Insets: Mandie Miller and Aleksander Kurmoyarov (Davison County Sheriff's Office). Background: Meela Miller (KREM).
A 36-year-old Washington state woman and her boyfriend tied her 8-year-old adopted daughter who was her biological niece with zip ties and smashed her toes with a hammer when she misbehaved before the girl died from abuse and starvation weighing just 26 pounds.
Mandie Miller and her 31-year-old boyfriend Aleksander Kurmoyarov lived with Meela Miller's body for three months after her death in September 2022 because they "wanted to spend more time with her." In December 2022, the couple rented a U-Haul, placed a coffin with Meela's body inside and drove some 1,100 miles from Spokane to Mitchell, South Dakota.
The couple went to a funeral home where they requested the girl to be buried. Funeral home workers contacted police after the couple could not show documentation of Meela's death. They were charged with failure to notify law enforcement of the death of a child in South Dakota before they were extradited to the Evergreen State to face the more serious charges.
On Friday, Miller was sentenced to 32 years in prison, the Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney's Office said. She pleaded guilty last month to homicide by abuse, assault of a child and two counts of unlawful imprisonment. Kurmoyarov pleaded guilty to murder, assault and unlawful imprisonment. He's set to be sentenced on Tuesday.
"She restrained her for hours upon hours, day after day. Unbeknownst to them, their home camera system recorded them assaulting Meela, and unbeknownst to them, their home camera system recorded them tying her to a car seat with zip ties to restrain her," Spokane County deputy prosecutor Emily Sullivan said at sentencing, according to a courtroom report from local CBS affiliate KREM. "The facts before this court are undisputed. They did assault her, they did starve her, they did restrain her, they did torture her, and they did kill her."
Meela's biological mother Andrea Miller addressed her sister at sentencing.
"You did this with no remorse, murdering my third child, my beautiful daughter, Meela Rose Miller," Andrea Miller told her sister. "Named after our sister, Amelia Rose Miller, my best friend, my sister and auntie to my children, a Marine who died in 2013 at 23."
Despite the horrible death her daughter suffered, Andrea Miller said she forgave her sister.
Judge Rachelle Anderson admonished the defendant before sentencing her to two years above what prosecutors had recommended.
"We're here because a little girl was tortured, she was starved, her interests were not protected," Anderson reportedly said. "And as a parent, this is the worst crime a person can commit against their own child, their adopted child, their own family member."
Mandie Miller reportedly told the court about her rough childhood in foster care and only briefly addressed her terrible misdeeds.
"My daughter did not deserve any abuse or neglect from me," she said, per KREM. "She most definitely didn't deserve any abuse from Alex."