Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / The Murder of Tim Bosma: The Devil Had a Name

Transcript

The Murder of Tim Bosma: The Devil Had a Name · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Picture this. It's May 6, 2013. You are standing in
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: a quiet, you know, suburban driveway in Ancaster, Ontario.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Right. Just a totally normal neighborhood.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The spring air is just starting to warm up.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: And you're looking at a young father, 32 years old,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: a church-going guy named Tim Bosma.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Just an average guy.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, an average guy. He kisses his wife goodbye. The
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: kind of casual, everyday goodbye that you don't even really
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: think about, right? You fully expect to see that person
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: again in 20 minutes.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: It's routine.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: It's routine.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: So he steps out of his home to take two
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: guys on a quick test drive in a pickup truck
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: that he's selling online. Just a normal everyday transaction that
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: millions of people do every single year. And then he vanishes.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: He simply never comes back.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: It's a rupture in the social contract that we all
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: rely on to just get through the day. I mean,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: it takes the absolute most mundane aspect of our daily lives,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: the digital classified ad, the simple commerce of selling a
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: used vehicle. And it turns it into a scene of
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: unimaginable horror.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: It really does. It's terrifying.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Because when we engage in these transactions, we operate on
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: a fundamental assumption of safety. We assume that if someone
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: is truly dangerous, the systems in place, you know, the police,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: the courts, society, safety nets, would have already caught up
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: with them.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: But when you look at the investigative reporting by CBC
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: News' The Fifth Estate and the extensive work by journalist
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Anne Brocklehurst in her book Dark Ambition, The most unsettling
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: question isn't necessarily why this happened to Tim Bosma.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: No, the real question is much bigger.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Right. The question that keeps you up at night is
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: how the police missed a glaring, like neon lit trail
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: of bodies and stolen goods that preceded this moment.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: OK, let's unpack this because we really have to ask,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: did systemic blind spots cost an innocent man his life?
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: And that is the crux of it. We are looking
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: at an institution. What's fascinating here is how we're looking
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: at how blind spots operate within modern policing. Because when
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: you analyze the reporting closely, you realize that Tim Bosma's
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: murder wasn't a sudden, out of the blue, lightning strike
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: of violence.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: It wasn't an isolated incident.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It was the culmination of a very long, unchecked escalation.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: And the sheer disbelief surrounding that escalation is wild. Like
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: you said, we live with this assumption that there is
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a safety net. But what the CBC and Brocklehurst's investigations
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: reveal is a series of prior investigations seemingly unrelated police reports.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Right, completely distinct events.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we are talking about a missing young woman. We
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: are talking about a highly visible stolen motorcycle. We are
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: talking about a sudden violent suicide in a wealthy family.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: And yet, none of these were treated as connected, even
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: when the connections were literally staring investigators right in the face.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is how those three completely separate events...
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: The missing person, the property theft, the suicide actually formed
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: the exact blueprint of a predator.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: A blueprint that was just ignored.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Completely. When you look at them in isolation, maybe, you know,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: maybe you can excuse a misstep or a bureaucratic delay
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: here and there. But when you step back and look
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: at the whole board, you see a perpetrator who is
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: constantly testing the boundaries.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Like a kid touching a hot stove to see if
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: it actually burns. Yes.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: He was realizing there was no electricity running through the
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: fences and deciding he could do whatever he wanted. The
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: system's apathy essentially became his permission slip.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: A permission slip. Yeah. God, that's heavy. To fully understand
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the gravity of how those early red flags were missed,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: we first have to understand the catastrophic event that finally
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: forced the authorities to open their eyes.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Right. The wake-up call.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The event that finally made them see the threat
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: that was operating right in front of them. We have
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: to look at the immediate aftermath of that test drive.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: On May 6, 2013.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: It was chaos.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Absolute chaos. When Tim Bosma didn't return, the community response
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: was immediate and massive. People were searching everywhere, hanging flyers,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: organizing search parties. But the resolution to that search is
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: something that I think permanently scarred the collective psyche of
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: the region.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: It changed that community forever.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Because days after he went missing, Bosma's remains were found.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: And they weren't just found in a shallow grave or
