SERIAL KILLER: Dellen Millard

[00:00] Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now wherever you get your podcasts. [00:30] Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And this week's story is about a murder spree that happened in plain sight and went undetected for almost a year. And it's also a cautionary tale for the digital age and for anyone who's ever sold something to a stranger on the Internet. This is the story of Dellen Millard. [00:55] *music* [01:26] On the evening of May 6, 2013, Tim Bozma put his two-year-old daughter to bed and began to pace. He was waiting for a guy who was supposed to come test drive his truck. They planned to meet at like 7, but it was now almost 9 p.m. Now, he knew they were coming. They called around like 7.[redacted address] from Toronto. But now it's almost dark and like he's like, let's just get the show on the road already. So while he's waiting for them, he's kind of like talking to his wife about the people coming over.

[01:56] He's asking her, like, do you think I should, like, go with them for the test drive or just, like, give them the keys and let them do it? And she's like, yeah, of course you go with them. Like, we want our truck to come back, don't we? Like, you don't just give your keys to a stranger. So finally, well after 9 o'clock, two men arrive for the test drive. And it's no wonder they were late because they show up on foot. And this is a little unusual in general. But, you know, like, they're there to buy a car. [02:26] they didn't have one of their own. So fine. But what makes this feel extra strange was that Tim and his wife, Charlene, lived in this like very semi-rural area that's an hour outside of Toronto. So this isn't a place that you typically like get to on foot. But whatever, they were here. And honestly, they were just hopeful that the truck was going to sell. Like at this point, it was costing them way more than they were willing to pay in repairs. And cash would be welcome for the [02:56] He's going to be right back. He gets into the truck... [03:00] drives away. [03:02] And the time starts to pass a little more slowly. And when an hour passes and Tim still hasn't returned, Charlene begins to really worry. Like, this was just a test drive. Even if they wanted to take the truck on the highway, it wouldn't take this long. Something isn't right. [03:21] And she knew that he charged his phone that evening when he'd gotten home from work. So the fact that she was making calls to him and they're rolling straight to voicemail is making her even more concerned. Like she knew it was charged. He should be picking up. But yet every single one was going to voicemail. So she starts calling around to friends and family, but no one has seen or heard from Tim.

[03:44] Her bad feeling begins to grow, and she couldn't sit around and wait anymore. So Charlene reports her husband missing to the Hamilton police. [03:52] By the time the sun comes up on May 7th, police were already starting their ground search with officers and their canine unit. Which just goes to prove that you can file a missing persons report. [04:03] As soon as possible. Yeah, absolutely. Like, there's no time limit. I mean, that's one of the things we've heard over and over in cases, people being told by police you have to wait time. I would hope now it's 2019. Like, everyone knows that's not a thing. But if something happens, if someone you know were to go missing, you have to wait no amount of time. [04:20] So when police assigned to Tim's case start looking into his life, they find that by all accounts, Tim had been living a totally normal life. He went to work every day. He came home to his wife and his young daughter. They had built this home in Ancaster, Ontario. Like he's active in his church and his community. Like literally according to every source I read for this story, from like books to local media, national media, he was not the kind of guy to just up and walk away or disappear. [04:50] And like I said, they start this search right away. [04:54] In addition to the ground search, police also set to work on getting the public's help to locate Tim's black Dodge Ram truck. Like, it's big, it's flashy, it's hard to miss. They think this could be their best opportunity for someone to find him is if we find this truck first. And it turns out someone had seen the truck in Brantford. And this is about 20 minutes from the home and at about 10 after 10 on the night that Tim went missing. And you know what else they found in Brantford?

[05:24] them to find Tim? Well, that would make for a really short episode. So no, they didn't find Tim, but they did find his phone. [05:33] Now, on the one hand, the investigation seemed like it was moving pretty quickly. Like, again, like the night of the truck is spot, the next day they're searching, they find the car, they find him. Leads were actually developing. But on the other, finding the phone without Tim meant that he had likely not disappeared on his own, which, again, I mean, people had been saying all along. But like that confirmation, I'm sure people were holding out hope that this was all just a misunderstanding. But they at least had his phone now and they needed to dive into the records. [06:03] that the men who had come for the test drive had contacted Tim by phone at least twice, once to set up the time and then another to basically alert him that they were going to be late. So police had this number and maybe that was going to lead them to Tim. So it was super easy, obviously, to get the number. But when police track the number, they also get a name, Lucas Bate. [06:27] So according to live trial coverage by Adam Carter of the CBC, police went to great lengths to find this Lucas Bate person. They tracked down where the phone was purchased and they go get surveillance footage, but they weren't able to get the surveillance footage. So too much time had passed at that point between when it was purchased and when they were looking for it. But they were able to get an address for Lucas Bate. Now, his address was one in like a nearby neighborhood of Toronto.

