Susan Clairmont: Millard victim pushed to the margins again in Toronto police review
I remember sitting on the floor at a packed news conference at Toronto police headquarters in June 2013 listening to a homicide detective describe Laura Babcock.
She was mentally unwell. An escort. Transient. Troubled. She used drugs.
She had, by this point, been reported missing nearly a year earlier.
In actuality, she wasn't just missing. She had been murdered and incinerated by serial killer Dellen Millard and accomplice Mark Smich.
Millard would go on to murder his father, Wayne Millard, by shooting him in the face in his own bed. The pair would then murder Ancaster's Tim Bosma, taking him for a test drive of the truck he was selling, shooting him within minutes of leaving his driveway and then burning his remains.
That high-profile media conference was held by Toronto police to announce they were taking a second look at the cases of Laura and Wayne, both of which fell under Toronto's jurisdiction.
Laura's missing person file had become dormant.
Wayne's death had been ruled a suicide.
Had Toronto police done a proper investigation into Laura's disappearance, perhaps Wayne and Tim might still be alive.
By now - the day of that news conference - Hamilton police had arrested Millard and Smich and charged them with Tim's murder.
Listening to the detective at the podium, it struck me that the debasing portrait he was painting of Laura, 23, was not meant to elicit new tips or further the investigation. It was offered up as an excuse for why police had failed to do their job when she first went missing.
Nevermind that her family was frantic. Or that her former boyfriend told police he suspected Millard was behind her disappearance. Or that investigators never interviewed Millard or checked Laura's phone records, which showed her last call was to the burgeoning serial killer.
The implication was that Laura was the kind of person who disappeared.
Toronto police neglected their duty to properly investigate Laura's case because she was a young woman who lived on the margins of society. She was powerless. She was vulnerable.
She wasn't a priority.
Flash forward to now and she also wasn't even mentioned in a report released Tuesday called Missing and Missed: A Report of the Independent Civilian Review into Missing Person Investigations."
The 161-page document was ordered by the Toronto police services board and carried out by Gloria J. Epstein, a former judge with the Court of Appeal for Ontario.
An examination of missing person investigations contributes to a larger conversation," the report says, one that is about the role of police in serving our diverse communities."
The review focuses on the missing-person cases of men preyed on by a serial killer who targeted victims in Toronto's Gay Village. It also mentions other victims: one trans woman and several Indigenous men who were missing and found dead.
But nothing of Laura.
I asked the Toronto police board why she wasn't included. I was told the mandate of the review was guided by a working group selected after input from organizations that work with sex workers, harm reduction and homeless populations and groups representing Indigenous people and LGBTQ communities, including the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention." The group then drafted its terms of reference, which the police board approved.
The terms were for the review to look at the process by which people are reported missing (or not), the manner in which missing person reports are received and investigated by the service, and the relationship between the Toronto Police Service, the LGBTQ2S+ communities, and other communities as is relevant to missing person investigations."
Laura's disappearance occurred during the time men were disappearing from the Gay Village.
The report says: Our goal must be to ensure that no one is treated in a less adequate way because of marginalization and vulnerabilities whether based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, colour, ethnic origin, immigration status, homelessness or being under housed, socioeconomic status, or mental health."
I am grateful the report included the victims it did. Their loved ones and communities deserve answers - we all do - and Toronto police need to be held accountable and be forced to do better.
But I am disappointed Laura was once again pushed to the margins.
She deserves inclusion and there is much we can learn from the mistakes that were made.
Susan Clairmont is a Hamilton-based crime, court and social justice columnist at The Spectator. Reach her via email: sclairmont@thespec.com