#smich

Maybe this was how her husband was murdered.

How his final minutes unfolded.

His body slumped over the dashboard of his own truck, blood everywhere.

Maybe the words coming from the lips of this man accused of killing her husband are true. Perhaps they can answer her questions. Provide facts she can some day share with their daughter.

Or maybe not.

From the witness box Mark Smich tells his story of how Tim Bosma’s life ended. And from her spot in the courtroom — front row, centre — Tim’s widow Sharlene listens. And listens. For an entire day. Clutching tissue, bowing her head, weeping, she hears Smich say he didn’t do it — it was the other guy.

The details of his testimony are so raw, so graphic that Tim’s mother, Mary, rushes from the courtroom crying, a victim support worker by her side.

This is the first time the Bosma family has heard these details of Tim’s murder. The shooting. The incineration. This is the first time either of his two accused killers has spoken. The other, Dellen Millard, has elected not to testify, as is his right.

Smich’s decision to take the stand is a risky one. Most accused killers don’t do it. And with what the jury knows about Smich — his drug use, his drinking, his laziness — his reputation doesn’t make a good impression.

And now he is opened up to cross-examination, first by Millard’s legal team and then by the Crown.

Yet Wednesday morning, after a brief opening address in which defence lawyer Thomas Dungey reminds the jurors that the presumption of innocence stays with his client throughout the trial, Smich is called upon to testify. It is not a surprise and yet it is somehow still a shock. The jammed courtroom buzzes, the Bosmas stiffen their spines and within minutes #Bosma and #Smich are trending on Twitter.

In khaki pants with no belt, red checked shirt, his jet-black hair perfectly slicked down, Smich rises from the table he has sat at through the 14 weeks of this trial and walks past Millard who sits just beside him. Millard swivels to keep his eyes on his former pal. Smich continues past the jurors to the box where he takes the Bible in his hand and swears to tell the truth.

Smich, 28, and Millard, 30, are on trial for Tim’s first-degree murder.

On the evening of May 6, 2013 Smich and Millard walked up the long driveway of the Bosma house after parking nearby, Smich tells the court.

They meet 32-year-old Tim and climb into the Dodge Ram 3500 pickup he is selling. Millard gets behind the wheel, Tim is in the front passenger seat and Smich is behind him.

The plan, says Smich, is to test drive the truck, “scope it out” and then, if it is what Millard wants, come back to steal it.

They stop at Millard’s parked Yukon, he says. This way, Millard tells Tim, when the test drive is over they can just go their separate ways. Following Millard’s orders, Smich testifies, he hops into the Yukon and follows Tim’s truck down the road.

A little while later, Millard pulls over.

“It was a sudden swerve off to the side of the road. I pull over behind him,” the court hears.

Millard gets out, walks back to Smich. “He appeared to be putting a gun into his satchel,” Smich says.

“I’m taking the truck,” says Millard, according to Smich’s testimony. Smich walks to the truck.

“That’s when I saw a bullet hole in the window and Mr. Bosma lying head first on the dashboard.”

And Dell, well, “He looked mad. Like a lunatic.”

“There was blood all over the left side of Mr. Bosma around his head. There was a lot of blood,” Smich testifies.

Smich is confused and scared. He tells the court he has never seen Millard like this before. He does everything Millard tells him to do. Except help lift Tim’s body into The Eliminator, Millard’s livestock incinerator. Smich’s bad shoulder was acting up, plus, he didn’t want to, he testifies.

Sometimes, after three years of news stories and hundreds of hours of evidence and endless social media chatter, this homicide plays out like a plot. A page-turner to be devoured, to be critiqued, to be eagerly anticipated in that “true crime” sort of way.

But in Courtroom 600, this got real. Achingly, frighteningly real. Certainly for the Bosmas. And perhaps for Smich and Millard too as their anticipated cutthroat defence comes to fruition.

Smich speaks softly, slowly. Though he has kept his eyes down or straight ahead throughout the trial, from the stand he glances often at the jurors. Engaging them. Speaking to them. His vocabulary is simple. He admits when he can’t remember dates or times. He talks about selling drugs, using weed, his mom’s breast cancer, working at a croissant shop.

Oddly, he does not conjure the visceral disgust that Christina Noudga’s snotty arrogance elicited when she was on the witness stand last week, testifying about her ex-boyfriend Millard and events that led up to her being charged with accessory after the fact to murder.

But does Smich’s evidence have the ring of truth?

Late in the day, Dungey leans hard on the lectern and asks Smich why, in the days after Tim’s murder, he didn’t do anything, didn’t call the police.

Smich stammers. Mumbles. “I was torn between two places. I couldn’t come to terms with my involvement.” He wants to attend his sister’s wedding, he says, because his family means the world to him.

“Mr. Bosma meant the world to his family,” his own lawyer thunders back at him.

“I understand that,” Smich says quietly.

And Tim’s widow sobs a little more.