‘Seemingly insatiable appetite to kill’: Dellen Millard’s three murders call for three consecutive life sentences, Crown says

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The carefully plotted, cold-blooded murders by Dellen Millard of three people under diverse circumstances require three consecutive life sentences, the Crown argued when asking a judge to make the serial killer wait 75 years before any chance of freedom.

If prosecutor Jill Cameron gets her request, Millard would be 102 years old when eligible to apply for parole from prison.

That would undoubtedly mean he would die behind bars, a suitable end to his killing spree, she said at a sentencing hearing for Millard’s third murder, that of his father, Wayne Millard, in 2012.

“There are times for mercy,” Cameron told Justice Maureen Forestell in Ontario Superior Court, but Millard’s case is not one of them.

“There is no explanation for his crimes, other than pure entitlement, depravity and evil,” she said. His crimes were “the product of a seemingly insatiable appetite to kill.”

Millard, 33, of Toronto, has already been handed two consecutive life sentences for two murders, meaning he is currently ineligible for parole until he is 77 years old.

Forestell must now decide whether that punishment is enough or whether he should serve an additional 25 years.

While Wayne Millard was risking everything to leave a legacy for his only child, his only child was planning to kill him

Cameron noted the diversity of Millard’s victims.

Laura Babcock, 23, was a former girlfriend who was killed and her body burned in an animal incinerator by Millard and his best friend, Mark Smich. Tim Bosma, 32, was a stranger selling a pickup truck online that Millard fancied; Bosma was shot on a test drive with Millard and Smich and his body burned in the same incinerator. Wayne Millard was 71 when he was shot in the eye as he slept in the house he shared with his son.

“While Wayne Millard was risking everything to leave a legacy for his only child, his only child was planning to kill him,” Cameron said.

“It begs the question, is there anyone that he wouldn’t kill?

“Justice in this case is a sentence that reflects the fact that Mr. Millard plotted and planned the murder of three different individuals at different points in time for different reasons.

“If there are not consecutive sentences, then we have failed to acknowledge the loss of three lives and the brutality and callousness of Mr. Millard’s actions.”

Millard sat in the prisoner’s box, wearing a native medicine bag around his neck over a white collared dress shirt, buttoned up to the top. He largely remained impassive during the hearing, although he did a deep eye roll when Cameron said he was a danger to everyone.

Court heard a victim impact statement from Janet Campbell, Wayne Millard’s girlfriend, which was read into the record by Cameron as Campbell sat listening in the front row of the public gallery, beside Babcock’s mother, Linda.

“I knew Wayne from when we were small children. I was his first love; he was mine. We had been engaged as young adults. I still have that ring. That young man still remained within him,” she wrote. Their relationship ended long ago but they had recently rekindled it.

“He was looking forward to the future as was I.”

Millard’s lawyer, Ravin Pillay, told Forestell that 50 years was enough punishment for his client.

To add 25 more years would be “extraordinarily harsh and excessive” and would “eradicate any hope” of Millard ever progressing back into society, Pillay said.

“He will die before then.”

Pillay said a future panel the Parole Board of Canada would be in a better position to weigh what kind of person Millard had become with decades of prison reports before it.

“No one can tell what the circumstances of Mr. Millard will be in 45 years,” he said, noting Millard has already served five years.

Millard has so far been a model prisoner, he said. He has embraced native spirituality and was involved in prison spiritual programming.

The judge was handed a letter of support from Millard’s mother, Madeleine Burns.

No one can tell what the circumstances of Mr. Millard will be in 45 years

“He had a close and loving relationship with his dad and they both had a deep commitment to animal welfare and helping other people,” Burns wrote.

“Dellen is an empath and does not in the least fit the damaging profile of those invested in selling newspapers or those making money off hateful blogs in the name of journalism. My hope is that the truth will set us free; for in grief that is what we most surely need.”

Forestell said she needed time to consider all of the arguments before issuing her decision.

The hearing was adjourned until Dec. 18.

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