Dark Ambition

by Ann Brocklehurst

  In total, Rogers has identified pieces from 58 of the 206 bones in an adult human body. She has created a skeleton diagram, which shows how little remained of Tim Bosma in the incinerator. “There should have been a complete body there, and there wasn’t, so it had obviously been cleaned out at some point,” she says to the jury. “A lot of the remains are not there. You remember I told you bone does not disappear?”

  When Rogers had gathered everything she could from the incinerator by hand, she asked the police to purchase a small handheld vacuum cleaner to help her gather up the ash and bone fragments that she couldn’t get manually. “It was for the family’s peace of mind that they have all the remains back,” she says, as her voice catches and she appears, for a moment, about to cry. She collects herself, apologizes unnecessarily, and goes on to describe emptying the vacuum-cleaner canister into baggies.

  “Everything that could be retrieved from the incinerator was retrieved.”

  For the Bosmas, Rogers’s testimony comes at a time when trial life has begun to settle into a familiar pattern. Every morning the family and their friends—who have nicknamed themselves the Bosma Army—say a prayer in a room reserved for their use. They then file down the long sixth-floor hallway to Courtroom 600, carrying water bottles, tissue boxes, and purple pillows that say Tim Bosma Remembered. The pillows—purple was Sharlene and Tim’s wedding colour—help those with bad backs sit for hours on the courtroom benches. Hank Bosma often removes his shoes.

  On the day of Rogers’s appearance, Hank’s wife, Mary, is absent for the first time. She has chosen not to see the images of her only son’s remains projected on the courtroom screens. Sharlene Bosma weeps. As Tracy Rogers leaves the courtroom, Hank follows her out. Through the glass panes in the doors, he can be seen giving her a hug in gratitude for her work.

  —

  IN A REPORT HE prepared on the Tim Bosma case on May 15, 2013, James Sloots, a forensic biologist at the Centre of Forensic Sciences, wrote that no DNA had been detected in the remains found in the Eliminator. Sloots, who had been asked by Matt Kavanagh if there was any possibility of using DNA to identify the remains, had not been optimistic. “High heat essentially destroys DNA,” he tells the jury. “Before I even started, I said I don’t expect to get anything from these. They didn’t look like bones should look like to me. They looked highly compromised.”

  The incineration also left little for Dr. William Barlow, a forensic dentist and assistant professor of dentistry at the University of Toronto, to work with. All he could say after examining a tooth fragment found in the incinerator was that it was part of a root, had the appearance of a human tooth, and was most likely a lower mandibular first bicuspid. Based on the fact that it was not calcified, he believed the tooth to be from a younger person. Although Dr. Barlow obtained and examined a panoramic X-ray of Tim Bosma’s teeth, there was no way for him to identify the tooth fragment as being from the victim’s mouth. But he wondered if it might be possible to extract mitochondrial DNA from its pulp tissue.

  Like Sloots, John Fernandes, the forensic pathologist in charge of the Bosma case, didn’t hold out much hope for a DNA extraction, but he sent the tooth out for testing nonetheless. The procedure to recover mitochondrial DNA “is extraordinarily challenging to do at best of times,” let alone with an incinerated tooth fragment, he tells the jury. He was disappointed but not surprised to learn the laboratory had failed at the task.

  With no body, no DNA, no useful dental remains, and no fingerprints, all Dr. Fernandes had to rely on to identify the remains was the work of Dr. Barlow and Tracy Rogers. He received all the bones, fragments, and ash processed by Rogers at the scene. The total weight was just 503 grams, less than half of what normal cremated remains would weigh.

  “When we have remains of this type, one of the first things we do is X-ray everything looking for metal, as metal will hold up,” Fernandes tells the jury. They might find teeth fillings or an artificial hip, but in this case there was nothing, he says.

  Prosecutor Tony Leitch asks if there is any evidence of injury to the recovered bones or of a shooting.

  Fernandes says shootings do leave bone defects that are fairly typical, but the bony fragments were not sufficient to determine if a shooting had taken place.

  The incineration of Tim Bosma means there are some questions that will never be answered.

