Canadian True Crime - 19 The Murder of Laura Babcock - Part 1

Episode Date: February 16, 2018

[Part 4 of 6] Continuation of the Tim Bosma, Dellen Millard and Mark Smich story featured in episodes 7, 8 and 9. 23-year-old Laura Babcock disappeared in July 2012 - and finally it is announced that Dellen Millard and Mark Smich are charged with her first degree murder. In this two-parter, you'll find out the story behind Laura Babcock's final months, and what happened at the trial. This episode is part one in a multi-part series that covers three cases over six episodes. All episodes, in order, are:07 - The Murder of Tim Bosma - Part 108 - The Murder of Tim Bosma - Part 209 - The Murder of Tim Bosma - Part 319 - The Murder of Laura Babcock - Part 120 - The Murder of Laura Babcock - Part 233 - Dellen Millard and the murder of his fatherSupport my sponsors! Here's where the discount codes are:www.canadiantruecrime.ca/sponsorsBOOK: Dark Ambition: The Shocking Crime of Dellen Millard and Mark Smich by Ann Brocklehurst DOCUMENTARY: Fifth Estate - The Murders of Dellen Millard Information sources: Can be found with the episode at www.canadiantruecrime.ca in the week after the episode is uploaded.Join my patreon to get early, ad-free episodes, video AMAs and more: www.patreon.com/canadiantruecrime   Social media and contact information: Visit: www.canadiantruecrime.ca Facebook page:  www.facebook.com/canadiantruecrime/ Facebook group: /www.facebook.com/groups/478462932506209/ Twitter:  twitter.com/CanadianTCpod Instagram: www.instagram.com/canadiantruecrimepod/ Email: [e-mail] Credits: Research and writing: Kristi Lee Audio production: Erik Krosby Guest voices: The Night Time Podcast (Jordan Bonaparte)  https://www.nighttimepodcast.com/ Dark Topic (Jack Luna)  https://audioboom.com/channel/dark-topic True Crime Fan Club (Lanie)  https://truecrimefanclub.com/ The Marble Garden (Sawyer Westbrook)  http://themarblegarden.libsyn.com/  Music credits: We Talk of Dreams - original composer of "Canadian True Crime Loop" Music below is used under an Attribution License - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Podcast theme music: Space Trip.  http://www.dl-sounds.com/royalty-free/space-trip/ Chris Zabriskie - I Don't See the Branches, I See the Leaves Chris Zabriskie - Cylinders 7 Sergey Cheremisinov - Mother's Hands Kai Engel - Difference Kai Engel - Imminence Igor Khabarov - Stay Mank - Soundtrack 1. Act 4 from Caligari: An Exquisite Corpse Kai Engel - Warm of Mechanical Heart

This podcast may contain coarse language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature. Your discretion is advised. This is Christy and welcome to Canadian True Crime, Episode 19, Delan Millard and the Murder of Laura Babcock, Part 1. This episode is sponsored by Tea Runners and Squarespace. Please note, this episode is a continuation of the Tim Bosmer, Delan Millard and Mark Smitch story in episodes 7, 8 and 9.

If you haven't listened to those episodes already, I strongly advise you to do so now. And for those of you who have listened to those episodes, there's no need to listen again to refresh your memory, because I'll be providing a brief recap and also recovering some of the ground we covered before, but now I'll be weaving in more details that have come to light. As you recall, Delan Millard was the rich kid from a well-known Toronto aviation family who hadn't really done anything with his life except spend his family's wealth on partying, buying cars and other toys, and buying off much younger friends with drugs

and accommodation. His friends he collected saw him as a cool older guy and they were enticed by his life of wealth, adventure and risk-taking. They would help him with what he called his missions, typically petty criminal acts like stealing ride-on lawnmowers, cars and other items, which ironically he could have afforded to buy thanks to his family's wealth. It seemed he was just in it for the thrill of it. Delan was going to make a second attempt at entering the Baja Races, an off-road race

that takes place in Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, but he needed a more fuel-efficient truck, so decided to steal a Dodge Ram 3500 diesel, even though he likely could have afforded to buy one outright. He recruited his friend Mark Smitch, an aspiring rapper, drug dealer and general dropkick to help him with this particular mission. They scoped out a few sellers of that particular truck model in Toronto and arranged a couple of test drives, but none of those panned out. Unfortunately, Tim Bosmer wasn't so lucky.

In 2013, Tim had advertised his truck for sale online and one night went for a test drive in it with Delan Millard and Mark Smitch. The truck never returned and as we know, neither did Tim Bosmer. After an agonising wait, it was found that Tim had been shot dead in his truck not long after he'd left on the test drive with Delan and Mark. He was survived by his heartbroken wife and young daughter. Delan and Mark weren't too clever with many things, but particularly with covering their tracks.

