 Laura Babcock had a life that was seemingly perfect. She'd just gotten a college degree, was surrounded by friends who loved her, and she was on the path to secure the job of her dreams. But all of that changed when she got unexpectedly involved in a love triangle that she couldn't get out of. Laura was blissfully unaware that the man that she'd fallen for had a series of incredibly dark secrets that he'd been keeping from her. Researchers claim that Laura was subjected to an unspeakable crime, and it ultimately resulted in her losing her life and being disposed of in the most creative yet heartless way you could imagine. Detectives spent months collecting evidence and investigating this crime, and in the end, two criminals were placed behind bars, but they're not anyone you would have expected. This is a story that is bizarre from beginning to end. This is the twisted case of Laura Babcock. 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Give it a try and let me know what you find. You never know we'd actually be related somewhere along the line. Thanks to MyHeritage for sponsoring today's video. Laura Babcock was just 23 years old in the summer of 2012. Laura had a core group of friends that she depended on, as well as a family who cared deeply for her. She was known for having the most sincere love for dogs, but she also had aspirations of starting her own family one day and eventually settling down with someone she loved. Laura's personality was described pretty interestingly by one reporter who recalled her as being the perfect mixture of optimistic and conflicted. Laura was a strong young woman, but she also had a few demons. Laura had struggled with her mental health in the past, but she was on the path to making things better for herself. In 2012, she just graduated from college and got her degree in English, as well as drama. She'd been attending the University of Toronto for a number of years and was super excited to finally put her life as a student behind her so that she could get to work on her career. She'd been spending her time searching for a more permanent job where she could begin to place her roots and grow. She quickly learned that finding an honest, good-paying job isn't as easy as some people would make it seem. After spending quite some time trying to find a suitable position and being unable to do so, Laura started to get impatient. Worse yet, she'd begun having disagreements with her parents. Although Laura was 23 and equipped with a solid education, she continued to live at home with her parents while she tried to make ends meet. Her parents were happy to have her, but they had strict rules that she was expected to follow. This was the cliche situation of, stay at home as long as you want, but if you live under my roof, you live by my rules. Laura respected this to a certain extent, but tensions began to rise when Laura began to push back on her parents' rules about curfew. She'd missed curfew multiple times in the past, and this was beginning to be a problem for her parents. Rather than agreeing to her parents' rules, Laura decided that enough was enough and she'd moved out on her own. Well, sort of. She moved out, but she wasn't entirely on her own just yet. She wasn't able to afford her own place to stay, so she opted to hop from couch to couch, bouncing between the homes of her various friends. While this certainly isn't a great lifestyle decision, Laura just needed some space and time away from her parents while she tried to establish herself as her own person. Her father clarified that she'd not been banished from their home due to her curfew violations, but he made it clear that he didn't approve of her coming home at two or three in the morning multiple times a week, which is when Laura eventually opted to just move out. Without a job and desperate for money, one of Laura's friends introduced her to a new idea. While waiting for a more traditional job that utilizes her degree, why not try joining the escort business? To put it plainly, an escort is someone who's paid for their companionship. Escort services are widely available to people of all genders and walks of life, and most of the time it just involves accompanying someone to an event, or just paying the person to hang out with you and be friendly. But sometimes escort services require more than simple friendship, depending on the client's requirements and requests. Laura was apprehensive about this line of work, but she knew that she needed money and she needed it quickly, so she opted to give it a try. Those around Laura noticed that pretty soon after she joined this particular workforce, her mood began to change. Her father recalls this time in her life and says that it was clear that Laura was growing frustrated. He said she always seemed agitated and on the edge and would have a hard time staying still. One of her friends recalled her time working as an escort and said that Laura had a lot of emotional issues, but that they understood each other, and overall Laura was a happy and outgoing person. But by the spring of 2012, that had begun to change. A darkness had begun to envelop Laura and there was nothing her family could do to stop it. By July of that year, Laura stopped contacting her family and soon after, she was never heard from again. It quickly became clear to those around