Syberton Marcelle Miller has been sentenced to eight years in prison for fatally stabbing her husband back in 2018.
However, the woman who is in her late 60s, only has four and a half years left behind bars, as a result of several credits and discounts given to her.
Even so, lead defence attorney Arthur Holder signaled his intention to head to the Court of Appeal, moments after Justice Carlisle Greaves handed down the sentence in the No. 3 Supreme Court on Friday.
The starting sentence for Miller’s crime was 12 years, and after the judge gave her a one-third discount for her guilty plea, she was left with eight years behind bars. From that time, 1 286 days – the time she had already spent on remand – were deducted, leaving the convicted woman with the four and a half years left to serve at Dodds.
Miller had previously been charged with murder but was indicted before the High Court on the offence of manslaughter.
She pleaded guilty to the charge earlier this year, admitting that she killed her spouse, Cecil Miller, between September 17 and 18, 2018.
On Friday afternoon, the court heard from Senior Crown Counsel Neville Watson that the two had been married since 1977 and resided at No. 92, 5th Avenue Rowans Park North, St George.
On September 17, the two were at home along with the deceased’s twin sister, Cecily, and were apparently making arrangements to take her to the Psychiatric Hospital the following day to see Dr Ermine Belle whom she had been seeing for an extended period.
The sister then went home, and sometime around 7:37 p.m. she messaged her brother on his cellular phone but did not get a response. Around 10:28 p.m., however, she would receive a message from her brother’s phone, which stated: “Everything is okay. Do not think I will need you for a meeting with Dr Belle. Will fill you in later.”
Cecily spoke to her sister, Wendy, about the message later that night and that conversation led to the latter calling her brother’s residence. The now-convicted woman answered the phone but was upset, saying that “nothing was wrong” with her and that Cecily had been there the entire day. She also told the woman that her brother was resting on the couch.
However, the following day, several members of the family, including the sisters, tried to contact the couple but were unsuccessful and the police were called.
When police went into the house, they discovered Miller’s body, with blood around it, in the upstairs master bedroom. A large knife was also found at the top of the stairs and the convicted woman was lying on a bed in a bedroom in a seemingly unconscious state. She was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital where she was detained for some time, undergoing several medical procedures.
She was subsequently discharged, arrested and charged.
A post-mortem conducted on Miller’s body concluded that the cause of death was severe loss of blood as a result of a stab wound that severed the right jugular vein and punctured the right lung.
“For the last three to four years, I have reflected on the consequences of my actions and have to deal with it for the rest of my life. I apologise to my daughters, his mother, his brother, his sisters, as well as friends and family,” the convicted woman told the court on Friday.
She addressed the judge after her two daughters spoke about the impact the crime has had on their lives, disclosing that they had to seek therapy.
The elder daughter said while she knew her mother suffered from a mental illness, “mental illness does not absolve her of her actions”, while her younger sibling said their mother was “not a victim of domestic abuse”.
“Cecil Miller is the victim in this case, not Syberton Miller. Cecil Miller was a good man and did not deserve this,” she said.
Three character witnesses spoke on behalf of the convicted woman – her brother, her niece, and a friend.
Her brother said the offence was “very surprising” to him as “she is not known to be a violent person . . . . To me it is out of character”.
In his submissions on sentencing, the prosecutor put forward a starting sentence of 12 years. He pointed to several aggravating factors of the case, including that the convict had used a dangerous weapon – a knife – and that she committed the offence “in a way that was especially violent or cruel”.
He said the mitigating factor of the case was her mental illness. At a previous sitting of the No. 3 Supreme Court, consultant psychiatrist Dr Ermine Belle disclosed that Miller had been diagnosed with the treatable but lifelong illness of schizoaffective disorder.
However, Holder said that a starting sentence should be in the region of five to ten years, taking into consideration a number of factors, particularly the psychiatric report.
The defence lawyer submitted that after all the lawful deductions were made, a sentence of time served should be imposed and was “most appropriate in this case”.
The judge disagreed and adopted the submissions of the prosecution, although he did not agree that a further deduction of one year should be given in light of the mitigation factors for the first-time offender.