A Millard-air employee saw the news about Tim Bosmer and his missing truck and recognised it as the very truck that he now saw in the hangar. He called crime stoppers. Also, the police were able to track Delan down from the other people who were selling their trucks online, who remembered the pair and Delan's distinctive wrist tattoo that said the word, ambition. Finally, the police located Tim Bosmer's truck at its final hiding place in a trailer parked out the front of his mother's house.

At trial, it came out that the remains of Tim Bosmer, now essentially just a pile of ash, were found at the bottom of an industrial incinerator. Delan Millard had specially ordered the massive pile of machinery dubbed the Eliminator, and the police seized it on Delan's family farm out near Waterloo, Ontario. Before the case went to trial, the police announced two things. Delan Millard and Mark Smitch were also charged with the murder of a woman named Laura Babcock, one who seemed to be a some-time love interest of Delan's. Also, Delan, individually, was charged with the murder of his own father, Wayne Millard,

who was originally said to have died by suicide in November 2012, the year before Tim Bosmer's murder. At trial, Delan and Mark both pointed the finger at each other, but it didn't matter. They were both responsible for the death of Tim Bosmer, and both responsible for the way his remains were disposed of in such a horrific manner. In June 2016, three years after Tim Bosmer's murder, Delan Millard and Mark Smitch were both found guilty of his first degree murder, and sentenced to the automatic mandatory term of imprisonment for life, or at least until the year 2039.

18 months later, in December 2017, the second trial would begin. Delan Millard and Mark Smitch were to be tried for the murder of Laura Babcock. We last left off with Delan Millard filing for legal aid in preparation for the Laura Babcock trial. What happened to all the money his family had? Well, he was the beneficiary of his father Wayne's estate, but he couldn't inherit it because he was, of course, now charged with the man's murder. Also, the assets were frozen due to the group of companies being in court-appointed receivership.

To make matters even more complex, the family of Tim Bosmer had filed a lawsuit against Delan Millard and Mark Smitch worth $14 million. Whatever assets he may eventually be entitled to after due process, it seemed at the time that Delan had no liquid cash. In the long lead-up to the Laura Babcock trial, everyone was waiting for the announcement of who Delan Millard's lawyer was going to be, and wondering how they were going to prosecute a murder case without a dead body. Ted DiBiase, a US expert on murder cases where the body hasn't been found, confirms

that prosecuting these cases isn't an easy job. He said that the cases have to begin a step back from other murder cases and first establish that the person is dead before they can even get to who might be responsible. As such, the most common defense in a nobody case is the most logical one. We don't even know if the person's actually dead. That said, the prosecution usually doesn't go to trial without a solid evidence-based case, and it seemed like this was the situation for Laura Babcock's trial. In September 2015, this was confirmed when it was announced that a direct indictment was

granted for the trial, meaning there was enough evidence that they could skip right through the preliminary hearing and go straight to trial. The trial began on Monday, October 23rd, 2017, and finally, people got the answer they were looking for. 32-year-old Delan Millard hadn't found a lawyer. He would be representing himself. This trial was going to be a spectacle. Laura Babcock was born on February 12th, 1989, and grew up living in the Greater Toronto

area before the family ended up in Etobicoke, a suburb west of Toronto, the same suburb that Delan Millard and Christina Nudger also lived in. Laura's father described her as a bubbly child, and as a family they were happy, playing games together, going on vacations and to theme parks, doing all the usual things that an ordinary family does. As a teenager, Laura played the flute and was on the high school marching band. She loved to dance and sing. Her father described her as full of whimsy and fun, and her friend said she was bubbly,

outgoing, optimistic and charming. Laura was vocal about wanting to become an actress. Throughout school she worked at a mastermind toy store, which was perfect for someone with her outgoing personality and love of kids. In 2009, she met Delan Millard through her friend Christina Nudger's group of friends. Delan and Christina were casually dating at the time. In fact, Delan's engagement broke up because his fiancé found out he'd been cheating on her with Christina.

