It’s either murder or suicide in Millard case
It’s the money, stupid. What money, genius? Not that the be-robed lawyers —“my friend” versus “my friend” — would ever stoop to the snappish snark in a firstdegree murder trial.
Nor is it required that a motive be established for any crime.
But it’s either murder or suicide in the death of Wayne Millard, shot through his left eye as he lay on his bed one night in November, 2012.
Suicide, as originally ruled by a coroner.
Patricide, as asserted by the prosecution, with a murder charge laid against the son of the 71-year-old deceased only when the case was reopened two years later, and that son had been charged in two other homicides: those of a stranger, Tim Bosma, last seen alive when he took two men out for a test-drive of the truck he’d put up for sale, and of a young woman, Laura Babcock, who had briefly dated the suspect.
Dellen Millard, 32, is serving consecutive life sentences, convicted in the murders of Bosma and Babcock.
The aviation heir, who’d been co-owner of Millardair, the family business, has pleaded not guilty in the death of dad.
Closing submissions were made on Monday by the Crown and the defence in the judge-alone trial.
The Crown contends that Millard offed his father, as he lay sleeping, to escape the legacy of a faltering business, a future as reluctant scion of a doomed money-pit aviation repair enterprise, and to get his hands on what remained of the family’s fortune before dear old dad plunged the operation into further debt.
As, indeed, Dellen Millard laid off the company’s entire staff within days of his father’s death.
A lousy businessman, the defence has countered, who bit off more than he could chew, veering off into a risky venture for which he wasn’t knowledgeable, in a misguided bid to create a professional inheritance for his only child, amassing huge liabilities and mortgages in the process. And that, the defence avers, is why a severely depressed, reclusive and alcoholic Wayne Millard killed himself.
Assistant Crown Jill Cameron: “Dellen Millard did not like what Wayne Millard was spending his money on. Wayne Millard was spending the family money creating a legacy for Dellen Millard that he didn’t want.”
Adding: “With Wayne Millard gone, he (Dellen) had his inheritance. He had money. He had power. He had freedom and he had control.”
Defence lawyer Ravin Pillay: “There is an overwhelming body of evidence pointing to suicide.”
Adding: “The financial pressures were mounting. The vice was tightening. I submit that (the company) was hemorrhaging money. Wayne Millard was drowning. He saw financial disaster looming. The business was sucking the life out of him. He saw a way out.”
Yet Wayne Millard had just spent hours on the phone, talking to a woman he’d dated in his youth, their relationship recently rekindled, making plans for her upcoming birthday.
Not sounding remotely despondent, if maybe just a little bit drunk, Janet Campbell had testified. Not sounding at all like a man who intended to put a bullet in his brain.
Which, as the prosecution has argued, would have demanded a bizarre physical contortion, given how the body was found: by his son, allegedly when he returned home the next day. Wayne Millard, left-handed, was lying on his left side, right arm tucked beneath his cheek, left arm extended wrist-up, as seen on gruesome photos which have been entered into evidence. Shooting oneself in the eye is horrendous enough; doing so while awkwardly wielding a .32-calibre Smith and Wesson revolver almost beggars belief.
An illegal firearm that Dellen Millard had bought off a gun dealer a few months earlier.
Ah, but no proof that that gun was this gun, said Pillay. Because Wayne Pillay had collected guns, although Campbell claimed he had got rid of all of them by then.
Dellen Millard’s DNA was found on the revolver, and it’s at least a one-in-five-quadrillion chance that DNA belonged to anyone else, according to testing done by Centre of Forensic Sciences and introduced by the Crown.
“The DNA on the gun doesn’t put the gun in Dellen Millard’s hands on any day approximate to this incident,” said Pillay.
Further, Pillay maintained, no proof that Dellen Millard was in possession of the phone — his cell — which, according to phone records and an agreed statement of facts, put the phone at his father’s Etobicoke residence on that date, between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. The coroner put Wayne Millard’s death between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m., court has heard.
Earlier that evening, Millard, who’d been hanging out at the Oakville home of his friend Mark Smich (his co-accused in the murders of Bosma and Babcock, and also convicted), announced that he was going out on a date, returning several hours later and waking up Smich and Smich’s girlfriend, to tell them he was home.
That girlfriend, Marlene Meneses, testified a couple of weeks ago that Dellen Millard had two phones with him that night, one of which he left with them. On the witness stand, Meneses also said she’d seen Dellen with a “western-looking gun” before the death of his father.
Pillay told Justice Maureen Forestell on Monday that Meneses, called as a Crown witness in all three trials, is worthless as a font of facts. “Marlene Meneses’ evidence suffers from significant credibility and believability issues. She’s lied on multiple occasions. I submit that when Ms. Meneses was testifying, she lied. She lied in cross-examination. She lied in chief. She lied before you.”
The judge has already done the defence a solid, last Friday kicking out a substantial chunk of key evidence from a Crown witness. In a major blow to the prosecution’s case, Forestell ruled that testimony by a police crime scene reconstructionist — Det. Const. Grant Sutherland, who said on the stand that he did not believe Wayne Millard had shot himself — was inadmissible.
Pillay had strongly, and successfully, argued that the testimony showed “bias” and “lack of reliability.” Largely because the death was handled as a suicide by paramedics and police officers who responded, the crime scene was apparently something of a mess with items, most significantly the gun and a blanket wrapped around the victim’s legs, seemingly moved.
A bag on which the gun was found was never seized and examined at all.
No gun residue was noted on Wayne Millard’s hand. Yet the gun, suggested Pillay, could have been held “in a perfectly comfortable way such that gunshot residue would not be deposited on the hand..
Pillay further suggested “the body has been moved somewhat,” although nobody who’s testified has claimed to have touched the body, apart from a paramedic who checked for a pulse.
Suicide, said Cameron, makes no sense, given the crime scene and forensics.
“Dellen Millard is guilty of first degree murder,” Cameron told the judge. “There is no other inference from the evidence before you. Dellen Millard had the motive, the means and the opportunity.
“Dellen Millard shot his father in the eye. The path of least resistance, a sure-fire path to death.”
After all, Wayne Millard had only recently been granted the license he needed to launch a maintenance, repair and overhaul business, had spent millions constructed a large hangar at the Waterloo airport, and had found love anew with Campbell.
“Everything was coming up Wayne.”
The bullet went through Wayne Millard’s eyelid.
“It looks like he’s sleeping,” said Cameron. “And it goes without saying that one cannot shoot oneself while sleeping.”
He couldn’t have bent the muzzle of the gun toward his eye, in that position, Cameron insisted.
Even if you disregard all the other evidence, you just have to look at this picture to decide that Wayne Millard did not kill himself.
“Dellen Millard carried out a calculated plan to murder his father and covered it up.”