TikToker said she was âbad girlâ after veteran murder
A woman who joked in a TikTok video she had been a âbad girlâ after murdering an Army veteran has been jailed for life.
Winter Swan-Miller, 37, of New Street in Andover, Hampshire, stabbed 62-year-old Stuart Crocker 27 times before strangling him with the strap of her handbag at his flat in Andover in 2023.
Sentencing Swan-Miller at Winchester Crown Court, Judge Angela Morris described her as a âhighly manipulative person who was prepared to do or say anything to get what she wantedâ.
She will serve a minimum of 23 years for his murder.
The court heard Swan-Miller, who had been staying with her victim, posted a video on TikTok after the murder on 23 June 2023.
In it she said she had been a âbad girlâ and urged people to write to her in prison, and also wrote numerous notes about the killing.
In the video, she also said she did not âfeel Iâve done a bad thing at allâ.
A spokesman for Hampshire police said further unpublished videos were found, including one where she claimed Mr Crocker was complicit in her dog being stolen.
Police said she was arrested after they found her victimâs bank card was being used to withdraw cash in the Aldridge area of the West Midlands, near to where Swan-Millar was staying with another man.
In that flat, officers found a notebook, diary and sealed envelopes belonging to Swan-Miller, and in some of the notes she confessed to killing Mr Crocker.
Judge Morris said she was âsatisfied there was no sexual exploitationâ of Swan-Miller, and that âif there was any level of control and coercion, that came much from you toward him than the other way roundâ.
Mr Kingswell said his father âwas a good manâ.
âThe day you, Winter Swan-Miller, entered my fatherâs life was the day you brought ruin to whatever sanctity and innocence left in Stuartâs mind, a mind addled by age, the PTSD from serving his country during the Northern Ireland Troubles and the alcohol that followed,â he said.
âYou are a malevolent entity that seeped into the mind of Stuart, you took the strings, strung his frame and controlled him.â
Det Supt Rod Kenny said Swan-Miller killed Mr Crocker âin the most violent of waysâ.
âShe then spent some hours cleaning the scene, posting on social media and going about her daily business before she fled the county to Walsall,â he said.
âWhen there, she was not laying low or hiding out but instead she continued to take drugs, party and record further material where she sought to justify her crimes.
âAll the while, Mr Crocker lay in his flat undiscovered.
âTo this day Swan-Miller has expressed no remorse for the life she took and the pain this has caused so many.â
Follow BBC South on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2240.