A 31-year-old Dorchester man was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday in connection with the 2012 stabbing death of his 72-year-old neighbor, Mary Miller.
Miller was found by police on Feb. 21, 2012, at approximately 1:45 a.m. in her Codman Hill Avenue apartment after a relative called 911 to report a breaking and entering. She was announced dead at the scene.
Her upstairs neighbor Ted Nguyen pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the homicide. He received an additional 10 years for burglary.
A press release from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office below.
June 18, 2014
Guilty Plea in Murder of Woman, 72
(BOSTON) — A Dorchester man was sentenced to life in prison yesterday after admitting that he stabbed 72-year-old Mary Miller to death in the Codman Hill Avenue apartment building where they were neighbors, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.
TU NGUYEN (D.O.B. 4/30/83) pleaded guilty late yesterday to second-degree murder for the 2012 homicide. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke sentenced him to the mandatory term of life in prison, plus a consecutive 10-year term for burglary.
Had the case proceeded to trial, Assistant District Attorney David Fredette would have introduced evidence and testimony suggesting that Nguyen, who lived on the second floor of the building, gained access to Miller’s first-floor apartment through a window and stabbed her to death.
Boston Police responded to the scene at about 1:45 a.m. on Feb. 21, 2012, after a relative of the victim called 911 to report a breaking and entering. They found Miller mortally wounded and, in the course of their investigation, recovered a private security camera that appeared to show Nguyen entering the residence.
Nguyen was arrested in his apartment upstairs later that morning. He was initially committed to Bridgewater State Hospital but was later found competent to assist in his own defense.
Katherine Moran was the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate.
