest, Toronto police have opened an investigation into the death of his father, Wayne Millard.
The cause of his death last December has been reported as a suicide.
Millard took over as the company’s CEO after his father’s death in December.
Questions about Millard’s past emerge
Millard’s lawyer Deepak Paradkar has described his client as a “humble” and “unassuming” person.
Paradkar said Millard intends to plead not-guilty to the charges laid against him, and he is maintaining his right to remain silent
Meanwhile, a photo gallery posted on a paid adult website credit Dellen Millard as the photographer.
A profile on Suicide Girls — a soft-core pornography website that “celebrates alternative beauty and alternative culture from all over the world” —shows a young model named “Josie” posing in and around a vintage DC-4 airplane.
The name on the plane reads “MILLARDAIR” – the chartered airline company founded by Millard’s grandfather.
The profile says the photo gallery was posted Feb. 17, 2005.
Another gallery of photos by Millard featuring the same model, but shot in a warehouse-like location, was posted Dec. 30, 2005.
Tim Bosma and his daughter. Facebook
Supplied photo
Tim and Sharlene Bosma are shown with their baby girl.
The search for Tim Bosma has ended with the horrifying news that he is dead, his burned body found at a location that Hamilton police have not yet disclosed
The search for Tim Bosma has ended with the horrifying news that he is dead, his burned body found at a location that Hamilton police have not yet disclosed
After the search for Tim Bosma ended tragically with the discovery of his remains in Waterloo, police now say they are investigating a murder.
“This is now a homicide investigation,” Hamilton Det.-Sgt. Matt Kavanagh told a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
He revealed Bosma’s body was “burned beyond recognition” and a cause of death has not yet been determined.
Dellen Millard, the 27-year-old man in custody in connection to the case will have his charges upgraded to first-degree murder on Wednesday when he appears in Hamilton court, the detective said.
Millard was previously charged with forcible confinement and theft of Bosma’s truck 2007 black Dodge Ram 3500 following the Ancaster man’s disappearance on May 6.
Kavanagh said based on video evidence they now know when Bosma left his home with two males to test drive the truck, a second vehicle — which may have been an SUV — followed them.
It is now confirmed Bosma’s black pickup truck was found inside a trailer that police say is registered to Millard’s company parked at his mother’s home in Kleinburg.
“I believe he died shortly after he was abducted,” Kavanagh said.
Based on the new evidence, they are now considering at least three suspects, including Millard, in the murder.
Kavanagh said he still cannot say what motive the suspects may have had in kidnapping Bosma — who he said was targeted.
“I wish I could. I don’t know the motive at this time,” he said. “This has been a terrible crime.”
Kavanagh would not confirm where Bosma’s remains were found in Waterloo.
Police have executed two search warrants in the Waterloo Region and officers were seen at both a farm property owned by Millard and the Waterloo Regional Airport hangar where Millard’s aviation company is headquartered.
A forensics team continues to work on the case, Kavanagh said, as the search turns to finding the other suspects involved with help from police forces across the GTA.
Kavanagh said there are search warrants being executed on three vehicles in the Hamilton region.
On Monday, the search had extended to a rural farm property owned by the Millard family.
Several vehicles including Hamilton police cruisers and a forensics van were seen at the field at 2548 Roseville Rd. in North Dumfries Township, where a laneway leading to a large wooden barn was cordoned off with yellow police tape.
Monday marked a week since Bosma’s disappearance and it remains a mystery what anyone would have wanted with the 32-year-old father or his truck.
Police say Bosma posted his truck for sale online and was contacted by two men in their mid-20s, who arrived at his home on foot. After leaving with them for a test drive, he never returned.
Just a day earlier, police allege the same men arrived at an Etobicoke business to test a newer Dodge Ram model, but returned that man and departed.
Millard himself appears to have already owned a Dodge truck.
A cherry red 2005 Dodge Ram 3500 was registered to Millard Holdings Ltd., an amalgamated company formerly helmed by his late grandfather, Carl Millard, and father Wayne Millard.