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: abandoned in a forest somewhere. They were found inside an incinerator.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: An industrial incinerator. Found on a farm outside Waterloo, Ontario,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: owned by a man named Dellen Millard.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Just wow.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Millard and his accomplice, Mark Smish, were eventually convicted of
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: first-degree murder in Tim Bosma's death and sentenced to life
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Which, I mean, is a relief, but still.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Right, but the psychological shock to the community wasn't just
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: about the verdict. It was about the stark, terrifying contrast
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: of the crime itself. On one hand, you have Tim Bosma,
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: who was the ultimate everyman. He is you, he is me,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: he's your neighbor.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Just a relatable guy trying to get a decent price
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: for a truck to support his family.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And on the other side of that transaction, you
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: have an individual who possesses a machine designed for the
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: total eradication of biological material.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Which is insane. I mean, wait, guys don't just wake
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: up one morning, skip shoplifting, and go straight to incinerating
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: a stranger over a used truck, right? Not at all.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: It's like starting a video game on the final boss level.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: There has to be a prequel.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: That is a much more accurate way to look at it.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: The total collapse requires a long history of testing the
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: structural integrity, finding the path of least resistance. And in
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: this case... The prequel definitely exists. It starts almost exactly
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: a year earlier, just down the highway in Toronto.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: So this is where the timeline of apathy really begins.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Yes. Let's talk about the summer of 2012 and a
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: young woman named Laura Babcock.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Okay. Set the scene for us.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Well, Laura Babcock was 23 years old. She was a
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: recent graduate from the University of Toronto. And by all
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: accounts from the reporting, she was outgoing. She was attractive.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: She was trying to build her life.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: But she had some struggles, right?
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she was vulnerable. She was dealing with mental health issues.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Journalist Anne Brocklehurst notes in her coverage that 23 is
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: often an age where certain mental health symptoms can really
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: strongly manifest themselves. It made it a particularly difficult stage
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: of Laura's life.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: It's a tough age for anyone, let alone someone dealing
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: with mental illness.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Exactly. She was navigating a very tumultuous period. And it
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: was during this vulnerable window that Dellen Millard was a
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: part of her social circle.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: And then... She just vanishes. A full year before Tim Bosma,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Laura Babcock disappears in Toronto.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: She disappears. And this is where the justice system first
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: begins to show its cracks. In 2010, a couple of
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: years prior, Laura had dated a man named Sean Lerner.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Even though they weren't together in 2012, he still cared
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: deeply about her and he noticed she was gone. When
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: she disappeared, Lerner basically had to step into the role
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: of an amateur detective because the official channels were simply
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: not moving.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting and honestly infuriating. The
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: extent to which Lerner had to do the police's job
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: is staggering. Sean Lerner, a civilian, a regular guy who's
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: just worried about his ex-girlfriend, goes and pulls Laura's cell
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: phone records.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Which is no small feat. Right.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: A few weeks after she goes missing, he gets his
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: hands on the actual telecom data and he sees a glaring,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: undeniable pattern. The last eight calls she made before vanishing
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: from the face of the earth were to Dylan Millard's
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: cell phone.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Eight calls.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Eight calls. to the man who would later own the incinerator.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: So Lerner takes these records, this hard mathematical data, and
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: he brings it to the Toronto police.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: And this is where the system completely stalls. A year
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: passes and Laura Babcock is still nowhere to be found.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: It isn't until Dellen Millard is finally arrested a year
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: later for the murder of Tim Bosma that Sean Lerner
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: writes a formal letter of complaint to the Toronto police.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: And what did that letter say?
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: The contents of that letter are a damning indictment of
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: the investigative process. Lerner explicitly stated that the police failed
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: to even file a missing person report properly. They didn't
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: collect statements from her friends. They essentially abandoned the case entirely.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Lerner used a phrase that Brocklehurst highlights, and it just
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: sticks with you. He said the investigation was left in
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: bureaucratic limbo.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Bureaucratic limbo. Yeah.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: But I have to push back on the mechanics of this.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, if a civilian walks into a precinct and
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: hands a detective the suspect's phone number at a silver
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: platter showing the last eight calls before disappearance... Doesn't that
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: make the cop's job infinitely easier?
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: You would think so.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Why on earth would they ignore a lead that requires
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: almost zero initial legwork to verify?