  FIVE

  SUSPECT NUMBER TWO

  On May 13 at about 9:30 P.M. Matt Kavanagh phoned Sergeant Stuart Oxley, who was then with the Hamilton Police surveillance unit, to tell him he wanted officers to locate and watch Mark Smich. The target was described as five foot nine and 150 pounds with blue eyes. His date of birth was August 13, 1987. Two Oakville addresses were provided: his mother’s house on Montrose Abbey Drive and an address on Speers Road associated with Smich’s girlfriend, Marlena Meneses. The latter was the group of apartment buildings where Dellen Millard had stopped for about an hour before he was arrested.

  The primary objective on May 14, the first day of surveillance, was to locate Smich and see where he was residing. There were five officers on the team, which began work at 7 A.M. On the first day, Smich and Meneses were identified coming and going from both Speers Road and Montrose Abbey and were photographed in a variety of locations. Smich wore a baggy grey hoodie and black pants and smoked while he talked to a young man outside a Popeyes chicken restaurant. His contact, who had a round face and glasses and rode a bike, was dressed in a camouflage jacket and matching baseball cap. When their meeting was over, Smich went into the Popeyes and got a bag of food, which he took back to the Speers Road apartment building.

  On the next day, a Wednesday, officers were asked to get what is known as a DNA discard from Smich and to monitor his activity. He was first observed in the morning walking a dog. Not long after, Detective George Higgins, the same officer who had followed Millard on the day of his arrest, collected a cigarette butt tossed away by Smich. Unlike on the previous day, he was not seen in the company of Meneses and spent time skateboarding.

  Although Smich had been under twenty-four-hour observation the first day, with a drugs and vice unit taking over from surveillance at 10 P.M. for the overnight shift, once it was noted that he was spending most of his time holed up inside the apartment at Speers Road, it was decided that he didn’t need to be watched full-time. In general, twenty-four-hour surveillance is reserved for those considered an imminent threat to public safety. Smich’s dog walking and skateboarding expeditions didn’t fit the bill. There was no surveillance on Sunday, May 19, nor on Victoria Day Monday. It resumed the following Tuesday and then ended for good on Wednesday, May 22, when the call came down to arrest Smich and Meneses.

  Shortly after 10 A.M., Oxley was advised that the targets were walking northbound on Dorval Drive in Oakville, with Smich straddling a BMX-type bike. They were taken down on the median in the middle of the road. Smich yelled repeatedly at Meneses, “Don’t tell them anything, babe.”

  No one saw the arrest of Mark Smich coming. Or, to be more accurate, no one who was not a police officer or closely connected to the defendants saw it coming. Smich’s arrest was a reminder to both the mainstream media and the social media detectives that no matter how public an investigation is, the police almost always have much more information than even the most dedicated reporters and true crime fanatics. In this case, despite the fact that Smich was on Millard’s “no contact” list, he had never been considered a suspect in public in anywhere near the same way as Andrew Michalski and Shane Schlatman, Dellen’s mechanic, had. This is mostly because—on social media, at least—Smich did not appear to be part of Millard’s close group of friends.

  There was only one photo of Millard and Smich together posted on Facebook, taken by Michalski in the spring of 2011. Dellen, back in his red mohawk phase, and Mark are admiring a vintage turquoise Chevy Nova from Millard’s late grandfather’s collection. The car is parked in the driveway of Smich’s mother’s house, the same house police spe
nt the day of his arrest searching, along with the wooded area behind it.

  At the time of his arrest, on May 22, 2013, Mark Smich’s Facebook profile had been set to private, but information was available from the accounts of his friends and family. Just as Dellen Millard’s unusual name had made reporters’ and internet sleuths’ work easier, so, too, did Smich’s. Within minutes of the police announcement, there were already two stunning online finds. The first was a gruesome rap video in which Smich plays the role of a serial killer, and the second was a series of photos showing Smich celebrating his sister’s posh wedding at a North Toronto golf club just two days before he was arrested and two weeks after Tim Bosma was murdered.

