Dellen Millard, a Toronto man, was convicted of three murders between 2016 and 2018, including the 2013 killing of Tim Bosma.
Crime Canada newsroomPublished
Dellen Millard, born in 1985 and from Toronto, Ontario, was convicted of three murders. With his friend Mark Smich, he was found guilty in June 2016 of the first-degree murder of Tim Bosma of Ancaster, a community within Hamilton, in May 2013, and in December 2017 of the murder of Laura Babcock, last seen in July 2012. On his own, he was found guilty in September 2018 of the first-degree murder of his father, Wayne Millard, whose November 2012 death was first ruled a suicide. Each conviction brought a life sentence. After a 2022 Supreme Court of Canada ruling, his parole ineligibility was limited to no more than 25 years.
Dellen Millard was the only child of Wayne Millard, a pilot who had worked at Air Canada and at Millardair, an aviation firm founded by his own father, and Madeleine Burns, who was an Air Canada flight attendant when they met. He grew up in Toronto in a wealthy family and owned several properties in the Toronto area, including a farm in Ayr. He met Mark Smich around 2006. By 2012, Smich was living in the basement suite of the Millard family home. Around that time, Millard organized night-time outings he called missions, during which he and friends stole items such as construction equipment, lawnmowers and trees.
Laura Babcock was last seen alive in July 2012. Her remains have never been recovered.
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On November 29, 2012, Wayne Millard was found dead of a gunshot wound. His death was initially ruled a suicide. Investigators later learned that father and son had disagreed over the family business.
On May 6, 2013, Tim Bosma, 32, was selling a pickup truck online. He had never met Millard or Smich. The two men had arranged a test drive by phone and arrived on foot just after 9:20 p.m., telling his wife they had been dropped off by a friend. Mr. Bosma left with them for the test drive and did not return. His wife reported him missing several hours later. He was shot and killed during the test drive, and his remains were burned that night at the Millard hangar.
The Hamilton Police Service treated the disappearance as a missing-persons investigation with unusual circumstances, organizing a ground search and a press briefing on May 7. Police found that the phone used to contact Mr. Bosma was a burner phone. On May 9, his deactivated cell phone was found in an industrial area in Brantford.
The burner phone records showed that the two men had arranged two other test drives of similar vehicles in the preceding days. One did not take place; the other happened in Toronto on May 5. The men in that test drive matched the descriptions of those who had left with Mr. Bosma. One carried a small satchel and had a tattoo of the word ambition inside a box on his wrist, a detail police released to the public.
On May 10, Peel and Toronto police told Hamilton police about a Toronto man, Dellen Millard, who carried a satchel and had such a tattoo. Millard was arrested on May 11. On May 12, Mr. Bosma's truck was found in a trailer registered to Millardair in the driveway of Millard's mother's home. On May 14, police confirmed that Mr. Bosma had died; remains believed to be his had been found in an incinerator located at Millard's farm in Ayr. After about a week of surveillance, Smich was arrested on May 22, 2013.
Millard and Smich were later also charged in the death of Laura Babcock. After these cases, police reviewed Wayne Millard's death, and Dellen Millard was charged alone with his murder.
At the Bosma trial, each accused blamed the other for the shooting. Smich testified that he had been following in a separate vehicle and that Millard shot Mr. Bosma in the truck. Millard's lawyer, Nadir Sachak, argued that all three men were in the truck and that Smich produced a gun to steal the vehicle, leading to a struggle and an accidental shooting; Smich denied this. Millard did not testify. The Crown argued that both men took part in the killing. It never proved which man fired, but under the law both could be found guilty of first-degree murder if both took part in planning and carrying out the crime. On June 17, 2016, both were convicted of first-degree murder.
In December 2017, Millard and Smich were convicted of the murder of Laura Babcock.
The trial for Wayne Millard's death, heard by a judge alone, began in June 2018. Millard did not testify; his lawyer maintained that the death was a suicide and that the Crown had not proven a motive. The Crown presented evidence that Millard had bought the gun that killed his father and that his cell phone was at his father's home from about 1 a.m. until shortly after 6 a.m. that night. On September 24, 2018, Justice Maureen Forestell found him guilty of first-degree murder, stating that she could find no theory consistent with innocence.
An acquaintance, Matthew Ward-Jackson, pleaded guilty to nine gun possession and trafficking charges, including selling Millard the revolver used to kill his father and selling the pistol used in Mr. Bosma's murder. He was sentenced on January 12, 2018, to 11 years in prison. As he was already incarcerated for a different conviction, credits were applied, and his final additional sentence was three years, seven months and two weeks.
In June 2016, Millard and Smich received life sentences with no parole eligibility for 25 years for the Bosma murder. For the Babcock murder, they received a second life sentence with a 25-year parole ineligibility period to be served consecutively. On December 18, 2018, Millard received a third life sentence, again with 25 years of parole ineligibility to be served consecutively, for a total of 75 years.
In 2022, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R. v. Bissonnette that consecutive parole ineligibility periods were unconstitutional. According to the sources, Millard's ineligibility period was reduced to no more than 25 years. Eligibility allows an application; it does not guarantee release.
Millard's appeal of his conviction for his father's murder was rejected in March 2023. The appeals by Millard and Smich of the Bosma and Babcock convictions were rejected in June 2023. In 2021, while at Millhaven Institution, Millard was involved in a fight in which he restrained a man while another inmate stabbed him; the man survived. A weapons charge was dropped, and Millard was convicted of assault causing bodily harm in March 2023.
The case shows how a missing-persons file was solved through phone records, public descriptions and cooperation between Hamilton, Peel and Toronto police. It also led to the reinvestigation of a death first ruled a suicide, which ended in a murder conviction. Finally, the 2022 Bissonnette ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada, which ended consecutive parole ineligibility periods, directly changed when Millard can first apply for parole.
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