BELLAIRE -- Authorities charged Anne Avery-Miller with an open count of murder in the shooting death of her teenage son in 2007. She told police Sam Avery, 16, committed suicide.
Avery-Miller, 39, was arrested about 8:45 this morning as she left her Williamsburg residence, Michigan State Police Sgt. Mark Harris said. She's expected to be arraigned today in Bellaire.
Thirteenth Circuit Court Judge Philip Rodgers, who served as a one-man grand jury sitting in Grand Traverse County, indicted Avery-Miller. The indictment was signed after five days of grand jury proceedings ended Oct. 15 and was made public upon her arrest.
Sam Avery died of a single gunshot to the back of his head on Nov. 7, 2007. He died in an upstairs bedroom of the Elk Rapids home where he lived with Avery-Miller and his young sister.
A fellow patient in a mental health facility where Avery-Miller spent time shortly after Sam Avery's death testified in grand jury proceedings that Avery-Miller confessed to shooting her son, according to the indictment.
Sam Avery also allegedly told a close friend shortly before his death that his mother discussed killing him, the indictment reads. Avery-Miller told police her son was suicidal, but her son's friend said he was in "good spirits" the day before his death.
Avery-Miller's journal, discovered in the home after Sam Avery's death, allegedly "contained documents which infer a plan to kill both of her children and herself," the indictment reads. The journal also had a "document which may (be) reasonably inferred to be an obituary for both children and Anne Avery with none of them surviving the other."
A grand jury has the ability to subpoena witnesses and compel testimony, and grand jury proceedings are closed to the public. Antrim County Prosecutor Charles Koop said he chose to use a grand jury because "a number" of witnesses wouldn't cooperate with investigators.
This grand jury was the first to be held in the county in at least a decade, Rodgers said.
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