The witnesses have been heard, the testimony has been entered, and the fates of Dellen Millard and Mark Smich now rest in the hands of a six-man, six-woman jury.
Jurors began their deliberations just after 4 p.m. Monday. They were dismissed around 8:30 p.m. and sequestered for the night. Deliberations will continue Tuesday morning.
On Monday they had received a second day’s worth of instructions from Justice Andrew Goodman.
Goodman told jurors that they could find either Millard, Smich, both men or neither of them guilty of first-degree murder – the offence with which they are charged.
If either man is found not guilty of first-degree murder, jurors can still find them guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter, or nothing at all.
Millard and Smich are accused of killing Hamilton resident Tim Bosma shortly after leaving with him to test drive his truck on May 6, 2013.
- See a timeline of the investigation into Tim Bosma's death
The Crown claims that Bosma was killed moments after leaving his home, in a murder Millard and Smich had planned out for the previous year.
Smich has argued that he was in a different vehicle following Bosma’s truck at the time of the shooting, which he has blamed on Millard.
Millard’s lawyer has suggested that Smich was in the truck, and pulled out a gun – much to his client’s surprise – which he then fired when Bosma reached for it.
Goodman ordered jurors to disregard the theory of Millard’s lawyer, as no witnesses or evidence were ever called in support of it.
“There has been no evidence presented in the case to support a part of Dellen Millard’s theory of what happened to Tim Bosma,” he said.
Goodman also repeatedly reminded jurors that their decision must be based on the evidence of the case, not their own emotions about it.
Although Bosma lived in the Ancaster part of Hamilton, Millard in Toronto and Smich in Oakville, the events of May 6, 2013 and the subsequent police investigation largely took place in and around Waterloo Region.
- See a map of key locations in the investigation into Millard and Smich
All parties in the case agree that Bosma’s body was burned at Millard’s hangar at the Region of Waterloo International Airport, in an incinerator that was later moved to Millard’s farm property on North Dumfries.
Bosma’s cellphone was found in an industrial area on the western outskirts of Brantford, while a police officer reported seeing Millard stop at a Kitchener bank shortly before his arrest.
