Patricia Miller was stone-faced, staring up at the mother of the woman she stabbed to death two years ago on Charleston's East End.
"She took my daughter," said Cathy Meadows, standing at the front of the courtroom on Monday, crying. Victoria Summers, 29, who was Meadows' daughter, was killed Oct. 16, 2014 at 529 Nancy Street.
Miller pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on Monday, the day her trial was set to begin in Kanawha County Circuit Court. She was sentenced to spend 25 years in prison.
Kanawha Circuit Judge James Stucky accepted a deal Miller made with prosecutors, which stipulated that he hand down the 25-year sentence. If Stucky had refused the deal, Miller would have been allowed to back out of her guilty plea.
Miller had faced a charge of first-degree murder, which carries a possible sentence of life in prison.
"She had two boys, 10 and five. It is so hard on them," Summers' mother said, before the judge accepted the deal.
As she spoke, Meadows held tightly to her other daughter, Patricia Ross.
"They don't have their mother," Meadows said of her grandsons. "I just want her to live with that and sleep with that, every day."
Miller stabbed Summers with a steak knife and Summers "didn't have a knife," Miller said on Monday.
"I don't want to make any excuses for my actions, but I want to especially apologize to the family," said Miller. "It's not only changed their life, it's changed my life and also my family's, and I'm truly sorry."
Assistant Kanawha prosecutor Maryclaire Akers said that the two had argued earlier that day and then had another argument later in the day, which led to the stabbing.
Police have said that the two argued over the lease at the apartment, which had Miller's name on it. Summers and her boyfriend had also been staying there, though, and didn't want to leave.
Miller had been drinking the day of the stabbing.
Her lawyer, John Sullivan, asked Stucky last week to throw out a statement Miller made to police right after the incident. Sullivan argued his client was too intoxicated to have consented to providing police with the statement.
Stucky, though, agreed with Charleston police detectives that Miller knew what she was doing.
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.