Court upholds convictions against Babcock’s killers, Millard loses all three appeals

Thomas Dungey (Mark Smich’s attorney) (left to right), Ravin Pillay (Dellen Millard’s attorney), Judge Michael Code, Crown Attorney Jill Cameron, Dellen Millard, Mark Smich, and Laura Babcock’s mother, Linda, are shown in this courtroom sketch of the sentencing hearing for Millard and Smich in Toronto, Feb. 12, 2018. (The Canadian Press/Alexandra Newbould)

The top of Ontario court has upheld convictions against Dellen Millard and Mark Smich for killing a 23-year-old woman, pointing to successive dismissed appeals this week against the multiple killers.

The decision in Laura Babcock’s murder case comes a day after the Court of Appeal for Ontario upheld convictions against the two men for the 2013 murder of 32-year-old Tim Bosma.

For Millard, the heir to an aviation fortune turned notorious killer, the decision ends a trio of failed appeals after the court also rejected his attempt to have his conviction for his father’s murder overturned.

In a 125-paragraph decision on Babcock’s appeal, the courtrejected Millard’s argument that he was being denied a fair trial because he needed more time to hire a lawyer and rejected Smich’s argument that the jury was not properly instructed as to how the evidence between the two men had to be separated.

During the trial for Babock’s 2017 murder, prosecutors argued that the once close friends who became co-defendants were motivated to kill Babcock in order to settle a love triangle between her, Millard, and his then-girlfriend.

Leading up to Babcock’s disappearance in July 2012, Millard sent text messages to his then-girlfriend telling her that he would hurt Babcock and remove her from their lives, before acquiring a gun and an incinerator.