TORONTO - Jurors deciding the fate of two men accused of murdering Laura Babcock and burning her body were never told that human remains were found in an animal incinerator belonging to one of the accused months after the Toronto woman vanished.

Those remains belonged to a 32-year-old man killed in May 2013 while trying to sell his pickup truck. The incinerator — called the Eliminator — was found on Dellen Millard's farm near Waterloo.

The Crown alleges that about 10 months before Millard and his friend Mark Smich incinerated Tim Bosma's body, they killed 23-year-old Babcock, who had become the odd woman out in a love triangle with Millard and his girlfriend, and burned her remains in the Eliminator.

Jurors in the Babcock murder trial, however, never heard about Bosma, or that Millard and Smich were convicted of first-degree murder in the death of the Ancaster man.

Millard, 32, of Toronto, and Mark Smich, 30, of Oakville, have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the presumed death of Babcock, whose body has not been found.

The two cases were vastly different, Justice Michael Code ruled before the Babcock trial got underway, and including Bosma's murder in the Babcock trial would be too prejudicial to the accused.

"It will be very difficult for the jury to objectively and dispassionately weigh the evidence relating to the Babcock case in these circumstances," Code wrote in his ruling.

Crown attorney Jill Cameron argued in court when the jury wasn't present that the Bosma murder was relevant to the Babcock case. She said evidence from that trial would prove that Babcock was in fact murdered and to rebut Millard's claim that she had innocently disappeared. Court heard that Babcock suffered from mental health issues, but was actively seeking treatment, sometimes spoke of suicide and was living a transient lifestyle, bouncing from homes and working as an escort.

Bosma's death, the Crown argued, would also help prove planning and deliberation, as well as refute any possible defence about innocent uses of the incinerator to dispose of animal carcasses or to burn metal and garbage.

The judge said he was partially swayed by the Crown's argument.

"The fact that the two accused used the very same incinerator some ten months later to dispose of Tim Bosma's remains, after he had been murdered, is a distinctive and unusual use of the incinerator, he wrote. "It legitimately helps to infer that Ms. Babcock is likely deceased and that her remains were likely disposed of in the same manner."

However, the judge said the Crown already had significant evidence that Babcock was dead and her remains burned in the incinerator.

Cameron, however, didn't give up.

On the last day of the prosecution's case — and in the absence of the jury — she delivered an impassioned argument in a last-ditch effort to convince the judge to allow her to present the facts of Bosma's murder to the jury.

She outlined a few facts for Code: On July 5, 2012, The Eliminator arrived at Millard's aircraft hangar in Waterloo, Ont. His mechanic sent him a photo of the massive machine, which Millard dubbed "the BBQ."

Shortly thereafter, Millard texted Smich: "'The BBQ is the last piece of the 3500 puzzle,' referring to the Dodge truck Millard wanted," Cameron said to the judge.

"What does the incinerator have to do with a theft of a truck if not to burn its owner?" Cameron told the judge.

"These two also burned another human being in that incinerator. That is a fact. And that makes it more likely that they burned Laura Babcock in that incinerator. Not a deer, not a pet, not a farm animal, not garbage — Miss Babcock's body."

At this point, Babcock's mother, Linda, broke down and cried softly. Court staff rushed to get her tissues. Babcock's father, Clayton, put his arm around his wife.

Cameron argued that Millard was using the judge's pretrial ruling on the Bosma evidence as a shield. She wanted to rebut Millard's evidence that the incinerator was only used for innocuous purposes.

"Innocent use is a joke, it's a lie," Cameron said.

"It's a difficult thing to conceive for 12 ordinary people that somebody could be so depraved to burn a human being in an incinerator. It's such a leap without the DNA, without the bones, just a poor resolution photo. That's my concern. It's a huge decision to get 12 people to believe that happened."

"I agree, it's quite an extraordinary set of facts," Code replied, but still ruled all the Bosma evidence out.

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Earlier in the trial while waiting for the jury to return, the judge brought Bosma's name up unprompted.

"You should tell the Bosmas that the Babcocks will need their support when the jury goes out," Code said to the Crown. "That's important."

Babcock's parents sat in the first row and smiled.

Ten things jurors at the Laura Babcock trial did not hear

TIM BOSMA — Millard and Smich were both convicted of first-degree murder last year in the death of Tim Bosma, an Ancaster, man who took the pair on a test drive while trying to sell his truck. The jury never heard Bosma's name, nor did they hear that the accused burned his remains in an animal incinerator also suspected of being used to dispose of Babcock's body.

