Wayne Millard was a respected 71-year-old Canadian aviation executive who carried on a family legacy with passion and vision. His father, Carl, had founded the charter airline Millardair in the 1960s, and Wayne, who earned his pilot's license on his 17th birthday, was instrumental in its success from the beginning. After his father's death in 2006, Wayne took the helm of the company.
By 2012, he was pouring his energy and resources into an ambitious new chapter for the business, relocating it to a massive new hangar at the Waterloo International Airport and transforming it into an aircraft maintenance and repair operation. Those who knew him described Wayne as excited and positive about this new venture, which he hoped to one day pass on to his only son, Dellen.
The bright future Wayne was building came to a sudden and tragic end on November 29, 2012. He was found dead in his bed at his home on Maple Gate Court in Toronto, having sustained a single, fatal gunshot to the eye. His son, Dellen, who lived with him, claimed to have discovered the body. He called his mother, Madeleine Burns, who then called 911. Dellen told police that his father had been depressed, an alcoholic, and under immense stress from the new business venture. Based on the initial scene and his son's account, Wayne Millard's death was ruled a suicide.
This ruling, however, would be revisited. In May 2013, Dellen Millard was arrested and charged with the murder of Tim Bosma, a Hamilton man who disappeared after taking two men for a test drive of a truck he was selling. This high-profile investigation led police to re-examine other suspicious deaths connected to Millard, including the disappearance of his former girlfriend, Laura Babcock, in July 2012, and the death of his own father. The investigation into Wayne's death was officially reopened, and in April 2014, Dellen Millard was charged with first-degree murder in the death of his father.
Dellen Millard's trial for his father's murder took place in 2018 before a judge alone, as his notoriety from the Bosma and Babcock cases made finding an impartial jury impossible. The prosecution argued that Dellen killed his father to gain control of the family fortune, believing his inheritance was being squandered on the new aviation business he had no interest in running. Evidence showed Dellen had purchased the.38-calibre revolver used in the killing months earlier, and his DNA was found on the gun's handle. Cell phone records placed him at his father's house in the early morning hours of November 29, contradicting his alibi that he had spent the night at a friend's house. The defense maintained that Wayne was a depressed alcoholic who took his own life.
On September 24, 2018, Justice Maureen Forestell found Dellen Millard guilty of the first-degree murder of his father. In her ruling, she stated, "I am satisfied that Dellen Millard killed his father by shooting him in the left eye as he slept. I can find no theory consistent with innocence." She concluded that Dellen had fabricated his alibi to conceal his involvement in the "planned and deliberate killing." The judge noted that Dellen took advantage of his father's vulnerability and betrayed his trust.
For the murder of his father, Dellen Millard received his third conviction for first-degree murder, having already been found guilty of killing Tim Bosma and Laura Babcock. He was sentenced to a third consecutive life sentence, with no possibility of parole for 25 years. Though an appeal court later rejected his attempt to overturn the conviction, a Supreme Court ruling against consecutively stacked parole ineligibility periods means he will be eligible to apply for parole after 25 years. Wayne's cousin, Peter Roberts, expressed his relief at the verdict, stating, "Wayne needed justice and he got it today. He never committed suicide. He wanted that business to fly and he wanted Dellen to pick up the reins." The investigation revealed that the man who dedicated his life to his family's aviation legacy was murdered by the very son he was building it for.
