Original subtitles

Finally, the police get their person.

Winter Swan-Miller has been arrested

on suspicion of Stuart Crocker's murder.

She's taken into custody,

and she's then transferred down to Hampshire.

After her fleeing to Birmingham,

she could have been hidden for some time.

I didn't think it would take long, really,

for her to be arrested.

Just because of the craving attention.

You know, her being a naughty girl,

and all the things that she portrayed on her TikTok videos.

I'm going to be taking a break from TikTok for a bit,

I think, because

I've been a bad girl.

We're into new depths of something here.

My poor mate is dead.

There is always two sides to every story.

They took Swan-Miller

to Basingstoke Investigation Centre.

On her record, they will have flagged

the fact that she's a drug user.

It took a long time to interview her

because she was high when she was admitted.

During Swan-Miller's interviews,

Most of the time she answered no comment.

But on one occasion, she said

that there was a dispute over the dog.

She believed that Oblivion had been stolen or let out,

and she was blaming Stuart for that.

The police can hold an individual for 24 hours

without charging them.

If police run out of time, they have the ability to go to

either a judge or a magistrate

to ask to extend the time for questioning.

And that's what happened in this case.

So there's a huge amount of work that now goes on.

You know, you're under the microscope

and there are time limits that you need to follow.

So when she was arrested,

she had some jewellery, a ring, a watch, bracelet.

They were tested.

They were looked at as part of the whole forensic examination.

And there were traces of Stuart's blood on it.

So within the crime scene,

there were notes around the body.

The notes read things like,

"seriously up and killed someone.

I can't believe I stabbed him to death in the throat.

The back on the neck, all the body.

Then I choked him with my LV bag.

Haha! Oblivion was rolling in his blood."

The attack shows a real hatred towards the victim.

You know, there's something that sparked

this kind of violent attack on him.

The handwritten notes were processed.

And it was proved to be Swan-Miller's handwriting

by a graphologist.

I am one of the reporters

on all the crime stories for Andover Advertiser.

There aren't many murders in Andover.

So, when this case came up,

we knew that this was a big talking point in Andover.

When Winter Swan-Miller was arrested from the Midlands,

she was with another man.

He was also arrested, as police believed

he knew about the murder, and he was helping her.

The police questioned this gentleman

about how he knew Swan-Miller

and what the nature of their relationship was,

and he started talking about this woman who had turned up,

referred by a friend of his, who needed somewhere to stay.

This man is facing serious charges now

of basically assisting an offender

and the fraud and the use of Stuart Crocker's card

at cashpoints.

This man was then charged by police.

Swan-Miller was eventually charged

with the murder of Stuart Crocker,

which is the most serious offence

that someone can be charged with.

I think people were quite relieved.

I think there was almost a sense of

at least we found her, and is off the streets,

and we're thinking, this is going to be a big case,

people are interested,

and they're coming to us for the information at this point,

because it hasn't been picked up nationally that much.

We had a family liaison officer,

and she rang us to say that she had been charged.

It was hard.

For all this to happen was a shock

how she had attacked our lives, basically,

and changed the path of it.

I was happy when I had heard

that she had been caught and charged.

I think it was such an ordeal for me, mentally,

to lose the one best friend I've had.

I was also angry because I had also hoped that

they would find her in a ditch.

Swan-Miller's case was that she admitted killing Stuart,

but that she didn't intend to kill him,

or that she had a momentary loss

as a result of some kind of breakdown.

In effect, it meant there had to be a trial,

and a trial required the prosecution to prove,

beyond reasonable doubt,

i.e., so the jury can be sure that she did commit it.

The police's work has barely started.

They've got a suspect, they've charged a suspect.

But there's still an awful lot to do.

The police need to ensure that all the evidence stacks up

and shows that she is responsible

for the murder of Stuart.

They will be pulling together all the witness statements.

They'll be looking at the CCTV imagery that they have.

They'll be looking at her social media accounts

and the footage that they've taken from that.

They'll be examining the notes that she's written.

The defence will be speaking to psychologists, psychiatrists.

They will be looking at any background behaviours.