[06:57] too far away. But the address led them to somewhere really unexpected. It led them to a high school, a high school that had never heard of a Lucas Bate. So of course, the police realized this phone is a burner. And I'm sure most of our seasoned junkies know what a burner phone is. But it's really this like, [07:19] basic phone with basic service no bells no whistles like you can you have to register it but you can register it in bogus names bogus addresses right there's no like contractor anything really official tied to it yeah I mean you could just be anyone it's basically registered to a ghost and this is what the situation is here and unfortunately even though we have this number it seems like the name we have is fake and it doesn't offer any new information. [07:44] But here's the thing. It wasn't a complete dead end. When police accessed the phone's call history, which they could do, they see several other Toronto area numbers listed as outgoing calls. So the imaginary Lucas Bate led police straight to the man who would blow this case wide open. [08:08] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades.

[08:27] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [08:35] wherever you get your podcasts. [08:38] The man who was the key to this case was named Igor. Now, it turns out Tim Bozeman wasn't the only guy with a Dodge Ram for sale. Igor had one listed online, too. And it turns out a few nights prior to Tim's disappearance, Igor had taken two guys on a test drive. And his story sounds just like the one Charlene Bozeman told about her husband. Now, two guys arrived at his house— [09:07] on foot looking to test drive a truck. Now, the only difference is that Igor came back and Tim Bozeman did not. Okay, but like, what's the difference? Like, why take Tim but not Igor? Well, so there's this woman named Anne Brokelhurt who wrote this book, Dark Ambition, and she also covered this for the Toronto Star. And according to everything she wrote, police said, quote, that he was a very large individual who could easily have overpowered the suspect. [09:37] just a much bigger guy and presented like a bigger challenge for them than maybe Tim would have. So as police talk to Igor about his experience, I mean, we have now a living witness of likely the two guys who took Tim. Igor tells them that one was a smaller guy in a baggy sweatshirt with his hood pulled up and the other was a taller man carrying a satchel and sporting a small tattoo on his wrist that read ambition.

[10:07] So this is when they take this information and they go to the public to ask for help. Find us a guy who carries a satchel and has an ambition tattoo, they said. So within hours, the phones are ringing. And not once, but twice. Two other Ontario policing agencies are the ones that are calling, though. And they say, we know who your guy is. So on May 11th, this is just five days after Tim Bozeman went on that test drive, [10:37] made an arrest. I mean, out of nowhere, it seems. They arrested a man named Dellen Millard. [10:44] When police originally were brought to him, Dellen looked like he was the last person you would have picked out to kidnap a guy and steal his truck. There's this article from Robin Levinson King of the BBC that gives a perfect life and times overview of this guy. He was basically 27. He's the heir to a multimillion dollar aviation business started by his grandfather. Yeah. And then continued by his father. [11:14] and an airplane solo on the same day. His life wasn't perfect, though. Like, six months before all of this happened, like, this whole Tim Bozeman thing went down, Dellen's father had actually died suddenly, surprising everyone in the community, especially those closest to him. Now, his parents had also divorced when Dellen was really small, and it was exceptionally hard on him. But as he got older and, like, grew into himself, Dellen became kind of a party boy with this big social circle.

[11:44] He even moved people in when they needed a hand. And like his social circle included no shortage of young women. And it would come out later that Dillon was like quite the Casanova, like dating and sleeping with multiple partners. He also owned multiple properties in Ontario. He had like several luxury cars. He usually like bought them in cash. And his friends would always estimate that he was worth between 10 and 20 million dollars. [12:14] So that's the thing that doesn't make sense, right? Like, he didn't need to. Yeah, he could have walked onto any car lot anywhere and just... [12:22] bought one in cash. And that's literally what his friends say that he used to do. And again, that's why when police were like pointed to him, none of this made sense. Like, why is this guy kidnapping a guy for a Dodge Ram truck when he's got like a lot of luxury cars? He has multiple homes. Like it wasn't fitting. It didn't seem like the profile. Right. Right. So the night police finally brought Dellen Millard in was like a scene from a movie. According to the CBC, police [12:52] In his front pocket was $350 cash and three black latex gloves. When they searched his car on his keychain, [13:03] were the keys to Tim's truck. [13:07] Now, police may have a suspect in custody, but they still don't have Tim Bozma. [13:13] Tim's family and friends, even investigators, were hopeful, but the mood had started to shift. It had been five days since that test drive. No one had heard from Tim. If he was alive somewhere, like, what kind of shape would he even be in at this point?