And then, he also started dating Laura casually, although it was never serious. One day in 2010, while Laura was working her shift at Mastermind Toys, a customer came in to buy a gift. Laura served him and the customer noticed that she was quote, over the top bubbly. He took the opportunity to ask her out that same day, which heralded the start of their 18 month relationship. His name was Sean Lerner, he was 24 and Laura was 21. A couple of months later, in February of 2011, Laura hosted her 22nd birthday party at the

medieval times. You know, one of those places where you experience a medieval themed dinner and show. Sean played a key role in her birthday plans and invited Delan Millard along to the party, since he was one of the group of friends Laura had been introduced to through Christina Nudger. After the dinner and show, they all ended up back at Delan's condo in downtown Toronto. Sean noticed that Delan took Laura aside and gave her some ecstasy pills, unsolicited, saying it was a birthday present. This rubbed him the wrong way, and after the party ended, he left with a bad impression

of Delan. Aside from the whole ecstasy thing, he gave inconsistent details about what he did for a living. After Sean, Delan just seemed like a sketchy person. Behind the bubbly facade, Laura's mental health wasn't the best. She'd been dealing with anxiety and depression, and her mental health started to take a nosedive around August 2011, when she was 22. It was then that her life started to unravel.

Laura's parents Clayton and Linda became concerned. Laura seemed less like herself, like she was agitated and couldn't sit still. She started coming and going erratically and leaving for nights at a time. Her parents didn't like this, so laid down what they called modest house rules, including curfews, but Laura didn't like it. In desperation, she tried to see some therapists to find out what was wrong with her and how she could get better, but she didn't make much headway. Medical records would detail her extreme anxiety, which included an overwhelming fear of death.

Between August 2011 and April 2012, three months before she disappeared, she was treated on 12 separate occasions by three different hospitals. One detailed a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, which is a mental illness marked by an ongoing pattern of mood swings, uncertainty with how a person sees themselves and the world, and shifting feelings and resulting behaviour. A note from one of the nurses who oversaw Laura's care said her major concern is death and what would happen after she died. Another note said she had a long-standing history of worthlessness and emptiness and

felt like she was misunderstood. In desperation, Laura began to combine her prescription medication with recreational drugs to see if that made any difference to how she was feeling, but instead it compounded the problem. Her relationship with Sean Lerner broke down within months, around Christmas of 2011, after he'd given her a little white Maltese dog called Lacey as a gift. She was rarely ever seen without that dog. Though Sean continued to care deeply for Laura and there remained friends in close contact,

she was now a drug addict, who seemed to be running with a new group of people. Her parents asked her to officially move out in an attempt to try the tough love approach. After her breakup with Sean, Laura's friendship with Christina Nudger was rocky. Christina was now Dylan's official girlfriend, but it seemed there was an unspoken competition between the two girls. A friend of Christina's called Caroline said that sometimes they would get along and other times they wouldn't and they would often be passive aggressive and rude to each other. Laura's 23rd and last birthday was February 12, 2012.

That morning she was at her parents' house with a friend of hers, Megan, when she opened up her phone and saw a text message from Christina. Christina had been mucking around at another location with her friend Caroline, who actually knew Laura because they'd worked together at Mastermind Toys. They were friends until they had an unspecified disagreement about something. This day, Laura's birthday, Christina and Caroline decided it would be funny if they sent Laura a bitchy text message. It read,

Happy birthday. A year ago today was the first time I slept with Dylan. When Laura opened the text message, she burst out crying and her friend took her outside to get some air. She replied back with, That's fine. I slept with him a couple of weeks ago. And Christina's reply was,

Did you miss your meds today? You're a crazy psycho bitch just trying to get my boyfriend. You had him, and you lost him. Give it up. In the meantime, Laura had met a guy called David at a party. He was an unemployed drug addict who lived in his father's basement. They began a relationship, and before you know it, Laura was shoplifting with David, and he even encouraged her and a friend of hers to perform together for an online webcam

account. By March of 2012, the relationship ended in a blow-up, with David being arrested for assault, theft of money that he owed Laura, and sexual assault of her friend, although all the charges were later dropped. Although Laura still maintained a serviceable relationship with her parents, she chose not to move back home. Instead, she couch surfed at the houses of friends and acquaintances, wearing out her welcome often with increasingly erratic behavior.

It was at this time that it seemed she upset Christina Nudger by gossiping to her friends about still sleeping with Dylan Millard every so often. In March of 2012, Dylan Millard knew that Mark Smith was having some money troubles and sent him a text message. How ruthless are you willing to be to make money? I have some ideas, but it's next level stuff. We'll talk about it this weekend. I know you need the income.

In April of 2012, Christina Nudger sent a text message to Dylan Millard that compared Laura to herpes. His reply. There is a difference. Herpes you can't really hurt or get rid of. It just feeds off you until you die. First I'm going to hurt her, then I'll make her leave. I fancy myself something of an undercover doctor.

