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Canada  

Guilty in grisly murder

Two men accused of killing a young Toronto woman and burning her body have been found guilty of first-degree murder.

Dellen Millard and Mark Smich had pleaded not guilty to the charges related to the death of 23-year-old Laura Babcock, whose body has not been found.

Babcock's family and several jurors cried as the verdict was read out, amid quiet cheers from the courtroom.

The Crown alleges Babcock was killed in July 2012 because she had become the odd woman out in a love triangle with Millard and his girlfriend.

Prosecutors have said Millard and Smich planned the murder for months and covered up their crime by burning Babcock's body in an animal incinerator that was later found on Millard's farm.

Millard, 32, of Toronto, and Smich, 30, of Oakville, Ont., have said the Crown failed to prove that Babcock is dead.

The two men were convicted last year of killing Tim Bosma, a 32-year-old Ancaster, Ont., man who disappeared in May 2013 while trying to sell his pickup truck, and burning his body in Millard's incinerator.

The pair was automatically sentenced to life imprisonment without a chance of parole for 25 years in Babcock's death, and the jury now must weigh whether they will serve their sentences consecutively, meaning they would have to wait longer for parole eligibility.

A sentencing hearing will likely take place sometime in the new year.



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