S04E09: DELLEN MILLARD (CANADIAN SERIAL KILLER MINI-SERIES, PART I)

Katie: Coming up on this episode of Crime Family.

Today we are going to be kicking off our season for mini-series, and this season we're going to be focusing on Canadian serial killers.

There is a disturbing chain of events that have unfolded between Dellen Millard and Mark Smich in the weeks leading up to and after Laura's disappearance.

And when police go to search that area, that's when they find the eliminator on Dellen's land. That same night, there is evidence of a Google search that likely Dellen conducted. The question is, "What temperature is cremation done at?"

He's delusional. He's playing the victim. His sense of reality is twisted for sure.

So after looking at that picture, what does it look like to you?

AJ: Oh, there's definitely a body in there.

Katie: Hi everyone. Welcome to Crime Family. I'm Katie, and I'm here with my siblings, AJ and Steph. Today we are going to be kicking off our season 4 mini-series and this season we're going to be focusing on Canadian serial killers. So this is gonna be episode one of that mini-series and I am just going to get right into it.

So my case today is going to be the Canadian serial killer, Dellen Millard. Dellen Millard was born in Toronto, Ontario on August 30th, 1985. He was the only child of Wayne Millard and Madeleine Burns. Dellen grew up relatively wealthy and from all accounts he had a great upbringing. His father owned his own successful aircraft servicing and maintenance company called Millard Air, and Dellen actually held a world record at the age of 14 for being the youngest person to take solo flights in one day in both an airplane and a helicopter. He definitely had opportunities. He had money. He had a loving family. It was estimated that he was worth about 10 to 20 million dollars, and at the age of 27, he took over the business, but that wasn't enough for him. He got into partying and hard drugs in his early twenties, and he dropped out of university as well. He had lots of parties at his house, so his house was the party house. He had a pool, he would buy everything for barbecues and things, so it was like his house was the place to be. His parties started getting bigger and there would be upwards of a hundred people that would show up to any one of these parties, and so things just got out of control for Dellen. He started doing robberies and making porn in his family's aircraft. He became friends with a guy named Mark Smitch. Mark was into gangster rap and making gory videos. He was a high school dropout, a drug dealer. He didn't have much money, and he looked up to Dellen. He was very much his right hand man. There's a video of Dellen smashing vehicles. He would steal a lot of them just to smash them for fun. He liked weapons. He had guns and rocket launchers, and so he was just very much a thrill seeker, but not in a good way.