They'll also be trying to discredit Stuart,

who, sadly, is not there to defend himself.

And that's why it's really important

we get the family there

that can speak on behalf of the victim,

but also the police investigation itself.

I was aware that, you know, obviously,

that the police have now got a suspect, shall we say,

at this point.

Those that knew Swan-Miller, um,

I think were just hoping that this would be the end of it,

and that she wouldn't be returning out.

Then I thought, well, who's fighting for Stuart?

The man's gone, you know, he'll be forgotten.

And as a consequence, I found myself delving.

So with Swan-Miller on the front page,

this is the first time that we've got her custody shot.

So we have a picture of her now,

which looks vastly different to the pictures of her on TikTok.

There's been several posts

been put out on social media by police.

And there's a lot of posts going around.

There's a lot of speculation on social media

across the whole country.

And then people from Winter Swan-Miller's past life

start commenting on different posts.

And as my phone pinged,

it started ringing straight away.

So I've answered the phone, and my mum's like,

"I knew there was something wrong about that Swan-Miller"

She said, "look at what I've just sent you."

And there she was, Swan-Miller's face,

stabbed some poor man to death.

My daughter Kelly, she got in touch with me to tell me

that Swan-Miller had killed somebody.

Murdered someone.

Stuart Crocker.

She stabbed him many times.

Swan-Miller, I just did not like the woman.

She destroyed my daughter, Natalie's life.

She were evil.

Naturally, as journalists, we're monitoring the comments,

and sometimes they will lead to connections or better stories.

So we're shocked to find out that Winter Swan-Miller,

she's been married, she's, she'd been married to a woman.

Natalie.

We're starting to see this picture

of Winter Swan-Miller's life before Andover,

before Stuart.

I got a message from Kelly Pashley.

Kelly Pashley was Natalie Pashley's sister.

So this reads, I quote, "I hope you investigate Swan-Miller

because we came to the police in Derbyshire after my sister

suddenly died of a brain haemorrhage

caused by blunt force trauma.

Nothing was done, but she moved away,

changed her name, and now a man has lost his life."

This was referring to Stuart.

This is what really prompted my interest,

something that I felt I could investigate.

It was suggested to me

that the death of Natalie was not an accident.

Natalie has been laid to rest.

But I'm ashamed because she hasn't got a headstone.

I've got end of life diagnosis.

But I want to see that she's got this stone on,

you know, before I actually go.

When Natalie was born,

as soon as we had her, that was it,

we fell in love with her straight away.

And she got a bit older,

she were more of a tomboy than a girl.

She'd get up to playing football and all sorts of stuff,

and she were rough and ready,

which I loved about her, because she were funny.

She weren't a girly-girl.

Natalie came home one night,

and she'd got this girl with her, called Swan-Miller.

And things progressed.

Natalie began to like her a lot.

When I first met Swan-Miller with my Auntie Nat,

she took us all out shopping.

Wouldn't think anything of it.

She was a happy person.

When I was younger, I used to follow Swan-Miller

on Instagram,

and pictures with my Auntie Nat and whatnot.

She's always seemed to have been

very social media influenced, like.

The relationship looks like a happy,

normal, healthy relationship.

There's lots of posts about love.

It looks all bright and rosy.

Natalie moved in with Miller and her mum, Blair.

Right, we're going up to start doing the challenge.

My Auntie Nat and Swan-Miller they,

they both seem genuinely happy,

and I was happy to see that my auntie was happy.

The next time we see her, she's married.

No one knew about the wedding.

No one was invited, it just happened.

My daughter Natalie, she had her name changed to,

Harper Swan-Miller.

It were a farce, basically.

It were just, oh, come on, let's get married type of thing,

and that was that.

My daughter can't even remember getting married to Swan-Miller.

She says it were like a dream,

like it, it weren't real.

I noticed things changing with my daughter.

She came a bit withdrawn,

not her usual self.

After a period of time in the relationship,

we were not seeing that at all.

None of us were, she was

cut off from the whole family.

There was constant arguments between

Swan-Miller and my Nana Lynn.

I suspected that Swan-Miller was taking drugs

and I think she was giving them Natalie as well.