  The gore video, entitled “Ghozted,” begins with a close-up of a bloody cleaver followed by another close-up of a man’s face with blood drops and streaks on it. The camera pulls back to show the man is slumped over and his neck is a bloody mess. Smich—dressed in a grey T-shirt, yellow pants, and rubber gloves, with a yellow surgical mask covering the lower part of his face—appears to be hacking away at the man’s undershirt or arm. The Smich character then carries something away in a bucket. The set where all this takes place is covered in clear plastic sheeting, including the walls. At least two other bloodied figures appear in the video making arm motions, which look like a cross between a bad dance move and a ritualistic ceremony. Later they sit tied up in chairs. The video often appears speeded up, and there are frequent sharp cuts, giving it a jerky quality. The rap soundtrack suggests that the victims have been taken prisoner by a psycho killer. At one point, the Smich character displays what is supposed to be a human organ but is more likely animal innards.

  The video was found on YouTube, where it had been posted by its director, JayDolo, who wrote in an accompanying note, “Shout Out To My Crazy Killer SAY10 aka Mark.S.” He very quickly clarified that the scenes portrayed were not real after some commentators wondered online if they might be watching a snuff video. A Websleuths member called “SweetAdeline” said she would show it to her boyfriend’s sister-in-law, who worked in special effects for movies, to find out if it could be real. Other sleuths—who were following the social media reaction to Smich’s arrest in real time—cautioned that someone should “rip,” or copy, the video. It was good advice, because the video did indeed disappear soon after.

  In an effort at spin control, JayDolo posted an all-caps statement about his video: “I HAVE TAKEN IT DOWN BECAUSE THE MEDIA IS TRYING TO BLOW IT UP AS IF ITS CONNECTED TO THE TIM BOSMA CASE. I HAVE BEEN POSTING THIS VIDEO EVERY WEEK FOR A YEAR AS I DO WITH ALL MY MUSIC—MARK IS INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY AND IN MY OPINION AS HIS FRIEND HE IS ONLY BEING PINPOINTED BECAUSE HE KNEW DELL. IF HE IS GUILTY THEN HE WILL SERVE HIS TIME AND ACCEPT HIS CONSEQUENCE.”

  This was something of an about-face for JayDolo, who, as soon as the news of Smich’s arrest broke, had set up a Free Mark Smich page on Facebook, where he linked and promoted the “Ghozted” video. Either he was a very bad judge of how to generate sympathy for Smich or he was actively exploiting Smich’s arrest to publicize his own music and video-production ventures. Whatever his motivation, within a matter of hours JayDolo realized that not all publicity is good publicity.

  As a torrent of internet abuse rained down on JayDolo, he removed both his video and the Free Mark Smich page on Facebook. His girlfriend, Aly Stewart, a sweet-faced and successful professional model, who had been tweeting like a gangsta moll, made her Twitter account private. “Its all love SAY10. 25bid, we’ll still be here for you,” Aly had tweeted, using Smich’s SAY10 nickname, given to him by Dellen Millard, and the slang for a life sentence of twenty-five years in Canada. “I can’t believe this shit. I love u man.”

  Using the name James Crockett, a Miami Vice character, JayDolo also wrote to the many media outlets pestering him for comment. Among other things, he said the video was an “art” production made for the previous year’s Halloween and it was all his idea. He confirmed that he himself was playing the victim and it was Smich in the role of the Dexter-style character, modelled on the TV serial killer. He described Mark as “the type of guy who stayed home to take care of his sick mother and dogs” and who “always helped out whoever he could.” He said he hadn’t seen him for the last three months.

  —

  MARK SMICH, AGE TWENTY-FIVE, had a police record for petty crime, including possession of cocaine and magic mushrooms, failure to appear in court, breach of bail terms, driving while impaired, and, most recently, painting graffiti on a highway overpass. His father said he lived with his mother. His mother said he lived at his girlfriend’s house. And his girlfriend hung up when a reporter phoned.

  Compared to Dellen Millard little is known about Smich’s family, but what is clear is that his problems were a long time in the making. He’d been in trouble since middle school, when his family moved from Mississauga to Oakville, partly in the hope of sorting him out, according to a former classmate. At twenty-five, he spent his days getting high and drinking in a series of basements and backyards. When things were going well for him, he dealt drugs and had cash to spend. But when he had no supply, he was reduced to selling single cigarettes to students at the local high school, who found him creepy. When one of his employed friends offered to get Smich a decent-paying job in construction, he turned the proposition down.