[13:30] Now, police weren't speculating publicly about the outcome, but their actions spoke volumes. The case was being led by the Hamilton Police Homicide Squad. And when reporters asked if this meant that it was a murder investigation, police would only say it was a missing persons case with unusual circumstances. The community did all they could to, like, surround and support the family. [14:00] disappearance, and many of those tips did help inform the investigation. Now, one of those tips led police to the home of Dellen Millard's mother, whose name was Madeline Burns. Now, when they pull in the driveway of this, like, well-appointed home, they notice one thing immediately. A giant vehicle trailer parked in the driveway, and when they look inside the locked vehicle trailer, [14:30] pickup truck, the Dodge Ram pickup truck. [14:34] Tim's pickup truck. Ironically enough, though, when they find it, it's Sunday, May 12, Mother's Day. And this is when they find it on Dellen's mother's property. [14:45] Now, inside the truck, police find a shell casing, gunpowder residue, and fingerprints belonging to Dellen. Sprayed with luminol and viewed under a blacklight, they could see blood evidence everywhere. [14:58] and signs of a cleanup.

[15:01] Now, again, this is great. We have more evidence. However, still no Tim. Yeah. And we're getting less and less hopeful now because, I mean, we have Tim's truck. We have Tim's phone. We don't have Tim. But we have signs of someone shooting a gun and cleanup. So the police, again, not releasing this to the public, are more and more concerned that what they're looking for at this point is a body. [15:31] a family. And Dillon himself owned four properties, a house, farmland, and two condos. [15:37] Police were at the farmland property when they ran into this guy named Chaz Main. Now, this guy liked to like bomb around the property on his ATV. And according to Anne Brocklehurst reporting, Chaz didn't know or had in fact never met Dellen, even though Dellen had owned the property for several years that he was like tooling around on his ATV with. But even though he didn't know him, this guy was valuable to the investigation. [16:07] strange stuff on the land. Not [16:10] Creepy strange. Just strange strange. Like heavy equipment, including an excavator stuck in the middle of a swamp. And what he called a redneck smoker in the woods. So, [16:25] Police are like, OK, why don't you show us what you're talking about? So Chaz takes them to this clearing in the woods where he'd last seen what he called that redneck smoker just a day prior. And it was a decent description. Like it certainly looked like basically a giant barbecue, but it wasn't. It was six feet tall.

[16:48] 10 feet long, connected to a 100-pound propane tank. Like, this is not the kind of machinery that you see every day or maybe even ever. I've never seen anything like this in my entire life. I would maybe say that I've... [17:04] possibly seen something like this at like a butcher who also does barbecues on the weekends? We literally did like a hog roast years and years and years ago. My family did. And we had like this like metal container thing and it still wasn't even that big. Like it's massive. And so on this massive thing, there is this like metal tag that reads small and large animal cremators, [17:34] like a barbecue. This is a cremation device. And on the side in red letters, it's a cremation. [17:42] was [17:43] Something that it looked like Dillon had put on. He had named the device. He named it and [17:48] The Eliminator. [17:50] Now, given the size of this machine, like, police had the same concerns that you and I just did. Like, this isn't made for a barbecue. You could fit an entire person, living or dead, inside. So... [18:04] With a little trepidation, they check inside. [18:08] but it was empty. [18:09] However, not entirely empty. Inside the incinerator were several very small tooth and bone fragments. Now, unfortunately, when they take those to be tested, there wasn't even enough there to test for DNA. And even if there was, the high temperature in that incinerator basically destroyed everything.