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: To understand why they ignored it, you really have to
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: understand the deeply ingrained biases in how police departments triage
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: missing persons cases. Bureaucratic limbo is a very polite way
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: of saying institutional neglect.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Neglect based on what?
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Based on risk profiling. When police receive a missing persons report,
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: they immediately begin profiling the risk level. If a child
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: goes missing... Right, right.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Bells ring, alerts go out.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It is an immediate, high-priority emergency. But when an
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: adult goes missing, especially an adult with a documented history
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: of mental health struggles, well, the internal police narrative changes drastically.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: So they basically use her mental health against her.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Consciously or subconsciously, yeah. There is a dangerous tendency in
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: policing to assume the disappearance of a struggling adult is
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: a lifestyle choice. They frame it internally like she's a
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: grown woman, she has a history of erratic behavior, she
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: probably just ran off to start over, or she's on
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: a bender.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Which is so dismissive.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: It is. But it requires less paperwork, less resources, and
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: less immediate action. It prejudices the case from day one.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Instead of viewing her as a potential victim of foul play,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: they view her as a transient problem that will eventually
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: solve itself when she decides to come home.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: That is horrifying. Because it implies that the protection of
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: the law is conditional. It depends entirely on how, I
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: don't know, respectable or stable the police perceive you to be.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: If we connect the apathy in Laura's case to the
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: broader picture, this is a systemic issue across North America.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Marginalized people, vulnerable people, sex workers, people experiencing homelessness. or
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: those with severe mental health issues, they routinely fall through
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: the cracks of modern policing.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Because they aren't seen as the ideal victim.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Their disappearances are simply not treated with the urgency of, say,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: a suburban father going missing from a quiet neighborhood. The
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: threshold for police intervention is set impossibly high for the
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: people who are actually the most vulnerable to predators.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: And the tragedy is that predators know this. They understand
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: the sociology of police work better than anyone. They know
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: who society values and who society is willing to look
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: away from.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: They absolutely do.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: But the thing about the phone records is what really
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: exposes the depth of the failure. And Brocklehurst pointed out
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: that the Toronto police only ever held one very brief
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: press conference about Laura Babcock's disappearance. And to this day,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: they have never given a clear, transparent answer as to
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: whether they even looked at the phone records Sean Lerner
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: brought them.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: It acts as a black box. The police took the
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: records from Lerner, or at least they received the information,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: and it seemingly vanished into the ether. There was no follow-up,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: no aggressive questioning of Dellen Millard regarding those final eight calls.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Which gave him time.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: So much time. It took two years after she disappeared
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: for police to finally declare Laura Babcock dead. But during
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: that critical window, those weeks and months right after she vanished,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: When investigations are most crucial and evidence is fresh, Dellen
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Millard learned a very valuable, very dangerous lesson.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: He learned that he was invisible. He learned he could
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: be the last person to speak with a missing woman,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: have his phone number plastered all over her final records,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: and the police wouldn't even bother to knock on his door.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: That is the structural crack in the dam we were
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: talking about earlier. The authorities essentially communicated to him through
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: their inaction that he was operating below their radar.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, and if you, listening to this deep dive right now,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: think that the police only have blind spots when it
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: comes to complex human cases involving mental health, you need
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: to hear what happened next. Because the blindness we're talking
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: about wasn't just about vulnerable people.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: No, it wasn't.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: It extended to basic physical property crime happening right out
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: in the open, in plain sight, with physical evidence.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Which brings us to the stolen motorcycle.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Yes. Let's look at a man named Marty McDougall. He
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: has a motorcycle, and just like Tim Bosma a year later,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: he decides to advertise it for sale online.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Another everyday online transaction. Right.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Shortly after the ad goes up, the motorcycle and the
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: large trailer it's sitting on are stolen directly from downtown Toronto. Now,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: this isn't just a tough luck, no clues kind of theft.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: McDougall does some digging of his own and realizes there
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: is a security camera directly across the street from where
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the bike and trailer were parked.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: He has the holy grail of modern property crime investigation.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Direct video footage of the incident.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The holy grail. So he tells the Toronto police.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: And to their credit, initially, an officer actually comes out
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and picks up several hours of this video footage. You think, great,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: case closed. Let's look at the tape, get a license plate,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: identify the suspects.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: That would be the logical next step.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: But McDougal told the Fifth Estate that after handing over
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: the tape, he heard absolutely nothing. Crickets. So he takes
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: the initiative. He emails the officer. No response. He calls
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the officer. No response. Wow. He reaches out about 10
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: different times to find out if they saw anything on
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the video. He gets zero response.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: It is staggering when you think about the mechanics of this.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: An officer physically took possession of potential video evidence of
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: a crime. And then that evidence, for all intents and purposes,
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: ceased to exist within the investigative pipeline. Ten follow-up calls
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: from the victim of the crime completely ignored.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: But let me play devil's advocate for a second. It's
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: like a reverse CSI, right? Instead of zooming in and
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: enhancing the reflection on a hubcap, they literally just tossed
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: the tape into a drawer and ignored 10 phone calls. But, okay,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Toronto is a massive, massive metropolitan city. There are thousands
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: of auto thefts, break-ins, and property crimes every single year.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: That's true. The volume is immense.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: The police departments are notoriously understaffed and overworked. Can we
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: really expect detectives to launch a full-scale manhunt over one
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: stolen trailer? Isn't it just a matter of resources?