  With his pasty complexion, sunken cheeks, and unflattering close-cropped haircuts, Smich looked like the druggie he was. His mother’s neighbours avoided him and were none too fond of the friends and drug buyers who socialized noisily outside the house. To outward appearances at least, he was a classic black sheep. The rest of his middle-class family—divorced parents and two older sisters—were gainfully employed. His younger sister, Melissa, had, as the internet very quickly discovered, just married, although her honeymoon was about to be ruined and her wedding photos were going viral. By sheer coincidence, the photographer had unknowingly uploaded her photos to his website at almost the same time Smich was arrested. They showed Smich, an usher in the wedding party, chomping on a big cigar, mugging on the golf course, and posing awkwardly with his partner bridesmaid. He looked completely out of place among his sister’s upwardly mobile friends. And the images of him celebrating sparked both outrage and incredulity.

  “I know I am going to sound incredibly naïve for saying this, but HOW can someone smile and get into the festivities knowing what they’ve done? How can that knowledge not ruin their own lives? I’ll never understand,” wrote “Storme” on Websleuths.

  On Twitter, there was a wave of sympathy for Melissa Smich. Not only were her wedding photos all over social media but there was also nasty speculation that she must have known her brother was involved and conspired to hide it. Reporters were tweeting at her for comment while she was away on her honeymoon. Onlookers were admonishing the journalists. “You need to have some respect. That right there is god awful journalism. So inappropriate,” tweeted @RemaGouyez to a reporter at The Hamilton Spectator.

  “I feel bad for her. Her privacy has gone out the window with her wedding pics online,” wrote “flipflop” on Websleuths. There was, however, also a certain cruel irony to the unfolding events. Melissa Smich worked in marketing and had been called a “social media celebrity” by Marketing Magazine, which put her on their “30 Under 30” list of young talent for 2012. Now, instead of celebrating social media, she and her family were at the centre of a social media crisis of their own.

  As it turned out, it was a Websleuths member who handled at least part of the fallout for Melissa. “I sent an email to the wedding photographer, they had not heard this news,” wrote “flipflop.” “They are removing the wedding pics.”

  —

  A FORMER FRIEND OF Dellen Millard remembers being introduced to Mark Smich as far back as 2006 and having the impression that he was the weed connection. “Mark worshipped Dell, but Dell hated him,” says the friend. “Dell couldn’t stand the whole Eminem white gangsta thing that Mark had going on.” Yet des
pite the animosity and the fact that in those early years Millard almost never invited Smich to gatherings or events with his other friends, the relationship managed to endure. By 2011, Smich was edging ever closer to the Millard inner circle. And in 2012 he moved right to the heart of it when he and his girlfriend, Marlena Meneses, took up residence in the basement of Wayne and Dellen Millard’s house on Maple Gate Court.

  Millard’s habit of moving his friends into the house he shared with his father had begun several years earlier. In 2006, when he was twenty, he developed friendships with a group of high school boys he met through Matthew Hagerman, grandson of his father’s housekeeper, Dina. Dina, who had originally been hired by Dellen’s grandmother and cared for her when she was dying of cancer, had gone on to work for Wayne and look after Dellen from the time he was a baby. She and her daughter were concerned that Dellen had no friends and prompted Matthew to spend time with him.

  Given that the Millard home on Maple Gate was a teenage boy’s dream, with multiple large-screen TVs, Xboxes, a swimming pool, and more, it wasn’t a particularly hard sell. Matt and his friends were soon all hanging out there and, even better, at the old Millardair hangars at Pearson Airport, where Dellen kept assorted planes, vehicles, and his prized Bell helicopter, the same as the one in the opening credits of the television show M*A*S*H. On March 6, 2009, Millard arranged and paid for a hangar concert to celebrate the birthdays of Andrew Michalski and Mike Ciufo, another member of the gang. The concert featured the local bands Blunt Fiction and Texas, Armed to the Teeth, and, according to one friend, the bill for the event was tens of thousands of dollars. It was never clear, however, where the money to pay for it, or for anything else Dellen did, came from. “The money was just there,” the friend said. In a jailhouse interview he gave to the Toronto Star months after he was arrested, Millard explained that he was playing to the image people had of him. “I threw some parties,” he said. “I tried to make that a reality for my friends.” Big events or small, he was always picking up the tab.