HAMILTON – A witness at the trial of two men accused of killing Tim Bosma says an encounter with a reporter led him to call police about a trailer he’d seen north of Toronto days after the Hamilton man disappeared.
Dellen Millard, 30, of Toronto, and Mark Smich, 28, of Oakville, Ont., have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges in the death of Bosma, whose body was found burned beyond recognition three years ago.
Frank Cianfarani says he noticed a large trailer parked at the home of Madeleine Burns – Millard’s mother – in the early morning hours of May 9, 2013.
Cianfarani testified that he called police after a “snooping” reporter came around showing a picture of Millard with the trailer in the background.
Bosma disappeared on the night of May 6, 2013 after taking two strangers on a test drive of a black Dodge Ram pickup truck he was trying to sell.
The Crown alleges he was shot inside his truck and that his body was later burned in an incinerator.
Cianfarani told court Tuesday he had met Millard on several occasions, but hadn’t seen him at his mother’s house in Kleinburg, the small town north of Toronto, in years.
Another neighbour, Gianluca Consiglio, testified he saw the trailer and a pickup truck across the street, and said he remembers the incident because the lights of the truck were shining into his bedroom as he was about to go to sleep.
He said he didn’t see anyone outside and couldn’t see inside the pickup truck, but remembered the front door of Burns’ house being open in the early hours of May 9.
A Rogers Communications employee testified she received a request from Hamilton police about a missing man and provided investigators with a phone number registered to Millard and locations of the phone on May 6, 2013.
Danielle Fortier said the phone pinged off a cell tower in Ancaster, Ont. – Bosma lived in that part of Hamilton – at 9:02 p.m. when the phone received a text.
She said the same phone pinged off towers in Brantford, Ont., at 9:44 p.m. when the phone received two more texts.
Court earlier heard Bosma disappeared shortly after 9 p.m. when his wife, Sharlene Bosma, said she saw her husband drive off in his truck with two men.