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Murder conviction affirmed |
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Wednesday, 04 November 2009 |
By BRIAN HAWKINS
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The Mississippi Court of Appeals has affirmed the conviction of Willie Prater on a capital murder charge and the sentence of life in prison without parole he received as a result.
Prater had appealed his Aug. 2, 2006, conviction in Oktibbeha County Circuit Court on a capital murder charge for his role in the Aug. 20, 2001 beating death of Juanita Miller of Starkville. Prater was one of five defendants charged in the case.
In affirming Prater’s conviction and life sentence, the Court of Appeals also denied motions by Prater’s defense team for a rehearing in the case, according to orders from the Court of Appeals that were spread on the local Circuit Court minutes.
Mississippi Supreme Court justices unanimously denied a petition filed on Prater’s behalf for a writ of certiorari, which would have sent the case to the state’s highest court for review.
Miller was found severely beaten inside her Reed Road home by Starkville firefighters responding to a fire report there about 10:25 a.m. Aug. 20, 2001. Her husband, Lee, was not home at the time.
Upon arrival, firefighters forced their way inside the home after seeing smoke and flames through a window, said Police Chief David Lindley at the time.
As they extinguished the flames set on a couch in one room and in a bedroom, the firefighters found Miller, a former elementary school teacher and Oktibbeha County Hospital volunteer, lying on the floor with head and other injuries and called paramedics.
She later died from her injuries at a Columbus hospital.
It was later revealed that Miller was beaten with an iron, and the autopsy confirmed that she died from blunt trauma.
Police Department investigators said at the time of Miller’s death that they believed her attackers set fire to the house in an attempt to cover her beating.
Arrest warrants from the time of the initial investigation also allege that burglary was being committed at the time Miller was attacked.
The crux of Prater’s defense rested in statements that he had boarded the Pilot Club minibus to attend classes at the Discovery House and was not at the crime scene.
But no records exist to show that Prater actually attended the classes, Allgood said.
Previously, Starkville Police Department detectives had testified that Prater had given statements on Jan. 6, 2002, that revealed information about the killing and the crime scene that had not been made public and known only to authorities.
When he was formally charged in Mrs. Miller’s death on Feb. 19, 2002, Prater waived his rights to be questioned in the presence of an attorney and gave another statement in which he implicated himself in the crime, detectives testified during the trial.
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 07 November 2009 )
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