Dellen Millard/Mark Smitch Trial

In addition to the Jian Ghomeshi trial, this one is high profile as well.

The Tim Bosma trial: Who are the players?
From Dellen Millard and Mark Smich to the Crown, defence and Bosma himself, here's who you need to know

By Adam Carter, CBC News Posted: Jan 31, 2016 9:00 AM ET Last Updated: Jan 31, 2016 9:07 AM ET
Tim Bosma disappeared in 2013 while trying to sell his truck online. The trial of two men who are accused of first-degree murder in connection with his death is now getting underway.


Tim Bosma

Once, Tim Bosma was an average guy from Ancaster, Ont. In death, he has become a household name.

Bosma vanished on May 6, 2013, after going for a test drive in a truck he was trying to sell online. He never came home. Days later, his burned remains were discovered on a Waterloo, Ont.-region farm.

By all accounts, Bosma was an everyman — a contractor building his first home for his wife Sharlene and their daughter.

He was deeply engrained in the Ancaster Christian Reformed Church community, which continues to support his family, years after his death.

Sharlene Bosma

Since her husband disappeared, Sharlene Bosma has braved the glare of news cameras again and again — first pleading for his safe return, and then thanking the public for its support, through tears.

"It was just a truck. A stupid truck," she famously said at a news conference in 2013, when there was still home that Tim was still alive.

"You don't need him, but I do. Our daughter needs her daddy."

In the months after Bosma died, Sharlene launched Tim's Tribute, a charity that helps families of homicide victims.

Dellen Millard

He is the wealthy heir of an aviation family. Millard's grandfather, Carl, was a Canadian aviation legend, who started his own charter airline in 1954, and had been a pilot for Trans-Canada Air Lines, which became Air Canada.

When Millard's father Wayne died in 2012, he was starting up Millardair MRO, based at Waterloo International Airport.

On his 14th birthday, in 1999, Millard made headlines by becoming the youngest Canadian to pilot on his own a helicopter and an airplane on the same day.

While the Millard family made a name for itself in the sky, Dellen Millard also raced on the ground. Millard competed in the Baja 500 desert off-road race in Mexico in 2011, and can be seen pictured with off-road and modded vehicles online.

Mark Smich

Mark Smich, 28, is also facing a first-degree murder charge in connection with Bosma's death.

Compared to his co-accused, Smich's life has been far less public. He was living in Oakville with his mother at the time of his arrest.

He was also widely seen in a rap video that circulated online around that time.

When asked about his son's arrest in 2013, Smich's father Andrew said, "What can I say? I'm shocked."

The prosecution

Tony Leitch

Three assistant crown attorneys are prosecuting the Bosma case.

Tony Leitch will be the lead during the trial. He was called to the bar in 1995.

Leitch won two first-degree convictions against Mark Staples in 2014 for killing his father and sister, and has been front and centre through many high profile cases in the city.

Leitch is joined by Craig Fraser, who was called to the bar in 1989 after a decade as a defence lawyer. Fraser was one of the prosecutors for the conviction of Jeremy Hall in the shooting death of Billy Mason.

Brett Moodie, who was called to the bar in 2010, rounds out the prosecution.

Moodie prosecuted a case against Donald Lemmond, a man who pretended to be a war veteran at a Remembrance Day Service at Mohawk College.

Ravin Pillay, defence lawyer

Toronto-based defence lawyer Ravin Pillay is representing Millard.

He is known for several past high profile cases, including representing a man who was charged with a gruesome murder in Philadelphia who was facing extradition to Canada.

He also defended a former Bandidos biker gang member at a hearing where the Crown was trying to seize the biker's home.

Nadir Sachak, who is Millard's co-counsel, will join him at the trial.

Thomas Dungey, defence lawyer

Toronto-based lawyer Thomas Dungey will represent Mark Smich during the trial.

Dungey defended Michael Hall back in 2011, who was found guilty of second-degree murder for lighting his best friend on fire.

