HAMILTON — The former girlfriend of a man convicted of killing Hamilton resident Tim Bosma has pleaded guilty to obstructing justice in the case.
Christina Noudga was set to stand trial Tuesday on the charge of accessory after the fact in the murder of Bosma, who vanished on May 6, 2013 after taking two men for a test drive in the truck he was trying to sell.
Noudga's ex-boyfriend, Dellen Millard, was convicted of first-degree murder in Bosma's death in June, along with his friend and co-accused Mark Smich.
The Oakville, Ont., woman was arrested about a year after Bosma died and charged with accessory after the fact.
Bosma's father said he welcomed Noudga's guilty plea because it spares his family another trial replete with graphic details of his son's death
Bosma's disappearance captured the country's attention after his family's calls for his return ended with his burned remains being found more than a week later in an animal incinerator — dubbed "The Eliminator" — on Millard's farm near Waterloo, Ont.
Nearly three years later Millard and Smich stood trial, a proceeding which lasted five months, before a jury found the pair guilty.
The Crown alleged Bosma was shot shortly after taking the pair on a test drive from his rural Hamilton home.
Smich took the stand in his own defence and told court Millard "looked like a lunatic" after he shot Bosma inside the truck. In Smich's version of the story, he followed behind in another truck and helped burn Bosma's body because he was terrified of Millard.
In Millard's version of events, which came through his lawyer because he didn't take the stand, he blamed Smich for shooting and killing Bosma.
In that trial, Noudga testified that hours after Millard was charged with forcible confinement of Bosma and the theft of his truck, she cleaned her prints off a trailer she helped park at Millard's mother's home in Kleinberg, Ont.
She told court she didn't know what was in the trailer, but speculated it could be Bosma's missing truck.
Court also heard Noudga wore nitrile gloves as she helped moved the incinerator from a barn to the bush on Millard's farm.
She testified that she helped move the massive machine because Millard told her the floor boards in the barn "were getting creaky" so it needed to be moved.
Police found Bosma's truck inside that trailer, but the Hamilton father was still missing. His remains would be found days later "burned beyond recognition."
