Man accused of killing Simsbury jogger rejects deal to serve 35 years in prison
Instead, case will go to jury trial and could end in a life sentence
HARTFORD — The Windsor Locks man charged with killing Simsbury mother Melissa Millan as she jogged down a busy trail in Simsbury in 2014 rejected a plea deal Tuesday that would have sent him to prison for 35 years.
William Winters Leverett, 29, has been incarcerated on $2 million bail since his arrest in 2018 for murder. He appeared before Superior Court Judge Shelia
M. Prats via a video link from the MacDoug a l l - Wa l k e r Correctional Institution in Suffield.
Clad in a yellow jumpsuit, Leverett offered short answers to Prats’ questions about the deal, which Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney Vicki Melchiorre said included 10 years of special parole after the 35-year prison term.
Prats told Leverett that with his rejection, the case will go to a jury trial, which exposes him to a sentence ranging from 25 years to life if he is found guilty. She also cautioned him that with his rejection Tuesday the deal is permanently withdrawn.
“Knowing all of this you want to reject the officer today?” Prats asked.
“Yes, I do, your honor,” Leverett responded. Prats said it is unclear when his case will go before a jury because trials have been placed on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonext court date was scheduled Tuesday.
Leverett’s arrest in 2018 brought closure to a case that had puzzled investigators for years. Milan was found with fatal stab wounds on a busy trail along Iron Horse Boulevard on Nov. 14, 2014. Investigators returned to the site of the killing on a number of occasions to look for evidence, once calling in FBI experts to help with the search.
Little was said publicly about the killing in the years after Milan’s death, but police and town officials had once offered a $40,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer.
The case broke on Sept. 19, 2018, when Leverett, a registered sex offender working as an assistant manager at Fresh Market in Avon, went to the Simsbury Police Department to confess to the killing, arrest records show.
After confessing to the crime, he led investigators to a bloody glove