Bones in incinerator described to jury

HAMILTON, ONT. • After six days of probing, lifting, tweezing, sweeping and even vacuuming human bones from inside an incinerator found on the farm of an accused killer, the grim reality is very little of what are believed to be the remains of Tim Bosma have been found.

The jury hearing the first- degree murder case in the death of Bosma, 32, of Hamilton, who vanished on May 6, 2013, after leaving with strangers on a test drive of a truck he was selling online, watched photograph after photograph of what was retrieved from the incinerator.

Prosecutors allege Bosma was shot in his truck soon after leaving his wife and daughter at their Hamilton home and his body then burned beyond recognition.

Dellen Millard, 30, of Toronto, and Mark Smich, 28, of Oakville, have pleaded not guilty.

The jury has heard how an immense incinerator, called The Eliminator, which was designed to dispose of dead livestock, was found on rural property around a farm owned by Millard in Ayr, Ont., west of Hamilton.

Through the testimony and photographs of Professor Tracy Rogers, director of forensic science at the University of Toronto, who climbed inside the incinerator in 2013 to retrieve, catalogue and analyze the remains, the jury was taken inside The Eliminator on Thursday,.

Rogers quickly determined they were human bones, because of distinct characteristics between human and animal bone structure, such as being longer and thinner and having joints that are smoother and rounder, she said.

The Eliminator stood almost 11 feet high from the ground. It was hard to reach down, she said.

“I needed to be closer and I needed to make sure I saw things clearly before I picked them up,” she said.

“The only way was to get inside.”

Working with Annette Huys, a Hamilton police forensic identification officer, the pair documented what they found, court heard.

The remains recovered stretched from head to toe but only in sparse fragments: 58 bone fragments and two bones.

There was one large bone, from a forearm, twisted and bent, damaged by heat, Rogers said.

There was a smaller bone from the palm of a hand, also badly damaged.

The rest were identified for court as best she could, including an orbital bone from around the eye, a tooth, several fragments of hands and fingers, a fragment of a thigh shaft, a toe bone. She then swept and bagged sections of the kiln and, finally, vacuumed up the remaining contents in a new vacuum bought by police for this purpose.

“I thought it was important for the family’s peace of mind that they had all the remains,” she said, her voice quivering.

There was enough for her to conclude the bones were those of an adult male, likely under the age of 40.

But it was far from complete. Bones are mostly composed minerals, she said, and don’t really burn into disintegration.

“They shrink a little bit and become brittle,” she said. As organic matter and water are burned off they warp and twist and split, “but they remain pretty much intact.”

“There are a lot of remains that are not there,” she said.

“There should have been a complete body there basically, but there wasn’t. This is what was left. So obviously, it had been cleaned out at some point.”

Rogers has worked with police on homicide investigations involving damaged remains, including the many victims of serial killer Robert Pickton found on his B.C. pig farm, the jury heard, and worked on cold cases with Ontario’s coroner’s office. She has developed new methods of determining the gender from human bones.

Rogers also supervised a detailed forensic examination of two scorched patches in a field nearby.

Court also heard from a number of neighbours to Millard’s farm property. One testified to seeing what looked like flashlights reflecting off the silo on the Millard farm shortly after Bosma disappeared; another said he saw a plume of “thick, black- greyish smoke” rising from the area in the early morning around the same time.

The trial before Justice Andrew J. Goodman of Ontario Superior Court continues on Monday. On Friday lawyers will discuss legal arguments involving the high- profile case.

THERE ARE A LOT OF REMAINS THAT ARE NOT THERE.