Smoke, crackling sound coming from incinerator in 2012, Smich’s ex tells Babcock trial
TORONTO — The ex-girlfriend of one of two men accused of murdering a young Toronto woman and burning her remains in a massive animal incinerator saw the large machine in operation the year the alleged killing occurred, a court heard Friday.
Marlena Meneses told a jury she was ordered not to pay attention one night in 2012 as Dellen Millard and Mark Smich worked with the device known as The Eliminator at an aircraft hangar owned by Millard in Waterloo, Ont.
Meneses — who started dating Smich in the spring of 2012 — left to take Millard’s dog for a walk and to smoke some marijuana as the two accused operated the machine, court heard. When she walked back to the hangar, she saw the black incinerator outside, she said.
“I saw smoke coming out of it and they had a crackling noise,” Meneses said, noting that the machine ran for hours but she didn’t know what Millard and Smich were burning.