Millard guilty of first-degree murder in father’s death
TORONTO — A Toronto man who stood to inherit a multimilliondollar aviation company was found guilty of first-degree murder in his father’s death Monday, a ruling that marked his third such conviction.
Applause broke out as a judge declared Dellen Millard had carried out a planned and deliberate killing of his father, whose death was initially ruled a suicide.
Wayne Millard, a wealthy 71year-old businessperson, was found dead in his bed with a bullet lodged in his brain on Nov. 29, 2012. His son had pleaded not guilty in the death, but the judge hearing the case disagreed.
“I am satisfied that Dellen Millard killed his father by shooting him in the left eye as he slept,” Superior Court Justice Maureen Forestell said. “I can find no theory consistent with innocence.”
Millard, 33, cried softly as the decision was read out to a packed courtroom.
Among those who had gathered for the ruling in the judgealone trial were the parents of Millard’s two other victims, Laura Babcock of Toronto and Tim Bosma of Hamilton. Babcock’s father said all three families would be forever linked as a result of Millard’s crimes.
“It’s been proven that not only have the Bosmas and ourselves lost a loved one, the Millard family must live with the fact this heinous individual murdered his own father,” Clayton Babcock said outside court. “There’ll be not a day in our lives when the loss of Laura, Tim or Wayne won’t be felt.”
Crown attorney Ken Lockhart said he was grateful for the outcome of the case.
Wayne Millard’s death was Dellen Millard’s second murder.
He killed Babcock, a 24-yearold woman he had been seeing, in July 2012. Six months after his father’s death, Millard killed Bosma after taking the 32-yearold man’s truck for a test drive.
Millard’s friend, Mark Smich, was also convicted of first-degree murder for the Babcock and Bosma slayings. The pair are serving life in prison with no chance of parole for 50 years.
Police reopened the case of Wayne Millard’s death after arresting the younger Millard for Bosma’s killing.
The latest trial unfolded in June without a jury. The attorney general granted a defence request for a judge-alone proceeding after agreeing that Millard’s notoriety would make it impossible to find fair jurors.
Prosecutors alleged Millard killed his father because millions in potential inheritance money was being squandered on a new aviation business.
Forestell rejected significant parts of the Crown’s case, including the motive for money, saying it played no role in her decision.
Instead, she found the case turned on a lie Millard told police after his father’s death.
The trial heard Millard told
police he found his father dead in bed at about 6 p.m. on Nov. 29, 2012. He said he last saw his father alive at about noon the day before and had then stayed the night at Smich’s house. But phone records indicated that one of Millard’s phones moved from Smich’s house, at about 1 a.m. on Nov. 29, to his father’s home, where it stayed until shortly after 6 a.m.
“I do not believe the statement of Dellen Millard that he stayed at Mark’s,” Forestell said. “I find it was fabricated to conceal he was involved in the death of his father.”
The trial also heard that Millard, who did not testify in his own defence, bought a handgun found next to his father’s body from a weapons dealer — evidence Forestell accepted. Millard’s DNA was on the gun.
The defence argued Wayne Millard’s death was a suicide.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Nov. 16. The Crown said it will seek an additional 25 years of parole ineligibility for Millard in his father’s death.