Killed for kicks

14 min read

DELLEN MILLARD

RICH KID’S FANTASY

WHY DID MILLIONAIRE AND HEIR-TO-AN-EMPIRE DELLEN MILLARD CHOOSE A LIFE OF CRIME AND COLD-BLOODED MURDER OVER MANAGING HIS FAMILY’S LEGITIMATE FORTUNE?

WORDS ROBERT MURPHY

Tim Bosma was a church-going country music fan. It was his murder that led to the discovery of Dellen Millard’s criminal network – most notably his previous killing, for which he had evaded justice

Laura Babcock was a 23-year-old University of Toronto graduate who had started working as an escort to pay for postuniversity life. She was involved in a love triangle with Millard and his girlfriend

It was just an advert, a listing in a magazine and online that led to his murder. The truck was nice but it was getting old, it needed repairs and the Bosma family had responsibilities now – they had a daughter. Tim Bosma had placed the ad for his Dodge 3500 weeks before, but there’d been no takers. But tonight he had someone coming for a test drive. The man had sounded well-off on the phone. Wasn’t this a little late to be testing a car? The sun had already set in the mid-spring evening, winter was a memory, summer a promise.

Ancaster, on the Niagara Escarpment 70 kilometres Southwest of Toronto, is a wealthy community. But money was tight for the Bosmas, and they could really have done with the cash from the car. Tim Bosma was a church-going country music fan, and the gentle father had just put his two-year-old daughter to bed. The buyers still hadn’t turned up. He went outside, where his wife Sharlene was smoking a cigarette with their neighbour. Eventually, two men walked up the driveway that led from a rural lane. That itself was unusual. Why walk? Why not drive? One man was taller. He stepped forward and seemed nice – he had that well-heeled voice. The second man wore a hoodie, his face disguised.

They looked at the pickup quickly. A little too quickly. Tim Bosma came over to his wife, grinning: “We’re just going on a short test drive and we’ll be right back.” He got in the passenger seat, the tall man was driving and the hoodie was in the back. “That was weird,” said Sharlene, as the pickup headed out of sight. Her neighbour joked, “That might be the last time we ever see him.” Within a minute, Tim Bosma would be dead, shot once with a Walther PPK.

This wasn’t the first time the pair had murdered. They had got away with it before, and they were confident they would evade police again. But why had they targeted family man Tim Bosma? He was no threat, they weren’t robbing him for anything of particular value to them – one of them was rich beyond the Bosmas’ dreams. Tim Bosma was killed for kicks. Sharlene would later say that, on 6 May 2013, the Devil walked along her driveway.