[18:39] The bones were, in fact, human, not some kind of animal bones. So once the police knew that they were dealing with actual human remains, police called in one of Canada's leading forensic anthropologists, Tracy Rogers, right away. In fact, it was she who climbed into the eliminator to sweep out every last bit of bone and ash. [19:09] a month or so back. So this lady's like the professional, like the lady in the area. Now, the sum total of what Tracy pulled from the incinerator weighed about like 503 grams or just over one pound. And police were certain this was all that remained of Tim Bozma. So the scene inside the truck and the remains within the incinerator told a frightening story of Tim's [19:39] murdered, that his remains had been destroyed, and that Dellen was responsible for all of it. [19:45] After notifying Tim's wife and family, police announced that their search for Tim had come to a heartbreaking conclusion, and that Dellen would be charged for first-degree murder. [19:56] On May 22nd, 2013, hundreds of people gathered at a Hamilton church to remember Tim and lay his remains to rest. [20:04] And throughout all of this, the people of Hamilton and throughout the province of Ontario were just dumbstruck. Like, was this man really killed over a truck by two complete strangers, one of whom, again, didn't need money at all? And the biggest question, though, is there were two strangers. So we've got one of them behind bars. But where's the other guy? Who is the other guy?

[20:30] At least one of the public's lingering questions was answered later that very day when police announced that they'd made their second arrest in this case. A 25-year-old man named Mark Smich, he, like Dellen Millard, would be charged with first-degree murder. [20:47] Now, Mark couldn't have been more different from his friend who he called Dellen the felon. Mark was a high school dropout who'd gotten by from the money that he made selling drugs. His chosen job got him into a good deal of trouble with the law. This guy was like not an upstanding citizen. And in this documentary called The Devil Had a Name produced by the CBC, one of the people interviewed said that Mark, quote, clung on to and looked up to Dellen Millard. [21:17] Based on everything else that I've read about this guy, that's a pretty apt description for their relationship. Being around Dellen gave Mark access to things he would have otherwise never had. Money mostly, but there were other like comforts and thrills that like money can't buy that like Dellen had access to. He was just one of several hangers on that swirled around Dellen Millard's life. [21:40] What police learn is that the two had spent the last several years stealing vehicles and equipment at random, sometimes just to destroy it. It's not like they were even selling this or using it or... It was just the thrill. It was for the thrill, all while flying completely under the radar. [21:59] So that was kind of the question police were asking, like, was Tim's death an unfortunate result of a vehicle theft gone wrong? Or was it the culmination of what one friend of the two men called a, quote, succession of thrills? Now, at about the same time that police were arresting Mark and charging him with murder, they got an interesting tip about a cold case that would take their murder investigation and blow it up into something much more.

[22:28] bigger. [22:30] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [22:50] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [22:57] wherever you get your podcasts. [23:00] One day, police got a call from a worried set of parents. Their daughter, Laura Babcock, had been missing for almost a year. And on the surface, like, okay, like there's a lot of people missing. What does this have to do with this case? Why are you calling now? Right. Well, their daughter's ex-boyfriend, whose name was Scott, told them that when he heard Dellen's name on the news, because obviously this is like a huge case being publicized everywhere, he remembered something important. [23:30] her phone records and the last eight calls that she ever made were to Delon who she had dated for a couple of weeks and then kind of had like a friends with benefits thing happening around the time that she went missing. [23:46] When police take a closer look at Laura's case, they learn that during the summer of 2012, 23-year-old Laura Babcock had hit a bit of a rough patch. She was a University of Toronto graduate from like this middle class family, but she was working as an escort at the time and using drugs daily. She had basically transformed from this like rosy cheek, brown haired girl next door to very thin and a very troubled young woman.

[24:16] She'd been fighting with her parents about the rules in their house, which is why during the summer of 2012, she was basically couch surfing between friends and escort clients. [24:25] Now, Laura had well-known and well-documented mental health issues as well. And they were at an all-time high during this period in her life because, again, she was self-medicating with drugs. She wasn't seeking any kind of help for her mental health issues. Now, it's around this time in her life when she's, like, couch surfing, going from friend to friend, that her ex-boyfriend Scott—now, he's the one that initially, like, made the connection to Dellen—he, like, felt bad for her. He, like, still really cared for her. He saw that she was struggling. [24:55] He had been paying for a hotel room for her and loaned her an iPad so that she could look for work and housing. But they weren't together, right? No, they had just stayed in touch. And again, he was just like very worried about her. And he just wanted to make sure she had a safe place to stay. Exactly. He just really cared for her. So at this time is when she has this friends with benefits thing happening with Delon. [25:19] The problem is, at the time that they have this arrangement, Dellen had an actual girlfriend named Christina. Now, Christina and Laura knew each other. They ran in the same, like, big circle of friends, a circle that included Dellen. And Christina knew that Dellen had dated Laura in the past. But in her mind, like, it was completely over. [25:40] Now, the problem was Christina was kind of like a mean girl and would poke at Lauren, even though she thought that the relationship was over. They weren't together. On Laura's birthday, Christina sent a text message that said, happy birthday. A year ago today was when I first slept with Dylan. So Laura, like not wanting to take any of her crap, shoots back immediately and said, quote, that's fine. I slept with him a few weeks ago.

