The Tooele man imprisoned for stabbing his wife to death with a screwdriver died when he hanged himself inside his Utah State Prison cell.
Charles L. Miller, 52, was pronounced dead Sunday morning at 5:40 a.m. at the Utah State Prison after paramedics tried in vain to revive him, Utah Department of Corrections spokesman Jack Ford said.
Miller tied a string from his laundry bag around his bunk bed, sat on the floor and leaned forward to kill himself, Ford said. Corrections officers found nothing amiss in Miller's cell at 3 a.m. during their hourly bed checks. When they returned at 4 a.m., officers found Miller sitting on the floor with the string around his neck, Ford said.
Ford said Miller was depressed but not considered suicidal or placed on suicide watch.
"He was depressed," Ford said. "He wasn't happy about being in prison or happy about what had happened with his wife."
A judge sentenced Miller on Dec. 9, 2002, to six years to life in prison for stabbing his 39-year-old wife. Miller had pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, a first-degree felony, in connection with the crime. He was originally charged with capital homicide and aggravated assault, a third-degree felony, for killing his wife, who was seeking a divorce from him in 2001.
Miller reported to prison Dec. 9, 2002, and was placed in the receiving and orientation unit, where all inmates are first diagnosed upon beginning their incarceration.
On Jan. 14 Miller was moved to the mental-health unit inside the Olympus facility for further evaluations, Ford said.
Miller shared a cell with another inmate in the medium-security facility, Ford said.
The cellmate was apparently asleep when Miller hanged himself, Ford said.
"We had to awaken him," Ford said. "He was pretty upset about it."
Prison officials are now awaiting the results of an autopsy from the Utah State Medical Examiner.
Miller had tried to hang himself with a bedsheet while in custody awaiting trial. He was sent to the Utah State Hospital for a mental competency exam and was found competent to stand trial.
Instead, Miller agreed to a plea bargain on Oct. 3, 2002. At that hearing, Miller offered a tearful apology to his wife's family.
"I'm so sorry. So truly, truly sorry," Miller said, turning to face his brother-in-law, Mark Kushner, who, with tears in his eyes, nodded to Miller. Following the hearing, a tearful Kushner said he believed Miller was sincere.
"I accept his apology. I don't know if I can forgive him — he took my sister away," he said. "She didn't have a bad bone in her body.
"We're getting a closure. It was a good day for the family. Charlie stood up for what he did," Kushner added.
Prosecutors said Miller became enraged after his wife got a protective order against him, but a judge declined to sign a protective order he had requested. Both Sharon and Charles Miller had filed for protective orders against each other on June 4, 2001.
The next day when Sharon Miller came to the Tooele County Courthouse to check on her order, Charles Miller was waiting for her and slammed his pickup truck into her Ford Expedition, tipping it over, according to sheriff's deputies.
Police said Charles Miller then leaped into his wife's vehicle and stabbed her repeatedly in the neck and chest with a screwdriver while sheriff's deputies tried to pull him off.
Sharon Miller died in a hospital five days later.
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