Couple Drove a U-Haul Across the Country With the Emaciated Corpse of an 8-Year-Old Girl

A woman and her boyfriend from Washington state learned their fate after they were arrested for taking her 8-year-old adopted daughter’s body on a road trip across the country after she died from abuse and starvation.

The Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said in a statement that Mandie Miller was sentenced to serve 32 years in prison for her involvement in the death of Meela Miller during a hearing on Friday, February 6. She learned her sentence after she pleaded guilty to homicide by abuse, assault of a child and two counts of unlawful imprisonment in January.

Meanwhile, Miller’s boyfriend, Aleksander Kurmoyarov, pleaded guilty to murder, assault and unlawful imprisonment for the crime. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday, February 9.

It was previously reported that Miller and Kurmoyarov lived with Meela’s body for three months after she died in September 2022 because they “wanted to spend more time with her,” according to Law & Crime.

The couple rented a U-Haul in December 2022 and placed Meela’s body in a coffin inside the vehicle before they drove thousands of miles from Spokane to Mitchell, South Dakota.

Miller and Kurmoyarov went to a funeral home during the road trip and asked that Meela, who was Miller’s biological niece that she adopted, be buried. Employees at the funeral home then contacted police when the couple could not show documentation of Meela’s death.

The couple was charged with failure to notify law enforcement of the death of a child in South Dakota. They were then extradited to Washington, where they were hit with more serious charges once the abuse Meela suffered was uncovered.

“She restrained her for hours upon hours, day after day. Unbeknownst to them, their home camera system recorded them assaulting Meela, and unbeknownst to them, their home camera system recorded them tying her to a car seat with zip ties to restrain her,” Spokane County deputy prosecutor Emily Sullivan said during the sentencing, according to KREM. “The facts before this court are undisputed. They did assault her, they did starve her, they did restrain her, they did torture her, and they did kill her.”

Meela’s biological mother, Andrea Miller, also addressed her sister during the sentencing hearing.

“You did this with no remorse, murdering my third child, my beautiful daughter, Meela Rose Miller,” Andrea said. “Named after our sister, Amelia Rose Miller, my best friend, my sister and auntie to my children, a Marine who died in 2013 at 23.”

Judge Rachelle Anderson explained why she sentenced Miller with two years more than what prosecutors recommended during the trial.

“We’re here because a little girl was tortured, she was starved, her interests were not protected,” Anderson said, according to the outlet. “And as a parent, this is the worst crime a person can commit against their own child, their adopted child, their own family member.”

Miller also spoke during the hearing, and she briefly addressed the abuse that Meela suffered that led to her death.

“My daughter did not deserve any abuse or neglect from me,” she said. “She most definitely didn’t deserve any abuse from Alex.”