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Daughter of murder victim to killer: ‘I still love you’
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Veronica Baragona of Niles, a daughter of murder victim Laura L. Michael, said only four words to her uncle, Bradley E. Milligan, as she stood across from him Thursday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court: “I still love you.”
Those were surprising and powerful words, given that Milligan had just pleaded guilty to killing Baragona’s mother, Laura L. Michael, last Dec. 17 in the home she and Milligan shared on Howland Springs Road in Howland.
Judge Ronald A. Rice sentenced Milligan to 20 years to life in prison.
Baragona said later she wanted her uncle to “remember who he really is,” not just the alcoholic whose abuse of his sister finally took a deadly turn, but the man who also had been nice.
But what also motivated Baragona was the belief that it is what her mother would want.
“She’s forgiven him,” she said of her mother, who was 51. “I know my mom would want me to.”
It was that forgiving nature that put Michael in harm’s way, said Dreama Lamantia, who was Michael’s best friend and neighbor.
Michael had come home from Columbus to take care of her father during the last year of his life at his house on Howland Springs Road.
Milligan, 48, also had come home from Columbus and stayed on and off with his sister, continuing a habit that began in Columbus in which Milligan would lean on Michael for help.
But Milligan had a drinking problem, and it made the 140-pound handyman violent at times, something Lamantia said she and her husband witnessed several times when they stopped Milligan from hurting his sister.
“She was the only one who would do anything for him because of the alcoholism and domestic violence,” Lamantia said after the hearing.
“He’d have good days, and she’d forget the bad days,” Baragona said.
“She had a heart of gold. She’d give you the shirt off of her back, even if it meant she had to freeze,” said Dreama’s husband, Michael Lamantia.
Despite Baragona’s remarks to Milligan in court, Milligan didn’t say anything back when it was his turn.
“I’m sure he’s just ashamed,” Baragona said of his reasons for not apologizing.
The family, which spent many years in Niles, never thought Milligan would kill his sister, but his bad behavior did escalate toward the end, which Baragona said could be a lesson to others.
“Act. Don’t wait. Get somebody help,” she said of her uncle.
Milligan pleaded guilty to aggravated murder.
Police found Michael’s body wrapped in a blanket in the basement after another of her daughters called police to say she had not seen Michael in a couple of days.
Milligan showed no emotion after a Howland patrolman had him open a locked basement door, where the patrolman found Michael’s body, according to police.
She died from head trauma and knife injuries on both sides of her neck.
Milligan was convicted of domestic violence against Michael in Warren Municipal Court in 2012 for injuring her arm and threatening to kill her for refusing to buy him beer.
Michael asked the court in December 2012 to eliminate a no-contact order that had been issued to keep Milligan away.
A Franklin County Municipal Court judge ordered Milligan to receive psychiatric counseling at a sentencing hearing in 1997 after he was convicted of misdemeanor inducing panic.