I think with the right treatment, these herpes can be gotten rid of. I will remove her from our lives. I don't know why, but when you say things like, I'm going to hurt her. Make her leave, remove her from our lives. I feel really loved and warm on the inside. By the spring of 2012, Laura had graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree majoring in English and Drama. Her goal was to find a permanent job and a place of her own, but she continued to drift

apart from her old friends. Her friend Megan was growing concerned at the path that Laura was going down. Megan described Laura as, quote, an amazing girl. She had a lot of emotional issues, but I understood her. Megan said Laura was always gushing about Dylan. She found him attractive and said she exchanged dirty text messages with him. Around the same time, Laura had a long phone conversation with an old family friend, Elizabeth, inviting in her that she'd been diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder,

but was finding it really hard to get her hands on a treatment that actually worked. Laura seemed to be lost in life. She began to use even heavier drugs and was on a downward spiral. She'd also been working as an escort, although when she told her friends what she'd been doing, they said she seemed positive and happy about it. Still in the spring of 2012, Laura was at a bar called The Rhino in Parkdale, a neighborhood of Toronto, when she met 41-year-old film and TV producer Jeff. They got to chatting, and Jeff found her to be a smart and interesting person.

Laura told him she was having troubles with her roommate. Jeff took pity on her and asked her if she wanted to stay with him for a while in his guest room. Laura gratefully accepted the offer, saying it would only be for two weeks or so because she was looking for work and wanted to find her own place. Jeff helped her move her things and her little white dog Lacey from the apartment in Yorkville where she'd been staying, but things didn't go as planned. After a while, Jeff's friends pointed out to him that Laura didn't appear to be actually

looking for work and therefore not positioning herself to be able to find a place of her own. They suggested that he should ask her to leave, so he did. Laura was extremely upset, and the next morning, Jeff saw she'd scratched her wrists and forearms until they drew blood. He would also say she talked about suicide. He helped her move her things back to the Yorkville apartment where she'd been staying. Laura also made friends with another man that she met through an escort friend of hers.

He was a 53-year-old doctor and would meet Laura at the Park Hyatt Hotel in downtown Toronto. He described Laura as, quote, a very intelligent girl who was going through some emotionally difficult times. The doctor would later say he offered to co-sign for an apartment for her and help her with the deposit, but nothing came of it. The last time they met, he said she received a phone call, went into the bathroom to have a private conversation, and when she came out, she said she had to leave straight away.

The doctor said she seemed, quote, very disturbed. And after that, he suddenly stopped hearing from her. By late June of 2012, in the month before she went missing, Laura Babcock was officially transient with no fixed abode. She was sleeping on the couches of various friends, but had trouble staying anywhere for too long because of her dog. Going by her escort name as Elle, she met a person called Bradley through the escort agency.

They hung out together at his place in Yorkville the first time they met, and he found her to be, quote, quite articulate, intelligent, a conversationalist. She was fun. He paid her $200 to hang out with him the first time. She seemed to be unsettled, though, which she confirmed when she showed back up to his place with her suitcase. This wasn't a scheduled escort meeting, but she seemed to be distraught, saying she didn't have anywhere to stay.

Bradley didn't think it was appropriate for her to stay at his place, but he also didn't want her on the streets, so he let her sleep on the couch that night, but noticed she spent a lot of time in the bathroom and came out with a nosebleed. The next morning, Laura left with her dog and suitcase in what was starting to become a pattern. One morning soon after, Laura's boss at her escort agency arrived at the office in midtown Toronto to find Laura and her dog Lacey sleeping, surrounded by suitcases. He told her that she couldn't stay there, so she called up a taxi and left.

About long after, a pastry chef called Jessica was sitting on the front step of her place in Toronto when she saw a girl get out of a cab with a little white dog and some luggage. The girl just sat there on the side of the road for about 15 minutes, seemingly not knowing what to do. Jessica walked over to her to see if she was okay. The girl was of course Laura Babcock, who said she had no place to stay. Jessica didn't want Laura to have to sleep on the street, so invited her in to her apartment. Laura said she didn't want to impose, she just needed to charge her phone, and then

she could call a friend to pick her up. A couple of hours later, a man showed up to the house who was tall and scruffy looking, but he was neither Dylan Millard nor Mark Smitsch. He ordered Laura to quote, get your fucking shit and get in the car. Jessica didn't like the way the man spoke to Laura, so she spoke up and told Laura she could stay. The man left without Laura. That night, Jessica went to bed and assumed Laura had too, but when she got up in the

morning she found that Laura had cleaned her entire apartment, saying that it was her way of saying thanks. Jessica and Laura hit it off as new friends. Jessica said her house guest was quite bubbly and in a good mood, considering her life circumstances Laura talked excitedly about her future, saying she planned to open a drama in dance school one day. Jessica said that Laura was never without her dog Lacey, and was also open about the fact that she was an escort, something Jessica had no issues with.

