Jordan Miller’s murder conviction quashed after killing girlfriend Emerald Wardle at Metford home

The late diagnosis of a mental illness has seen the murder conviction against a man who strangled his teenage girlfriend to death while in a drug-induced psychosis quashed.

Victim Emerald Wardle, 18, who was found dead inside a Metford home on June 20. Source: Facebook.

The murder conviction against a man who strangled his teenage girlfriend to death while in a drug-induced psychosis has been quashed and ruled he was “not criminally responsible” after being diagnosed with schizophrenia.

In October 2022, Jordan Brodie Miller was sentenced to a maximum of 20 years’ jail for murdering 18-year-old Emerald Wardle in their Metford home, in the NSW Hunter region, in 2020.

A jury found Miller guilty of strangling the teen to death, agreeing with prosecutors that the then 20-year-old’s descent into psychosis was solely caused by his drug use.

The former University of Newcastle student was set to be aged 33 when eligible for parole after being sentenced to a minimum of 13 years, but an appeal lodged against both his sentence and conviction was heard last week after fresh psychiatric evidence came to light when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia after his conviction.

On grounds of appeal, defence argued there had been a miscarriage of justice because of fresh evidence of the emergence of further symptoms and his diagnosis after the trial.

Jordan Brodie Miller (right) had his murder conviction quashed after killing his girlfriend Emerald Wardle (pictured left). Picture: Supplied

Police at the scene in Metford on June 20, 2020. Picture: Peter Lorimer

The painful news saw victim impact statements read by both Ms Wardle’s parents who said the death of their daughter at the hands of a man she trusted was “every parents worst nightmare”.

“Emerald has paid the ultimate price and the young man who she trusted the most took her life. He made a choice and in doing so destroyed so many lives. The loss of a child is unbearable pain,” mum Tania Simshauser said through a statement read out in court.

A week later on Friday, the Court of Criminal Appeal in Sydney announced Miller’s appeal against his conviction was successful and under the mental health and cognitive impairment act, there was a special verdict that the act was still proven but that he was not criminally responsible.

The court referred Miller to the Mental Health Review Tribunal where it was ordered he be detained in a correctional facility determined by them until appropriate.

Emerald Wardle, 18, was found dead inside a Metford home on June 20. Source: Facebook.

The CCA judgement published stated Miller’s treating psychiatrist Dr Natasha Rae diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia after she reviewed his records of treatment in custody, reported and observed symptoms and had treated him since March last year.

She said although it was not clear at the time of the killing or his trial that the applicant had suffered a psychotic episode as a first presentation of schizophrenia, rather than a drug induced psychosis, she made her diagnosis because his symptoms did not resolve and he relapsed into psychosis in the absence of drug use.

Two other experts involved in Miller’s case agreed on his diagnosis of schizophrenia, one making comment he “has had an acute and prolonged episode of psychosis” which commenced before his offending conduct.

At Miller’s sentencing in October 2022, NSW Supreme Court Justice Richard Cavanagh determined Miller’s moral culpability was reduced because there was no evidence he was aware his drug taking could cause him to become psychotic, and he did not plan the attack.

The court previously heard Miller had kept his drug use from his family and had been using cannabis daily and taken an estimated 30 “trips” of LSD in the years before he sunk into the psychosis and strangled Ms Wardle under delusional belief she was a “demon” who was “sucking the life” out of him.

While he admitted to killing his girlfriend of two years, he argued at trial that he had a defence of mental health impairment because he was suffering the first episode of psychosis brought on by an undiagnosed mental health condition, suffering the symptoms of schizophrenia.