A former police forensic officer has told a murder trial that one of two men accused of killing a young Toronto woman five years ago promised in a text message to ``hurt her'' and ``make her leave.''
Jim Falconer, a recently retired detective sergeant from the Ontario Provincial Police's technical crimes unit, is testifying in the trial of Dellen Millard and Mark Smich, who are charged with first-degree murder in the presumed death of Laura Babcock, whose body has not been found.
Millard, 32, of Toronto, and Smich, 30, of Oakville, Ont., have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The Crown alleges the pair killed Babcock and burned her remains in a large incinerator in 2012 because she had become a problem for Millard and his girlfriend at the time, Christina Noudga.
Falconer methodically went through a trove of data retrieved from three computers seized by police at Millard's home that included backup copies of his phones.
In a series of messages Falconer read in court, Millard and Noudga compared Babcock to the herpes virus, in that it never goes away.