Natalie came to my home with Swan-Miller,

and they were stood in my kitchen,

and I said, "would any of you like anything to eat?"

No, we're fine.

And then a bit after it,

it was like about 5 or 10 minutes later,

Natalie's eyes started rolling.

Natalie, she couldn't even respond to me.

She couldn't even talk to me.

And I went mad, and I said to her,

"what on earth has she had?"

Miller's laughing her head off.

I said, "don't laugh, that's my daughter."

I says, "I want to know what she's had."

She says, "oh, I gave her such and such."

I said, "you gave her what?"

she says, "It was only a paracetamol and something else."

So my mum were constantly arguing with Swan-Miller.

Tell her what she's doing is not right.

And then our auntie Nat would stick with Swan-Miller

and say everything's fine, everything's fine.

Things weren't fine.

All the neighbours had been on about them.

She'd been hitting on Natalie with a golf club.

It seems that their dynamic in the household was very abusive.

We've all seen burn marks on my auntie Nat's hands.

So the images of the burn marks were sent from Nat

to my mother,

and I believe that was because my Auntie Nat was concerned,

but didn't quite know how to explain

that she was scared about what was going on in the house, like.

Because she was getting abused.

So if you think about coercive behaviour,

psychological abuse is often about isolating the victim

from their friends, their family and their social network,

but also breaking down their sense of self-esteem,

their confidence, then really activating their insecurities.

Because what that does

is create dependency on that person.

Then, if we bring in physical abuse,

that's about reinforcing the fact that

there's consequences if this individual resists.

[sinister music

Natalie's sister, Kelly,

is quite rightly concerned about what's happening,

and she's still terrified,

frightened about what the future might hold

if her sister continues in this abusive relationship.

So she's starting to document incidents that are happening

between Natalie and Winter Storm Miller.

She's starting to keep text messages

and pictures and screenshots.

Russell was in touch with us.

He's tracking things,

and he's been speaking to Natalie's family,

and they have shown WhatsApp messages

and shared photographs that they have

of Natalie in a really distressing state.

My Auntie Nat was usually a chubby-ish girl.

She sent pictures to my mum of her in the bath

scrawny as anything, not looking like herself at all.

Here we can see personal text messages

that have been sent.

Harper, which we now know as Natalie, is texting her sister.

Oh my God. WTF?

Right, this is Kelly going,

What on earth has gone on?

Kelly is in disbelief at how her sister now looks.

She's emaciated.

Oh, she looked filthy.

Really dirty.

She was thin, her bones were showing and everything,

and she looked scared.

She was sleeping in the shed outside.

The whole control went on for quite a while,

about 2 or 3 years.

It was really upsetting for me, you know,

because last time I ever spoke to Natalie,

Natalie was telling me they'd moved to Rotherham.

Swan-Miller and my daughter Natalie,

and her mother, Blair.

We've got an house there.

I said to her, I said, "well,

when are you going to give me your phone number?"

She says, "oh well, I'll give it you."

She says, "I've got a new one."

She says, "and I'll let you know what it is."

So I waited...

Nothing.

No phone call, no social media.

It were like, my daughter didn't exist,

you know, she vanished off the face of blooming earth.

It was the 11th of August

2019,

I got up on the Sunday morning

to a phone call.

It was Blair Miller, Swan-Miller's mum,

to tell me that my daughter had passed away.

I thought it was some sick joke.

Natalie had been on a life support machine.

Five days she was left there,

and of course, the next of kin was the very only Swan-Miller.

I found out that my daughter

had been dumped by Swan-Miller

in the hallway of the hospital, and just left.

Just to die, really.

The people in the hospital had actually said

that they'd found this girl on a trolley in the hallway

where she'd been seen whoever had rushed off

and just left her there

And then about five days into

my auntie being on an intensive care ward,

Swan-Miller tells them to turn the machine off.

I felt guilty that I couldn't be with her.

The people that were looking for my daughter

didn't know her proper name.

They didn't know she'd got a family.

They knew nothing.

The family say the next thing they're facing

is the fact that they can't retrieve

Natalie's body from the hospital.