her that Laura had been hiding some dark secrets from those that she held closest. Laura's boss, the owner of last-minute escorts, recalled that Laura had big aspirations of becoming an actress. He remembered Laura fondly, explaining that she worked for him at multiple times in the past. Outside of this, three other men spoke up about their time working with Laura. The three men agreed that they'd never had intimate relations with her. Their business was purely professional, but a couple of other people she worked with weren't as open about the time they spent with Laura, leaving a lot of room for speculation. One of her former clients was a TV and film producer who let Laura stay at his house for at least two weeks. Another of her clients was a doctor who offered to help Laura pay for an apartment so that she could be on her own. But both this doctor and all of Laura's other clients stopped hearing from her in early July of 2012. It was around the same time that a man named Dellen Millard reappeared in Laura's life. Dellen and Laura went way back. They met back in 2008 and dated for a short while before calling things off. Dellen was incredibly well off financially speaking. He's often described as a millionaire and was the heir to the thriving business Millard Air, which is an aviation company based out of Toronto. When Laura and Dellen met, they hit it off instantly. They would share an on again off again relationship before eventually losing contact sometime in early 2009. By 2010, Laura had moved on and met a new man named Sean Lerner. Sean and Laura shared a much deeper relationship and dated for about a year and a half before things were broken off around Christmas of 2011. We'll get back to Sean in just a minute, but around the same time that the relationship had begun to fall apart, Laura was struggling pretty seriously. She'd been admitted to a hospital in August of 2011 after she confessed to doctors that she felt as though she cried all hours of the day and was suffering from serious bouts of depression and anxiety, but it's never been publicly revealed why she was having these issues. It's possible that she was simply coming to terms with the fact that her relationship was falling apart, but it's also possible that there were deeper issues here that just haven't been shared publicly. Laura eventually confessed that she'd begun to harm herself and that's when doctors began to take her case a bit more seriously. With one report suggesting that she began taking antidepressant medication as a result. By April of 2012, about six or seven months later, Laura had returned to the hospital at least 12 more times due to various mental health issues. Laura was losing it and she was spiraling quickly. Her friends began to grow increasingly concerned, but there was very little that they could do other than just be there for her and comfort her. To make matters even worse, this is when Dylan Millard came back into the picture. While Dylan and Laura had broken up about four years prior, they still kept in touch from time to time. With Laura now being single, she decided to reach back out to Dylan to see if there was anything left between the two of them. And as luck would have it, there was, but there was also a catch. Dylan had begun dating someone about a year prior to this, sometime in early 2011. His new girlfriend, Christina, was a bit of an interesting character. She and Laura had multiple arguments and what it ultimately boiled down to was Christina being jealous of the bond that Laura and Dylan shared. It was clear that there was something special between the two of them and Christina felt threatened by this. To make matters even worse, Dylan and Christina weren't even in a committed relationship. While they were technically together, Dylan says that they were in an open relationship and he claims that Christina was aware that he was actively sleeping with other people, one of these people being Laura. In February of 2012, Laura turned 23 and on her birthday, she received a text from Christina. The text read, happy birthday. A year ago today was the first time I slept with Dylan. Laura, seemingly unfazed by this, responded by saying, that's fine, I slept with him a couple of weeks ago. It was clear from this moment on, there was some serious bad blood between the two, but Dylan wanted no part of it. It would seem that Dylan wasn't looking to reignite anything serious with Laura. This became clear when he texted her a short while later and explained that he felt that Laura was a bad influence for him. He requested that she not contact him anymore until she'd made a quote, huge leap of self-discovery. He concluded this by saying, as I said before, good luck with life. It was very clear that Dylan was done with Laura, but Laura's version of events paints a different picture. While Dylan claims that Christina knew about his promiscuity, Laura doesn't believe that Christina knew the extent of Dylan's actions. A text that she sent to another friend named Andrew suggests that Dylan was cheating on Christina behind her back and the two weren't actually in an open relationship. Laura seems to have regretted hooking up with Dylan to an extent because she believed he and Christina were on the same page, but would soon learn after that they weren't. I'll spare you all of the he said she said