Laura Babcock was a 23 year old woman who was well-liked and was happy go-lucky. She was full of energy, full of life. She grew up in Toronto and was very into the arts. She took art and drama in university and wanted to become an actress. She met Dellen in a bar in downtown Toronto and they start to date casually, but are more like friends with benefits as time goes on. She eventually started dating another man named Shawn Lerner, who was almost the exact opposite of Dellen. Shawn was the good guy while Dellen clearly was the opposite. Laura and Shawn dated for about a year and a half before they decided to just be friends. Shawn was the one who threw a 22nd birthday party for Laura, and he invited Dellen and a woman named Christina Noudga, who eventually started dating Dellen. Now for whatever reason, Christina felt she needed to rub it in Laura's face that she was with Dellen now. Christina was a bit of a bully, I guess, and she just liked being mean to Laura. Christina sent Laura a text that said, "Happy Birthday. A year ago today I slept with Dellen." Laura texted back, "That's fine. I slept with him a few weeks ago." They just had this weird thing between the two of them, about Dellen and you know, who was with him and when and who was with him first. So it was just this tension between them. So Laura's life started to go downhill from there. She was struggling mentally. She was on and off homeless and worked as an escort in downtown Toronto at times. She was in and out of the hospital with anxiety and depression, but all the while she was still trying to find a permanent job that was related to her university degree and she wanted to find herself a permanent home. She was struggling, but she was still trying very hard to get her life back on track, and during all of this, her bad blood with Dellen and Christina continues. In April of 2012, Dellen sends her a text that says, "You are harmful to me. Please don't try to contact me." Then he texts Christina about Laura saying, "First I'm going to hurt her, then I will make her leave. I will remove her from our lives." So, you know, kind of ominous texts. So while Laura was homeless, Shawn Lerner, her ex-boyfriend helped her out a lot. He paid for hotel rooms for her, bought her dinner, bought her an iPad for her to use. So he was just a good guy, really trying to help her. For whatever reason, Laura still can't seem to get away from Dellen. Even after he tells her to stay away she keeps contacting him. There are over 110 phone calls and texts between the two of them that is discovered later. So they're obviously communicating regularly. So on July 3rd, 2012, Laura and Dellen meet up and travel back to his place, and this is the last day her cell phone is ever used. It still received calls and texts, but nothing outgoing after 7:03 PM on July 3rd. Her bank cards have not been used after that day either, and so it seems pretty obvious that something has happened to Laura as she is actually never seen again. For whatever reason, even though her last eight phone calls are to Dellen, the police don't question him at all about her disappearance. Shawn Lerner is the one who reports Laura missing to the police, but because she's an adult and is considered high risk, they tell him just to wait it out and she'll likely turn up. There is no immediate action taken by the police. When she doesn't turn up though, Shawn takes it upon himself to investigate. He tracks down her phone records and starts calling everyone who she last had contact with. He figured out that Dellen was the last person that Laura contacted, and when he takes this info to the police, they still do not care. There is a disturbing chain of events that have unfolded between Dellen and Mark Smitch in the weeks leading up to and after Laura's disappearance. Dellen had asked one of his mechanics that worked for Millard Air to build a large incinerator for him. That doesn't work out so Dellen buys an industrial incinerator called the Eliminator, and it's primary use is supposed to be to incinerate large and small animals. On July 2nd, he buys a 22 caliber handgun. On July 4th, so the day after Laura goes missing, her iPad is connected to Dellen's computer and it's renamed Mark's iPad, and then Dellen gives it to Mark. So either they're super confident that no one is looking at them or going to, you know, point the finger at them for Laura's disappearance or they're just really dumb and don't understand what a digital footprint is, cuz why would you have this iPad of this missing woman and, you know, change the name, claim it as your own. So, yeah, it just seems sketch. Seems like not well planned out or someone just thinks that they are above the law, which, you know, you'll see why he might think that as I get going into this a bit more. Also that same night, a photo is saved to Dellen's phone. I'm gonna show you guys this photo because I just wanna get your initial reactions to it. I think it's pretty obvious when you see it, what it is. We'll put this in the show notes as well so you guys can take a look at it too. But I just wanna show you to get your initial reactions. To say the least, it's kind of startling, especially if you found this on someone's phone. I'm gonna show you guys and I'm just gonna put the picture up now.

So after looking at that picture, what does it look like to you?

AJ: Oh, there's definitely a body in there. I would say.

Stephanie: Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say too.

Katie: Yeah. So I'm just gonna describe this picture for those who can't look at it right now. So what we're seeing is a tarp wrapped up long ways and tied at both end. There's a little dog in the picture as well, which is Dellen's dog. So you can see that this tarp could easily be a person laying out straight, like that's just the size it is. That's the shape of this tarp. What else would it be? It looks like a body and so Dellen also set a reminder on his phone for July 7th that was labeled Barn Smell Check. That's super disturbing, super disgusting. Obviously the first thing you think of is that he is going to stash this body wrapped in a tarp in his barn, and then he is gonna have to come back a couple days later just to check to make sure that it's not stinking too bad in his barn. He's planning all of this. Also on July 23rd, the incinerator that Dellen had purchased is up and running. He sends a text to Mark saying the barbecue has run its warmup and is ready for meat. That same night there is evidence of a Google search that likely Dellen conducted. The question is, "What temperature is cremation done at?" There's also a picture of Mark with an incinerator rake, and a video from that night that shows sparks flying from the incinerator. It doesn't take a genius to put all these pieces together here. Obviously Dellen and/or Mark killed Laura, wrapped her up in the tarp, took a picture of it, and then cremated the body in this eliminator and then took a video.

