Dark Ambition

by Ann Brocklehurst

  According to reports in the National Post newspaper, Dellen’s solo flights were a turning point, an accomplishment that finally earned him some respect from his peers. Before that, he had been seen as something of an outcast, wandering the halls of his school provocatively eating from a box of dog biscuits and ignoring the appalled looks of his fellow students. Although the Toronto French School likes to see itself as a kinder, gentler private school—geared more toward turning out future Médecins Sans Frontières workers and bilingual diplomats than financiers and industrialists—there are only so many parents of budding humanitarians who can afford its fees. Wayne Millard’s beat-up pickup trucks stood out in the stream of German luxury vehicles in the drop-off line. Charles Humphrey, the classmate who told the National Post about Millard’s dog biscuit habit, also recalled that “Dellen was—and I realize I’m playing into a stereotype here—a little marginalized, a little different. I didn’t even know the guy was so wealthy. He always looked like a bit of a hillbilly.”

  One of the best initial sources for information on the Millard family was a curious obituary Dellen wrote just a few months before the disappearance of Tim Bosma. It was for his father, who had died on November 29, 2012, although no cause of death was given. It began, “Wayne C. Millard has passed. He is survived by his son Dellen Millard.” Strangely, Dellen did not acknowledge the existence of other family members, including Carl, who had been such an influence on Wayne, and Wayne’s ex-wife, Madeleine, who was still, on paper at least, a vice president at Millardair.

  Wayne and Madeleine had met at Air Canada in the mid-1970s, when he was a pilot and she worked as a flight attendant. By the end of the decade, the couple had left the airline to set up Canadian Wildlife Film Productions, and they joined one of the era’s major animal-rights campaigns to stop the annual seal hunt in which young pups were clubbed to death for their glossy white pelts. Wayne learned to fly helicopters so that he could ferry activists and equipment to hard-to-reach locations. His dedication to that cause, readers would assume, was why Dellen’s obit showed a picture of a big-eyed seal pup stranded on an ice floe next to a photo of Wayne as a dashing young pilot flashing a wry smile over his shoulder.

  Dellen wrote that his father “was frugal with himself and generous to others…. He would answer a question with a story. He stepped carefully while advocating carefreeness. He could read and write five languages. He was patient and stubborn. He admired Christ, Gandhi and Lindbergh. He believed animal welfare was a humanitarian effort. He was a good man in a careless world. He was my father.” Along with the praise and platitudes, however, there were a number of cryptic statements thrown in without context. Dellen described how his father had hoped “for a time when cooperation would be the norm and competition was only friendly” and wrote that “the only people he feared were racists.”

  After listing the many animal-welfare causes Wayne had supported, Dellen noted that his father’s final and not-yet-launched animal-welfare mission, the Elizabeth Glass Animal Welfare Fund, named after a late ex-girlfriend of Wayne’s, was accepting donations. “He believed we can make a difference in the world,” Dellen’s obituary ended. “With Wayne in my heart, I believe we must.”

  In the online guest book that accompanied the death notice, a number of friends and former colleagues paid their respects, with a few regretting that they had not been able to make it to the reception held in Wayne’s honour because they had not been aware of it. Carl’s sister June, an internet-savvy nonagenarian, wrote that no one had notified her of either the reception or her nephew’s death. And then there was a comment from Madeleine Burns, who posted her message on New Year’s Eve, 2012: “Dellen, my thoughts and prayers are with you tonight, my boy, as we embark on a new year. Your Dad’s voice will always be with me, as I recall the first time I heard him say, ‘This is your co pilot.’ That was a long time ago. A flight to Edmonton. May all the good times sustain you and I in the times to come. I love you. Mummy xx.”

  DAY 7—SUNDAY, MAY 12

  The vehicle towing a large transport trailer had pulled into the quiet suburban cul-de-sac in Kleinburg, Ontario, on May 9, the night before Dellen Millard was arrested. It arrived late enough that the noise and bright lights woke up at least one neighbour and distracted others from their television watching. Even after the commotion had died down and the trailer was unhitched and left in Madeleine Burns’s driveway on Tinsmith Court, it was noticeable enough in the dark to catch the eye of Frank Cianfarani, who lived two doors down from Dellen Millard’s mother, when he returned late from an appointment in Toronto.

