No parole for woman who killed 2 Lewis-McChord soldiers
ROB CARSON; Staff writer
Spc. Ivette Davila, the diminutive Fort Lewis chemical operations specialist who stunned the military community two years ago with the grotesque murder of two fellow soldiers, was sent to prison for life Tuesday, with no possibility of parole.
Assurance that Davila will never be paroled was a victory for the families of the victims, Staff Sgt. Timothy Miller and Sgt. Randi Miller, and for government prosecutors.
“What the sentencing decision really comes down to is one word: parole,” Maj. Adam Kazin said during the prosecution’s final statement to military judge Col. Stephen Henley. “The accused should not be able to take with her the hope that she stole from her victims.”
Davila pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of premeditated murder and one count each of kidnapping and obstruction of justice at her court-martial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
The victims’ family members, who had traveled to the court-martial proceedings from as far away as New Hampshire, Nevada and Idaho, hugged one another and cheered when Henley announced his decision shortly before 6 p.m.
“Out of this, all we were looking for was a guilty without possibility of parole, and our family fought for that,” said Greg Taflinger, Timothy Miller’s half-brother.
“We went into the plea bargain knowing that the death penalty was off the table,” Taflinger said. “We were OK with that. It would mean less heartache all around.”
Davila shot the Millers in their Parkland home March 2, 2008, killing Randi Miller with a shot to the back of the head as she lay in bed, and shooting Timothy Miller several times through a shower curtain as he showered.
Afterward, Davila kidnapped the Millers’ 6-month-old baby and attempted to burn the victims’ bodies with acid to destroy evidence.
At the sentencing, Davila maintained the same affectless expression she wore throughout the proceedings. Earlier in the day, she apologized to the families in a soft, emotionless voice, as if in a trance.
In her statement, Davila failed to give a plausible motive.
“I know the big question on everyone’s mind is, ‘Why?’” Davila said, reading from a statement.
“I have no answers,” she said, “but no answer will ever be an excuse for what I did.”
Pieces of the puzzle did at last begin falling into place Tuesday.
Davila’s attorneys brought her mother, little sister and aunt to the stand to testify, and they also called an investigative anthropologist who is an expert in Latin American culture and a clinical psychologist who had studied Davila’s case.
What emerged from their testimony was a picture of a shy and socially awkward girl, abandoned by her father, sexually abused when she was 9 by her mother’s boyfriend and with a long family history of psychological disorders.
Davila was so traumatized by the sexual abuse, psychologist Robert Lee Smith said, that she retreated to a private world, hiding in closets where she talked to herself and played with dolls.
That method of coping persisted, Smith said, throughout Davila’s high school years in California and even after she joined the Army.
Davila’s psychological problems were made worse, Smith said, by poverty and the fact that her struggling family moved 16 times during her formative years.
What also emerged Tuesday was a fourth player in the horrific drama. Davila had fallen in love with another soldier, Sgt. Derek Cooper, according to Smith and Davila’s attorneys.
Cooper did not attend the court-martial, although he was referred to many times.
“He had little interest in her, but he meant everything to her,” Smith said. “In her mind, if she could keep this relationship, her life would be wonderful from then on.”
In her closing argument, Davila’s head attorney, Maj. Carol Brewer, characterized Cooper as “a bit of a player.”
“He was no knight in shining armor,” Brewer said.
Davila did everything she could to keep from losing Cooper, and to make herself more attractive to him, Brewer said.
When Cooper was deployed to the Middle East, Davila tried to share his deprivation by spending an entire year sleeping on the floor, according to Smith.
Cooper was close friends with the Millers, Smith said, and Davila saw getting close to the couple as a way to keep him in her life.
Before Cooper came home from Iraq, Brewer said, he spoke lovingly of another woman on his MySpace page. That so upset Davila, Brewer said, that she became irrational.
Her solution was to kill the Millers.
Three of Davila’s relatives who testified in her behalf – her mother, sister and aunt – all made tearful apologies to the victims’ families from the witness stand.
“If I could, I would do anything to make it so this never happened,” Christine Davila, Ivette’s younger sister, said between sobs. “I am sorry from the bottom of my heart.”
The judge called a recess after Davila’s relatives testified, and as the Millers’ family members filed out, two of them touched Ivette’s mother, Maria Gonzalez, gently on her shoulder as they passed.
Rob Carson: 253-597-8693
rob.carson@thenewstribune.com