Winter Swan-Miller is the next of kin,

she's the wife,

and she hasn't collected the body

or followed any of the processes.

So now the family are not only grieving,

they're also having to deal with a situation

where they're facing unnecessary red tape and barriers.

And it come to the point where my mum and me

and Auntie Natalie’s father

had to agree to pay for the whole funeral costs

for them to release the body to us,

and it was a period of about three weeks

before we could even get her in the chapel of rest.

So we had the funeral,

we tried to invite Swan-Miller.

She didn't want nothing to do with the funeral at all

for some reason.

She was avoiding all conversations, all phone calls.

Didn't want to give us any of Nat's belongings at all.

Nothing.

There was definitely two different versions of events

that Swan-Miller had told us regarding my auntie's passing.

One of them was that she was in the garden cutting the grass,

and she fell over and banged her head,

and that's when she took her to hospital.

And the other one was

that she'd gone to sleep with a headache

and just simply not woke up.

There were some irregularities,

shall we say, in the story,

as to how Winter Miller's wife had been deceased.

I'm collecting these notes, and I'm thinking,

well, that's strange.

With that insight,

the mother and the sister challenged the coroner's report.

The coroner,

he says it was a rare bleed to the brain.

I said, "well, how would that have happened?"

He says, "well, we're not quite sure."

I says, "I am."

I says, "I think it's an hit to head, she's had.

I want an inquest."

"No, no, no, no, I'm not willing to perform one."

He says, "at the end of the day,

I've done my job, he says, and I've come to that conclusion,

what happened and all the events that went surrounding it,"

he says, "And I'm happy that Natalie died that way."

I understand the Pashley family are not happy

with the coroner's report regarding Natalie's death.

But it's not just a question of being unhappy

because you think something's happened.

You need some solid evidence to change the coroner's view.

When Natalie Pashley's family found out about, you know,

the events that had unfolded with Stuart,

this dossier, it was provided to Hampshire police.

They were outlining abuse.

They were outlining events that had happened.

And they weren't just describing,

there were visual photos.

And I was told unofficially that, um,

don't worry, this isn't the end of it, okay?

There will be, you know, she's going to get re-arrested.

Natalie's family was hoping that

Natalie's story will be told as part of

Winter Swan-Miller's trial,

because they wanted Natalie's voice to be heard.

The Hampshire police were calling my mum,

asking her to be a witness in court.

It was crazy. It was like, after all these years

of putting something to bed,

and having to accept that

there was nothing that was going to happen,

and my auntie had gone and that was it.

And then all of a sudden,

Swan-Miller was right in the forefront

of all of our minds again.

It was held at Winchester Crown Court.

In the public gallery, there were many friends and family

from Stuart Crocker,

with Winter Swan-Miller in the dock

for the murder of Stuart Crocker.

I wanted to see who Swan-Miller was in the flesh,

because I wanted her to see

from people that meant something to Stuart

what she had done, especially to Joseph.

I was incredibly anxious.

I wanted to hear what had happened in its entirety,

and I wanted to take that burden on

as perhaps some sort of punishment

for not being there as much as I could have been for my dad.

Given the evidence around the TikTok

and forensic evidence,

she had pleaded not guilty.

I was sitting inside the courtroom with a laptop.

I was reporting it live from the room there,

and it goes straight to the Andover Advertiser website,

where people outside can just read

what's happening inside the courtroom.

The first stage of a trial

is for the prosecution to present the case to the jurors.

And the prosecution's case was that Winter Swan-Miller

committed this murder

in like with an intent to kill him,

it was just plain murder.

There were a number of witnesses were called to the courtroom.

The main investigation officer,

her examination and cross-examination

went on for several days.

What was shown in court was the TikTok video,

which we now know to have been filmed at Stuarts flat,

not long after she killed him.

Well, hi guys.

I'm going to be taking a break from TikTok for a bit,

I think because

I've been a bad girl.

Hmm.

I can only explain

when the time comes.

I had to do what I did because

of my

situation.

The video showed her confessing to what she'd done.

She was sat on the sofa

and her legs were actually over Stuart's body beneath her.

