GUILTY VERDICTS IN BOSMA TRIAL.
HAMILTON, ONT. • Two men were found guilty of first-degree murder Friday for killing a man who vanished three years ago after leaving home with two strangers on a test drive in a truck he was trying to sell online.
Dellen Millard, 30, and Mark Smich, 28, were both found guilty of the murder of Tim Bosma and sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole until 2038.
“For over three years we have waited for justice for Tim,” said Sharlene Bosma, his widow, afterwards, standing in front of a huge group of family and friends.
“For three years we have been in and out of this courthouse to look at and breathe in the same space with the utter depths of depravity in our society. We have had to endure being near the two men that walked down my driveway that took away the bright life that is Tim.”
It is the Bosma family’s eternal agony that he was selling a diesel-powered Dodge Ram 3500 pickup truck at the time Millard and Smich were plotting to steal that very type of truck.
Bosma disappeared on May 6, 2013, after leaving his Hamilton, Ont., home with two men on a test drive.
The case created such passion not only because of Tim Bosma’s wholesome nature — a quiet family man with a young daughter and a wellspoken wife — but because almost everyone could see themselves in his shoes — targeted, as court heard, not for anything he may have done wrong, but merely for selling a vehicle.
“As he ran around the truck he had a big smile on his face,” Sharlene testified of her husband’s enthusiasm for selling their truck. Bosma said he “would be right back.”
But on the test drive, Bosma was shot and killed and, later that night, his body burned to charred ash and bone fragments in an incinerator meant for disposal of farm animals called The Eliminator.
The litany of evidence pointing towards Millard, and to a lesser degree Smich, was powerful.
Jurors heard evidence over 16 weeks that swept from the emotional and dramatic to the technical and dull.
The jury read dozens of text messages between the two plotting to steal a 3500 truck and heard about their plans from their friends, including Andrew Michalski, who said that after Millard had arranged test drives with two truck-sellers, he asked which one he should steal from, “the a--hole or the nice guy?”
Bosma’s truck was seen in Millard’s airport hangar and then found in the driveway of Millard’s mother’s home; charred human remains were found inside the incinerator hidden on Millard’s farm, and Bosma’s blood found on the outside.
The jury watched surveillance video of what appears to be the incinerator lighting up outside Millard’s hangar, where court heard Bosma’s body was burned. Video taken around the same time shows Millard and Smich inside the hangar.
The jury heard Smich’s former girlfriend, Marlena Meneses, testify that the two men picked her up the next morning and were “celebrating” and “very happy,” saying their mission went well.
And they read Millard’s letters, smuggled from jail to his former girlfriend, Christina Noudga, in which he plotted to tamper with evidence, change witness testimony and manipulate jurors — which he said was the only way he could avoid a life sentence.
Smich testified in his own defence, though Millard chose not to. He said Millard shot Bosma while on the test drive while Smich followed behind in Millard’s SUV.
Millard, from Toronto, the heir to an aviation empire, was arrested before Bosma’s charred remains were found. Smich, of Oakville, Ont., was arrested more than a week later.
In accordance with the family’s wishes, there were no victim impact statements to be read to the court, said Assistant Crown Attorney Tony Leitch. Such statements would be reserved until they are needed at any future parole request, he said.
Judge Andrew Goodman broke with practice and addressed court before imposing sentences, saying Bosma’s killing was “reprehensible and unimaginable” and Millard and Smich’s actions were “despicable and callous.”
The two men are also charged with first-degree murder in the death of Laura Babcock, a 23-year-old Toronto woman who vanished in the summer of 2012. Police say Babcock, whose body was never found, was romantically involved with Millard. The trial into her slaying is expected to begin early next year.
Smich intends to plead not guilty to those charges. It is not known how Millard will plead in that case, but he has said he plans to represent himself at trial. Millard also faces first-degree murder charges in the death of his father, Wayne Millard, in November 2012, which was initially deemed a suicide. A date for that trial hasn’t been set yet.