Dellen Millard: He’ll Be Flying Solo to the Big House

by Pamela Stewart

“It’s difficult to accept that Tim was just a guy, a regular average guy who loved his family and his friends, who worked hard. It is difficult to accept that this regular average guy did a regular average thing, which so many do on a daily basis, and it tragically cost him his life. ”

Tim Bosma’s wife, Sharlene felt compelled to give this explanation at her husband’s memorial service because people had been speculating that Tim must have done something or known something that got him killed. As Sharlene said at the service, this type of thing doesn’t happen in Canada and it doesn’t happen to regular people like Tim

What Tim Bosma did, was post his 2007 black Dodge Ram 3500 pickup truck for sale on the online classified websites, Kijiji and Autotrader.

On May 6, 2013, at approximately 9:20pm, the 32-year-old Ancaster, Ontario man left his wife and two-year-old daughter at home to take two men on a test drive. He never came back.

Four days later, Hamilton Police Services found his cellphone in the town of Brantford, approximately 16 miles (26kms) from the Hamilton suburb where Tim resided. Police were able to track the cellphone of the individual who had made the call about the vehicle. They also contacted another man who was selling his truck and had taken the two men for a test drive a day before Tim went missing. He provided a description of the men. One of them had a tattoo on his wrist of the word “ambition” framed in a box.

That same day, police arrested a Toronto man with this same tattoo. Dellen Millard, 27, was charged with forcible confinement and theft over $5,000.

Millard had no previous criminal record.  He came from a well-known aviation family.  In 1963, Millard’s grandfather, Carl founded chartered airline Millardair Ltd. When Carl died, his son Wayne, a former Air Canada pilot took over and transitioned the business to aircraft maintenance and servicing, now known as Millard Air Incorporated.

Wayne died in December, 2012. His death was ruled a suicide.  Dellen wrote his father’s obituary. It’s a compelling tribute if you don’t read between the lines, or you haven’t heard the latest news in the tragic Millard saga.

Dellen Millard seemed like the perfect choice to revive the family business after his father’s death. The younger Millard made news when he was 14-years-old by becoming the youngest Canadian to fly both an airplane and helicopter solo on the same day.

Millard lived in a wealthy Toronto suburb in the family home that sold for $1.2 million last July. He owned a number of other properties, including a downtown Toronto condo, a six-unit apartment building and a farm property in Ayr, near Kitchener-Waterloo. Millard had fast cars, and he could afford to buy a new Dodge Ram pickup truck, but this wasn’t about a truck.

On May 12, Tim’s vehicle was located inside a trailer parked outside the home of Dellen Millard’s mother, Madeleine Millard, in Kleinburg. The trailer was registered to Dellen Millard’s business.

It was on Millard’s farm that Tim’s burnt body was found on May 14. Millard was charged with first-degree murder. An incinerator was found on the farm property and seized by police.

Millard’s accomplice, Mark Smich, 25, was charged with first-degree murder on May 15.  Smich had previous convictions for drug possession, impaired driving and a charge for mischief related to some graffiti.

The police believed that there was a third suspect who had followed them as they rode in Bosma’s vehicle, but there were no further arrests.

Shortly after the arrests, police took another look into Wayne Millard’s death. They also reopened an investigation into the disappearance of Laura Babcock. Laura had been a former girlfriend of Dellen’s. She was last seen in Toronto’s west end on June 26, 2012 by her ex-boyfriend, Shawn Lerner.

Babcock was reported missing on July 14, but police have reason to believe she was murdered around July 3, 2012. Police aren’t saying what evidence they have, or if they found her remains.

On April 10, 2014, Toronto and Hamilton Police Services announced that they were laying new charges in the death of Laura Babcock. Millard and Smich have been charged with first-degree murder. Millard has been charged with the first-degree murder of his father, Wayne. Millard’s current girlfriend, Christina Noudga has been charged with being an accessory after the fact in Tim Bosma’s murder. The investigation, called Project Capella is ongoing. Police refused to take questions at the press conference.

Millard’s crimes came to light because of a family man’s attempt to sell his truck online.  Tim’s widow, Sharlene is left mourning her husband and she doesn’t understand the motivation behind his death. No one knows why someone with such potential would allegedly kill for thrills or to get rid of people he didn’t want around anymore.

Last month, some of Millard’s possessions started showing up on Kijiji. The contact listed on the ads is Shane Schlatman, who had appeared in some of Millard’s Facebook photos. There was a 1975 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight Royale Convertible, a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible, a Jeep Dana 35 rear axle and a 1997 Tigershark Monte Carlo.  Those look like some sweet rides, but Millard is going to spend the rest of his life looking in the rear view mirror.

Click here for Pamela Stewart’s previous post exposing Toronto Mayor Rob Ford:

Calling Rob Ford: Where’s the Humor in Mayoral Malfeasance?

Pamela Stewart is a freelance writer and former private investigator. She lives north of Toronto in Jackson’s Point. This lakeside town is the kind of place where people don’t lock their doors. It’s a safe space for Pamela to explore the dark side of life in her fiction and nonfiction. She also writes about more pleasant things when the sun is shining.