AJ: So he is also quite dumb, like putting all this stuff on his phone. Obviously, like you said, either completely cocky, doesn't think he'll ever get caught, or is just very stupid.

Katie: Yeah, it for sure just feels like he really does not have a care in the world, or he really is just not thinking about any of his actions or how they might come back to bite him later, or how they would look to authorities looking back on all of this. But either way, it leaves a great trail if police do decide to look into him for Laura's disappearance. Now to make everything even more disturbing, the next day there is a video of Mark recording on Laura's old iPad, rapping about what is presumed to be Laura's death. The lyrics go on about burning a body and how it's turned into ashes and about throwing her phone into the water. So just picture this loser guy, who thinks he's hot shit, rapping about what they did to Laura. Just a scumbag loser, written all over it.

AJ: It's cringe. It's cringe.

Katie: Oh my God. I know. It really is.

AJ: Yeah, it's like he's trying to be the next rapper and it's just not gonna work out for him obviously, cuz it's absolutely god awful.

Katie: Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, I mean, it seemed like Mark was pretty proud of what they had done because apparently he was telling people that he had killed someone, and people just kind of brushed it off because they knew he was a wannabe gangster. So they just figured he was saying all this stuff to get street cred or whatever, you know? But either way, you know, not a smart thing to be telling people about this murder that you committed...

AJ: And then film himself bragging about it.

Katie: Yeah, so like I said before, either just not the smartest or oblivious or really just does not care about the consequences. So one year after Laura goes missing, the police still have not looked into it. Obviously they don't know about any of what I've just talked about, about Dellen and Mark's actions, but if they would've looked at Dellen for even one second, they would've likely put all the pieces together very quickly, but they're still not interested in Laura's case one year later. So Shawn Lerner actually had to file a formal complaint against the Toronto Police Department saying that they failed to launch a missing person's investigation, and it takes two years for them to actually take any kind of action, which I'll get into a little bit later as well.

On November 29th, 2012, Dellen's father, Wayne Millard was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head. This is ruled a suicide by police right away, and he's quickly cremated and case closed. However, there were rumors swirling at the time that Wayne had threatened to cut Dellen off from the family money because he was spending too much and he didn't want Dellen ruining the business that he and his father, Dellen's grandfather, had built. Dellen claims that he was staying at a friend's house that night or he was with a friend all night and he claims that friend was Mark. So of course, Mark likely completely backed up Dellen's story whether it was true or not. So he claims he was with Mark the whole night that his father died. Now Wayne had a gunshot through his eye, which is apparently, a very rare way for someone to kill themselves. And they even tested Wayne's hands for gunshot residue and they found nothing, but they still ruled it a suicide. Everyone that worked for Wayne in his business, they were told that he died of a brain aneurysm. So even if they had suspicions surrounding his death or some of the rumors that were swirling, they didn't even know he was actually shot so they didn't bring anything up to the police because they figured it was natural causes or brain aneurysm. Also later, police find out that the gun used in Wayne's death was actually purchased by Dellen. So there's that little piece of information that you know is kind of raising some suspicions later on. So this was actually only four months after Laura had gone missing, so Dellen is still not a suspect in anything, and he must be feeling pretty good at this point. He might be feeling untouchable even.

