Laura Babcock, a 23-year-old University of Toronto graduate and aspiring actress, was described by friends as bubbly and fun-loving.

Although her body was never found, Dellen Millard, 32, and Mark Smich, 30, were found guilty of her 1st degree murder on December 16, 2017. The two had already been convicted for the murder of Tim Bosma and were sentenced to serve 25 years each before they are eligible for parole. Their sentences for the murder of Laura Babock will run consecutively, meaning they must serve 50 years before they are eligible for parole.

2008-09: Laura Babcock & Dellen Millard

Laura Babcock met Dellen Millard, a young millionaire and heir to Millardair, an aviation company based in Waterloo, at Toronto’s Brunswick House pub in late 2008 – early 2009. They dated for awhile, ultimately becoming friends and occasional lovers.

2010: Laura Babcock & Shawn Lerner

Laura met businessman Shawn Lerner who she dates for about 18 months before breaking up at Christmas in 2011. Laura and Lerner become very close friends and he will later play an integral part at her murder trial.

2011-2012: Laura’s mental health spiral

During a hospital visit in August, 2011, Laura told healthcare workers she cried all the time and suffered from anxiety and depression. She also mentioned having an intense fear of death that could last for months at a time. She admitted to self-harm.

By April, 2012, Laura had been to the hospital over a dozen times with mental health issues.

2012: The love triangle – Dellen Millard, Christina Noudga & Laura Babcock

In the meantime, Dellen Millard developed a relationship with new girlfriend, Christina Noudga, who became jealous of his relationship with Laura.

On February 26, 2012, Noudga texts Laura: Happy birthday. A year ago today was the first time I slept with Dellen.

Laura replies: That’s fine, I slept with him a couple of weeks ago.

After the exchange between his ex-girlfriend and current girlfriend, Millard sends the following text to Laura: You are harmful to me. please don’t try to contact me until you’ve made some huge leaps of self discovery. as i said before, good luck with life.

Millard would later say in court that he and Noudga had an open relationship and that she was aware he slept with other women. However, a text that Laura sent to a mutual friend, Andrew Michalski, tells a different story. She wrote the following: ya dells (Dellen) def not a fan of me. He told me he told xtina (Christina) when he slept with me before. Erg these ppl cause [so] much unwanted drama for me. and bring me into it.

On April 17, 2012, Millard texted Noudga that he was going to take care of Laura Babcock by writing: first im going to hurt her. Then I’ll make her leave. I will remove her from our lives.

June, 2012: Shawn Lerner steps in to help Laura Babcock

By June of 2012, Laura was homeless and working for Last Minute Escorts in downtown Toronto. She and her dog, Lacey, couch surfed as she looked for a permanent place to stay.

Lerner put Laura up in a west end motel for a few nights and gave her an iPad so she can search for apartments. He would later say that Laura had told him about her escort work, but she seemed new to it and told him there was no sex involved.

“The way she explained it to me, it was sort of . . . men looking to have a pretty girl on their arm,” he said at trial, “She may have believed it. I was obviously not convinced that might be all there was to it.”

Friends said that Laura had also developed a cocaine habit at this time.

July, 2012: Dellen Millard murders Laura Babcock, Mark Smich helps to dispose of her body

In the days before Laura’s disappearance, she and Millard’s cell phones made contact over 100 times. Then on evening of July 3, 2012, Laura traveled to the Kipling subway station where Millard picked her up and drove her to his home in Etobicoke. Her phone ceased all activity about an hour later.

Millard’s friend and accomplice, Mark Smich, received a text from Millard around 7:30 p.m. that read: I’m on a mission, back in 1 hr.

The next day, the iPad Shawn Lerner had given Laura is renamed “Mark’s iPad” through a connection to Millard’s computer and Millard takes a cell phone picture of an object wrapped in a blue tarp at his farm in Waterloo. Later that day, he orders a rush delivery order for a new mattress.

Millard had previously instructed his mechanic, Shane Schlatman, to order a commercial farm animal incinerator which arrives at the Waterloo hangar on July 5th, and Schlatman, Millard, and Smich build a trailor to move the it to Millard’s farm in Waterloo.

On July 14, 2012, both Lerner and Laura Babcock’s family file a missing person’s report with police. Lerner would later say the police did not seem concerned about Laura’s disappearance, even less so when they learned about her mental illness and escort work.

On July 23, 2012, Millard texts Smich “Bbq has run its warm up, it’s ready for meat,” and then does a Google search on temperatures for cremation. He takes pictures on his phone that include Smich with the incinerator that evening. Objects seen in the incinerator are described as human bones by a forensic expert later at trial.

July 27, 2012: Dellen Millard tells Shawn Lerner that he should” have no reasonable expectation” of finding Laura Babcock

In late July, Laura’s last phone bill arrived at her parent’s house. Her worried parents contact her friends, one of whom is Lerner, who noticed the last calls made on Laura’s phone before it went dead were to Millard.

Lerner texted Millard: I’m not looking to point a finger at anyone but we’re concerned about Laura and it looks like you were the last person to correspond with her.

Millard ignored the his first few texts, but finally responded that he didn’t know where she was.

Lerner asked Millard to discuss the situation in person, and on July 27th the two met up at Starbucks. Millard told Lerner that Laura was a cocaine addict and was hounding him to get drugs. Millard said he “vehemently” refused the request, adding that Lerner should “have no reasonable expectation of finding her.”

August, 2012: Mark Smich confesses to murder

Smich invited friends Desi Liberatore and David Cronin inside the garage at his mother’s home in Oakville to smoke pot. Smich rapped lyrics for the men that police would find later written on Laura’s old iPad. 

The bitch started off all skin and bone/ Now the bitch lay on some ashy stone
Last time I saw her’s outside the home/ And if you go swimming you can find her phone.

The men would later testify that Smich then confessed that he “killed a girl, burned a body, and disposed of it in a lake.”

May, 2013: Dellen Millard & Mark Smich charged with 1st degree murder of Tim Bosma

It wasn’t until after Millard and Smich were charged with the murder of Tim Bosma that police opened an investigation into the disappearance of Laura Babcock and reopened an investigation into the death of Wayne Millard, Dellen Millard’s father, who’s death had been ruled a suicide.

Dec. 2013: Police find Laura Babcock’s belongings at Mark Smich’s home

On a search of Mark Smich’s home in Oakville, police find Laura’s red duffel bag with an ID tag handwritten by her, and the black iPad that was given to her by Lerner and renamed Mark’s iPad after she was killed.