Family of Audrey Scott says a part of them is forever gone. Scott’s mother is talking publicly for the first time tonight after murder charges were filed against Scott’s boyfriend, Sammie Miller. Miller is accused of killing Scott in a Racine County field.
Audrey was last seen at McGillicudy’s Bar on Water Street on the Fourth of July. According to the criminal complaint, Miller showed up there. He saw her dancing with someone else, and a few hours later, took matters into his own hands.
One of Miller’s friends told police that Miller came over around 4:00 a.m. on July 4th, and “Audrey Scott was in his front passenger seat, badly beaten.”
“That’s what hurts the most,” says Carrie Scott-Haney. “I know in her last moments she was so scared.”
The friend told police that he got in the backseat of Miller’s car and they eventually “pulled over at a secluded location near Apple Holler Restaurant.” He says Miller “took Audrey Scott into the woods.” That’s when Miller’s friend heard a gunshot and saw Audrey fall to the ground. He says they left her there and drove away. Miller told him he didn’t want to go back to jail.
“I know she suffered and hurt, and when he walked her down into the field, she knew that she was going to die,” Scott-Haney says. “That breaks my heart. Imagining her last moments is hard to live with.”
Scott-Haney says Miller joined searches for her daughter, when no one could find her for nearly two months. He also tried to console Audrey’s two young daughters.
“They don’t understand whey he took their mom away from them,” says Reco Haney, Audrey Scott’s stepdad. “They don't understand why they have to wake up every morning knowing they're not going to see their mom again.”
It’s a painful reality that Scott-Haney doesn’t understand either.
“How do you go on with life when a part of you is gone?” she asks. “I can’t stop crying. I feel a deep emptiness. He took away the light of our lives. I knew he did it. Even when he acted like he didn’t. Now, I want him to feel the pain we’re feeling. I want him to rot in jail for the rest of his life. But that won’t bring her back.”
Miller was just released from prison last year, after serving only eight years for killing a man during an armed robbery. He was also jailed a few times this year. One of those times was for hurting Audrey. He was ordered not to have contact with her.
Audrey’s family hopes their tragedy serves as a wake-up call for anyone in an abusive relationship. They also say it shows the need for the justice system to hold criminals more accountable. They say Miller should not have been out of jail.
