Dark Ambition

by Ann Brocklehurst

  “Whose idea was it to steal a truck?” Dungey asks.

  “Dell’s idea,” says Smich. “It was a plan for quite some time. I couldn’t give an exact date. It was well over a year.”

  Smich said it took so long because they were “scoping things out” and constantly modifying the plan. They needed to find an accessible diesel truck and then go back to get it. Smich’s role would be to “keep six,” which is criminal slang, derived from military communications, for being a lookout. The test-drive part of the plan was more recent, devised by Millard after their targeted trucks kept getting moved. Smich was aware that Millard had a special phone to set up the appointments.

  He claims that on the test drive with Igor Tumanenko, they were concerned Tumanenko’s truck might have a GPS, like the Bobcat they had stolen.

  Smich confirms Marlena Meneses’s testimony that she tried to talk him out of stealing the truck. “I guess women have intuition, and she might have had a bad feeling,” he tells the jury. “She was telling me repeatedly it was a stupid idea and not to go.”

  Millard asked him to bring a change of clothes, because if they decided to steal the truck later that night, they would need to wear all black, which might have looked odd to prospective sellers. They also didn’t want their clothes to give them away as the guys who were there earlier. Smich says that on May 6, they intended to check out the truck and then, if it was what they wanted, return wearing black and take it using one of a number of techniques shown to them by Shane Schlatman.

  Millard and Smich parked on the side of the road near the Bosma residence and left Pedo in the Yukon. The location Smich describes in court is the field owned by Rick Bullmann’s father. It’s where Bullmann testified he later saw two vehicles pull out—a truck followed immediately by what looked like an SUV—when he was walking his dog. Smich remembers that as they left the field and walked up to the Bosma house, Millard was on his phone. “There was both a lady and a man standing out there,” says Smich, who thinks he saw Tim Bosma come out from the garage and start talking to Millard right away.

  As Smich gives his version of the last hour of Tim Bosma’s life, the courtroom is tense. Hank Bosma puts his arm around his wife, who is in tears. A few seats over, Sharlene Bosma holds her head in her hands.

  On a highly discordant note, after Smich has described the first moments of meeting Tim Bosma, Dungey asks him to describe his health problems.

  “I was still ill from the night before, so I wasn’t feeling the best,” Smich says. “My shoulder was bad at that time. It actually popped out that night, so I was in pain.” No explanation is provided as to why what Smich describes as the “unbearable” pain of this dislocation failed to deter him from his truck-stealing mission. He continues with his account of the theft.

  “Dell gets into the vehicle. Mr. Bosma gets into the vehicle. Mr. Bosma gives Dell the keys. I proceeded into the rear. Then we proceed to leave the driveway.”

  Mary Bosma cannot bear to hear any more. She rushes from the courtroom, followed almost immediately by friends and a victim services worker. Hank Bosma remains in his seat, looking straight ahead. He is prepared to hear it all.

  Just as the truck was about to turn out of the driveway, Millard hit the brakes and pulled out his phone. He said his fictional friend—the one who Tim Bosma believed had dropped them off—couldn’t find the Tim Hortons where he was supposed to wait. He was around the corner instead. Smich says they then pulled over near where the Yukon was parked. Millard suggested Mark follow behind with the Tim Hortons friend so they wouldn’t have to return to the Bosmas at the end of the test drive. Smich took the hint.

  “I get out. Dell pulled a U-turn. I got into the Yukon. The keys were in the cupholder. Pedo was in the car. I started the vehicle and proceeded to follow him.”

  “Was this planned out?” asks Dungey.

  “No. Like I said, the plan was to scope out the vehicle and come back and take it later, once the time was right.”

  “Then what happens?”

  “I followed him,” says Smich, shaking his head in a characteristic gesture. “We just kept driving until he pulls over on the side of the road and I pulled up behind him.”

  “Was any of this part of the plan, the scoping?”

  “Dell does random things,” says Smich as Millard looks on.

  Smich can’t remember much about the drive, how long it took, or exactly where they went after turning north on Trinity Road. He says Millard pulled over with a sudden swerve. “Dell gets out of the vehicle and he proceeds to walk toward the Yukon, and he was putting what looks to be a gun into his satchel.”

