Closing arguments have begun in the Laura Babcock murder trial, with one of the two accused, Dellen Millard, being the first to give the jury his final thoughts on Tuesday.
Millard, who along with friend Mark Smich is charged in the 23-year-old's murder, says there is reason to believe that she is still alive. He told the jury that at least one witness had spoken to her since she was declared missing, and that she was spotted in a store in Toronto several months after her disappearance.
The Crown alleges Millard, 32, and Smich, 30, killed Babcock on July 3 or 4, 2012 because she was the odd woman out in a love triangle with Millard and his girlfriend. Prosecutors believe the pair burned the woman's remains in a large animal incinerator that was later found on Millard's farm near Waterloo.
Both men have pleaded no guilty to the first-degree murder of Babcock, whose body has not been found.
Millard tried to convince the jury Babcock may have had another phone, after a friend mentioned during the trial that she had spoken with her on July 4, 2012, but phone records show the last call made was to voicemail the day before.
He also tried to convince the jury that much of the evidence presented during the trial has been circumstantial, including several texts that prove she didn't mean anything to him. As a result, he asked the jury, why he would kill her. He also questioned a number of pieces of evidence, saying they didn't all add up.
He summed it up by saying he understands that members of the jury might not approve of the way he's lived his life, or treated certain people, but he's asking them to put all that aside.
With files from The Canadian Press