Laura openly smoked marijuana and also asked about buying cocaine. On the fourth day of Laura's stay, one of Jessica's friends came over for a visit, and Laura mentioned escorting, suggesting that Jessica should become an escort too. The friend became quite uncomfortable and said it was time for Laura to move on. Jessica agreed. She said Laura stomped around a bit before agreeing to leave. Jessica drove her back to her parents' place in Etobicoke. Once they got there, Laura seemed happier, gave Jessica a hug and thanked her for everything.

She then reached out to Shawn Lerner again to see if he could help her. They met at a food court, and Laura told him she'd been working for an escort service, insisting that there was no sex involved. She stressed that she was simply being paid to be on the arm of men who needed to be seen with a pretty girl. Shawn wasn't sure if he believed that's all it was. He was pretty concerned about Laura's well-being and mental health. The pretty brown-haired girl next door that he loved had been replaced by a much thinner

girl with dyed blonde hair, again showing how deeply he cared about her. He loaned her an iPad to use and generously set her up in a nearby hotel, one where she could keep her dog with her. During Laura's hotel stay, her escort client Bradley stopped by the hotel to see if she was okay. Although she told him she was planning to find permanent work and a place to stay, he noticed that beneath it all, she seemed extremely anxious. On June the 30th, Laura stopped by her parents' house while they were at a family function.

She dropped off an envelope with about $1,000 cash in it, as well as her dog Lacey. She called them to give them the heads up, telling them that she was going on a trip with a man. This is the last time they would ever speak with their daughter. The next day, Laura called one of her high school friends, still looking for a place to stay and now exhausting all her contacts. She said she had left Lacey at her parents' place because the little dog had become too much of a burden while she didn't have a regular place to stay.

Her friend urged her to find a women's shelter or go to hospital or see police. She didn't. Instead, she met up with an old friend called Stefan, one of the people who she'd stayed with before. He said she'd always seemed upbeat and excited for life, but now she seemed a bit more somber. Stefan would also say that over the time he'd known Laura, he'd observed her to have mood swings and had seen her pulling at her hair and hitting her head on a wall. She showed up to his house with her luggage and spoke excitedly about a trip she was going

on with a doctor. She said she got to choose the location, either Vegas or Disneyland, but she also asked if she could stay the night at Stefan's house. And she did. They had burritos for dinner, watched movies and laughed. That night, Stefan saw her using cocaine. The next morning, he took a video of Laura laughing sheepishly and then meowing. This was an inside joke they had.

She liked to do it in public to make people laugh. The media have shown the video clip many times. Laura has large white sunglasses on, a flowery top and wore a cheeky grin. Laura asked to stay another night, but Stefan was living at home and his parents didn't seem to be in favor of the idea, so he said no. She left, saying she was off to get cocaine. They texted a couple of times in the days after, but this was the last time he saw her. Sometime in early July, Laura reconnected with her friend Megan again, who said that

she seemed happy. Laura told Megan she'd been talking with Dylan Millard again. And after this, Megan didn't hear from Laura again. In the last three days before Laura went missing, she was extremely active on her phone with an average of 40 calls made per day and 70 texts. And then it all stopped. Do you have a passion project that you're ready to take to the next level? Squarespace makes it easy for anyone to create an engaging web presence, grow a brand and

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today. The day that Laura Babcock went missing was July the 3rd, 2012. In the afternoon, phone records combined with maps from Google Earth would show that Laura's cell phone met up with Dylan Millard's phone at the same cell tower near Kipling train station in Etobicoke. Both phones were then tracked to or near Dylan's house, and Mark Smitcher's phone then connected to a tower that was located just a few hundred meters away. That night, phone records confirmed that Laura's cell made a call at 7.03pm to check voicemail,

and this was the last outgoing call the cell phone would make. At 7.30pm, Dylan Millard texted Mark Smitch saying, quote, I'm on a mission back in one hour. The next morning, July the 4th, 2012, Laura's phone was still on and able to receive incoming calls and text messages. Because of this, cell towers were able to track both Laura and Dylan's phones as they moved from Dylan's house along Lakeshore Drive, the road that runs parallel to the shore of Lake Ontario.

Once the phones got to Mississauga, the next city west of Etobicoke and still close to the lake, Laura's phone abruptly stopped connecting to phone towers. From this point on, there was no more activity on her phone or on any of her bank accounts. That afternoon at 2.40pm, Dylan Millard took a photo of a blue tarp rolled up with what looked like a long solid object in it. It looked like a giant blue cigar, lying on the ground with Dylan's dog, Petto, sitting next to it. That night, Dylan went to Sleep Country, a Canadian mattress retailer, and bought a brand

new king-sized mattress for $2,500. The store said they had the mattress in stock, but delivery would take a couple of days. That wasn't fast enough for Dylan, so he paid $100 to have a private delivery company collect the mattress and rush it to Dylan's house in far less time. Because Laura's parents weren't privy to her daily comings and goings, it was Sean Lerner who first really noticed she was missing. And on July 14th, 2012, that's 10 months before Tim Bosmer's disappearance, he went to the police.

