Evidence 'overwhelming' that Millard killed his father, court says in reasons for rejecting appeal

Ontario's top court dismissed serial killer Dellen Millard's appeal of his murder conviction in the death of his father because it says the evidence is "overwhelming" that he committed the murder.

In reasons published last week, the Ontario Court of Appeal rejected five points made by Millard in his argument that the guilty verdict was unreasonable.

Millard was convicted of first-degree murder of Wayne Millard in September 2018. Millard shot his father in the eye while he slept in his Etobicoke home at 5 Maple Gate Court on Nov. 29, 2012. Millard has also been convicted of two other first-degree murders — the deaths of Hamilton man Tim Bosma, 32, and Toronto woman Laura Babcock, 23.

Wayne Millard, 71, was a wealthy aviation executive. Dellen Millard was his only child.

"Although the time of Wayne Millard's death could not be determined with precision, it was proved that Dellen Millard purchased the handgun that was used to kill Wayne Millard in July 2012 and that he possessed that gun in the months before his father's death. The handgun bore Dellen Millard's DNA, but not Wayne Millard's," the panel of three judges writes.

"This evidence, coupled with the compelling evidentiary foundation that permitted the trial judge to find that Dellen Millard was in the area of the Maple Gate home during the window in which Wayne Millard died, after Dellen Millard attempted to construct a false alibi, provided an overwhelming foundation for Dellen Millard's conviction."

Millard has appealed all three murder convictions. The court has reserved its decision on the other two appeals.

'No merit to any of these submissions'

Millard, who was self-represented, had argued that the trial judge relied on evidence of his former associate Marlena Meneses, who was deemed to be a "dangerous witness." Meneses was the girlfriend of Millard's friend Mark Smich.

Millard also had alleged that there wasn't enough evidence to suggest he had concocted an alibi. And he had complained about the finding that he lied to police about his whereabouts.

He had also complained about the finding of the trial judge regarding one of his cellphones. And he claimed that the Crown failed to prove that his father died during the period of time that Dellen Millard was found to be in the area of the shooting.

In its reasons, the court replied: "There is no merit to any of these submissions. We reject Dellen Millard's submission that the verdict was unreasonable."

Wayne Millard's death in November 2012 was originally ruled a suicide. At the time, Dellen Millard was living at his father's home.

He wasn't charged in his father's death until 2014, after police started investigating the slayings of both Bosma, a husband and father from the Ancaster area of Hamilton, and Babcock, a Toronto woman who had been involved with Millard.

A jury in June 2016 first found Millard and Smich guilty of murdering Bosma. The trial heard Bosma's body was burned in an incinerator.  Bosma was killed after he took the two men out for a test drive of his pickup truck in May 2013.

The Crown argued the same incinerator was used to get rid of the body of Babcock, theorizing Millard was motivated to kill his one-time lover to settle a love triangle with his then-current girlfriend. Babcock, whose body has never been found, vanished in July 2012.

At trial, the judge found that Millard purchased the gun that killed his father, was at the house the night of the murder, and had set up a false alibi to conceal what he had done.

Millard was sentenced in 2018 for his father's murder with no chance of parole for 75 years after the trial judge stacked the 25-year period of parole ineligibility with his previous sentences for the Bosma and Babcock murders.

Then the Supreme Court ruled those types of consecutive periods of parole ineligibility are unconstitutional, entitling Millard to apply for parole after 25 years.