So, in the spring of 2013, a man named Tim Bosma, a 32 year old from Lancaster, Ontario, goes missing. He was married with a two year old daughter and he had decided that he needed a new truck and wanted to sell the one that he currently had. So on May 6th, 2013, he was planning to meet with two prospective buyers who were wanting to do a test drive of the truck. The two buyers had shown up really late, and it was dark when they got there around 9:00 PM and you know when they do show up, their on foot, which seems really odd because Tim lived in a really rural area and not really on a main bus route or a main route. It just seemed weird that they were walking. Now at this point, Tim asked his wife if he should go with them during the test drive because he felt uneasy about the whole situation and he really didn't wanna go, but his wife said that he definitely should go because she was worried that they were going to steal the truck if, if Tim didn't go. So Tim agrees to go, it's just going to be a short test drive, and he gets in his truck with the two men. After about an hour when Tim hasn't returned, his wife calls his cell phone and it goes straight to voicemail and she knows that something is up because she knows that he had it fully charged before he left. Right away she can feel that this is not a good sign. She called the police to report him missing right away. Tim did not return that night, and sadly he was actually never seen again. Now when word got out that Tim had gone missing, unlike when Laura disappeared, hundreds of people joined the search party for Tim. The randomness of his kidnapping was terrifying. People thought that it could have happened to anyone, it could have been them, and so people just, you know, had this sense of fear around the neighborhood because of this. Now, police were able to track down Tim's phone and they were able to look into the call records and they found out that one of the numbers that had last contacted Tim was registered to a man named Lucas Bate, but when police track down the address for Lucas Bate, it's registered to a high school that had never heard of a Lucas Bate. They figured that this is obviously a fake name and address and probably just a burner phone. So they go get the call logs for this phone and they're able to talk to a man named Igor, who had been contacted about his truck that he was trying to sell as well, and he tells police that two men showed up on foot wanting to test drive the vehicle, and he gives a description of the men. One distinct feature is that one of them had a tattoo on his wrist that said "ambition". They released this information to the public. They get a bunch of responses and just five days after Tim went missing, the police had arrested Dellen and he actually had a tattoo that said "ambition", just like Igor had described. So when they search Dellen and some of his things, they actually find the keys to Tim's truck. So police actually get video footage of some of the events that took place that night that Tim disappeared. There's a camera that captures Tim's truck that is being followed by a dark S U V, and it's known that Dellen is driving one of the vehicles and Mark is driving the other. There's also footage of the truck a bit later pulling a trailer behind it with something very heavy on the trailer and at the airport hangar, at Millard Air, there is footage of Dellen and Mark showing up, and then a bit later there are flames coming from the equipment that was on the trailer that was being pulled by Tim's truck. It's the incinerator being fired up and there's smoke coming out of it, and something inside that incinerator burns all night. Dellen is originally charged with theft of the truck. Since the police don't have Tim's body or Tim, they can't point to murder just yet. When they do a search, they do find Tim's truck, and inside there is a bullet casing and gunshot residue, and there's Dellen's fingerprints, and Luminol shows that there's a lot of blood that had clearly been attempted to be cleaned up. When police are searching the area, they find a guy on an ATV and they just happen to ask him questions about the area or if he happened to see anything unusual or strange. He tells 'em that yes, he actually knows about a clearing on Dellen's property. When police go to search that area, that's when they find the eliminator on Dellen's land. So when they search that incinerator, they find evidence of human remains inside, but it's too degraded to actually get any DNA, but the fact that it's human is enough to conclude that it was likely Tim Bosma. So it actually took Tim being murdered before the police seriously looked at Laura's disappearance and the death of Dellen's father. Laura's family actually confronted the police about Laura's disappearance after the news came out about Tim's murder. So they obviously knew about Dellen and the connections in these two cases. So all three deaths, Tim, Laura, and Wayne, were all now considered homicides. Another piece to this whole thing is that eight months before Tim's murder, a man had put an ad online that he was selling his motorcycle and trailer. One night when he gets home, he finds that both have been stolen. He calls the Toronto police who collect video surveillance from a building across the street, but when the owner of the stolen motorcycle and trailer calls the Toronto Police about the footage or anything about the case at all, the police don't even call him back or talk to him at all about it. So after Tim's murder, it's the Hamilton Police Department that calls him and tells him that they found his stolen items at the Millard Air Hangar. It's actually the Hamilton Police that made the arrest in Tim's murder as well. So it just kind of feels like Toronto Police don't care about anything. They don't wanna be bothered with actual crimes.

AJ: Yeah, they do jack shit. So yeah. I mean, the case that I'll be covering for this mini-series, you'll see a lot of that too from the Toronto Police too, so.

Katie: So aside from all of the tragic things that have happened so far in this case, another frustrating and tragic thing about this whole story is that Shawn Lerner literally gave the police Dellen's name and phone number when Laura went missing, and if they would have cared a tiny bit and looked into Dellen, maybe Wayne and Tim's murders would've been prevented. And if they would've looked into the stolen motorcycle as well, this could have been another opportunity for Dellen to be caught before Tim's murder. So it's just tragic that this whole series of events, you know, could have ended, sadly, still with Laura's death, but that could have been the end of Dellen's spree.