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: You are absolutely right about the resource issue, and that
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: introduces the mechanism of police triage. In a major city,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: property crime is incredibly high volume. When a report comes in,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: a desk sergeant or an automated system triages it based
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: on solvability and severity.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: So violent crimes get priority.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Always. Violent crimes go to the top. Property crimes, especially
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: vehicles that are often chopped up for parts within hours,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: drop to the absolute bottom of the pile. Yeah. From
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: a purely statistical standpoint, the police know they aren't going
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: to recover most stolen vehicles, so they often don't allocate
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: detective hours to them. It becomes a matter for insurance companies.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: So McDougal's motorcycle just fell victim to the math of
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: a big city.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Well, if it had just been a missing motorcycle with
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: no leads, yes. But here is why this specific case
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: transcends normal triage and crosses into active negligence. They had
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: the videotape. Right.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: The holy grail.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Triage is supposed to filter out the unsolvable cases to
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: focus on the solvable ones. When a citizen hands you
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: hours of video footage of the crime occurring, the solvability skyrockets.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: You don't need to canvass the neighborhood. You just need
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: to watch the tape.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: It's right there on a silver platter.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, ignoring 10 follow-up calls from a citizen who is
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: actively trying to help you solve a crime that indicates
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: a systemic breakdown in basic communication and accountability.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: And what makes this failure so bitter... is how the
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: motorcycle was eventually found. It wasn't the Toronto police who
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: finally solved McDougall's case.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: No, it was not. It took a murder to solve
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: a theft.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Which is just a horrible sentence to hear. It is.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: After Tim Bosma was killed, Hamilton police detectives who were
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: investigating the Bosma case because the town of Ancaster is
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: in their jurisdiction were aggressively executing search warrants. They searched
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: the Milladare hangar at the Waterloo Airport, which is a
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: massive aviation facility where Dellen Millard regularly stored vehicles and equipment.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: And guess what they find?
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Sitting right there in the hangar. Marty McDougall's disassembled motorcycle
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: and trailer.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: It is maddening. You have Hamilton police who crack the
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Bosma case doing the grueling legwork connecting the dots and
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: finding the stolen property. And you have Toronto police who
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: had the video footage of the theft handed to them
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: months prior completely ignoring it. Yeah. How does a lead
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: with physical video evidence just evaporate?