  Big ugly trailers were not the norm on this street of million-dollar homes with carefully landscaped lawns north of Toronto. But Burns had developed a reputation for keeping to herself during her twelve years living on the street, so no one asked her what the trailer was doing there. It wasn’t until the neighbours heard the news about her son’s involvement in Tim Bosma’s disappearance that the possibility was raised that the trailer might be evidence as opposed to just an eyesore. Frank Cianfarani thought it was especially strange how it was backed right up against the garage, making it impossible to access or even see the trailer’s rear doors. He consulted with another neighbour and together they decided they needed to call the police to come check it out.

  Constable Mark Levangie of the York Regional Police rang the doorbell at Madeleine Burns’s house at 1 P.M. on Mother’s Day. He had been sent there to check out a trailer in connection to a missing person report. When no one answered, he did a walk around the house, looking in windows and knocking on other doors. He noted the trailer’s VIN but couldn’t see its licence plate because of its position against the garage doors of Burns’s house. A light on the garage wall next to the trailer was broken, likely damaged when the vehicle was manoeuvred into place. The two side doors of the trailer were padlocked shut.

  Levangie’s partner, Cory Weick, called Hamilton Police, who told them the circumstances were urgent. They needed to find out if the missing person was inside. For this reason, they had grounds to enter the trailer without a warrant, but not the residence. Since it was impossible to access the trailer’s rear doors, and neither Levangie nor Weick had bolt cutters to remove the locks on the side doors, they contacted the emergency response unit to cut the locks.

  Through one of the side doors, Weick had enough space to climb up into the bed of what the officers recognized as a black Dodge Ram. Using a flashlight, he observed there was no licence plate on the truck, car parts were in the back, and nothing was underneath it. Behind it was a tarp and some other items. Weick reported that the truck’s interior had been partially stripped. Because the truck was squeezed so tightly into the trailer, with just a few centimetres of clearance on either side, Weick had to climb over the top of the cab and crouch on the hood to read the VIN, located on the dash on the driver’s side. The entire search, which took just a minute or two, satisfied Weick that there was no missing person inside either the trailer or the truck. Hamilton Police confirmed on the spot that the VIN belonged to Tim Bosma’s truck. The trailer was found to be registered to Millardair.

  After Weick emerged, Levangie closed up the trailer, placed official police seals on all three doors, and photographed the exterior. Weick requested a canvass of the entire street to see if anyone knew anything or had video of the trailer’s arrival. By the end of the afternoon, they had discovered video recorded in the basement security room of a resident, who lived on a neighbouring street.

  The trailer remained under guard by York Police officers until Constable Brent Gibson of the Hamilton force arrived at about 6:30 P.M. to escort it back to Hamilton. While he had two tow truck drivers with him to ensure he had the right type of hitch, no one had been notified to bring padlocks. Gibson had to use his own personal gym lock to secure the trailer’s rear doors while its two side doors remained unlocked. He followed behind the trailer for the entire eighty-five-kilometre trip to the Metro Truck garage on Seaman Street in Hamilton. Onc
e there, he placed the trailer in a locked bay surrounded by yellow crime-scene tape and padlocked the side doors. He left the garage at 9:30 P.M.

  —

  ON THAT SAME SUNDAY, at the Bosma house, as the search for Tim continued, Mary Bosma made a special Mother’s Day appeal for the return of her son. Standing in Tim’s garage, with the media in front of her and a row of Missing posters behind her, she spoke softly and nervously into the microphones. “Even though there’s been an arrest,” she said, “he still is not home with us. My heart is broken. I love him so much. We just want him home.”