But they saw Laura's disappearance as a runaway situation. They didn't look at it with any sense of priority or importance. Laura's mother gave Sean her daughter's phone records to have a look at, and straight away he noticed that the last eight phone calls she'd made were to Dylan Millard. Sean marched the phone records to the Toronto police. This surely must have been a solid lead for them to check out, maybe talk to Dylan about what the phone calls were about. But the police brushed him off several times, saying that she was just another missing adult

and would likely show up eventually. Sean came to believe that once the police found out about Laura's drug use and escort work, they were even more casual about looking into her disappearance. He tried over and over again to contact them, to get them to engage, but nothing. He was met with a brick wall each time. They wouldn't even call him back. And to his knowledge, they didn't investigate any of the leads he gave them either. Without a frustration, Sean decided to contact Dylan Millard himself.

His text message read, quote, I'm not looking to point a finger at anyone, but we're concerned about Laura and it looks like you were the last person to correspond with her. Dylan replied, heard about that, don't know where she is. They met up at a Starbucks in Mississauga, and Dylan told Sean that Laura was mixed up with drugs and the wrong people. He also said that Sean should have, quote, no reasonable expectation of finding her. Sean said that Dylan initially denied having spoken with Laura at all, but when he was shown the phone records, Dylan suddenly remembered that yes, he had spoken with her and it was

about her wanting drugs. Dylan said she'd been using cocaine and had been bugging him to get her some. He said he refused. He also said she was looking for help to find a place to stay and added that he also refused to help her arrange this too. Sean pressed him even further, but Dylan cut the conversation short, saying he had to be somewhere else. With Laura still missing and the police not doing anything about it, Sean teamed up with

Laura's parents in efforts to find her. He knew her phone password and so was able to create a Facebook group and share it with all of her friends. Laura was known to be very active on social media and her friends confirmed that none of them had heard a peep from her. It was not like her at all. Together, they created and posted flyers advertising a $5,000 reward to help spread the word. Sean turned into a super sleuth, finding out who Laura's escort clients were and located

them to see if they had any more information. One of them called Bradley surprised Sean by saying he'd met up with Laura on July 10th at a downtown Toronto bar that's a week after she was last seen by anyone else. This information was massive, but unfortunately with no new information or leads and no priority from the police, the search for Laura Babcock just went nowhere. She was just missing. In the months after Laura went missing, Mark's Mitch was in the garage of his mother's Oakville house.

He was drinking peach snaps and smoking marijuana with a group of friends, all of them teens still in high school who were years younger than him. Several of the teens were known to police for petty crimes and were frequent users of opioids like oxycontin, heroin and fentanyl. Mark's Mitch got out an iPad, opened a file that contained lyrics he said he wrote and then performed a rap. Later on, he would be filmed with that same iPad performing the rap. Here's the clip.

In case you didn't catch it, here's the lyrics. The bitch started off all skin and bone, now the bitch lay on some ashy stone. Next time I saw her outside the home, and if you go swimming, you can find her phone. Remember, the cell towers tracked Dallin and Laura's phones close to Lake Ontario before Laura's phone went dead. Mark then asked his girlfriend, Milena Menacis, to leave the garage. Once she was gone, he told his friends that the rap was in fact a true story. One of the teens, named Desi, would later say, quote, he said they torched a body and

threw it in the lake. He would say Mark said something about a cell phone being in the lake. After they'd parted ways with Mark, the teens chatted to themselves about what he'd said to them in the garage, wondering if it was actually true or if he was just making stories up, trying to fit into the mould of the streetwise tough rapper that he clearly wanted to be. Regardless, they thought the whole thing was shocking and weird, but they didn't tell anyone at the time. It seemed that nothing moved on the Laura Babcock case until Tim Bosma was murdered

and Della Millard arrested for it. Around this time, Laura Babcock's name came up in the news as a missing person, connected to Della Millard, the man who'd been charged with Tim Bosma's murder. Another one of the teens from Mark's Mitch's garage, David, saw it and immediately connected it to Mark's weird rap and confession from the garage. He went and told his high school principal, who called the police and David gave a statement. Another of the teens, Desi, would eventually tell the police about the incident too, but it took two years and only after he was caught shoplifting and wanted a deal.