  “What’s your reaction to this?”

  Smich says he asked what was going on, to which Millard replied, “I’m taking the truck.” He reached into the Yukon and grabbed a flashlight.

  “As he was walking back, I proceeded to follow him, and that’s when I seen a bullet hole through the window and Mr. Bosma laying head first on the dashboard,” says Smich.

  “I was in utter and complete shock. I’m not sure there are words I can describe it. I was in disbelief. I said, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ It was all crazy. Dell looked like something came over him. He didn’t look like his normal self.

  “He said, ‘Go and get the plates from the Yukon.’ They were the licence plates from his red Dodge Ram.

  “I was freaking out. I said, ‘This is not the plan, not how it’s supposed to go down.’ He just said, ‘Go and get the plates.’

  “He was loud and forceful. I’d never seen him like this. He looked mad, like a lunatic, like something came over him.

  “I went and did as he said and got the plates. He told me to change the licence plates from one vehicle, the Bosma vehicle, with the licence plates of the red Dodge.”

  They had changed plates on previous thefts, says Smich. “But the way that it went down was not how it was supposed to go down.”

  He tells the court that nobody had ever been harmed during their previous criminal activities. Although many of the spectators know that Smich is also facing charges for the 2012 murder of Laura Babcock, the jury has not been informed of this fact, nor that her death coincided with the purchase of the Eliminator.

  While they were stopped, Millard wiped off Bosma’s phone and prepared to discard it. Smich says Millard told him, “Everything’s going to be all right. Don’t worry, just follow me.”

  “He was very forceful in his tone,” says Smich. “It didn’t change much as time went on. He was telling me to not worry, because I was panicked and I was shocked, and that was not part of the plan. At that point, I don’t know, I felt like I had no choice. I was scared.”

  Dungey plays the video from Bobcat of Brantford, which the court has already seen. It begins with the two loud booming sounds as the vehicles enter the camera’s range. Then it shows the vehicles pulling over and, twelve minutes later, leaving. It is impossible to make out any human figures, let alone what they are doing while pulled over. Apart from passing traffic, there are just a few occasional flashes of light. Smich appears nervous in the witness box as the video plays.

  After they left Brantford, Smich says he followed Millard to his farm. Millard unchained the gate, and they drove around to the back of the barn.

  “He gets out of the vehicle. I get out of the vehicle. He tells me to go close the gate, chain it back up, make sure no one follows. So that’s what I did. I went with Pedo. I stood there for a minute. There was nobody, no cars driving around. I walked back. Then I seen Mr. Bosma laying on a sort of sheet. The passenger side of the truck was open. There was blood all over the whole left side of Mr. Bosma’s head.

  “Dell told me to open the barn door. He rolled Mr. Bosma up in the sheet. I opened the barn door. Then he told me to help him hitch the Eliminator, which was on the trailer, to the truck. So I took the flashlight. I went up to where the incinerator was, and he backed up the Bosma vehicle to the Eliminator and we attached it. He pulled it forward to where Mr. Bosm
a’s body was laying, and after that he got out of the vehicle. He proceeded to open the hatch of the Eliminator. He asked me—well, I don’t want to say ask—he told me to help him put Mr. Bosma into the Eliminator.

  “I didn’t want to go anywhere near it. I told him it was because of my shoulder. He gave a kind of little huff and puff, like he was mad.”

  According to Smich, Millard stepped up onto the trailer and then single-handedly lifted Bosma’s body into the Eliminator, the hatch of which was four and a half feet above the trailer floor. Then Millard opened the gate, chained it back up, and proceeded to drive to the hangar. He drove the Bosma truck with the Eliminator in tow while Smich followed behind in the Yukon.

  At the hangar, Millard unhooked the Eliminator and drove the truck to Shane Schlatman’s work station. He ordered Smich to strip the vehicle while he went to get gas. Using an X-Acto knife, Smich cut out the carpet and seat belts. When Millard returned, he told Smich to wash the truck. While Smich hosed down the stolen vehicle, Millard turned on the Eliminator. Then together they removed the truck’s seats. As Tim Bosma’s remains were being incinerated, Millard and Smich stuffed garbage bags with everything they had removed from the truck, along with their gloves, the heavy-duty mechanic’s paper towels they used to clean up, and spray-paint cans. Smich isn’t asked what they did with their clothes. The garbage bags were put in the back of Millard’s red Dodge truck, along with the Bosma truck’s front seat frames. The next thing Smich remembers is pulling the incinerator into the hangar and Millard sending text messages telling his employees not to come to work.