So as for the trials and convictions for Tim's murder, both Dellen and Mark get the maximum you can get in Canada, which is life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. In 2017, Dellen and Mark went to trial for Laura's murder, and again, both Dellen and Mark are convicted with the maximum sentence. For the murder of Dellen's father Wayne, Dellen is convicted once again with first degree murder and he gets a third life sentence. All three of these sentences are to run consecutively, so he's not eligible for parole for 75 years, which is one of the longest sentences in Canadian history.

 In July of 2022, Dellen tells Adrian Humphreys from the National Post that he had no motive for any of the murders he's been convicted of. Without motive, there shouldn't be a conviction. He still denies he's guilty of any of the murders and says that he's a victim in all of this, somehow. He says the authorities have painted him as a monster to gain support from the public, and because of that, he's been demonized when he shouldn't be. So he sees this as something that has happened to him, not something that he has done. You can just see he's delusional. He's playing the victim. His sense of reality is twisted for sure. He said that he had no reason to kill Laura, and some people said he killed her because Laura was annoying Christina, but he says that's not true. He says that there was a lot of things he wouldn't do for Christina, such as monogamy. They had an open relationship. Also, he wouldn't buy her expensive things, and he even had a fiance after he dated Christina. So he's basically implying that he wouldn't have killed Laura for her. While in jail awaiting trial for Tim's murder, Dellen had sent Christina over 60 letters and some of them talked about them getting their story straight regarding what happened on the night Laura went missing. He tells Christina that if she's asked about it to say that Laura overdosed and he tells Christina to destroy the letters, but she actually never does, and so police do have access to them and get all this information out of them.

AJ: Don't they check the letters and stuff before they get sent out? I feel like there would be a check on that anyway, so even if she did destroy the letters someone's still gonna catch that before it leaves the prison, wouldn't it? I mean, I don't know. Maybe they don't check them, but I imagine they would. I thought they would.

Katie: Yeah. I don't know. That was something I was thinking about too, because you'd think you wouldn't be writing that kind of stuff if you knew that they'd be reading everything that went in and out, but, I feel like for them to read every single letter that goes out is way too much work. I think maybe they just check them to make sure they're not smuggling anything in and out. I don't think they take the time to read everything. They just, it seems like a bit too much. I don't know.

AJ: Which seems crazy to me cuz if there's people who are on trial for things that they're denying, those letters could have, I mean the majority of people are gonna be smart enough not to write anything in those letters, but for someone stupid like Dellen, who obviously is stupid, he would. So I feel like that's a way where you can maybe catch people if they're writing these letters thinking that it's gonna be not checked or they can get away with it and then all of a sudden it's a confession in a letter.

Katie: Yeah. I know I was thinking the same thing, but I'm really not sure. Maybe it's just a loophole, but probably more likely, maybe it's just a way for them to actually keep some sort of privacy in their life, or they're just not able to keep up with the capacity that would be needed to read every single letter that goes out. I don't know, maybe they record it some other way, take a picture of everything, but I just feel like that's still beyond what they are willing and even able to do with the mass amount of stuff that probably goes out of a prison. So yeah, maybe that's just their way of having some little bit of privacy in their lives, which I don't know if they should be afforded that, considering what some of them have done. But yeah. So Dellen also says that he didn't kill his father. He says he loved his father and also his father didn't leave him any inheritance, and he also claims that his father was millions of dollars in debt when he died. He also says that if he did kill his father and made it look like a suicide, that didn't make any sense either, because if his death was deemed a suicide, then that would nullify any life insurance policy that he had. So it wouldn't have benefited Dellen in any way to do that. As for Tim's murder, Dellen says that Mark was super high that night and he accidentally shot Tim and then Dellen stepped in to help out his friend and cover it up. He takes zero responsibility for anything that has happened. Of course, this is hard to believe, especially when you know that he went through all that trouble with that burner phone, which was probably him, the fake name, the fake address, and when he went on that test drive with Igor, didn't end up killing him because apparently Igor was a lot bigger guy than Tim. So when they saw Igor, they probably figured he'd be able to overpower them, and so they just went on the test drive, let him live, and then went on to find the next victim. So it just doesn't, nothing that he's saying is adding up or really has any credibility to it at all.