WAYNE MILLARD — The jury didn't know that Millard also faces a first-degree murder charge in the death of his father, Wayne Millard, who died on Nov. 29, 2012 — about five months after Babcock's presumed death. His death was initially deemed a suicide, but police re-opened the investigation after arresting Dellen Millard for Bosma's death. The trial for Wayne Millard's death is scheduled to begin on March 20, 2018.

"THRILL-SEEKING" MOTIVE — The Crown, who alleged Babcock was killed for being the odd woman out in a love triangle with Millard and his girlfriend, wanted to introduce a second motivation for Babcock's killing — a "thrill seeking" motive that detailed Millard and Smich's lengthy criminal behaviour leading up to the young woman's disappearance and after. Prosecutors wanted to bring up alleged incidents over a two-and-a-half year period, dubbed "missions" by Millard, that included stealing plants, trailers, trafficking drugs and smuggling drugs into the country. Justice Michael Code, who presided over the trial, deemed it too prejudicial to the accused and ruled out anything referring to the pair's "broader criminal conspiracy" that the two discussed at length in text messages.

JUDGE-ALONE APPLICATION — Smich's lawyers asked the province's Attorney General for a judge-alone trial arguing the 30-year-old believed he could not receive a fair trial due to the intense publicity from the Bosma case. After the Attorney General refused, Smich's counsel brought a motion arguing that the decision violated his charter rights since proceeding with a jury would result in what he alleged would be an unfair trial. The judge dismissed the motion because it assumed the court could not find 12 fair and impartial jurors. Seven of 14 people selected to serve on the jury — 12 jurors and two alternates — had heard about Millard and Smich beforehand, but said they could set that information aside.

MILLARD'S EX-GIRLFRIEND — Jurors never heard directly from Millard's ex-girlfriend, a key party in his alleged motive to kill Babcock. The Crown cancelled a plane ticket purchased to bring Christina Noudga from Europe, where she now lives, to testify at the trial. Instead, the Crown showed the jury letters Millard had sent to Noudga advising her on what to tell authorities when they questioned her about Babcock's death. The jury did not hear that Millard wrote the letters from jail — where he was held for Bosma's killing — nor did it hear that Millard was not allowed to contact Noudga. Millard, who represented himself, also decided not to call Noudga to the witness stand.

SEVERANCE — In June, both Millard and Smich wanted to be tried separately. Millard wanted the case severed because he worried about a "cut-throat" defence where Smich would take the stand and blame him for Babcock's death. Smich's lawyers told the court they didn't intend to go this route, yet it remained a possibility. Smich wanted to sever the case for a few reasons, one being that Millard had caused what he said was an unreasonable delay in trial proceedings. The judge dismissed the severance application.

UNREASONABLE DELAY — Smich filed what's known as a Jordan application, citing unreasonable delay. He alleged Millard and the Crown in both the Babcock and Bosma matters caused unreasonable delays and his murder charge against Babcock should be stayed. The judge dismissed Smich's application, having determined the net delay was 29 months when the Bosma case was factored in. The Supreme Court has deemed that cases in Superior Court should be heard within 30 months.

CROSS EXAMINATIONS — Crown prosecutors argued to have an appointed lawyer cross-examine three witnesses close to Babcock rather than having Millard question them. Those three witnesses, Babcock's father, her ex-boyfriend and Smich's ex-girlfriend, had expressed concern about being grilled on the stand by Millard. The judge denied the request, citing Millard's right to conduct his own defence personally, but recognized it would be difficult for all three.

GUNS — The jury heard from Matthew Ward-Jackson, who said he sold Millard a gun days before Babcock disappeared. Jurors didn't hear that Millard bought a different handgun — used to kill Bosma — from Ward-Jackson on Feb. 10, 2012, and then bought another handgun from him in Sepstember 2012. The Crown wanted the February gun deal as evidence to provide context that Millard knew Ward-Jackson could get him a gun because the man had sold him a gun already. It proved planning and deliberation, the Crown said. The jury eventually heard Ward-Jackson confirm Millard's previous "interest" in firearms but no specifics.

SHACKLES — The judge allowed both accused to sit at counsel's tables, rather than in the prisoner boxes, largely because Millard was representing himself. The judge had court staff set up black curtains on the outside of the tables in order to shield the jury from seeing Millard and Smich's leg shackles.

- Guns, murder and the 'garage confession': What the Laura Babcock jury wasn't told