drama and cut to the chase. In April of 2012, Christina had had enough. She wanted Laura out of their lives for good and Dylan admitted that he was willing to make that happen. He texted Christina and told him that he'd take care of Laura. He didn't even beat around the bush about it. When Christina asked what he planned to do, he said, quote, first I'm going to hurt her, then I'll make her leave. I will remove her from our lives. By June of 2012, Sean Lerner, the man who Laura had been dating for about a year and a half, stepped back into her life. He'd heard about how bad off she was and he wanted to do his best to help her. The two had no plans of getting back together, but Sean still cared for Laura deeply and wanted to help her get back on her feet. Sean had also learned that Laura had begun working for last minute escorts. When he found out about how bad of shape she was in, he paid for her to stay in a motel for a few days and even gave her an iPad so that she could look for apartments in the area. When he pressed Laura about her involvement in the escort business, she repeatedly assured him that her business was not of a sexual nature and that she was nothing more than armed candy for lonely men. Sean says that he still believes there was more to it than this. If this weren't bad enough, several of Laura's friends also explained that around the same time, they have reason to believe that Laura had developed an addiction to illegal substances. Laura, to put it lightly, was not having a good time. You can't help but feel terrible for her after everything she'd been through, but at the same time, we also have to admit Laura was an adult capable of making adult decisions. It seems that she just kept making one bad decision after another and it let her down a path that quickly became too treacherous to come back from. All throughout this time, despite Laura's claims that she didn't want to be involved with Dylan and despite his claims that he didn't want to be involved with her either, Laura and Dylan remained in almost constant contact. In fact, in the days leading up to her disappearance, Laura and Dylan spoke on the phone at least 100 times. I wasn't able to confirm if this communication was via calls or texts, but either way, they were still on speaking terms and they were making the most of it. The two had made plans to meet up on the evening of July 3rd and later that night, Laura headed toward Kipling Subway Station in Toronto where Dylan picked her up, driving her to his home. An hour later, Laura's phone turned off and would never come back on again. Now, fair warning, the case takes a rapid nosedive from here and the events all take place rather quickly one right after the other. So buckle down and maybe even take some notes because things are about to get crazy in very rapid succession. After Laura met up with Dylan that evening, Dylan sent out a text message at around 7.30 p.m. to his friend, Mark Smitch. The message read, I'm on a mission, back in one hour. No further texts were sent after this. The very next day, Sean Lerner received a notification that the iPad that he'd given Laura had suddenly been renamed Mark's iPad. Safe to assume that Dylan's aforementioned friend, Mark, had come into possession of Laura's iPad. But how? Immediately after this, Dylan took a photo on his cell phone showing an object wrapped in a blue tarp located on his farm in Waterloo. And it's been suggested that this photo was shared with Mark. Later that same day, Dylan accepted a same-day delivery for a brand new mattress. I think we can all tell what's probably going on here. Laura spends the night then all of a sudden, Dylan's taking photos of something wrapped in a tarp then buying a new mattress. Things were getting fishy to say the least. But if this wasn't clear enough, things are about to get worse. In the days leading up to all this, Dylan had contacted his mechanic friend and asked him to make arrangements to deliver an animal incinerator to his farm. This incinerator arrived on July 5th, two days after Laura was last seen. This brings us to July 14th, 2012, the day that Laura's family decided to file a missing person report. See, Laura was known to lose touch with her parents from time to time. After all, they were still caught up in a bit of a disagreement at this point. But it was incredibly unusual for Laura to not make contact with her friends. It's been noted that she spoke to her friends literally every single day up to this point. But when the missing person report was filed, Sean Lerner says that police didn't seem concerned in Laura's case at all, especially after they learned about her mental health issues and her work as an escort. It was almost as if they completely shut down after learning this. Nine days passed by without any leads coming to or from the police who were working the case. But on the evening of July 23rd, Dylan sent a text message to Mark, saying, barbecue has run its warmup. It's ready for meat. Immediately after this text was sent, Dylan made a Google search, seeking the correct temperature for cremation. Soon after, Dylan took a photo of Mark standing next to the cooker. The objects that were seen inside the cooker at this point were later described by a forensic expert as resembling human bones. By late July, Laura's final phone bill was delivered