Pretty horrific scene, by all accounts, inside.

I'll give you my name. I'll give you my location.

The prosecution say this was a calculated act

that she undertook,

and she was seeking that notoriety.

I've never seen this type of admission before

where somebody has committed a brutal act like she has,

and then gone straight online to tell her followers

about what's happened.

It's certainly unusual.

She doesn't look distressed when she's making this post.

In fact, she looks quite pleased with herself,

which is particularly worrying,

but it is really unusual to see.

The prosecution also showed in court

a series of films of Swan-Miller talking into her telephone,

which weren't posted anywhere.

They weren't posted online

saying things like, I killed the

Swan-Miller can be heard saying,

"these are the dogs they steal from me

or tried to steal from me.

I killed the .

And there's another one that says,

"I'm sitting in the same room as the old man that I stabbed."

Powerful words.

She was telling people that she had killed someone.

So this is the other side of the social media persona

of Winter Swan-Miller.

Truly disturbing.

In the court, prosecution also said that,

on the day of the murder,

there were videos of Winter Swan-Miller

going to cashpoints to take money

out of Mr. Crocker's bank card.

We saw CCTV footages of her going to the Tesco.

As she was leaving Andover, she had her luggage with her.

She also had a dog.

Oblivion.

Forensics are called to court, and they give evidence

that says Stuart's blood has been found

on things owned by Winter Swan-Miller,

such as her watch and her jewellery.

The jurors were also told about a Louis Vuitton bag

that Winter Swan-Miller had.

There was DNA evidence on the strap,

showing that she used to strangle him.

That's pretty damning.

So, the next thing presented to the court

is that Swan-Miller's DNA

has been found under Stuart's fingernails

and in his underwear.

There was also DNA of a sexual nature,

which proved that they were engaged in a sexual act

just before the incident.

After the prosecution completed their case,

it was the turn of the defence counsel

to present Winter Swan-Miller's case,

explaining this was not a murder,

this was a manslaughter.

When I sit as a magistrate

where you sit as a judge and jury,

you would listen to the prosecution case.

That's what was always presented first.

And you'd be,

"oh, for God's sake, what are we doing here?

They're so obviously guilty.

What a waste of time."

Then the defence would stand up.

So it's definitely a game of two halves.

So the defence said

that Winter Swan-Miller had acted in self-defence,

that Stuart had raped her.

She had grabbed a knife and stabbed him in fear.

Her argument was that she was the vulnerable victim

and Stuart Crocker was the abuser and the manipulator.

And this last moment was, she'd had enough,

so she killed him.

They said that from the evidence,

the forensic could not prove that

the sexual act was consensual

or was it a sexual assault?

The defence also said the number of stab wounds

show that it was an act in panic,

rather than a premeditated murder attempt.

We followed the trial on social media,

Swan-Miller was saying,

Stuart Crocker raped her.

All sorts of stuff, she'd come up with.

It felt like the jury were believing her.

I thought, oh, please, no.

Just don't let her get away with this.

After the accusations,

Swan-Miller was fighting for her life.

I was worried

that people might fall for the victim statements

she was giving out.

She was intimating that

something bad had happened to her.

Imagine Stuart's family, his son.

His ex-wife.

What if this goes the wrong way?

So that was a concern to me, the family,

and probably to the police as well.

We learned during the trial

all these rapes and things that she kept saying would happened.

None of them were ever confirmed.

None of it was ever reported to the police.

Knowing my relationship with Stuart,

I can say hand on heart, no way would Stuart rape anyone.

It's a really tricky position to be in

as a prosecution team,

to try and disprove that that had happened,

particularly when it's one person's word against another

and the other person is no longer with us.

... Second defence strategy

was loss of control.

Her argument was a fear for the fate of her dog

as the trigger for loss of control.

And if the jury accept that,

it wouldn't have been an acquittal,

but it would have been a downgrade from murder

to voluntary manslaughter as the charge.

So Swan-Miller's claims about the dog having been kidnapped

on first sight looks sort of mad.

Um, but you've got to remember that

in the state and in the place

that drugs can put an individual,

people can become very paranoid.