  It was hard to watch her, so anxious and distressed, without thinking back to Sharlene’s dramatic appeal. As bad as things had looked a mere three days earlier, there had still been hope. Sharlene seemed like the type of woman who, through sheer force of personality, could will her husband home and bring about the happy ending that everyone was hoping for. Now, with Dellen Millard in jail but refusing to talk, and the missing truck being pulled from his mother’s driveway, that hope was undeniably dying.

  Online, there was anger and frustration that the man police had in custody was not helping to find Tim Bosma. As the curious searched for information, they focused their early attention on Andrew Michalski. Four and a half years younger than Millard and a few inches shorter, Michalski pretty much fit the vague description of suspect number two. According to Facebook, he was a sports-loving, hard-partying plumber in training, whose social media pronouncements were profanity laced and vulgar.

  Judging from his Facebook and Twitter accounts, Michalski appeared to idolize Dellen Millard. He faithfully chronicled his friend’s activities and tweeted out comments Millard made in conversation as if they were pearls of wisdom. On one occasion, he quoted Dell Millard on Twitter as saying, “I’m either going to sleep or doing heroin.” On another, he boasted that Millard’s dog, Pedo, who presumably had a Twitter account in his name, had tweeted, “Turn the fucking music down Michalski.” On a 2009 trip to South Beach in Miami—about which Michalski enthused, “Best weekend of my life, with Dellen!”—Andrew turned videographer, posting several videos of his adventures, including one that caught the attention of internet sleuths. Taken on Washington Avenue, South Beach’s clubbing strip, it showed a gussied-up black Dodge Ram with a raised suspension, running lights atop the roof of its cab, and other modifications. “Dell and I still waiting outside and see a SICKKKKKK TRUCK!!!!!!!!!” Michalski posted to Facebook. With those online comments, and a tweet of his from February 2012—“Learn how to steal cars. #gonein60seconds,” which was likely referencing a video game—Michalski had managed to convince a large portion of the internet that they had found suspect number two even if the police hadn’t.

  Both the mainstream media and social media sleuths were especially interested in Michalski’s photographs documenting a trip he and Millard had made to the Baja 500 off-road race in Mexico in June 2011. Along with Dellen’s personal mechanic, Shane Schlatman, another target of online speculation, the pair had spent months, and Millard’s allotted budget of $100,000, customizing a yellow Jeep Wrangler TJ in the old Millardair hangar in Toronto. For the cross-continent journey to Baja California, the racing Jeep was placed in Millard’s trailer, the same one that had just been found in Madeleine Burns’s driveway. The trailer was hitched to Millard’s red Dodge Ram truck, a slightly older model than Tim Bosma’s, with a gas engine as opposed to diesel.

  Michalski had fashioned his hair into a blue mohawk, while Millard wore a red one. The photo that would be splashed all over the media—of Millard with his mohawk and a margarita—was taken en route to Baja. Among other things, the photos show the three travellers stopping at Applebee’s, the San Diego Air & Space Museum, and the Bellagio hotel in Vegas. Though the race itself was not a success—Millard rolled out after just a few miles—the trio all got matching “Desert Baja Racing” tattoos on their left arms to memorialize the event.

  After Millard’s arrest, a long trail of comments appeared on Facebook under one of Michalski’s photos from the trip: the one that showed Millard and Schlatman in front of a red Dodge Ram truck pulling a trailer. Facebook users demanded Michalski tell them where Tim Bosma was, cursed him out, and expressed their ugly hopes he would be an eventual victim of prison rape.

  While Michalski deleted his Twitter feed and temporarily took his Facebook account private, he quickly made it public again. Right through the trial, anyone could look at his photos and the vitriolic comments they had provoked.

  DAY 8—MONDAY, MAY 13

  With Dellen Millard in custody, police forces around Southern Ontario began exercising search warrants at his home on Maple Gate Court in Etobicoke, his farm in Ayr, and the Millardair hangar at Waterloo Airport. Yellow crime-scene tape went up at various sites as media trucks and journalists arrived in droves.

