Millard back on trial — this time f for dad’s death
Once, twice, three times a murder defendant.
There was the stranger who was just trying to sell his pickup truck.
There was the female friend who had a crush on him.
And between those two victims, each reduced to ashes in an animal incinerator, there was the death of a father, at first recorded as a self-in-flicted gunshot wound, bullet lodged in his brain.
Notoriously homicidal Dellen Millard, convicted of first-degree murder in the killing of Tim Bosma and Laura Babcock, was back in court on Thursday, this time charged with patricide, accused of shooting his own dad in the eye and arranging the scene to look like suicide.
Wayne Millard, 71, died some time overnight on Nov. 29, 2012, after spending about three hours on the phone talking to his girlfriend, a rekindled romance from their salad days .
Dellen Millard has pleaded not guilty to murder in the first degree.
This time, a judge-alone trial. This time, unlike the Babcock trial, he is not representing himself. This time, he’s sitting in the dock, not at the defence table, still with the tiny braid tucked behind his right ear, still with some kind of shaman pouch strung around his neck.
And this time brought to judicial heel alone, minus his wingman co-murderer Mark Smich, who may be called as a witness for the prosecution.
A cursory look was exchanged between Millard and his mother, Madeleine Burns, when the latter was briefly brought into the courtroom yesterday morning to line up her day to testify in what is expected to be a month-long trial.
The 32-year-old aviation scion — he had the world by a string — is already serving consecutive life sentences for the murders of Bosma and Babcock, with no parole eligibility for half a century.
It was the slaying of Bosma in May 2013, which led investigators to reopen the Wayne Millard case.
The alleged discovery of Dellen Millard’s DNA on the grip of the .32-calibre Smith & Wesson revolver found next to his father’s bed resulted in the laying of a murder charge. Subsequently, Millard and Smich were also charged in the death of the long-missing Laura Babcock, last seen just after the Canada Day weekend in 2012.
Janet Campbell was the first witness called to the stand by Crown attorney Jill Cameron before Justice Maureen Forestell. It was Cameron and co-Crown Ken Lockhart who secured the Babcock convictions against Millard and Smich in February.
Campbell told court that she and Wayne Millard, who were actually first-cousins, although Campbell had been adopted, had dated as teenagers in To- ronto. They resumed the relationship briefly in their early 20s before going their separate ways, each marrying and having children. “We didn’t keep in touch.”
Apart from Campbell sending Wayne Millard a sympathy card upon the death of his father, family patriarch Carl, who’d founded the aviation company, they’d had no contact until January, 2012. Millard phoned to wish her a happy new year and they continued to communicate by phone and email, bonding anew over the family genealogy research that Campbell was conducting.
They finally got around to a face-to-face date in early November, when Millard took Campbell to see the new Millardair hangar he’d built in Waterloo for his expanding aircraft Maintenance and Repair Overhaul enterprise. On that day, Millard used a scooter to show her around because he suffered from chronic back pain.
After nearly 11 months of slow-go in re-establishing their relationship, Campbell and Wayne Millard suddenly picked up romantic speed. Within days, she was visiting him at his Maple Gate Court home in Etobicoke. “Well, it wasn’t a lady’s house. It was pretty sparse. It wasn’t cosy.”
Following a second trip to the hangar later, she invited Millard back to her home. “He asked if he could stay over. I said yes. He stayed till the next afternoon.”
There was no doubt in her mind, Campbell told court, that Millard had strong feelings for her. “I think he cared deeply for me.” Adding later: “He said he loved me and he adored me.”
It was on that occasion, Nov. 25, the last time she saw Millard alive, although they continued to talk three or four times a day, that he excitedly revealed plans he’d made for her upcoming birthday: he’d take the entire day off work, would have a cake ready and had already purchased her gift.
They spoke by phone for the last time late on Nov. 28, a lengthy conversation that stretched into the wee hours of Nov. 29. Millard, she said, was delighted about finally obtaining the required licence for his MRO facility, was a bit concerned about the expanding costs, but sounded in otherwise good spirits. Yes, she knew that he had a drinking problem, but believed his consumption of alcohol had lessened over the previous year, although he apparently had been drinking before or during that last phone call.
“But he wasn’t slurring his words or anything.”
He didn’t sound upset or depressed, Campbell told court. She’d certainly never seen any evidence of clinical depression in him. “I think he suffered the same depression that everyone in this courtroom has suffered from time to time.”
Millard told her that night about the birthday gift: “You’re not going to be happy about it when you get it. But, afterward, you’re going to love it.” Flying lessons, turned out. “He was right. I’d be nervous, but then I would start to like it.” Campbell chuckled. “Teaching an old dog new tricks.”
The following day, she was unable to reach Millard by phone or email. “When I couldn’t contact him, I was most distressed.”
She managed to reach Dellen Millard. “He told me Wayne was dead and it appeared by his own hand. I was totally, absolutely stunned.”
Campbell met Dellen for the first time a few days later, at Wayne Millard’s wake. “I said to him, am I at all what you thought I would be? He said, ‘I never thought about it.’ ”
Under cross-examination from Ravin Pillay, Campbell insisted Wayne Millard had not been unduly depressed, either over the business or his back ailment. But Pillay played the video of a statement Campbell had given to police in May 2013, wherein she speculated about depression.
To Pillay, on Thursday, Campbell said she was nervous and still distraught during that interview. “I felt like I had been hit by a Mack truck. I was trying to reason why this had happened. I was grasping at straws.”
It was Dellen Millard who discovered his father dead on the evening of Nov. 29. According to the Crown’s factum, Dellen entered his father’s bedroom, saw blood and called his mother. Burns came over immediately and they called 9-1-1.
Paramedic William Smith and his partner were the first to arrive on the scene, after a dispatcher call-out for what had been described as “cardiac arrest.”
Dellen met them at the door and led them upstairs, he testified. “He said he’d tried to get a hold of his father for a few days. When he couldn’t get a hold of him, he came over and found him dead.”
What Smith saw, he told court, was a man on the bed, clearly deceased, his skin colour already turned very dark, cold to the touch. “He was beyond assistance.”
Wayne Millard was lying on his side and Smith didn’t move him as he waited for the coroner to arrive and pronounce death. He made no mention in court of the bullet wound to Millard’s eye. “I observed no injuries.” Forensic officers who took scene-of-crime photos documented a gun which had fallen onto a bag between the bed and a dresser.
The trial continues.
The 32-year-old aviation scion — he had the world by a string — is already serving consecutive life sentences