It turns out that Oblivion had escaped from the flat

and was returned by a neighbour,

but in her mind, this was the trigger

for her attacking and murdering Stuart.

The third defence strategy was diminished responsibility.

Now this is, um, due to insanity

or intoxication or all of the above.

The jurors heard that she had a,

like a difficult childhood.

It was only seven months since the death of her mother,

Blair Swan-Miller.

She died due to overuse of prescribed drugs,

which led to respiratory depression.

So there was a lot of, um, mental health issues

was going through, uh, her life during this time.

So considering these factors,

defence, uh, try to make it a point

that she had a diminished responsibility in this incident.

It was like a tennis game.

The prosecution would present an evidence

and then the defence would try to strike that down.

I think the biggest thing for me that I found out

when I went to court

was the finer details of Winter

and my dad's encounters together.

Hearing about how she had control of his bank accounts,

she would decide who he could call or text,

how she would make him pay for alcohol and drugs,

and the exploits she had with other men

behind my dad's back.

Hearing her defence was disgusting.

After 12 weeks, we hear closing arguments,

and we hear from her defence

that she's not a monster,

but she is a tragic figure.

If I was the SIO, I'd be quite nervous,

I think, in that trial.

I normally go to trials very confident, thinking,

we've got our person.

The jury are going to see through all this.

But for me, it just yeah, it was one of those ones

that it could have gone either way.

The jury has sent out.

this starts three days of deliberation,

ten hours of discussion

until they finally come back with their verdict.

Then the court's back in session.

I sat down,

mum was holding my hand tightly.

There was loads of people there that day.

And the jury are asked if they have come to their verdict.

They've made their decision.

It's guilty and unanimous.

And as soon as the guilty verdict came up,

I air punched and went, "Yes!"

The judge issued the sentence,

which was 23 years for the murder of Mr. Stuart Crocker.

We were all ecstatic upon hearing it and

seeing her shake her head

at the fact that she's getting her sentence.

I think Swan-Miller thought it was all going to go her way.

Just relief that she didn't get away with it

on some sort of made up, you know, stories.

Thank God, 23 years, yes.

Should have been 123 years.

That's what it should have been.

My mum, she was meant to be a witness for court,

for Swan-Miller's trial,

but they never called her up in the end for some reason.

And so she was very disappointed by the end of it,

when they hadn't got hold of her,

and didn't invite her down to court.

Natalie's family were probably hoping that

it would come up as a potential, you know,

is there anything suspicious here that happened here?

Maybe they could, could get that looked at

and investigated again.

However, the murder trial was solely on Stuart Crocker

and what's happened to him.

It's difficult to really understand why

Swan-Miller did what she did to Stuart on that particular day,

but what I can take from that crime scene

is this was a particularly personal attack

and particularly vicious.

She used him for money.

She used him for shelter,

and may have used him for sex as well,

and for some reason or another, something happened

where she decided she no longer needed him,

and she carried out this vicious attack on him.

Winter Swan-Miller, she'll be out in 2047.

She'll be out when she's 59.

Why did Winter Swan-Miller kill Stuart Crocker?

Was her brain addled by all the class A drugs?

Was it the fact that he had let her dog out,

or was she doing it for fame for the influencer?

I guess we'll never know, really.

My main concern when I look back on this

is that there were so many warning markers missed,

I felt helplessness that Stuart had died.

I feel it could have been prevented.

This is a fallen comrade.

This is a friend.

Um, this is someone that

nobody really was wanting to stand up for.

Uh, you know, he'd lost his way a little bit.

I would like Stuart to be remembered as a kind person.

He was a good soldier, and he served his country well.

I love the memories of me

being able to cook him dinner.

I love the memories of him pestering me on the phone

for hours on end, even when I didn't want to be bothered.

I love the memories we did have.

The good memories.

So this is my dad, Stuart.

Uh, we plan to take him towards Scotland,

where we're hoping to spread his ashes over a loch

to honour his wishes.

I'm not sure how I feel.

It feels weird to hold your dad

in two hands like this, I suppose,

but I can take some joy in the fact that

I've still got him close to me.