It was a police-heavy morning of testimony at the first-degree murder trial of Dellen Millard and Mark Smich Wednesday, as Hamilton Police Sgt. Greg Jackson and Staff Sgt. Paul Hamilton testified about their investigative roles in the early days of the Tim Bosma case.
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Jackson told jurors that Tumemenko was also contacted via the same Toronto-area cellphone used to call Bosma on the night of May 6, 2013, when he left home for a test drive and never returned. His body was later found burned beyond recognition. The man told Jackson that he had taken two men for a test drive, and described one of them as having a tattoo on his wrist that said “ambition”.
Police sought emergency access to the phone records of the number that had called Bosma just before the drive, he said.
“At 10:01 p.m., Mr. Bosma’s phone was used – browser use – and by 10:02 the phone was off”, Jackson told court.
Her basement tenant, Wayne De Boer, also testified about that night and the frantic search he and Sharlene Bosma went on to try to find her husband before calling police.
They were able to trace the phone number, Jackson says, to the one used to call both Bosma and the man who went on the previous day’s test drive to a shop in west-end Toronto.
The last blip from Bosma’s phone, Jackson said, came when it pinged off a tower in Brantford, Ont., at 10:56 p.m.
Hamilton testified that when he arrived at the airport hangar, Millard “made a comment that the ‘suits are here”‘.
It came back registered in the name of Lucas Bate, with an address in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke that was not a home but a school. Millard has a tattoo with the word “ambition” on his wrist. He has spoken about cell phone towers.
“The phone towers were very similar to the Lucas Bate phone”, Jackson said.
He said he and Sharlene heard that the men were dropped off by a friend, who went to a nearby Tim Hortons while they went on the test drive.
When Hamilton was asked to point out if Millard was in the courtroom and was the same person he spoke to at the hangar in Waterloo, the accused waved at the officer in the witness box.
“He asked us what would bring us to his location”, Hamilton told the jury.
“Yes, at the back table with the white shirt”, Hamilton said.
Millard’s lawyer, Ravin Pillay, cross-examined Hamilton, and focused on a satchel that Millard got from the office and slung over his shoulder over the course of the interview.
One of his tasks, Hamilton said, was to help ascertain Millard’s height as well to look for a satchel described by Tumemenko. There was no sign of Bosma or his truck, a black Dodge Ram 3500. In fact, the detectives kept a discreet watch and called in Waterloo police’s surveillance team to monitor him.
The Crown alleges that Millard and Smich took Bosma’s body to the hangar to burn in an incinerator after shooting the victim in his vehicle.
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In the opening statement on Monday, Crown attorney Craig Fraser said police found gunshot residue as well as Bosma’s blood both inside and outside of his truck, and some of Bosma’s bones were located inside an incinerator.
