A 35-year-old San Francisco woman was sentenced to probation today after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter last month for beating her boyfriend in the head with an alarm clock, after which he later died.
Kira Roueche called police on Nov. 8, 2009, to report 42-year-old Cameron Miller was unconscious in the apartment where they had been living at the Henry Hotel at 106 Sixth St. Paramedics arrived and pronounced him dead.
Prosecutors initially charged Roueche with murder, after finding the bloody clock outside the apartment window. Neighbors had reported hearing them arguing the night before.
Both had a history of drug abuse and Miller had a history of abusing Roueche, attorneys from both sides acknowledged.
Roueche initially told police that others had attacked Miller, and then claimed Miller had tried to sexually assault her and she attacked him in self-defense.
Miller also had terminal liver disease and several drugs in his system at the time of the incident, according to prosecutor Asit Panwala.
A medical examiner’s report concluded those two factors alone could have been responsible for Miller’s death and that it was impossible to prove conclusively the beating with the alarm clock was the cause, Panwala said.
Both Panwala and Roueche’s attorney, Kleigh Hathaway of the public defender’s office, agreed the case was involuntary manslaughter.
Roueche pleaded guilty to the charge on May 14 and was released from custody.
A judge sentenced her today to three years of probation and drug counseling, and one year in county jail. But with credits from the six months she had already served in jail, including for good behavior, no additional jail time was required.
Miller’s mother, in a letter read in court today, told the judge that her son had “a troubled life” but she missed him terribly. “Out of this tragedy,” she said, she hoped Roueche would be able to begin a new life for herself.
