Lewis guilty of stabbing, strangling NLR woman

Gail Miller was a 70-yearold retired North Little Rock bookkeeper who loved cats, crosswords and Cardinals baseball.

What Nigel Lewis loved, with a passion strong enough to kill for, was Miller’s credit cards, car and computer, prosecutors told a Pulaski County jury.

Wednesday, the 10 women and two men agreed, deliberating barely an hour to convict the 24-year-old Lewis on all charges: capital murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated residential burglary, theft and credit-card fraud.

The verdict delivered to Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson carries an automatic life sentence.

Family friends found Miller dead March 1, 2011, in the bathtub at her Division Street home, where police later found a blood-smeared towel.

The friends were checking the home at the urging of Miller’s son, Brian Miller of St. Louis, who’d grown concerned when he couldn’t reach his mother by phone after three days of trying.

One day out of touch was nothing to worry about, Brian Miller testified, becausehis mother ran on her own schedule that sometimes kept her up all night and asleep all day. They usually talked twice a month, he said, except during baseball season when they ritually enjoyed St. Louis Cardinals games together long-distance over an open phone line.

According to medical testimony, Miller had been strangled, then stabbed 15 times in the neck.

Defense attorney Tom Devine challenged the charges, calling his client a “thief” who was stupid enough to be manipulated by the real killer, Lewis’ former girlfriend and co-defendant, 26-year-old Shayla Marissa Johnson.

The mother of three, no relation to the judge, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, reduced from capital murder, in September with the promise of testifying against Lewis in exchange for a 20-year prison sentence.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11 on 11/09/2012

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