Bosma trial: Millardair employee describes texts

HAMILTON -- A man charged with first-degree murder said in a text a few days after the disappearance of a father he is accused of killing that he felt badly for the victim's family, his trial heard Monday.

In testimony in Ontario Superior Court, Shane Schlatman said Dellen Millard texted him three days after Tim Bosma vanished to express sympathy with what "that family" was going through.

Millard, heir to the aviation company Millardair started by his grandfather, was referring to the Bosmas, Schlatman testified.

Asked by Crown attorney Craig Fraser why he didn't ask Millard about Bosma's whereabouts, the former Millardair employee said it didn't cross his mind that his employer might have had anything to do with Bosma's disappearance.

"The Dellen Millard I know is a rich guy," Schlatman told court. "He's a nice guy. I would never have connected him with this."

Bosma, of Ancaster, Ont., disappeared on the night of May 6, 2013, after taking two strangers on a test drive of the black Dodge Ram pickup truck he was trying to sell. His body was found more than a week later, burned beyond recognition.

Schlatman testified Millard also texted him to say he wanted to return Bosma's truck to the family but was worried how it would play out.

"Ya. That's a tough call man. Have you considered goin (sic) to cops? Tell em ya bought this truck but you think its warm," Schlatman said in texts to Millard screened for the court.

"I told him that because I thought he got into a stolen truck," Schlatman testified.

Schlatman identified Millard and Smich in a security video from the Millardair hangar taken hours after Bosma disappeared from his home. The video shows a tall man and a shorter man walking through the hangar at 1:42 a.m. on May 7, 2013. A dog follows them. The dog was Pedo, who Millard had taken from the streets of Mexico, court heard.

Millard also told Schlatman to strip the rest of Bosma's truck to prepare it for a paint job, the witness said.

The Crown alleges Bosma was shot at point-blank range inside his truck and his body burned in a large animal incinerator, called The Eliminator.

Bosma's truck was found at Millard's mother's house north of Toronto. The incinerator was discovered at a farm Millard owned near Waterloo, Ont.

Blood inside the truck and on the outside of the incinerator was likely Bosma's -- with the odds of his being someone else's pegged by one forensic scientist one in 18 quadrillion.

Millard of Toronto, and Mark Smich of Oakville, Ont., have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in Bosma's death.