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: The contrast between the two departments is glaring, and it
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: severely reinforces the psychological evolution of the perpetrator we discussed earlier.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Because he sees what he can get away with.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Think about it from Dylan Miller's perspective. He realizes
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: he is invisible to the police when his phone number
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: is the last one dialed by a missing woman. Then
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: he realizes he is invisible when stealing massive pieces of
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: hardware right out of downtown Toronto, even with cameras around.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: His boldness doesn't just grow, it metastasizes.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: It treads.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: It grows so much that it crosses the line from
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: targeting vulnerable acquaintances and random strangers on the street to
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: targeting his own family tree.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the most intimate and perhaps the
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: most shocking institutional failure of all. We have to talk
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: about Dylan's father, Wayne Millard. Yes.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: The timeline here is critical. We are at November 29th, 2012.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: We are now exactly halfway between the disappearance of Laura
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Babcock in the summer of 2012 and the murder of
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Tim Bosma in May of 2013.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: So right in the middle of this escalation.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Wayne Millard, the wealthy heir to the Millard Air Aviation legacy,
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: is found dead in his home with a gunshot wound
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: to the head.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: And the Toronto Police response to finding a wealthy aviation
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: executive dead of a gunshot wound. They rapidly, almost instantly,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: rule it suicide. There is no deep, protracted homicide investigation.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: The crime scene is processed incredibly quickly.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Almost too quickly.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The body is released to the family, and within
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: a week, Wayne Millard is cremated. Case closed. Stamp the file.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Move on.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: This raises an important question about standard operating procedures in
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: death investigations. How did the police deem this a suicide
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: so quickly? Especially when you consider that, as prosecutors would
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: later claim during the eventual murder trials, it was actually
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Dellen Millard who purchased the gun that killed his father.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Wait, really? He bought the gun.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: To understand why it might have been rushed, we have
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: to look at the backdrop of the Millard family because
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: it wasn't a peaceful household. The CBC reporting brings in
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: an incredibly important voice, a man named Art Jennings, who
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: was an employee at Millard Air. And Jennings pulls back
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: the curtain on the family dynamic.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: It is dark.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: It was not a happy home. There was massive boiling
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: tension between Wayne and his son, Dillon.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Jennings told the Fifth Estate that Wayne Millard was on
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: the verge of cutting Dillon off financially. Dillon was spending
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: money recklessly on extravagant things. He wasn't taking any responsibility
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: for the aviation business. And Wayne was desperately trying to
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: protect the legacy that his own father, Dillon's grandfather, had
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: built from the ground up.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: So there's a huge motive there.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Strictly from an investigative standpoint, look at what you
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: have at that scene. You have a massive financial motive.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: You have a son who is about to lose his
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: inheritance and his primary source of funding. You have a
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: violent death by gunshot. And yet suicide is the immediate,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: unquestioned ruling.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: We really have to talk about the optics of wealth here,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: because Millard Air isn't a mom-and-pop corner store. It is
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: an aviation dynasty. Dellen Millard is a wealthy, privileged heir
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: living in a completely different socioeconomic stratosphere than most people.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: He had massive resources.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Did the family's extreme wealth and status cause the police
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: to handle the scene with kid gloves? Like, did they
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: walk into a massive, affluent home and subconsciously decide, well,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: This is a respectable prominent family. It must be a
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: tragic suicide. It would be inappropriate to pry too much
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: or treat the son like a suspect.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: You are hitting on a very real, heavily documented phenomenon
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: in law enforcement and the judicial system, the halo effect
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: of wealth.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: The halo effect. I've heard of that in psychology.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. In sociology and psychology, the halo effect is a
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: cognitive bias where our overall impression of a person influences
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: how we feel and think about their character. In policing,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: extreme wealth often projects a halo of respectability, stability and innocence.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: So the rules of the investigation literally change based on
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: the square footage of the house the body is found in.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Operationally, yes, it often happens. Let's look at the mechanics
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: of a death investigation. If a person with a known
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: criminal record living in a subsidized housing complex was found
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: dead of a gunshot wound and a financially motivated family
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: member was sitting in the next room, how would the
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: police react?
