Bosma Day 27

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After a long break for Easter and legal arguments, the Tim Bosma jury was back in court to hear evidence. Today Javier Villada was back on the stand, he was Dellen Millard’s handyman, who did renovations on Millard’s various properties. He testified earlier that he had met the other accused, Mark Smich many times, had even hired him on job sites. But today in court he could not see Mark Smich, even when told he was sitting at the table beside Millard.

Villada said he told his boss, Dellen Millard, that he couldn’t give Mark Smich any more work. On the one day he gave Smich a job, Smich took no instructions and too many breaks. He was then asked to point Smich out in court, and he seemed mystified. Millard’s lawyer moved out of the way and Villada was still stumped.

“That’s not him,” he said, as if astounded.

Villada agreed Mark Smich has changed a lot since his arrest in 2013. Then, witnesses have said he always wore the same baggy clothing. In court, Smich seems fit and is impeccably groomed, with what looks like gel in his hair. He usually wears a button-down shirt under a knitted sweater.

Later an officer testified about searching Smich’s room in his mother’s house in Oakville, a room previously described as at odds with the rest of the tidy house. There, police found a yellow toolbox, it was brought to court and shown to the jury. It’s the same toolbox that was tested and found to have gunshot residue inside.

Villada also testified about his boss, Dellen Millard and how he believed Millard owed him about $20 000 when he was arrested. He was one of the employees who got a text message from Millard to stay away from the Waterloo airplane hangar early on May 7, 2013, hours after Tim Bosma was abducted. He said the message was a surprise, but that “it surprised me more when he was arrested.”

Just before Millard was arrested for Tim Bosma’s murder, Villada was given odd instructions, to get garden hoses and run water into the yard all day at Millard’s property on Riverside drive in Toronto. After 10 hours he was told to turn the water off.

In cross examination Millard’s lawyer suggested his client was trying to see if the ground would flood, it was in preparation for building a deck but we haven’t really been given an explanation of why Millard wanted water run into the yard all day.

The jury is back in the morning.