Suspect Arrested in Killing of MassMutual Executive
Melissa Millan was a senior vice president in MassMutual’s retirement services unit.
A suspect was arrested Sunday and charged with killing Melissa Millan, a Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. executive found dead with stab wounds on the side of a Connecticut road in 2014.
William Winters Leverett, 27, was charged with one count of murder and will be arraigned in Enfield Superior Court Monday, police in Simsbury, Connecticut, said in a statement. The suspect turned himself in to local police Wednesday night and confessed to the attack, which appears to have been random, the Hartford Courant reported Sunday, citing law-enforcement sources.
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Millan, 54, was found near a running path in Connecticut almost four years ago. Months later, an anonymous donor put up funds for a $40,000 reward to find the killer. The insurance executive worked in the retirement-services business for Springfield, Massachusetts-based MassMutual, which she joined in 2001.
Around 2005, she helped start a Council of Disability Insurers. She was active in efforts to promote the idea that executives needed more and better life and disability benefits.
“Melissa Millan was an incredible person and outstanding leader, and we were fortunate to have her as a part of our MassMutual family for more than a decade,” Michael McNamara, a MassMutual spokesman, said in an emailed statement. “We are encouraged to learn that there are developments in her case, and continue to keep Melissa and her family in our thoughts.”
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