Dungey also defended a Toronto man who was sentenced to time served in the road rage death of a Brampton man back in 2008.

Jennifer Trehearne is Smich's co-counsel, and will join Dungey at the trial.

Justice Andrew Goodman

Justice Andrew Goodman took over the Bosma trial from Justice Stephen Glithero, who stepped down for health reasons last year.

Goodman has served as a judge in Kitchener and London. Before that he was an assistant Crown attorney in Halton for many years.

Goodman was previously the judge for a controversial case in which he ordered two sisters from Ancaster to pay their uncle $125,000 in libel damages for falsely accusing him of sexually assaulting them in a rural farmhouse when they were children.

Det. Sgt. Matt Kavanagh

Matt Kavanagh

Hamilton Police Det. Sgt. Matt Kavanagh led the local part of the Bosma investigation at the outset, and was a fixture in the courtroom during jury selection.

Kavanagh has been assigned to Hamilton Police's Homicide Unit for over 15 years, and has worked on some of the city's most high profile cases.

adam.carter@cbc.ca
With files from Daniel Schwartz

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/news/tim-bosma-trial-who-is-who-1.3425638

Canada
The VICE Channels
The Disturbing Evidence in the Case Against the Men Accused of Murdering Tim Bosma
Manisha Krishnan

By Manisha Krishnan

Staff Writer

February 17, 2016


Tim Bosma, pictured above, was murdered in May 2013. Photo via Facebook

Tim Bosma was 32 when he was murdered in May 2013, having gone missing after taking a pickup truck he was selling on a test drive with two buyers.

The body of the married father of one was later found burned beyond recognition. His remains were returned his wife Sharlene in a small wooden box.

Friends Dellen Millard, 30, and Mark Smisch, 28, are accused of killing Bosma and are currently standing trial. They have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.

The closely-watched case, which began February 1, is expected to resolve much of the mystery surrounding what happened—including why Bosma was targeted and what exactly happened to him on the night he died.

Here's what we've learned from the trial so far:
The Crown's Case

Crown attorney Craig Fraser laid out the prosecution's case on Day 1 of the trial, telling jurors what they could expect the evidence to show.

He said Bosma and the accused were complete strangers but the murder plot was premeditated. Millard had reached out to several people advertising vehicle sales, said Fraser, and contacted Bosma on May 4.

Fraser told the court Bosma was shot soon after the May 6 test drive of his black Dodge Ram was underway. His body was burned in an incinerator meant for farm animals located near an Ayr, Ontario airplane hangar for Millardair, Millard's airline company.

The Crown reportedly has a video recording showing Millard and Smith at the hangar early on May 7, 2013. Fraser said Millard warned his employees, "no one goes to the hangar today," via text message.

Fraser said Bosma's pickup truck was discovered on his mother's property in Kleinburg, Ontario on May 12. It was hidden inside of a trailer, said Fraser, adding Millard and his girlfriend Christina Noudga moved it there.

The truck appears to be a key piece of evidence in the case. According to the Hamilton Spectator, its interior had been gutted. Fraser told the court it contained Millard's fingerprints (both inside and out), gunshot residue, a used cartridge, and Bosma's blood. The truck keys were found in Millard's SUV, a GMC Yukon, Fraser said.
Millard's Girlfriend

Millard's girlfriend, Noudga, has been charged with accessory to murder and is expected to be a witness in the case.

According to Fraser, a search of her property by police in April 2014 turned up the video of Millard and Smich at the airport hangar as well as letters from a jailed Millard asking her to compel another witness to change his testimony.

Fraser reportedly read aloud a quote from one of the letters, which Noudja had been instructed to burn:

"If he knew his words were going to get me a life sentence, he would change them. Show him how he can and he will change them."

Noudja has been accused of helping Millard relocate the pickup truck to Millard's mother's property and the incinerator to a forested area on his family farm close to the airplane hangar.
'Weirdness' Prior to the Test Drive

Both Bosma's widow Sharlene and the couple's tenant Wayne De Boer testified to seeing two men drop by May 6 to meet Bosma and check out the truck.