Eleven months after Tim Bosma went missing, the police announced they were charging Della Millard and Mark's Mitch with the murder of Laura Babcock. At the same time, they also announced that Della Millard was also facing a charge of first-degree murder in the death of his father, Wayne Millard. When Sean Lerner heard about Della's arrest, he was understandably furious and wrote a letter of complaint to the Toronto Police. In it, he said they failed to file a missing person report, didn't collect statements from friends and basically just neglected the case.

Quote, the missing investigation was just abandoned and left open in bureaucratic limbo and the police just gave up looking for her. The Tim Bosma trial came and went. On June 16, 2016, Della Millard and Mark's Mitch were found guilty of first-degree murder and given the automatic sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. So today has been a very long, awaited day for our families. In the meantime, Della and Mark waited for their next major court appearance, where they would be tried for the murder of Laura Babcock.

Della told the court that he would likely be self-represented at this trial, but three months later, it seems he changed his mind and said he was seeking a lawyer. Even though he still had no new announcements to make on the lawyer front, Della filed a motion applying to adjourn the trial until 2018. He tried to get legal aid, with the excuse that he couldn't get his hands on his money. But in June 2017, Justice Michael Code, the judge for the upcoming trial, discovered that Della was in fact able to access money for legal fees, about $90,000, and he still had an estimated $2-3 million in total assets that he could access.

Justice Code strongly urged Della to get moving, but he didn't. He continued to argue for yet another adjournment, saying he still needed to look into how he could pay for a lawyer. The judge became suspicious that Della was stalling for time and didn't really want to be represented at all. The following month, June 2017, Justice Code finally made a decision that Della had been given more than enough time to find a lawyer, and the trial would go ahead as planned. The trial for the murder of Laura Babcock started on October 23, 2017, in the Ontario

Superior Court. It was presided over by Justice Michael Code. Personally, I find it fascinating when key people from Canadian cases end up popping up in other cases. Justice Michael Code was the very same lawyer who brokered Carla Hamalka's controversial deal with the devil plea bargain that set her free after only 12 years in jail. For this trial, crown prosecution was led by Jill Cameron, and returning to represent 30-year-old Mark Smitch was veteran criminal lawyer Thomas Dungey.

The Dellen Millard story was a top headline case in both Toronto and around Canada, so there was high interest from the general public, and Dellen Millard representing himself brought a whole new element of interest and sensationalism to the proceedings, reminiscent of American serial killer Ted Bundy who did the same during his 1979 trials. Except, at least Ted Bundy had been a law student at some point before his arrest. Clients who represent themselves are generally thought of as a judge's worst nightmare. Because they're not educated lawyers, they don't understand the legal workings of the court and are prone to get caught up in repetitive and irrelevant questioning.

All of these factors end up making self-represented trials go for a lot longer than they usually would. Additionally, it's rare for a defendant not to have a lawyer for a trial as serious as first-degree murder. Dellen was seen to have a lawyer assistant with him at times, but mostly acted alone. Dellen was high maintenance before the trial even started. He complained many times to Justice Code about the way his life in prison was impacting his ability to act as his own defense counsel.

He said he had to choose between keeping up his personal hygiene and preparing for the case. Justice Code wouldn't have it, saying, quote, I'm not sure how long it takes you to shower and shave, but it takes me about five minutes. Despite this, Dellen did end up with special transportation to ensure he could get back to the Toronto East Detention Centre in Scarborough in time to work on his defense and his preferred manscaping and personal grooming activities. Before the trial began, there was a publication ban on all things related to the murder of

Tim Bosmer, the resulting trial, and the fact that Dellen and Mark had already been convicted of first-degree murder. As far as the jury were to know, they were just two normal guys. If a jury knows about prior crimes a defendant has committed, it can bias their judgment, its human nature. This in turn puts the trial in jeopardy of being overthrown and declared a mistrial upon appeal. The best way to try and manage this is by imposing a publication ban up front.

This ban is the court covering its butt, so to speak, to protect itself against future appeals of that nature. Incidentally, about half of the jurors admitted they did know about Mark's Mitch and Dellen Millard, but promised it wouldn't sway their decision. The media shut off the comments at the bottom of their online news articles so the general public couldn't bring up the forbidden topics. Even insignificant me was advised by a member of the media to watch what was said on my Facebook page and discussion group, which I did.