On Monday, Hamilton police confirmed a large covered trailer they say is registered to Millard’s company was found in Kleinburg, Ont. with a black pickup truck inside. Police did not say whether the truck is Bosma’s as they sought a search warrant.
A neighbour who lives next door to the Tinsmith Crt. address where the trailer was found said it first appeared in the driveway late Thursday. The home belongs to Millard’s mother, Madeleine Burns, who is listed as the sole owner.
“It was suspicious in that it was parked right up against the garage,” said Frank Cianfarani, who called the police to have them check out the trailer.
Kavanagh said Tuesday Burns has nothing to do with the case.
In court documents, Millard is listed as living on Maple Gate Crt. in Etobicoke, which was transferred from grandparents Carl and Della to Dellen and his father in April 2008.
He was also listed on a Derry Rd. W. home in Mississauga alongside his father in April 2008. That property was sold for $795,000 in June 2012, several months before his father’s death.
Millard purchased a rural Waterloo Region property on Roseville Rd. in 2011 for $835,000. That property is also being searched, Hamilton police confirmed Monday night.
According to Paradakar, Millardair performed aircraft maintenance with several staff at the Waterloo hangar, which was modernized after the company moved from a Pearson airport hangar in 2012.
But a Transport Canada spokesperson confirmed the company’s certification as an approved maintenance organization was cancelled this past February at the company’s request.
The maintenance and manufacturing branch of the government department oversees standards for aircraft operations in Canada and gives approval to do specific maintenance work.
It is not clear what work Millardair was continuing to do at the hangar.
Pictures posted to a Facebook page between March 2010 and February 2012 show Millard working on several cars inside what appears to be an airport hangar. A video posted March 2012 on the same page shows Millard inside a small helicopter, its propellers rotating as it sits on the tarmac.
On Monday afternoon, forensic identification officers were seen entering the hangar and taking photographs around the perimeter as a police van remained parked outside the building’s door.
Source: http://www.thestar.com
The search for Tim Bosma has ended with the horrifying news that he is dead, his burned body found at a location that Hamilton police have not yet disclosed.
"It is with heavy heart that we announce the death," Police Chief Glenn De Caire told a press conference following more than a week of "exhaustive investigative efforts."
Police from numerous forces have been searching multiple locations related to Dellen Millard, the 27-year-old aviation heir arrested last weekend and now awaiting a court appearance Wednesday in Hamilton.
"This investigation is long from over," De Caire said as he announced the gruesome reality that "human remains have been located."
"Evidence indicates the remains have been burned."
De Caire said police "require more time to find those responsible. We will continue to follow every single lead."
After the announcement, family spokesperson Peter Lowe posted on the official Tim Bosma Facebook page: "The agony in this house is indescribable. There will be no further updates from this page. My prayers are with this wonderful family."
Homicide Det. Sgt. Matt Kavanagh said yesterday that the search of a black pickup, retrieved from the driveway of a Kleinburg home belonging to Millard's mother, was expected to be done first thing Tuesday.
The search for Bosma extended to a rural farm property owned by the Millard family, as police narrowed in on Waterloo Monday.
Several vehicles including Hamilton police cruisers and a forensics van were seen at the field at 2548 Roseville Rd. in North Dumfries Township, where a laneway leading to a large wooden barn was cordoned off with yellow police tape.
Robert Shantz, fire chief for the North Dumfries fire department, said there have been no callouts for fires to the farm property in the last several days.
He said burning is normal in the area, which is rural.
As of 12:45 p.m. Tuesday, police were still combing the Roseville Road property. There have been no further updates on the whereabouts of Bosma's body.
Police are using forensics, mounted police and a search team on foot to scour the site.
Within the last hour, locals and nearby residents have been stopping and getting out of their vehicles to look at the property and talk to media.
John Kucik, from Cambridge said his father owned a farm less than a kilometre away.
"This is crazy," he said. "Nothing like this ever happens here."
According to Kucik, the farms on Roseville Road are estimated on average to be 30 acres in size.
"Most of these farms would grow corn or barley," he said.
Of the surrounding neighbors, two weren't home and one declined to comment.
