HAMILTON -- A trial was postponed to early 2016 for two men charged in the death of a Hamilton father, who disappeared after taking a pair of prospective buyers on a test drive of a truck he was trying to sell online.

Dellen Millard, 29, and Mark Smich, 27, are accused of killing Tim Bosma, whose remains were found about a week after he vanished on May 6, 2013, burned beyond recognition at a southwestern Ontario farm belonging to Millard.

The trial for the two men was expected to begin this fall, but is now scheduled for January next year.

Pretrial motions in the case will be heard this September, according to a lawyer who has been representing Millard.

Deepak Paradkar said he was still in the process of being retained, so additional time was required to prepare motions.

The change came after Millard and Smich were in a Hamilton court Monday when Justice Stephen Glithero ordered the public out of the courtroom before a three-hour hearing.

Tim's father, Hank Bosma, was there along with family friend Peter Lowe when the judge made the unusual move.

Lowe said he wasn't surprised or upset.

"There's not this huge fear that we don't know what's going on -- we'll just find out later," he said.

Millard, dressed in jeans and a grey blazer, and Smich, dressed in a white-and-black striped shirt, sat beside each other in court, but didn't make eye contact, Lowe said.

Smich and Millard were also charged in Toronto with first-degree murder in the death of Laura Babcock, with whom Millard was romantically linked. She disappeared in June 2012 and her body has never been found, her family has said.

Millard, an heir to his family's aviation dynasty, is also charged with first-degree murder in the death of his father, Wayne, which was originally deemed a suicide.

He is also charged with forcible confinement and theft of a vehicle in Bosma's death.

Police believe Bosma, 32, was killed the same night he went missing, but haven't said where it happened.