to her parents' home. Desperate for answers, her parents opened the bill and looked at her call history. They immediately noticed that the final calls she made worked to Dylan, someone she'd supposedly written off and moved on from. This was the biggest red flag her parents could have possibly found. And they immediately called all her other friends desperate for more information about her secret relationship with Dylan. One of the people her parents reached out to was Sean Lerner. Sean took it upon himself to reach out to Dylan, asking if he had any information about Laura. He sent Dylan a text that read, quote, I'm not looking to point a finger at anyone, but we're concerned about Laura and it looks like you are the last person to correspond with her. Dylan initially ignored these texts, but the two later set up a time to meet at a local Starbucks to chat about the situation. When the date finally rolled around, the two spoke briefly before Dylan began making allegations that Laura was nothing but an addict who continued hounding him hoping for a fix. Dylan says he repeatedly denied Laura's requests and had no involvement in her disappearance, but then he made a pretty shocking statement. As the two ended their conversation, Dylan informed Sean that he should have, quote, no reasonable expectation of finding her. This brings us to August of 2012, when the pieces finally began to fit together. Mark had invited a few of his friends over to his mother's home and they were hanging out in the garage when Mark began rapping. I can't tell if he was rapping as a joke or if he was serious about it, but my gosh, is it awful. Just shut it off and you'll find a phone. Find a phone. If you go swimming, you'll find a phone. Play or smash the door. In this weird rap, Mark says that she started off as skin and bone and now she lays on ashy stone. And he ends the segment by claiming, if you go swimming, you can find her phone. I don't know about you, but this sounds like a confession if I've ever heard one. Mark's friends were apparently shocked by this as well and that's why they eventually agreed to testify against Mark, saying that he would later confess to claiming a girl's life, burning the remains and then disposing of the evidence in a lake. Mark was very clearly terrible at keeping secrets. This was all investigators needed to pin both Mark and Dylan for the disappearance of Laura Babcock. But this isn't the end of the case by any means. After detectives learned of Mark's ridiculous confession, they obviously pieced together the connection to Laura Babcock's case, but they also started to reinvestigate another crime that involved Dylan's own father, Wayne Millard. Wayne had lost his life a while back, but investigators initially ruled that he'd claimed his own life, resulting in Dylan becoming the heir to his father's multi-million dollar estate. But now that they learned the extent of Dylan's involvement with Laura, they wanted to re-examine his father's case, planning to pin Dylan for that crime as well. If this weren't bad enough, investigators also learned of a third man who was involved with Dylan. This man had listed a pickup truck for sale on a local shopping app, and Dylan and Mark showed up to test drive it. While out driving the car, they claimed the life of the owner and presumably stole the truck. This victim was also disposed of in the duo's makeshift incinerator. Now, the story of Dylan and Mark goes much deeper than this, and pretty much everyone who knew the two were somehow involved in the case, with the female friend of the two even being accused of helping clean up the scene of the crime and destroying evidence. If you'd like to see a more in-depth look at the crimes of these two, just let me know in the comments and I may revisit this in the future. But for today's video, I wanna stay focused on Laura Babcock. For the duo's crimes against Laura, they were each sentenced to 25 years behind bars. Even though Laura's remains have never been found, Dylan has since appealed the charges placed against him regarding the disappearance of Laura. But it seems safe to assume that these appeals will most likely be denied. Thankfully, Laura's family were finally able to get justice for the horror that their daughter was put through. But in the end, this doesn't bring Laura back. Doesn't really solve anything at all. We may never know why Dylan went to such drastic means to get Laura out of his life. There's truly no sense to it. It's heartwarming to know that this pathetic shell of a man was finally taken off the streets of Toronto. But it doesn't change the fact that the damage is already done. Thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of True Crime Stories. If you wanna see more true crime documentaries like this, be sure to hit that like button and subscribe. You can also find me on Instagram at tie underscore knots. If you'd like to help support the channel, the best way you can do that is simply by leaving a comment below, any comment at all. It helps out the channel a lot more than you may realize. If you wanna help out financially, you can do that by clicking the blue join button below or by picking up a True Crime Stories mug, like the one you see on the desk behind me, from tieknots.com. But with that, my name is Tie Knots and I'll catch you guys in the next video.