Nicola Shannon KC and Lisa Bald successfully prosecute ‘Tik-Tok’ influencer for murder and fraud

Winter Swan-Miller, a 37 year-old Tik Tok influencer who stabbed to death a 62 year-old army veteran in the home they shared in Andover, Hampshire was convicted of murder at Winchester Crown Court this week after a 12-week trial. She was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 23 years before consideration for release by the parole board.

In passing sentence HHJ Angela Morris, The Recorder of Winchester, described her as “a highly manipulative person who was prepared to do or say anything to get what she wanted. If fame or notoriety was your goal, then by killing… in the appalling manner you did you succeeded in achieving it for all the wrong reasons.”

The case attracted substantial media attention as a result of a video posted to TikTok after the stabbing in which Ms Swan-Miller said that she had been “a bad girl” and notes left at the scene in which she said that she had killed the deceased because she held him responsible for letting out her Pomeranian ‘therapy’ dog Oblivion when he went missing for a number of hours several days before she killed the deceased in revenge.

After stabbing the deceased 27 times while under the influence of crack cocaine, Ms Swan-Miller went out to McDonald’s for breakfast before returning to the flat and carefully arranging the murder scene, including leaving notes for “the Pigs” to find before leaving Andover for the Birmingham area, where she and her dog stayed with an associate for a week during which she continued to take drugs and make TikTok videos explaining her actions, inviting viewers to contact her in prison and describing how she was “not sorry” for what she had done. She was subsequently arrested by police after neighbours’ reports of a foul smell led to discovery of the body in the week after the murder. She was tracked down and arrested outside a supermarket after she used the deceased’s bank card on two occasions, including to withdraw his pension from an ATM in Walsall.

The case involved presentation of substantial quantities of draft Tiktok videos from mobile telephone downloads as well as hours of secret recordings which Ms Swan-Miller had made of discussions between she and the deceased which she had hoped to use as ‘evidence’ in order to make false allegations against him. Pathologist and blood pattern analysis evidence was called in order to disprove Ms Swan-Miller’s assertion that she had acted in self-defence, and psychiatric evidence called by the defence in relation to the partial defences of diminished responsibility and loss of control was successfully challenged.

Ms Shannon KC and Ms Bald were instructed by CPS Wessex following an investigation by Hampshire Major Crime North.

News stories here (BBC), here (Hampshire News), here (The Sun) and here (The Telegraph).