Dellen Millard farm searched by OPP haz-mat team
Police officers, including members of the Ontario Provincial Police haz-mat team, are continuing their work at the Waterloo Region farm of Dellen Millard, who is accused in the killing of Tim Bosma.
“There are approximately 54 containers or metal drums in the barn,” said OPP Sgt. Meshach Parsons of the urban search and rescue, chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive response team (UCRT).“We don’t know what chemicals are in these drums, or what’s in the drums for that matter, if there’s evidence in there or just chemicals.”
The UCRT team specializes in presumptive testing of hazardous materials, according to OPP Const. Marc Walsh.
Eleven UCRT officers and a UCRT medic are at the farm, as well as three Toronto Police Service forensics officers and about six members of the North Dumfries Fire Department.
Parsons said that the fire department was there to provide support in case chemicals were spilled on OPP officers.
Some barrels were as large as 45 gallons, others smaller than five gallons, according to Parsons.
Empty barrels will be brought out of the barn, and samples will be taken from full barrels.
Parsons confirmed the UCRT unit was called Thursday to go to the farm, and the team is hoping to wrap up its work Friday.
One officer at the farm told CBC News that some of the barrels had labels saying they contained kerosene and airplane fuel.
The officers have brought three large white trucks and three smaller trucks with trailers attached to the them.
"I have no idea why they sent that team there or what they are looking for," Millard's lawyer, Deepak Paradkar, wrote to CBC News in an email.
It marks the fifth-straight day that police have been searching Millard's farm in relation to the disappearance of Toronto woman Laura Babcock.
Babcock, 23, had a relationship with Millard, according to police. She was reported missing in June 2012.
Millard, 28, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 32-year-old Bosma, who lived in Ancaster, Ont., with his wife and small child. He was last seen leaving his home with two men who wanted to take a test drive in a truck he had advertised for sale online.
Mark Smich, 25, of Oakville, Ont., is also charged with first-degree murder in the case.