  Millard’s Maple Gate neighbours conformed to the predictable and contradictory patterns seen when the guy next door is arrested for doing a very bad thing. One neighbour told the CBC that Millard seemed like a “normal kid,” while another said she always knew he was trouble and had called the police about Dellen and his friends speeding dangerously down the quiet residential cul-de-sac. When she had first moved to the street, a friend had come to visit her and mistakenly knocked on the Millards’ door. Dellen’s father, Wayne, had answered, looking like a dishevelled hermit, and frightened her friend. Since that time, the neighbour had ordered her kids to stay away from the Millard house and to turn down all invitations from their elderly housekeeper, who was known for inviting local children in to see the family’s animal collection. When journalists peeked into the house after Dellen’s arrest, they saw a mess of clothing, documents, canned goods strewn about, and a black cat.

  At the new Millardair hangar in Waterloo, police officers inspected the exterior, taking photographs and blocking off the road leading to the building as they awaited a search warrant that would allow them to go inside. Airport officials made themselves scarce. Millardair, the company they had worked so hard to lure to the region, had turned into a major headache. First, after his father’s sudden death, Dellen Millard had abruptly closed down the newly launched aviation maintenance business and begun seeking new tenants for the hangar. And now there was a murder investigation underway and reporters were asking questions about how much public money the airport authority had spent on runway improvements to accommodate the larger jets Wayne Millard had planned to bring in.

  Things were also bleak at Millard’s farm, where the media had gathered by the road in front of the barn. Police set up shop farther back on the property, erecting giant forensic tents far from journalists’ prying eyes. Officers could be seen combing the fields on horseback and conducting coordinated grid searches of wooded areas by foot. Neighbours stopped by to find out what was going on and chatted with reporters. Millard was said to have driven a hard bargain when he bought the farm, which was still used to produce corn for animal feed.

  On the Friday Millard was arrested, before his name had been made public, one of the neighbours had happened to be crossing the property when he noticed a strange machine he had never seen before. It was unusual enough that it caused him to stop and take a few pictures with his phone. Later, when the media showed up, copies of those photos ended up in the hands of a CBC reporter. The machine in question was a portable livestock incinerator called the Eliminator, but neighbours said there were no animals on Millard’s farm.

  DAY 9—TUESDAY, MAY 14

  The news that everyone had been dreading came Tuesday morning. Hamilton Police chief Glenn De Caire, who had worn shirt sleeves three days earlier to announce Dellen Millard’s arrest, arrived at the media briefing room in full dress uniform, an ominous sign under the circumstances. “It is with a heavy heart,” he said, “that the Hamilton Police Service today announces the death of Ancaster resident Tim Bosma. A number of searches have taken place and human remains have been located. We are convinced by the totality of the evidence that these are the remain
s of Tim Bosma. The evidence indicates that the remains have been burned.”

  After offering his condolences to the Bosma family and thanking the many police forces throughout Southern Ontario who had assisted Hamilton officers, as well as the community at large, De Caire pledged, “We will continue to follow every single lead. We will work to effect the arrest of those responsible for the death of Tim Bosma.”

  In the afternoon, Matt Kavanagh held an investigative briefing, which began with the announcement that Dellen Millard would be charged the next day with first-degree murder. Kavanagh said that Tim Bosma had been taken to a location in the Waterloo area where his body had been burned beyond recognition and that police had warrants allowing them to continue to search two properties in the Waterloo region owned by Dellen Millard, meaning the hangar and the farm. Investigators’ other priority, he stressed, was identifying and arresting the remaining suspects involved in the murder.

  Anyone who’s ever attended or watched a press conference on TV has probably been frustrated by the way reporters jump from topic to topic. At this particular briefing, the questions skipped around between three main areas. Journalists wanted to know about the other suspects in the case, the details of what happened to Tim Bosma, and a possible motive for the crime. When it came to the latter, many members of the media were as reluctant as the armchair sleuths to accept the lack of connection between Tim Bosma and Dellen Millard. And several of them were just as blind to how this line of inquiry can quickly turn into victim-blaming. This became evident at the start of the press conference, when one journalist barked out, “Was Bosma known to police? Does he have a criminal record?”