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: It would be a totally different scene.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: The scene would be immediately locked down. It would be
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: treated as a homicide until definitively proven otherwise. The family
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: member would be taken down to the station for intense interrogation.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Gunshot residue tests would be administered immediately. The scrutiny would
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: be absolute.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Because the environment fits the police's internal narrative of where
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: violent crime happens.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But wealth changes that narrative. When officers enter a
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: sprawling estate, they are greeted by affluent individuals who often
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: have immediate access to high-priced lawyers. The investigators, often subconsciously,
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: afford these individuals a level of deference and the benefit
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: of the doubt that they do not afford to the
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: working class or the marginalized.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: It's just inherently unfair.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: They assumed Wayne Millard's death was a high society tragedy
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: rather than a brutal, financially motivated patricide. They saw a
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: grieving heir, not a suspect.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: And by rushing that judgment, they made a catastrophic mistake
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: that could never, ever be undone. Because within a week,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Wayne Millard was cremated.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: That's the kicker.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Think about what that means forensically. The physical evidence. The
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: precise trajectory of the gunshot wound. The stippling on the
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: skin that shows how far away the barrel was. The residue.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: The minute autopsy details that a forensic pathologist could pour
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: over months later if new evidence emerged. It's all gone.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Up in smoke. Literally.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Cremation is permanent. It permanently alters the course of justice
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: because it destroys the ability of the system to go
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: back and double-check its work when new information comes to light.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: When you declare a death a suicide and allow the
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: immediate destruction of the body, you are burning the evidence
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: of a potential murder.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: It's just devastating.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: And that brings us back to the velocity of this timeline,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: which is the most terrifying part of this entire sequence
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: of events.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: The velocity is what makes this a systemic failure rather
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: than just one bad call. Let's map it out clearly
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: for you listening. Mid-2012, Laura Babcock vanishes, and phone records
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: pointing to Dellen Millard are left in bureaucratic limbo.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Failure number one.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: November 2012, Wayne Millard is found dead of a gunshot wound,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and the wealthy heir is given the benefit of the
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: doubt while the body is rushed to cremation.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Failure number two.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: May 2013, Tim Bosma is murdered and his remains are
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: found in an incinerator. Three lives intersecting with one man
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: in less than a year. So what does this all mean?
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: It means the safety net completely collapsed.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: It is a domino effect of institutional apathy and bias.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Think about the what-ifs here. If the police had investigated
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Laura Babcock properly... If they had seen past her mental
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: health struggles and aggressively interviewed the man she called eight
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: times before disappearing, they might have put pressure on Millard.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: They could have disrupted his whole operation.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: If they had looked at the security tape for the
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: stolen motorcycle, they might have searched that Millard air hangar
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: months earlier. If they had bypassed the halo effect of
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: wealth and treated Wayne Millard's death as suspicious from the start,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Dellen Millard would have been under a microscope. His firearms
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: would have been scrutinized.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: But because they didn't do any of those things... Dylan
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Millard felt utterly invincible when he started messaging Tim Bosma
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: about taking a test drive in a pickup truck. He
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: had been taught by the system that he was untouchable.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: The system didn't just fail once. It failed chronically across
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: different departments, different types of crimes, and different socioeconomic classes,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: all centering around the exact same individual.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: The reckoning did finally come, but it came way too late.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the fallout, the eventual trials... And
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: the deafening silence from the people who are supposed to
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: protect us.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Yes. Following his arrest for the murder of Tim Bosma,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: the dominoes finally fell backward. The police finally started looking
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: at the prequel.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Because they had no choice. Right.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Because of the sheer magnitude of the Bosma investigation led
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: by Hamilton police. Remember, the Toronto police were forced to
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: revisit their open files. Dellen Millard was subsequently charged with
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: the first degree murders of Laura Babcock with that grueling
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: trial taking place in September 2017. and Wayne Millard with
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: that trial following in March 2018.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: So they finally put it all together.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: The justice system finally connected the dots. Millard was found
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: guilty in all three cases.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: But the dots were only connected after the worst possible
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: price was paid. And here's where the frustration just boils
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: over from a public accountability standpoint. Journalist Anne Brocklehurst points
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: out in Dark Ambition that there are incredibly legitimate pressing
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: questions about how Toronto police handled these initial investigations?
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Very legitimate questions.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: But when you ask the Toronto police, specifically Staff Inspector
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Greg McLean, about how they managed the Babcock and Wayne
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Millard cases initially, what is their response?
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Total refusal to answer. Since April 2014, when the new
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: murder charges were announced, the Toronto police have consistently cited
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: the ongoing court cases as their reason for silence.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: There's no comment.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly. McLean explicitly told reporters, now that the cases are
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: before the criminal courts, Police will not be making statements
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: or taking questions.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: No comment because of ongoing litigation. It is the ultimate
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: bureaucratic shield. But I have to ask you, legally speaking,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: is that truly just about protecting the integrity of the
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: court case? Or is it a highly convenient, legally bulletproof
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: shield to avoid standing in front of microphones and admitting
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: that they bungled these investigations so incredibly badly that it
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: cost an innocent father in Ancaster his life?
