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Incestuous Inmate Dies Of Apparent Suicide

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Sarasota Herald Tribune

Published: August 5, 2008

Updated: 08/05/2008 02:35 pm

Manatee County detectives are investigating an inmate's apparent suicide Monday night at the Manatee County Jail.

Corrections deputies discovered 46-year-old Michael Mills hanging from an air-conditioning vent about 10:50 p.m.

Mills was arrested this year and charged with incest.

Mills hanged himself Monday after creating a makeshift rope by using a sheet and socks, according to a Manatee County Sheriff's Office news release.

When a head count was conducted at 10:15 p.m., Mills was alive in his cell, according to the news release.

On Friday, Circuit Judge Diana L. Moreland in Bradenton sentenced Mills to five years in prison for his sexual relationship with his daughter. Mills also was slated to serve five years of probation.

He also was to be sentenced on related incest charges in Levy County to about 10 years in prison, Assistant State Attorney Jeff Quisenberry said.

Prosecutors say cases of incest involving two adults are rare. The victim, Tammie Mills, said in February that the sexual relationship with her father was consensual.

Michael Mills began a relationship with his daughter when she was a minor in Levy County, according to court records. Michael and Tammie Mills have two daughters together. The children are in the custody of a child welfare agency.

"I know it was wrong, but it is my life," Tammie Mills said this year. "We loved each other. We were in it together."

Tammie Mills said she considers Michael Mills her husband.

She said they trusted each other and that her children loved their father.

The relationship, a secret for years, unraveled after Tammie Mills was arrested on a domestic battery charge, which prosecutors later abandoned.

After the arrest, the Manatee County sheriff's child protective services team took custody of the Mills' daughters. Authorities said they reviewed birth records and found Michael Mills was the father of the two girls.

"People around can think what they want," Tammie Mills said in an interview this year. "It's my life. I'm an adult. I can choose what I want."

Information from TBO.com was used in this report.

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