AJ: So what was his motive then? Like you said, the police were thinking that he killed Laura cuz she was annoying Christina, but that's never been confirmed. And for Tim, I can't think of a motive for Tim. They wanted his truck. I mean, I don't think his truck was, you know, I mean, Dellen had a lot of money, so it's not like he couldn't just buy that truck. I feel like just killing him for the truck is really stupid. Also, and then for killing his father, I don't know, I just feel like he's just cold blooded and just doesn't have motives for anything. Like he was saying that if there's no motive, you can't convict. So maybe he didn't have a motive. I don't know. It's just very weird. And they're all very seemingly separate and random. You know what I mean? Like I feel like serial killers a lot of times will have a profile of a person that they kill over and over again. But these are three very different people that seem in three very different situations.

Stephanie: Maybe he just did it for attention. Maybe he didn't get enough attention growing up. I mean, he was pretty wealthy, but do we know, because of his drug addiction did he have any money or was he actually bankrupt looking for money? Because that could also be motive.

AJ: I think his family had money. Right? I dunno if he himself had anything, like he didn't do shit. Did he have a job?

Katie: Yeah. So as far as I know, for everything that I have looked into in research, there was nothing that stated his actual motive for any of the murders. And yeah, it is interesting that they all just seem like they're murders of opportunity. He could kill them so he did. Maybe Laura, you know, Laura was at his house, maybe she did take too many drugs and he took that opportunity, but obviously he clearly planned it all out. As to his father, I feel as though maybe he didn't have anything additional to gain monetarily, but maybe it was just so that his father wouldn't cut him off from what he already had, because apparently Dellen, he was still pretty wealthy and the business had been transferred over to him, but I think his father was still the CEO and still in charge of the finances. So if he did want to cut him off from the funds, he probably still had that ability and maybe Dellen killed him just so that he would still have access to the funds that were still there, even though he wouldn't necessarily gain anything additional. Because I mean, yeah, he was spending way more than he should have been. He wasn't generating any business, so they were just losing a ton of money.

AJ: And I think with Laura too, he probably correctly assumed she was a bit transient. She didn't have a steady home. She was homeless, sleeping on people's couches and stuff. He is right in assuming that no one was really going to be looking out for her or wondering where she is, except obviously Shawn and you know, a couple of people who were probably concerned, but that he couldn't really account for that. But he probably thought, you know, I don't know if this is something that he would even be smart enough or even thought that far ahead, but in a way she was an easy target because he maybe knew that police weren't gonna be looking into it right away. And obviously that led him go and kill Tim Bosma because he wasn't caught, which if, like you said, if the police had even given one shit at all, then they would've seen, it would've stopped it right there. Right? And then his father and then Tim wouldn't have been murdered. He was right in assuming if he even thought that Laura could be, you know, a way to not gain much attention.

Katie: Yeah, I definitely think you're right. He probably did understand the fact that she was transient and was an easy target potentially, because if she was homeless at the time, I mean, it's not like she didn't come home and someone's wondering where she was, right? She just had that lifestyle, and so, yeah, as for motive, there really isn't one. It just seems like, like I said before, he was a thrill seeker and not in a good way. So it just seems like he was this bored rich kid that, you know, nothing was fulfilling that need for a thrill. So, you know, just bored, dumb, selfish, rich, psychopathic person, you know, just all the above.

AJ: And you see that all the time too, with the cases of people who are homeless and you know, people just assume, oh, they're, they're off the grid. They'll, they'll show up again. Cuz you know, you see that all the time in shelters and stuff. People will just leave shelters and you don't hear from them and then they'll show up a year later and, you know, they don't really know where they were or anything, and people aren't looking. So that, you see that all the time. The police say, "Oh, you know, they're, they're somewhere. They'll turn up."

