Millard bought gun found next to body of father, trial hears from forensic expert
TORONTO — A Toronto man accused of killing his father — whose death was initially ruled a suicide — bought the handgun found next to his dad’s body from a weapons dealer a few months earlier, his trial heard Monday.
Jim Falconer, a retired OPP forensic officer, took the court through text messages between Dellen Millard and a man who pleaded guilty last summer to selling the 32-year-old three handguns.
In one of them, Matthew Ward Jackson discusses a gun Millard might like, court heard.
“.32 but its really nice compact piece I’m sure ud like it,” WardJackson wrote to Millard in a text on July 1, 2012. “But it’s gonna cost a lil. Thay’ve been prohibited for 30 yrs here now. So u got a very rare thing lucky u.”
“That’s great news!” Millard texted back. Court heard he bought the gun.
The messages were among hundreds found on Millard’s electronic devices and submitted as evidence at the judge-alone trial. Millard has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in his dad’s death. Wayne Millard, a wealthy aviation executive, died of a gunshot wound through the eye in November 2012.
The gun Dellen Millard bought from Ward Jackson — a .32-calibre Smith and Wesson revolver — was later found next to the bed where Wayne Millard’s body lay, the trial heard. Documents show Dellen Millard’s DNA was found on the gun’s handle.
The trial has heard Dillen Millard told police he found his father dead on Nov. 29, 2012. He also told police the last time he saw Wayne Millard alive was the previous day at about noon.
An agreed statement of facts shows data indicating one of Dellen Millard’s phones moving from his friend Mark Smich’s house around 1 a.m. on Nov. 29, 2012, to his father’s home where it stayed until shortly after 6 a.m.
Earlier Monday, the prosecution tried to put into evidence a photo of Millard that showed him with a bloody eye. The image, which court heard did not appear to involve real blood, was purportedly uploaded by Millard to a gaming website just two weeks before Wayne Millard died.
Crown attorney Ken Lockhart argued the photo used as Dellen Millard’s profile picture on the site, wasn’t a coincidence.
He argued a forensic audit of Millard’s computers show the image was taken in 2005, but used between Nov. 10, 2012 until May 6, 2013, the same day Millard killed Hamilton man Tim Bosma.
“If it was suicide, common sense would say this was an upsetting event and that Dellen Millard would not sit there and look at a bloody eye picture for hours on end,” Lockhart said.
But Millard’s lawyer, Ravin Pillay, said the image was too prejudicial and not relevant.
Justice Maureen Forestell called the image “gruesome,” siding with Pillay and excluded the image from evidence.