Woman boasted on TikTok that she had been a ‘bad girl’ after killing veteran

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A 37-year-old woman who boasted and joked in a TikTok video that she had been a “bad girl” after killing an Army veteran out of “revenge” for losing her dog has been jailed for life to serve a minimum of 23 years.

Winter Swan-Miller, of New Street in Andover, Hampshire, was convicted by a jury of the murder of 62-year-old Stuart Crocker, who she stabbed 27 times before strangling him with the strap of her handbag at his flat in Andover on June 23 2023.

Sentencing Swan-Miller at Winchester Crown Court, Judge Angela Morris said she was “satisfied there was no sexual exploitation of you by him at any point” and “if there was any level of control and coercion, that came much from you toward him than the other way round”.

She added that Swan-Miller was a “highly manipulative person who was prepared to do or say anything to get what she wanted”.

The court heard that Swan-Miller posted a TikTok video in which she said she had been a “bad girl” and urged people to write to her in prison and also wrote numerous notes about the killing.

She says in the video: “I’m going to be taking a break from TikTok for a bit because I’ve been a bad girl,” which she follows with a smirk.

She adds: “At the moment I feel sick, I don’t feel I’ve done a bad thing at all,” before smiling again.

A Hampshire police spokesman said: “Officers also discovered further unpublished videos, intended for the social media platform, which were made the same morning.

“In them, Swan-Miller went into reasons why she had killed him, including claiming that Crocker had been complicit in her dog being stolen.”

Mr Crocker’s son, Joseph Kingswell, said in a victim impact statement read to the court: “He was my best friend.

“He had his faults, he had his wrongdoings, but he was a good man.

“The day you, Winter Swan-Miller, entered my father’s life was the day you brought ruin to whatever sanctity and innocence left in Stuart’s mind, a mind addled by age, the PTSD from serving his country during the Northern Ireland Troubles and the alcohol that followed.

“You are a malevolent entity that seeped into the mind of Stuart, you took the strings, strung his frame and controlled him.”

Detective Superintendent Rod Kenny said: “Swan-Miller killed Stuart Crocker in the most violent of ways.

She then spent some hours cleaning the scene, posting on social media and going about her daily business before she fled the county to Walsall.

“When 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. All the while, Mr Crocker lay in his flat undiscovered.

“To this day Swan-Miller has expressed no remorse for the life she took and the pain this has caused so many.”