Sharlene broke down on the stand while telling the court how her husband had asked her if he should go on the test drive with the men, the Toronto Star reported.

"I said, 'Yes, you should, because we want the truck to come back,'" she said.

Bosma had remarked that it was strange potential buyers were coming to see the truck "this late" in the evening, she added.

De Boer told the court he recalled seeing two men come see the truck. They approached the house on foot, claiming a friend had dropped them off and went to Tim Hortons. One the men was tall and clean-cut while the other was described as being shadier and quiet.

Both De Boer and Sharlene Bosma testified that the encounter was weird.

As Bosma left with the two men, De Boer told the court he quipped, "That might be the last time we see him."
The Truck

A man who worked for Millardair testified to discovering Bosma's truck at the airline hangar days before the police found it on Millard's mother's property.

Arthur Jennings told the court he was very familiar with the description of the black Dodge Ram and was shocked to see it parked on green tarp inside the hangar May 8, 2013. It had no licence plates and the interior had been removed save for the back seat.

Jennings told the court he said "Oh my god, could that be the truck?" The next day he took photos of the truck and reported his findings to Crime Stoppers.

When they confirmed it was Bosma's truck, he said he balked at giving the location to police.

Jennings said he witnessed his son-in-law, who also worked at the hangar, having an argument with Millard over the truck.

By May 10, the truck was gone as was a car trailer parked on the lot. That's when Jennings said he decided to report what he'd witnessed to police.

A fingerprint expert told the court Millard's thumbprint was a match for one found on the rear view mirror of Bosma's pickup truck. Fingerprints, he said, are still the most reliable form of identifying someone.
Cell Phone Records

Bosma's cell records led investigators to a prepaid phone, registered to Lucas Bate.

The prepaid had made calls to a man named Igor Tumemenko, who told cops he'd taken two men on a test drive for a truck he was trying to sell.

Tumemenko, who identified Smich as one of the two passengers he took for a test drive from a photo lineup, told the court he mentioned being familiar with diesel engines from his time in the Israeli army. He said the shorter of the two men, who was sitting in the back, asked what he'd done in the army, to which he responded, "You don't want to know."

He testified that the men exchanged a glance.

Tumemenko gave cops a description of the men once they tracked him down through the cell records; he'd noticed that one of them had the word "ambition" tattooed to one of his wrists.

The cops testified that they received tips about Millard having the same tattoo. They went to visit him on May 10, at which point they noticed he was in possession of a bag they were told to watch out for, and arrested him later that night.

A bodyshop owner told the court he received a call from Millard on May 8—he wanted a red paint job on a black truck.

Police were eventually led to the truck, the court heard, by a neighbour of Millard's mother. While chatting about the case to a reporter, the neighbour noticed that the trailer in a photo the journalist showed him was the same as the one parked next door.

Cops also discovered the name Lucas Bate had been created to purchase the prepaid phone. They found the phone's movements were similar to those of Millard's on the night of Bosma's murder.
The Incinerator

A man told the court he was dirt biking near Millard's Ayr, Ontario farm on May 10, 2013, when he noticed an incinerator sitting on a trailer along with a large propane tank along with a nearby excavator. Thinking it odd, he took photographs and later told the cops of his findings.

Police found the incinerator May 16, 2013. The crown said parts of Bosma's body, including bone fragments, were found inside of it.

The court heard a receipt for an incinerator was found in Millard's SUV. Dated June 21, 2012, it was registered to Millardair—the bill was for more than $15,000.
The Smile

While testifying on the third day of the trial, homicide detective Paul Hamilton was asked to identify Millard—the man he'd met at the Millardair airport hangar during the investigation.

He pointed out Millard in the courtroom. In response, Millard smiled and waved his hand.

According to media reports, jurors responded by raising their eyebrows while Bosma's family expressed disgust.

http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/the-disturbing-case-against-the-men-accused-of-murdering-tim-bosma?utm_source=vicefbca