However I truly don't think it was Igor's demeanor that stopped that truck heist, a gun and 2 men beats a human any day. MS testified there was GPS in Igor's truck. Regardless of size. TB was to be a scoping mission. So exactly.. If nothing happened in the others, why was this different?
It seemed to me that a major factor differentiating the Igor truck drive and the TB truck drive was location, location, location. Igor being a really big guy and potentially difficult to take down may also have been a factor of course, but realistically, how were they going to off Igor in the middle of a highly populated area in north Toronto in the daytime? Without being noticed? That seemed to me to be pretty obvious, though I don't recall it being brought up. I figured the Igor business actually
was a "scoping" mission but they reconsidered after checking out Igor himself, the truck (maybe it did have GPS?), the location (very busy and lots of activity around the clock), including I presume where the truck was regularly parked - would it have been in an underground garage, complete with security cameras, people coming and going? All strong arguments for giving this one a miss.
I didn't hear all these points addressed, but maybe they were. However, the rural location for TB's truck - they would likely have scoped it out on Google Earth or Google Maps ahead of time - provided many more concealment opportunities. My feeling was that when they left that night they didn't know for certain they were going to steal
that truck, but they thought it highly probable and were prepared. Originally I believed that they intended to shove the owner out and dump him somewhere (alive but tied up or something) while they made a getaway, changed plates, hid the truck and so on. OTOH, the evidence about getting the incinerator ready, bringing loaded gun(s), convinced me that DM at least came prepared to kill if necessary, and MS probably knew the plan. As I said before, I missed too much of the MS part of the trial to be sure about him, but I do think he had the frame of mind for murder2 at minimum and he was a party to the offense if not the principal.
BTW, I think you present your reasoning very well. As I said earlier, I tend to agree with billandrew's summary of the case, but (as a member of AIDWYC!) I respect those who interpret the evidence differently from the majority. If I had followed the MS part of the trial more closely, I might agree with you (or not). I did think parts at least of MS's testimony were factually true, but I didn't for a nanosecond believe the gun story. He should have just said he threw it in Lake Ontario. That at least would have been believable. Then when I looked back, I didn't buy his version of when he got into the Yukon. The video evidence doesn't support it. On the rest of the details, I wasn't following so didn't have a fix on whether MS's part was "planned and deliberate," but the jury apparently was convinced, and they saw and heard more than we did so I'm satisfied with that.