  About an hour later the pair left for Oakville and picked up Marlena Meneses in the Yukon. “She was kind of stressed out. It was also very early in the morning, so she was kind of tired,” says Smich. “She was mad, if you want to put it that way. Dell said he got the truck.” When Millard dropped them off at Smich’s mother’s house, he told Smich he would pick him up later that day to move the incinerator.

  “Did you tell Marlena anything?” asks Dungey.

  “No, I was so exhausted,” says Smich. “I woke up—I was still in pain—got in contact with Dell. I don’t recall exactly what the conversation was. I was trying to, you know, I guess play along, like everything was all right kind of thing. I don’t know. I had so many thoughts going through my head at that time. I don’t know how to explain it.

  “He said he was coming to pick me up. I didn’t want to not answer the phone. That would cause some kind of suspicion. After seeing him like that, I was just trying to pretend everything was normal.”

  Dungey asks if Smich went along with Millard because he had looked like a lunatic.

  Smich said his behaviour was a result of being “concerned, scared, frightened. I felt threatened. I didn’t know what exactly to do at that point. I was confused.”

  They moved the Eliminator from the Waterloo hangar back to the barn in Ayr late Tuesday night. Smich spent Wednesday in Oakville because he had a doctor’s appointment for his shoulder. “I was still in pain and I wanted to get things checked out,” he says. Although he and Millard had planned to burn the garbage left in the red Dodge truck that day, they postponed the job. “I might have spoken to him on the phone so as not to raise suspicion or make him think I was going to call the police on him,” says Smich.

  By Thursday, May 9, Millard appeared completely back to normal. “The same Dell that I’ve seen every day before that, which scared the shit out of me even more,” says Smich.

  “Where did you see him on the ninth?” asks Dungey.

  Millard picked him up, says Smich, and they went to the hangar, where Shane Schlatman was removing the emblems and tail lights from Tim Bosma’s truck, prepping it for painting. They swapped the Yukon for Millard’s red Dodge and drove to the farm, picking up gas canisters along the way. They also brought a fire extinguisher from the hangar. “Dell was normal, talkative, telling me he wanted to paint the truck,” says Smich, explaining that the original plan called for a VIN switch from Millard’s red truck to the new one. “This was my knowledge from months and months prior to these events taking place.” He wanted it red to match the description on the licence plates. (Smich may have meant the car’s registration.)

  When they finished burning the truck seats and garbage at the farm and returned to the hangar, Smich sensed something was amiss between Art Jennings and his son-in-law, Schlatman. Millard told Smich they had to move the Bosma truck. After Jennings and Schlatman left, they put it inside the trailer, hooked it to Millard’s red Dodge, and left. Several hundred metres down the road, Millard realized he had forgotten the front seat frame. They returned to the hangar and put it in the trailer. Millard then dropped off Smich in Oakville.

  “We heard from Marlena Meneses you said you had fucked up,” says Dungey. “What did you mean?”

  “Well, that I went with Dell for a test drive.”

  Smich says that after Millard’s arrest, when he received the toolbox with the gun, he immediately thought his friend was trying to frame him. “I was very scared at that time. You know, I had lots of thoughts going through my head. I was confused. I ended up going out and burying the gun.” While Smich admits he told Brendan Daly about the toolbox, he denies ever saying it was his gun inside. “I’ve never owned a gun,” he says.

  Given that Dungey has so vociferously taken other witnesses to task for not calling the police, he is obliged to put the same questions to his client. He asks why Smich had done nothing when a man was missing and his family were in agony.

  “I was scared,” says Smich, “because, you know, the possibility that with my criminal record…the police wouldn’t believe me.” He was already being asked for details about the crime by Meneses, who had begun following the story on the news after Millard’s arrest. “I told her, Dell shot Mr. Bosma, Dell burned Mr. Bosma,” he says. “I didn’t really want to tell her anything, but she did press me, and I had to tell her. I felt like I had to tell somebody. I know I should have went to police.”