[26:10] is [26:10] not happy. She was done sharing her boyfriend with this other woman and Dellen had to like intervene. She goes to Dellen. She's super pissed. She's like, I want this girl gone. And he told his girlfriend that he would take care of the situation and he wouldn't let Laura Babcock bother them anymore. Okay. [26:30] The last time anyone recalls seeing Laura was June 26, 2012. And for the people who loved her, it was like Laura just vanished into thin air. Did you say that she'd been missing for a year by the time it was reported? No. [26:45] Like, was this the first time the police were even brought in on the investigation? So, no, this is at the time that they're like brought back into this is about a year later. But it wasn't the first time that her parents had called police about their daughter's disappearance. In fact, she'd been reported missing only after a few days by both her parents and Scott back right away. But. [27:06] When police, like, looked at her situation at the time, in particular, her lifestyle of drugs and sex work and her history of mental illness, they basically kind of chalked it up to, like... [27:16] I don't know, maybe it's on her own that she went away. Like, it was just a very low priority. And at one point, the Babcocks were told that Laura would probably just be back by Christmas. But Christmas of 2012 came and went with no Laura. [27:32] So now that they've been like, you know, brought back into her case, it's back at the forefront and might have a connection to someone that they have in custody. Police are trying to make some kind of connection to Dellen. But all they have are like a few phone calls and this ominous statement to his girlfriend. But that's not much. However...

[27:50] They stumble across a clue in a very unlikely place. So shortly after Mark's arrest, police were searching his place, looking for evidence to use in a trial to support a connection to the Tim Bozma case. But they actually find something else instead. In Mark's room, police discovered not only Laura Babcock's iPad, but also a duffel bag with her name and address on it. [28:20] is starting to pile up and it was painting a really grim picture about what could have happened to Tim and to Laura and maybe even others. [28:31] Now, in all of their searching, police never found Laura Babcock's body. [28:37] But once police had enough probable cause and did a little more thorough search of everyone's cell records, Google search histories, like all the electronic evidence, they knew everything they needed to to know what happened to her that night in July. Basically, cell tower information showed that Laura and Dellen were together on the night of July 3rd. They together drove to Dellen's house where they spent the night. [29:07] of Dellen's farm. Now on the way, at some point, Laura's phone suddenly stopped sending and receiving messages. But Dellen's phone continued on to the farm. Once he gets to the farm, he snapped a picture just outside of the barn of this, you know what, I need to show you.

[29:28] Okay, bro, I just sent you the picture that he had taken, like... [29:32] Almost like shortly after he shows up on the farm, but no one else. [29:36] *gasp* [29:37] It is a blue tarp, just like a normal blue tarp, but it is rolled up like a carpet, like there's a body in it. Yeah, the exact shape of a human body that this dude is taking a picture of. It's like taped around too, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Now, shortly after he snaps this picture, again, he's like leaving this digital trail. After he snaps the picture, he sets a reminder for himself in his phone for July 7th. [30:07] says: [30:09] Quote, barn smell check. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. So... [30:15] I mean, it's easily pieced together. So Dellen got himself a few toys around this time, too. Like he got a gun that he purchased the day before Laura disappeared. He got the Eliminator, which arrived just a few days after. So there is a very clear pattern of his planning of his intent and what actually happened, even though we might not have any physical evidence anymore. [30:41] Almost three weeks would pass before Dellen and his sidekick Mark would burn Laura's body. On July 23rd, Dellen texts Mark, quote, And later that night, records show that there was a screenshot of the answer to this question typed into a search engine. What temperature is cremation done at? I mean, did Dellen Google that himself?