Katie: Yeah, exactly. And I think that is why they say that because these kinds of people that live this kind of lifestyle do go missing a lot. They are transient, and more often than not, they happen to show up, found somewhere else. They didn't wanna be found, or whatever the case. And then just in this case, you know, something more sinister happened and they just weren't prepared or willing to go that far to look into it at all.

AJ: I feel like the Toronto police use that excuse for everything though. So many cases I feel you say, "Oh, they'll turn up." Or they don't look into it, or they made mistakes. I just feel like they're incompetent.

Katie: Yeah. And we've seen it in lots of other cases we've done or that we've heard about. And also in a couple of the other serial killer cases that we're gonna be doing in this mini-series, it comes up as well. So...

AJ: Spoiler alert.

Katie: Yeah. And so, unfortunately it's not an uncommon thing and police know that, and so there's no way they can jump on every single case of a missing, transient person, unfortunately, that's just, you know, the society we live in.

AJ: And that's why serial killers know that and catch onto that. And again, you'll see in the case that I'm gonna do in the next episode, it's a similar thing. The person knows that certain people aren't going to get police attention or aren't going to be reported missing. So then you can go on to kill, you know, 5, 6, 7 people, however many people it is because you you can because by the time the police actually care, it's already too late and you've already killed a bunch of people.

Katie: Yeah, exactly. And I think another interesting part about this case is that Dellen wasn't like a typical serial killer that you would think of that plans and stalks his victims or hunts them down. He's just an opportunity killer. With Laura, we're not really sure how she died, but she could have been shot. His dad was shot. Tim was shot and then, you know, incinerated. But it's, you know, it just seems like it's a different MO than a lot of serial killers that you would think of that have this whole method to what they're doing. His was just an opportunity. So that's why he did it. You mentioned this earlier, he didn't really have a pattern.

AJ: Yeah. I think that's one of the things you see with serial killers is that there's a pattern and they have a certain type of victim or a certain type of way that they kill the victims. There's always a connection. That's how they're able to, you know, piece together that there's a serial killer because it's a certain demographic of victim or killings that, you know, it's a bunch of people are strangled or a bunch of people are this, or you know what I mean? So that's how they're usually able to put it together.

Katie: Yeah. In this case it was Laura who was a 23 year old woman. Then his father who was in his sixties, and then Tim, who was in his thirties. So it really did not have any rhyme or reason, which I think, you know, is still super scary cuz you just, I mean, if it wasn't for Tim's murder, he probably never would've been caught.

AJ: Also I don't get the sense that Dellen was smart enough to know that these are all different victims. They're not gonna put it together. I think he was just stupid. Like you said, crime of opportunity. He had the opportunity and he and his friend Mark thought they were cool and just did, it just happened to be different people. I don't think he had the forethought and the smarts to be like, "Oh, I'm gonna do different people so that it won't get pieced together."

Katie: Yeah, I actually don't think he thought about it either. It just happened that they were all random. He did do some planning, like we said before. I mean, he did buy that incinerator. He bought the gun. He had that fake cell phone, which we think was his, and the, you know, the burner phone and the fake address and name. He had all those text messages to go with things leading up to certain events. So, I mean, it wasn't like it was a spur of the moment. It was planned after he had this random person that he was gonna kill, basically. But yeah, super scary and at least he's never getting outta jail. I mean, he's in jail for life.

AJ: Yeah. Oh for sure. 75 years which is, you said the longest sentence in Canadian history, which is good cuz he's obviously a terrible person. So 75 years.

Stephanie: I don't understand what goes through serial killer's minds . It fascinates me but it also creeps me out at the same time. To me, obviously, there's something else dark in your mind.

