The defense for William Leverett presented a guilty plea deal for the 2014 murder of Melissa Millan in Hartford Superior Court on March 8, 2022.
“Leverett’s plea bargain calls for the 35-year prison sentence to be followed by seven years of strict special parole, according to prosecutor Vicki Melchiorre.”
Since his arrest in 2018, Leverett has been in jail on $2 million bond. As per the plea, he will have to serve a minimum of 25 years. Sentencing will take place on May 3, 2022.
Melissa Millan was out jogging on the evening of November 20, 2014 on a widely used trail in Simsbury, Connecticut when she was attacked and stabbed in the chest. She was an executive at Mass Mutual Insurance Company. Nothing in her background suggested that anyone she knew may wanted to harm her.
The Cold Case Unit of the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office and the FBI revisited the crime scene but no new evidence was found. That changed when the man now in court walked into Simsbury Police Department and said that he wanted to confess to the crime.
The night of the killing, Leverett had been at a sex offenders support group meeting in Hartford. He came home, felt lonely, went for a drive, spotted Millan jogging and said he got “mentally aroused” by her physical features before realizing she was, “way out of my league.” More about this here.
Leverett has apparently confessed in church to a small group that he had killed a woman in 2014. They insisted that he would turn himself in which he did. He showed officers a bloody glove that was hidden behind a wall. It was hidden on property owned by his grandparents. The glove was tested for DNA and matched Melissa. Millan and Leverett had never met before.
Rest in Peace, Melissa Millan.
UPDATE: On May 3, 2022 Leverett was sentenced to 35 years and 7 years of special parole. Leverett has already served over three years in prison. That time will be subtracted from the sentence.