Source: http://www.thespec.com
Posted: May 14, 2013 5:05 AM ET
Last Updated: May 14, 2013 7:04 AM ET
Dellen Millard, the man charged by Hamilton police in connection with the disappearance of Tim Bosma, made the headlines in 1999, with a story fitting for a teenager from an aviation family.
On his 14th birthday, he became the youngest Canadian to pilot solo both a helicopter and an airplane on the same day.
Millard's grandfather, Carl, was a Canadian aviation legend. He started his own charter airline in 1954, Rob Seaman wrote in Wings Magazine in 2005. Before that, Carl had been a pilot for Tran-Canada Airlines, which became Air Canada.
Millard also told Seaman that he was "a direct descendant of Chief Joseph Brant," the Mohawk leader who aided the British forces during the American Revolution in the mid-1700s.
Millard Air was incorporated in 1963 and eventually had a fleet of 21 planes. The charter airline was based at Toronto's main airport, operating until it went into bankruptcy in 1990.
Later, the Millard family owned an aircraft servicing and maintenance company, also based at Toronto's Pearson International Airport. Carl died in 2006 and his son Wayne, took over the business.
Before his own death in December 2012, Wayne was starting up Millardair MRO, which described itself as "a new provider for aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul service." It was based at Waterloo International Airport in Ontario and had the largest hangar at the airport, with plans to employ 40 to 90 people, Canadian Skies magazine reported at the time.
In an obituary of his father that appears in the Toronto Star, Dellen writes: "For father piloting wasn't just his job, it was his freedom."
Wayne had learned to fly when he was five, sitting in his father's lap. Wayne's son, Dellen, also learned about flying when he was very young but only began formal flying lessons in the months before his record flights.
The day after setting that record, the 14-year-old told CTV News, "It was just incredible flying alone. You look over at the seat and there's nobody there."
"It felt great and free. You can do anything up there," Dellen added. At the time, he was a student at the Toronto French School.
Dellen has flying in his background on his mother's side, too. Madeleine Burns is a former Air Canada flight attendant. (On Sunday, in Kleinburg, Ont., police found a trailer, containing a black pickup truck, in Burns's driveway.)
When he was 21, Wayne told the Toronto Star that Dellen wanted to start a helicopter business.
In 2011, Dellen, along with co-driver Andrew Michalski competed in the Baja 500 desert off-road race in Mexico. Michalski's Facebook page has photos of him and Dellen working on the bright yellow jeep before the race. The photos were taken at the Millardair hangar at the Waterloo airport.
As of Monday morning, police were still on scene at the hangar, CBC News reported.
On Friday, police arrested Millard "without incident while driving" in Mississauga, Ont. According to a statement by Hamilton police Supt. Dan Kinsella, "Dellen Millard, 27 years old, from Toronto, has been charged with forcible confinement and theft over $5,000."
Kinsella said that police believe Millard was the driver in a test-drive in Toronto that had similarities to the one that led to Bosma's disappearance. "Millard is the suspect with the 'Ambition' tattoo," Kinsella added, referring to the word on his wrist.
Millard's lawyer, Deepak Paradkar, told CBC News his client isn't the type of person to commit such crimes.
"He's a very unassuming, humble person. He's intelligent, well-educated and financially well off, so there's no motive here," Paradkar said.
"He's never had a brush with law, never been to jail," Paradkhar added.
Timeline of events in Tim Bosma's disappearance
April 28 — Tim Bosma posts an ad for his truck online.
May 6, 9:30 p.m. — Bosma leaves his home in Ancaster with two men for a test drive.
May 6, 10:10 p.m. — Bosma's truck is seen in West Brantford.
May 7 — Homicide unit called in to investigate.
May 8 — Hamilton police release descriptions of two suspects.
May 9 — Bosma's wife, Sharlene, makes a plea for his safe return.
May 10 — Police announce they have found Bosma's cellphone in Brantford.
May 10, p.m. — Police arrest Dellen Millard in Mississauga.
May 12 — Police locate what they believe to be Bosma's truck in Kleinburg, north of Toronto.
Story and Photos: http://www.cbc.ca
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