Man gets prison term in fatal beating of friend

A Northeast Philadelphia man was sentenced yesterday to 21 to 42 years in prison for beating a friend to death and hiding his body in a 15-gallon plastic container.

Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey Minehart sentenced Nicholas Lux, 22, to the maximum term for third-degree murder and recommended that he serve the term at the state prison in Chester, which has a highly regarded drug-treatment program.

On Dec. 18, Minehart found Lux guilty of beating Arthur Miller to death with a rebar or iron bar.

Testimony showed that that Lux beat Miller several times in the head, then wrapped his body in plastic bags and jammed it into a 15-gallon plastic container on the third floor of a home where Lux lived at Master and Hancock Streets.

Police said Lux killed Miller after Miller allegedly insulted Lux's mother and grandmother.

Miller's mother, Princessa Miller, reported him missing May 2 after not seeing him for a week.

In an impact statement to the court yesterday, Princessa Miller testified the killing "has devastated me."

"He took something away from me that no one could ever replace," Miller said.

Miller said her son's body was found on Mother's Day. She said that even though she has two daughters, the loss of her only son means "I will never have another Mother's Day."

Holding a box that she said contained her son's ashes, Princessa Miller said she went to Lux's home and "begged him to tell me where my son was, and he had him upstairs stuffed in a container."

Assistant District Attorney Leon Goodman said, "This is truly a case where no one wins. . . . When you look at the case, Art Miller is the one who lost."

"This dispute could have ended with one blow," Goodman said as he urged Minehart to give Lux the maximum sentence.

Lux addressed the court briefly before the sentence was issued. "I apologize to the Miller family and their friends," Lux said. Lux also apologized to his own family.

Minehart said, "The entire scenario here, to put it mildly, was gruesome." Minehart said Lux made no attempt to mitigate what he had done.

Princessa Miller said that although she wanted Lux to receive a life sentence, "he got the max and I am satisfied."