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: It is very difficult for anyone analyzing the situation not
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: to view it as a shield. Yes, in a high
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: profile case, you absolutely do not want to prejudice a
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: jury pool or compromise the prosecution's strategy by discussing evidence
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: in the media. Right.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: That is a legitimate legal concern. However, refusing to explain
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: the process of an investigation doesn't necessarily prejudice a trial.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Explaining why a civilian's submission of phone records was ignored
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: for a year Or explaining the departmental standard operating procedure
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: that allowed a gunshot victim to be cremated in a
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: week that doesn't compromise the facts of Dellen Millard's guilt.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Right. It just exposes the police department's incompetence.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The ongoing litigation excuse protects the institution from public accountability.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: It prevents the leadership from having to explain the mechanics
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: of the bureaucratic limbo that Sean Lerner described. It allows
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: them to wait out the public outrage until the trials
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: are over. And the media cycle has moved on, at
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: which point they can claim the issues are in the past.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: And this is where we bring it directly back to you,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: the listener. Because we don't just consume these stories as,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: you know, dark entertainment. We live in this society. We
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: all rely on these institutions to recognize patterns that we
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: as civilians cannot see.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: We have to rely on them.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: We pay taxes. We follow the laws. And in exchange,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: we assume there's a baseline of protection. When you decide
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: to sell an old phone or a bicycle or a
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: truck online... You assume you live in a society where
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: violently escalating predators have been filtered out by the justice system.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: You trust the system.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: You assume that if someone has a history of being
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: linked to missing persons and stolen property, the police know
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: about it and are watching them. Kim Bosma's death shatters
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: that assumption completely.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: It shatters the illusion of the safety net. It forces
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: us to realize that sometimes the only thing standing between
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: a citizen and a predator isn't a complex web of
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: forensic science and dedicated detectives. Sometimes the only thing standing
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: between you and danger is the hope that a police
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: officer decides to return a phone call.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: And in this case, they just didn't.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Those calls weren't returned. The videotape wasn't watched. The phone
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: records weren't acted upon.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: To summarize the catastrophic domino effect we've walked through today
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: in this deep dive, we are looking at three distinct victims.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: We are looking at multiple victims. glaring, ignored leads.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: A total systemic breakdown.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: We have unreturned phone calls from a victim of property
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: theft who handed over video evidence. We have unexamined phone
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: records pointing directly to a prime suspect in a missing
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: persons case, ignored because of a victim's mental health. And
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: we have a rushed wealthy family suicide ruling that resulted
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: in the permanent destruction of physical evidence.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: The failure was comprehensive.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: It is heavy. It is incredibly heavy to process this
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: level of systemic failure. But it's vital that we look
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: at it clearly without the Hollywood filter of how we
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: think investigations work.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: I want to leave you with a thought to mull over,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: something that extends beyond just the tragic facts of this
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: specific case. What happens to a community's fundamental trust in
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: law enforcement when the bureaucratic limbo that Sean Lerner described
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: isn't just an anomaly, but the standard operating procedure?
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: It's a scary thought.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Think about the mechanics of what happened here. If a civilian,
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: a regular guy grieving his ex-girlfriend, can pull phone records
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: and find the prime suspect in a matter of weeks
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: while a heavily funded police department does nothing, what does
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: it truly say about the modern state of investigative policing?
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: It forces us to ask a very uncomfortable question. Are
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: we actually safe, or are we just lucky that we
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: haven't crossed paths with someone who knows exactly how to
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: exploit the system's apathy?
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: That is the question that stays with you long after
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the trials end. When you look back at that driveway
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: in Ancaster on a warm May evening, it wasn't just
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: a truck being sold. It was a man stepping into
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: a massive, gaping hole in the system that had been
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: widening for over a year. Thank you for joining us
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: as we explored this investigation. It's not an easy topic,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: but understanding how the safety net fails is the first
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: step in demanding that it be fixed. Stay curious, stay vigilant,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: and keep asking the hard questions. We'll catch you on
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: the next deep dive into the source material.