Convicted killer wants murder charge in another case stayed due to delays

TORONTO – A lawyer for a convicted killer who is also accused of murdering a Toronto woman says the murder charge in that case should be stayed because it’s been nearly three years since the charge was laid.

Thomas Dungey told court Thursday he will make the formal request in an application to court because his client, Mark Smich, has to be tried within a reasonable time.

A Supreme Court of Canada ruling in 2016 concluded delays must not exceed 30 months in superior courts and 18 months for cases at the provincial level.

Smich, 29, of Oakville, Ont., and his former friend, Dellen Millard, 31, of Toronto, were charged in April 2014 with first-degree murder in the death of Laura Babcock.

The pair was convicted last year of first-degree murder in the death Tim Bosma, a 32-year-old Hamilton man who vanished in 2013 after taking two strangers for a test drive in a truck he was trying to sell.

The trial in Babcock’s case is scheduled to begin on Sept. 11 — about 41 months after the murder charges against Smich and Millard were laid.

Millard is also charged with first-degree murder in the 2012 death of his father, Wayne Millard.