[31:11] totally clear whether he did the search or not, but he, whether he did or not, he definitely saved the photo, you know, like, for reference. I mean, I don't know. So, [31:21] While Dellen and Mark burned the body of their one-time friend Laura, Dellen took a series of photos. There's some of, like, Mark smiling near this, like, family business. There's one of Mark posing in front of the Eliminator. And there's also pictures of the interior of the incinerator in flames. And just in case this isn't enough incriminating evidence, Mark, who's like a wannabe rapper, I guess, was inspired to write these lyrics that very evening. [31:51] That b***h started off all skin and bone. Now that b***h lay on the same ashy stone. [31:57] Last time I saw her is outside the home, and if you go swimming, you can find her phone. [32:03] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. So, [32:23] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [32:30] wherever you get your podcasts. [32:33] Oh, my God. Yes. So police found those lyrics on the iPad that Mark had in his bedroom. Now, he thoughtfully renamed it Mark's iPad, though it was, in fact, Laura Babcock's iPad that he had stolen from her.

[32:47] In addition to all of the electronic evidence against Dellen, police also had 65 letters that he'd written from prison to his girlfriend, Christina. And in the letters, which we'll link to in the blog post for today's episode, Dellen tells her that they need to basically get their story straight about the night that Laura went missing. [33:18] So Dellen asked Christina to destroy the letters to protect him, but for whatever reason, and luckily she didn't. So police are tying things up. They have another case that they're building, like a really strong case against both Dellen and Mark for Tim, now for Laura. But the investigation into these two monsters wasn't over because police saw something in Dellen's background that stood out, something that they thought was worth taking a second look at. [33:48] There was a case police had investigated and closed six months earlier. It was the death of Wayne Miller, Dellen's dad. Now, Wayne had been found in the suburban Toronto home that he shared with his son Dellen on November 29, 2012. He was dead from a single gunshot wound through his left eye. Now, police and the medical examiner were called to the scene and their brief investigation ruled the death a suicide.

[34:18] bed. There was a gun on the floor next to his body, open and shut, they said. But now investigators wondered if maybe it wasn't so open and shut. Maybe they'd made a mistake because maybe Wayne Millard had found himself on the wrong end of his adult son's killing spree. Dillon was, after all, the one who found his father's body that morning. And when questioned at the time, he told investigators that he was staying with a friend the night of his father's death. And of course, you won't be [34:48] friend that he claimed he was staying with was Mark. Of course. Now, here's the really interesting part, I think. At the time of his death, people in Wayne's circle, like employees and associates, were actually told that his sudden death was the result of a brain aneurysm. They had no idea that it was ruled a suicide, so there wasn't even anything for people to be suspicious of. His, like, employees and associates didn't even realize what had really happened until Dellen was charged [35:18] And that's when the people close to them learned like the truth about what really happened to him. And I think if they had known like the real cause of death, like maybe his employees could have raised like alarm bells a little bit sooner because the story among employees when they actually like got talked to was that Wayne was threatening to cut off his son financially.

[35:48] of trashing this family business that his father and grandfather had like worked so hard to build up. [35:55] Wayne had basically gotten to the point where he wasn't going to sit by anymore and watch his only son ruin the business that he worked so hard to build. So he was about to cut him off. Again, all of this is going on and nobody really knows that because at the time police were like, oh, open and shut. And then everyone decides to lie about how he died. So like the right people weren't connecting. Right. [36:15] Now, once investigators reopened this case, luckily they did have physical evidence to revisit. Specifically, there were these x-rays that showed the bullet and its trajectory through the eye. And police had kept the gun that they'd assumed Wayne used when, like, the death had happened, when it seemed like it was a suicide. Well, wouldn't you know it? The gun had Dellen Millard's DNA on it. Yeah. And more than that, Dellen had purchased the gun. [36:45] in the days before Laura Babcock's disappearance. And probably, I don't know this for sure, but probably the same murder weapon. Okay. [36:53] And, you know, it's so interesting when I look at like this specific case, because recently I was talking with a retired state police investigator from another state and he had some really good insight. He said, you know, back when I was running my squad, like I taught every investigator to treat every death scene like a homicide first. Like it doesn't matter what it is, like old guy in a nursing home, woman found on the side of the highway or even a scene that looks a lot like a suicide.

