Prosecutors argue Laura Babcock was murdered for role in love triangle

By The Canadian Press

Prosecutors say a Toronto woman who disappeared five years ago was murdered and burned in an incinerator for being the odd woman out in a love triangle.

Crown lawyer Jill Cameron has laid out the prosecution’s first-degree murder case against Dellen Millard, 32, of Toronto and Mark Smich, 30, of Oakville, Ont., in the death of 23-year-old Laura Babcock, whose body has never been found.

Cameron has told the jury they will hear evidence that shows Babcock told Millard’s girlfriend she was sleeping with him.

The Crown alleges Millard bought an incinerator shortly before Babcock went missing in the summer of 2012 and used it in late July to burn Babcock’s remains.

Millard and Smich have pleaded not guilty.

CityNews court reporter Marianne Boucher is at the trial, reporting live via Twitter. See her tweets below, updated in real-time.

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Cameron walked the jury through some of the evidence the prosecution will call, including text messages between Millard and his girlfriend.

“First I’m going to hurt her, then I’ll make her leave. I will remove her from our lives,” Millard allegedly texted Christina Noudga.

Babcock was allegedly murdered at Millard’s home on July 3 or 4, 2012, then her remains burned a few weeks later in a large incinerator, named “The Eliminator” at his farm near Waterloo, Ont., court heard.

Cameron showed the jury a video of Smich rapping.

“The b—h started off all skin and bone, now the b—h lay on some ashy stone,” Smich sings in the video.

“Last time I saw her she was outside the home. If you go swimming you can find her phone.”

Clayton Babcock, the missing woman’s father, was first to testify, saying he hadn’t heard from his daughter since speaking with her briefly on the phone on June 30, 2012.

That same day, he said, Laura dropped off her dog, Lacey, and some money, saying she was going on a trip with a man. Nobody has heard from her since.

His daughter didn’t like the rules of the house and she spent time living at friends’ places in the months before her disappearance, he said.

After about a week of no contact, Clayton Babcock said his family filed a missing person’s report.

 

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