Katie: Yeah, definitely. And I think a lot of it has to do with arrogance as well. And I mean, like I said a few times before, he was a thrill seeker and so it just escalated up until the point of murder. It started with drugs, which, you know, I guess is thrilling when you first do it. Then he did more so he started the robberies and smashing vehicles, you know, but that wasn't enough. And then he finally got to murder, which was probably a huge adrenaline rush. That was just the thrill that he needed to be satisfied. So it is messed up, but that's, I mean, I'm just speculating here, but that just seems like what's going on and even doing some research, like that Fifth Estate episode, they mentioned just how much you did seek out thrills and was always, you know, trying to look for the next exciting thing. So it's not too far off, I think to think that just, you know, killing was definitely a rush for him.

Another interesting thing that has to do with his sentence. So he got 75 years, which, so in Canada, the max you can get for one sentence is life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years. So that's the max. And it used to be up until, I think they changed it in 2011 where you couldn't stack those sentences. So they would always run at the same time. So after 25 years, regardless of how many convictions you got, you'd be eligible for parole potentially. But in this case, because they changed it, now he has 25 years, 25 years, 25 years stacked before he can get parole. So it's very much less likely that he's not gonna get out. Which I think, you know, is a great rule that they changed that because you know, some people just don't deserve to get out, in my opinion.

AJ: Yeah. I feel like you don't really see convictions stacked consecutively too often in Canada and that's probably why cuz it's so recent that they changed that. Sorry, what about Mark Smitch? What was his sentence?

Katie: Mark got two consecutive life sentences, so he will not be eligible for parole for at least 50 years. I feel like he's probably not gonna get out of jail ever either.

AJ: So also interesting about this case too, cuz I think technically by definition, he is a serial killer, but he falls outside of the typical serial killer. I knew about this case before you told us about it. I watched the Fifth Estate episode or I was just aware of it. When we think like Canadian serial killers, he doesn't jump to mind cuz he falls outside of that different victim types and different methods of killing and they're seemingly random, so it's interesting that he is a serial killer for sure. He killed three people. He's not the typical sort of profile that you would expect.

Katie: Yeah, I thought of that too when I was trying to think of a serial killer to do with this mini-series cuz he popped in my head right away. But then I was like double checking, like, is he actually a serial killer? Isn't there a certain criteria? But yeah, I think it's if you just kill more than two people and not during a spree, then you're considered a serial killer.

AJ: He seems a lot more dumb than other serial killers. He wasn't thinking that far ahead. I feel like in some cases that we're gonna cover, certain people, they know how to allude capture. They know how to do certain things that will not draw attention to allow them to go on for years and years killing people or whatever. Right? So I feel like Dellen just wasn't that smart, the police were incompetent and didn't care. I don't know.

Katie: Yeah. And I also think the fact that his family was wealthy and you know, well respected in the community, that probably helped Dellen's situation because, I mean, up until this point that family never had anything sketchy in their background. They just were hardworking, respected, and so the police probably didn't wanna point fingers at this family that really didn't have any background or have any reason to be, you know, suspect. Up until this point, the family was squeaky clean, until the shit stain son, Dellen ruined everything for them. And I mean, we see that too, right? Wealth makes people feel untouchable, which is probably what Dellen felt like.

AJ: Yeah. And he was rich and spoiled and arrogant and just thought he could get away with it. He almost did. I think maybe killing Tim is what tipped the scales. I feel like maybe if they didn't kill Tim then he might have gotten away with the other two murders. Like you said, they ruled his father's murder as a suicide, they wouldn't have really looked into that further, and then Laura, the police never cared.

Katie: Yeah, I feel like if they hadn't investigated Tim's disappearance so thoroughly, obviously they would not have connected it to Dellen, and therefore maybe they never would have ruled Laura's disappearance as a homicide, and she might still be a missing person today. At least the Hamilton police did their job.

AJ: Yeah. Someone should.

Katie: Yeah. Toronto Police did not wanna be involved.

AJ: Yeah, it's just sad though. You see it's so preventable. He killed one person's bad enough, and then there's opportunity that they could have prevented the other two. It's just sad and it's annoying.

Katie: Yeah, it is frustrating and definitely super sad for everyone involved.

So that wraps up the Dellen Millard case. Join us next week for part two of our Canadian serial killer miniseries. Hope to see you there.

AJ: Definitely gonna be an interesting mini-series and looking forward to that.

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