[37:23] homicide to a suicide than to go the other way around. Right. So as a part of the reinvestigation, the coroner who ruled the death as suicide at the outset admitted that it was the first time he'd ever seen someone die by suicide with like a gunshot through the eye. So, you know, he was new to him, I guess, but like he said it seemed clear to him at the time, but he could like see looking back on it that maybe it was his inexperience. [37:53] to inexperience. Apparently, even at the time, like even though they thought it was probably a suicide, they tested his hands for gunshot residue. There was no gunshot residue on Wayne's body, like anywhere. Of course there wasn't. So yeah, I guess like I... [38:11] I don't know how you rule that a suicide system. [38:15] Like, I'll never figure that part out. It doesn't make sense to me. [38:18] So during his initial questioning, when police like originally investigated Wayne's case and decided it was a suicide, Dillon told police that his father was lonely. He drank too much. He was having problems with the business. And like some of that was true. Wayne did have known issues with alcohol. But at the time, he was in a new relationship. It was going well. They had this like spinoff aviation business that he spent years building for his sons and was close to opening its doors to the customers. [38:48] Like everything else in his life seemed like it was on the upswing. Right. [38:52] The morning his dad had killed himself, Dylan was cool as a cucumber speaking to police like on the morning that he supposedly found his dad dead. Calm, collected. I mean, I guess not so calm that it raised flags, but he was like definitely cool, definitely collected. It was enough to be notable. Yeah. Well, he had so much stuff that police like didn't really question him because as far as I could find, they never tested his hands for any kind of gunshot residue.

[39:22] have seen something there." [39:24] In the end, Dellen and Mark were tried and convicted in two separate trials for the murders of Tim Bozma and Laura Babcock. For their crimes, they'll serve two life sentences back to back with no possibility of parole for 50 years. For the death of his father, Dellen was found guilty and was given a third life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years to be served consecutively after his other sentences. [39:54] he's eligible for parole. And when that time comes, he'll be 102 years old. [39:59] Okay, so there's just, like, one thing that's kind of still unresolved for me. So... [40:04] I feel like we're all reasonably sure that Dellen himself was responsible for the death of his father and for Laura, right? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Okay, but... [40:14] Tim was a complete stranger to both guys. Like, what was the motive? And for that matter, [40:20] who actually pulled the trigger if they were both convicted. [40:24] See, that's the thing. The evidence doesn't tell us who pulled the trigger, but the Crown didn't necessarily have to prove that in court. They said that those details like who actually held the gun, who fired it didn't matter. It only mattered that Dillon and Mark both knew what was happening that night and that they were basically in it together. Yeah. [40:44] Overall, the case against both of them were largely circumstantial and tied together with like this digital footprint of texts and calls and web searches and photos, like all that stuff that they left behind. It's interesting because at the trial, they pretty much admitted to killing Tim Bozeman, but each of them were pointing the finger at the other. The majority of the defense's case was built on exactly this kind of finger pointing.

[41:14] that basically like Mark was high and he was shooting on accident. And Mark said he wasn't even in the truck when the gun was fired. He was falling behind in Dillon's SUV. Like the whole trial was like this back and forth and back and forth, finger pointing, finger pointing. But when Mark eventually went to trial, like again, these were separate trials, the courtroom also heard from two young men, like high school students who had bought drugs from Mark. They said that Mark actually confessed to them later that summer. [41:44] them that he had killed a girl, burned her body and threw her in a lake. So to even go back to your thing like, hey, we think Dellen killed his dad and Laura. I don't even 100 percent know about that. Mark might have had a bigger role in Laura's death as well. But we will never for sure know which is the truth or what the full truth is. And as for motive, people really struggled with this in the early days of Tim Bozeman's investigation. And frankly, I'm still struggling with it now. [42:14] it seems like the motive was simply a truck, a truck Dellen Millard could have easily purchased with cash if he wanted to. But if you're looking for a better why, and I mean, it's hard not to, there really isn't one to be found here. But I would say, you know, it's hard to find an upside in all of this. I would say like Tim died senselessly, but it was his case and the diligence of everyone who worked it that I think stopped a monster.

[42:44] his succession of thrills would have led him or how many victims he would have taken in his wake. [42:51] If you want to see the pictures from this case, those letters we talked about, if you want to see the sources that we used for this episode, you can find all of that on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. And we'll see you next week with a brand new episode. [43:21] Thank you. [43:44] you [43:45] you [43:47] *music* [43:49] you [43:52] Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? [44:00] Okay, Crime Junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that?

[44:18] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. [44:22] I think you'll love it too. [44:24] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.