At the trial, the Crown originally planned to introduce a thrill-seeking motive for Laura's murder, which detailed Dellen Millard and Mark's Mitch's escalating criminal behavior, leading up to her disappearance and after. But it would have been hard to do this without reference to the Tim Bosmer trial, and Justice Code deemed it too prejudicial. It wasn't allowed. The Crown had to come up with a new prime motive. Tim Bosmer's parents, Hank and Mary Bosmer, had asked if they were allowed to come and

sit in court as a show of support for Laura Babcock's parents. But Justice Code wouldn't permit that either, saying the trial might turn into a media circus and therefore put the publication ban in jeopardy. And obviously, if the Tim Bosmer trial wasn't allowed to be mentioned, then the fact that both Dellen Millard and Mark's Mitch were in shackles would need to be concealed somehow. Each day, both men were escorted by guards inside the courtroom and seated before the jury arrived. Their handcuffs were unlocked and kept out of sight, but they had to keep their ankle

restraints on. The restraints were made out of a seatbelt-like material, so noise wasn't a problem, but they did need to be hidden, so heavy black curtains were mounted around the edges of the tables to hide their feet. Also, obviously as Dellen was acting as his own lawyer, he needed to be able to get up from the table, so a tall wooden podium was brought in and positioned right next to his table, again to ensure his feet were hidden out of view of the jury. Also not allowed to be mentioned at this trial was the fact that Dellen Millard was also

facing charges of first-degree murder in the death of his father, Wayne Millard. Wayne died in late November 2012, after Laura Babcock and before Tim Bosma. The first day of the trial, Mark's Mitch looked much the same as he did in the Tim Bosma trial. He'd filled out in terms of size, not the skinny Mark's Mitch we've seen in all the media photos. He had a buzzed flat-top haircut and was still going with the post-wrapper preppy look. He was wearing a red check shirt with a royal blue sweater.

During the first day, he asked for a break, saying he was feeling ill. Dellen Millard, however, proved to be a master of image change. He looked even more different from the last trial, even more of a departure from the guy from the photos that we're used to seeing. He's even thinner now, in fact some media reported him as looking bony. And while in the Bosma trial, his hair was short, he'd since grown it to shoulder length and parted it in the middle. He also wore dark-rimmed glasses, new since last time.

For the first day in court, he wore a button-down shirt and jeans, and throughout the trial, he was seen many times wearing a leather or pleather jacket. In her opening statement, Crown Prosecutor Jill Cameron said they would present evidence that Laura Babcock was murdered by Dellen Millard and Mark Smitch, triggered by a bitter rivalry between Laura and Christina Nudger, who both had relationships with Dellen in the months leading up to the crime. A love triangle situation was implied. This was the motive that the Crown was going to prove.

The Crown's first witness was Clayton Babcock, Laura's father. Talking through tears, he answered questions about his family life and Laura's childhood, telling them what she was like as a child and how they came to fall out over house rules. But then, it was time for cross-examination by Dellen Millard. Surely, Dellen wouldn't be allowed to question the father of the woman he was accused of murdering. In the lead-up to the trial starting, Laura's father, Clayton Babcock, her ex-boyfriend Sean Lerner, as well as Mark Smitch's former girlfriend, Marlena Meneses, actually filed

a motion asking to have a lawyer step in and question them instead of Dellen Millard himself. Clayton Babcock said he was concerned he wouldn't be able to give full and candid testimony with Dellen questioning him. Dellen said he opposed the motion, saying he wanted to, quote, personally cross-examine all witnesses at trial. While Justice Michael Cote said he sympathized with the motion, he granted Dellen's wish. Dellen Millard was permitted to cross-examine the father of the woman he was accused of murdering.

And that's where we'll leave things for part one. In part two, coming soon, we'll go through the rest of the trial, covering Dellen's attempts to represent himself in the face of all the evidence the Crown had collected that showed what happened to Laura and why. Special thanks to some podcaster friends who lent their voices to this episode. Returning to voice Dellen Millard was Jordan Bonaparte from the Nighttime podcast. Mark Smitch was voiced by Jack Luna from Dark Topic, who you heard right at the beginning of this episode.

Christina Nudka was voiced by Lainey from the True Crime Fan Club podcast, and Laura Babcock was voiced by Sawyer Westbrook from the Marble Garden podcast. Please take a second to check their shows out if you haven't already. I've included links in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening. To support this podcast, you could tell a friend about it or leave me a review on Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast app. You could also follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, or join my Facebook discussion

group just by searching for Canadian True Crime. You could support my sponsors. And if you'd like to receive an early, ad-free version of my episodes, it costs just $2 a month on Patreon. Head to patreon.com slash Canadian True Crime. Thank you so much to everyone who's taken the time to leave a review or send me an encouraging message lately. It means so much to hear from you all.

This episode, I'm saying thank you to this group of patrons. Sarah NB, Sonia G, Cass K, Mary Virginia A, Holly M, Lana, Wendy F and Kate H. This episode of the Canadian True Crime podcast was researched and written by me with audio production and scoring by Eric Crosby. I'll be back soon with part two. See you then.