  “Mr. Millard is now arrested. He’s in custody. Why don’t you go to the police?”

  “At the time, I was torn up. I wanted to go to my sister’s wedding. I know I didn’t kill Mr. Bosma, and I didn’t feel like I was, you know, guilty of that part of it. At the same time, the other part of me was saying, you know, I have to do something.

  “I didn’t want to go straight to police. I wanted to get proper advice,” he says, meaning legal advice. He was also worried about ruining his sister’s wedding. “I know it’s stupid, and it’s not an excuse,” he says. “My family means the world to me.”

  “Mr. Bosma meant the world to his family,” says Dungey. “Did you not feel an obligation?”

  “Of course. I don’t know how to explain. It was just confused. I was literally confused on what to do.”

  —

  THE REACTION TO SMICH’S testimony on social media and in online crime forums was overwhelmingly and surprisingly positive. I believe him, they proclaimed on Facebook. His story makes sense, they tweeted on Twitter. Why would he run the risk of taking the stand if it weren’t true? they asked on Websleuths.

  In just one day, the three months of evidence that preceded Mark Smich’s testimony was all but forgotten as the accused offered up a story many people desperately wanted to hear. Never mind that his version of events was entirely self-serving and predictable. Its simplicity was part of its appeal, as was the fact that it made the unknowable appear knowable. To finally learn the truth of what happened to Tim Bosma, all you had to do was believe Smich’s story.

  Better yet, Smich’s tale helped renew one’s faith in humanity. There was, after all, a sliver of hope. Smich had never planned to kill an innocent man, merely to steal a truck. According to his account, at least one of the two accused was not a monster. He had even earned his high school diploma in jail. He was on the road to redemption.

  To a certain extent, this willingness to believe Smich is a by-product of the adversarial legal system.
A witness in a highly publicized trial gets on the stand and tells his story, and almost everyone believes him—until he is cross-examined, and then almost no one believes him. It’s the way things work in court. It’s what makes a trial real-life theatre. And it’s why both the main courtroom and the overflow room were packed the day Mark Smich took the witness stand.

  FIFTEEN

  TEAM SMICH

  Nadir Sachak’s cross-examination of Mark Smich begins with the close-up photo of the Walther PPK in Smich’s dirty fingers. “Please tell us,” says Sachak. “Where is that gun?”

  Smich shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

  Sachak informs him that there are three detectives who worked on the case in the courtroom. “Tell them now. Where did you bury that gun?”

  “Sir, I was under a lot of shock and stress. I was paranoid. I don’t know where it is.”

  “Did you really bury that gun, or is it somewhere else right now?” Sachak asks. “Help me out. What day was it?”

  “It would have been the day or night that my sister came and all the stuff happened,” says Smich, who can’t pinpoint the date but remembers his sister Andrea yelling at him to get his belongings out of the house. “The same day where I wasn’t able to sell it.”

  Sachak tells him that the gun could have fingerprints, DNA from the shooter, or blood and DNA from Tim Bosma on it. “That gun you buried could have been tested by three police forces—the very gun that may have one hundred percent proof of who held it when it was fired,” he says. “The jury will never get the benefit of seeing that gun, because you buried it.”

  Smich quickly tries to shift the blame for the gun’s disappearance to his one-time friend Brendan Daly, who he says gave him the idea to bury it. Sachak responds that Smich alone bears responsibility and points out that he has refused for three years to disclose the gun’s whereabouts. To make his point, he plays the video of Smich’s police interrogation on May 22, 2013, the day of his arrest. It shows Smich, wearing his customary grey hoodie, huddled in a corner on a chair with a large white blanket covering one shoulder and his lap. He looks like a drug addict, a different person from the clean-cut man on the witness stand. In the video, he is being questioned by Detective Matt Kavanagh, who is playing good cop. “Where’s the gun, son? Where’s the gun?” Kavanagh asks. “Bring some peace to [the Bosma] family.” Smich turns away in his seat, holding his shoulder and saying nothing.