Tim Bosma trial: Mark Smich's ex-girlfriend wanted to marry accused killer

Marlena Meneses spent months telling herself the man she loved and wanted to have a child with couldn't have killed Tim Bosma, the jury heard Monday at the trial of the two men accused of killing the Hamilton man.

Mark Smich's former girlfriend was back in the witness box and recounted how she had planned to marry the man who was abusive and wanted her to become a stripper to help support him.

"You wanted a child with him, you wanted to marry him?" asked Nadir Sachak, the lawyer for co-accused Dellen Millard.

"Yeah," the 22-year-old Meneses responded, choking back tears.

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Sachak then read out from one of her first statements to police,where she appeared to be addressing her comments to Smich.

"I love you and I miss you," she said in that statement. "I'm going to get a pregnancy test. I'll tell you if I'm pregnant or not."

Partying at wedding

Last week, Menesestestified that Smich told her Millard shot and killed Bosma.

Smich, 28, of Oakville, Ont., and Millard, 30, of Toronto, are charged with first-degree murder in Bosma's death. Both have pleaded not guilty.

That gun could have very well held the clues to who held the gun and shot it.- Nadir Sachak, Dellen Millard's lawyer

Bosma, 32, who lived in the suburban Ancaster area of Hamilton, vanished on May 6, 2013, after taking two men on a test drive in a pickup truck he was trying to sell. Investigators later found charred human remains, believed to belong to Bosma, in a livestock incinerator on Millard's farm in Waterloo, Ont.

The jury saw photos Monday of Smich and Meneses at his sister's wedding, taken the week after Bosma disappeared. In those pictures she can be seen smiling and laughing.

"You were happy to go to the wedding. You enjoyed that wedding ... you partied your brains out at that wedding," Sachak said. "Yes, I did," the witness responded.

Court also saw text messages sent from her cellphone from that day. One of them, from Meneses to her sister, read: "Our wedding is next."

Wanting to believe

"You wanted to really believe in your heart and your soul that Smich didn't do anything," Sachak said. "In order to be with Mr. Smich, you had to accept the fact that he had not done anything ... that he would not harm a human being.

"If you told yourself he did it, your universe as you knew it would collapse."

Meneses agreed, wiping away tears.

While Meneses was being cross-examined, Millard kept his eyes on the witness but Smich looked down, at times taking notes.

The couple's relationship was rocky, Sachak told the jury, calling it"horrific at times."

"He was abusive, wasn't he? He hit you?" Sachak asked Meneses. She agreed.

"You really had nowhere to go, did you? You had to put up with the man who hits you, right?" Sachak said. Meneses looked up at the roof and said, "Yes."

Sachak also described how Smich would call her "his bitch," andpressed his then-girlfriend into selling marijuana for him. He would send her out with "tricky scales," Sachak said, in an effort to shortchange customers.

Smich also told Menesesthat she "had to work," or he'd kick her out of his mother's home, where they were living.

At one point, Smich was pushing Meneses to become a stripper, court heard. "Smich wanted you to strip to make money for him," Sachak said. "Yeah," Menesesrespondedwith a heavy sigh.

'I didn't want to ask anything'

Repeatedly throughout his cross-examination, Sachak referenced the several statements Meneses made to police. He often focused on the fact that she had said she didn't want to pry too much about what happened to Bosma.

"I didn't want to ask anything," she said in one of the statements.

"So Smich tells you, Dell took the truck, and he didn't do anything ... and you're happy with that explanation because it distances Mr. Smich with whatever may have happened," Sachak said, and Meneses agreed.

Sachak alsoasked Meneses about a gun that she said Smich told her he wrapped up and buried in a forest. Prosecutors allege that gun wasthe murder weapon.

"[That was] evidence that very well could have had fingerprints on it," Sachak said. "That gun could have very well held the clues to who held the gun and shot it."

The gun has never been recovered. Sachak did, however, show a photo in court of a man holding a gun that was recovered from Smich's iPad."That's Mark Smich. I'm positive that's Mark Smich," Meneses said when she saw the picture.

"You have no doubt in your mind who's holding that gun?" Sachakasked. "No doubt," Menesesresponded.

CBC reporter Adam Carteris in the courtroom each day reporting live on the trial. You can view a recap of his livebloghere:

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adam.carter@cbc.ca