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Trial date set for teen in Casey poisoning case

November 24, 2009|By TODD KLEFFMAN

LIBERTY — Prosecutors and the attorney for Brittany Miller agreed Monday to an early spring trial date for the Casey County teenager accused of trying to kill her grandfather, Leonard Walls, with antifreeze.

Casey Circuit Judge James Weddle set April 6 for the attempted murder trial, which was initially scheduled for earlier this month but was postponed because Miller's attorney had not had a chance to examine a computer that was seized as evidence in the case.

Defense attorney Mark Stanziano said Monday that his expert received the computer last week from prosecutors but will need time to examine its hard drive.

Miller's computer figures to be a key element in the case. It was confiscated from Walls' residence, which he shared with his granddaughter, after he nearly died from antifreeze poisoning last year.

Police said the computer contains searches for information about the lethal qualities of antifreeze. That may be true, Stanziano said, but other people had access to the computer, including on the day Walls was rushed to the hospital.

"How do you know it was her on the computer?" Stanziano asked after the hearing.

After recovering at Veterans Administration Hospital in Lexington, Walls told guards there that he suspected Miller of slipping small doses of antifreeze into his daily coffees and sodas. Her motive was to cash in on his estate, of which she was sole beneficiary, Walls said.

Mystery DNA on jug

He gave police permission to search his home on Cannon Creek Road. Along with the computer, authorities seized a partially full jug of antifreeze, drinking vessels and other evidence, and charged Miller, 19, with attempted murder.

Stanziano said testing on the antifreeze jug indicated that a DNA sample did not belong to either Miller or Walls. The producer of the DNA has not been identified, he said.

Stanziano said Miller had no reason to want her grandfather dead. He was already giving her money and a place to live and had bought her a new car. Other relatives who were cut out of Walls' will might have tried to set up Miller as the perpetrator, Stanziano said.

"Her version is 'I didn't do it. I'm being framed,'" the Somerset attorney said. "There are a lot of questions. At this point, I don't see any smoking gun that points to her. She denies doing this or having anything to do with it. My advice to anyone who tells me they are innocent is to go to trial."

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