Trial told of ‘charred body’ rap song
Ontario men accused of killing woman
TORONTO • Three, maybe four, months after prosecutors allege Mark Smich and his co-accused, Dellen Millard, murdered and incinerated a young Toronto woman, Smich was in the garage of his mother’s Oakville, Ont., home entertaining three teenaged neighbours.
A fat cigar of marijuana was passed around in between swigs of peach schnapps. Smich then pulled out an iPad, opened a page of lyrics he said he wrote and performed a ghastly rap, court was told by a witness who said he was there in the autumn of 2012.
The song was about torching a woman’s body and tossing her remains, and her cellphone, into a lake, said Desi Liberatore, 21.
“I remember a charred body,” he told the jury of the image the song left in his mind.
The scene got stranger still.
Smich asked his girlfriend to leave the garage. When it was just Smich, the three male teens, he made a confession, court was told.
Smich told them his rap was a true story, Liberatore said.
“He told us in greater detail what happened regarding the girl,” he said. “It was a pretty crazy thing.
Afterwards, Liberatore said he and his friends talked a lot among themselves about what happened in the garage. He described it as “shocking,” “weird” and “odd.” The teens debated whether it was real or just Smich boasting, to make himself seem like the hardedged rapper he apparently wanted to be.
Liberatore didn’t tell authorities about the garage scene for two years — even though Laura Babcock’s case was in the news, even after he “put two and two together” to connect the rap to news of Babcock being murdered, and even when asked about Smich by police homicide detectives, court heard.
DESI LIBERATORE DIDN’T TELL AUTHORITIES ABOUT THE GARAGE SCENE FOR TWO YEARS — EVEN THOUGH LAURA BABCOCK’S CASE WAS IN THE NEWS, EVEN AFTER HE ‘PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER’ TO CONNECT THE RAP TO NEWS OF BABCOCK BEING MURDERED.
It wasn’t until Liberatore was caught shoplifting a pair of sunglasses.
He was in opiate withdrawal, he said, and wanted to make a deal to get out of custody. He told officers he had information on a homicide.
Liberatore was shown a video of Smich performing a rap. Crown prosecutor Jill Cameron asked if it was the rap Smich performed in the garage.
“Something like that,” he said.
The lyrics to the video rap are similar to what Liberatore described: “The bitch started off all skin and bone, now the bitch lay on some ashy stone, last time I saw her outside the home and if you go swimming you can find her phone.”
Smich’s lawyer, Thomas Dungey, tore into Liberatore’s reliability.
It was easy prey. Liberatore admitted to rampant drug use from the age of 15, “strictly opiates,” he said, listing OxyContin, heroin and fentanyl. He had overdosed several times, perhaps six, from injecting heroin. He has been in rehab three times.
He isn’t cured, he admitted.
“I still use opiates sometimes, but not nearly as bad as before.”
Liberatore met Smich — who is nine years older — when he and his friends asked him to buy them cigarettes at a convenience store because they were too young to buy their own, he said.
When they wanted something harder, they went to his house to buy marijuana, he said.
Dungey reminded Liberatore that he previously told police he was “in a fog” when he was in Smich’s garage because he was so high; that he “smoked myself into oblivion all the time,” around that time.
Even so, Liberatore insisted, he remembers the rap clearly.
“I was of sound mind,” he said.
Under a barrage of questions from Dungey, Liberatore admitted he had Googled the case after the start of trial and even discussed it with another expected witness, who he said was with him in the garage for the rap.
Dungey suggested his garage story was unreliable and all about Liberatore’s self interest.
“You wouldn’t be in this courtroom today if you hadn’t stolen those sunglasses, would you?” Dungey asked.
“Probably not,” Liberatore answered.
Smich, 30, of Oakville, Ont., and Millard, 32, of Toronto, Ont., have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder of Babcock, whose body has not been found.
The trial continues Thursday.