Stolen Harley found on property of accused Tim Bosma killer
The truth is corporate film producer Marty MacDougall didn't really believe he would ever see his 2010 Harley Davidson again after it was stolen from his downtown home last fall.
And neither did I when I wrote that line.
I was just trying to mess with the bastards.
Certainly, there was no thought in mind that one day this brazen theft of a high-end bike would somehow have a connection to the alleged "Kijiji killers" case.
"I just about fell over when I heard about it," Marty said Wednesday. "I was sitting in a pub in Dublin, Ireland, having a Guinness when I received a text from Hamilton Police."
Turns out they had found his bike.
And you will never guess where?
"It was found in the airplane hangar, near Kitchener, where all of that investigation is going on with Dellen Millard," Marty said. "I couldn't believe it."
He said he was thrilled.
Next he was chilled thinking about how close he may have been to people allegedly involved in such heinous acts.
Then he was sombre.
"I thought right away about poor Tim Bosma," he said. "I thought of his family."
Marty said thanks to Hamilton Police's famous BEAR (break enter auto theft and robbery) unit, he got back his bike this week.
Sort of.
He noted the Bosmas will never be getting their great father and husband back.
Police have alleged that Bosma was murdered by at least two men and charged Dellen Millard and Mark Smich with first-degree murder. They're accused killing Bosma after approaching the 32-year-old father in Ancaster, Ont., about purchasing his pickup truck.
Toronto Police investigators, who have been trying to locate the missing Laura Babcock, are this week doing forensics on a Cambridge, Ont.-area farm owned by Millard.
Although Hamilton Police would not comment on the investigation of any of the vehicles found in the possession of suspects now charged in the case, officers did confirm that MacDougall's $35,000, 2010 Harley Davidson, convertible softail and a cargo trailer worth $7,500, was located as part of their investigation.
Sources say hundreds of vehicles have been found in a hangar.
In Marty's case, the bike was in dozens of pieces. Serial numbers had been shaved away and the trailer had already been registered as a homemade trailer within hours after the theft.
"It has been chopped down big time, parts have been painted," Marty said. "There are lots of pieces missing and Hamilton Police have been fantastic in trying to find them all for me."
What the thieves may not have known is Marty put an extra sticker on the bike's seat with the serial number.
Thanks to that, he has three-quarters of the bike back now and is hopeful more of it will be found.
The bike and trailer were taken from his back driveway in downtown Toronto in broad daylight last fall and witnesses reported seeing perhaps two men in a black truck back in and take it away.
It broke Marty's heart.
He managed to secure some surveillance video which he turned over to Toronto Police.
"Perhaps that tape will have some good information on it for the current investigation," Marty said. "I don't know if it was ever looked at."
The hair on the back of his neck stands up when he thinks about it. He had put the bike for sale on Kijiji "more to test the market."
But when he started getting calls about it, he changed his mind.
"I don't know how it went but someone may have done a reverse look-up to get my address because soon after the bike and trailer were gone," he said.
He said even in pieces and thousands of dollars in repairs away from being road worthy, it's nice to get it back but his heart goes out to the family of Bosma and anybody else suffering in the case.
"It's good to have it back, but in the end it's just a bike," said MacDougall
