Clare Miller has now been separated from both of her parents, perhaps the saddest result of the arrest this week of Ann Miller Kontz in the arsenic poisoning of her first husband. There is no telling whether the girl will be able to hold her mother's hand again outside a detention facility.

Clare, 4, has been in the care of Kontz's sister, Danielle Wilson, in Wilmington since Monday, when Kontz was charged with first-degree murder in the 2000 death of Eric Miller, an AIDS researcher. At the time of her father's death, Clare was 10 months old.

Clare's next opportunity to see her mother will be today or Sunday through a glass partition at the Wake County jail, where Kontz is awaiting a hearing on whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty in her case. If they do, it is unlikely that Kontz will be released while she awaits trial.

If such a meeting occurs, mother and daughter will converse through telephone handsets in one of a double row of booths in the Public Safety Center on Salisbury Street. Inmates at the jail are allowed one visit from up to two visitors a weekend, including children.

Wilson, reached at her home Thursday, did not know whether she would take Clare to visit her mother at the jail.

"It's a hard time for my family, and we haven't really thought that far," she said. "We're just all kind of blown away, and I have no comment."

During the nearly four years since Eric Miller's death, Clare's aunt has helped maintain a connection between Clare and the parents of Eric Miller, Verus and Doris, who live in Cambridge City, Ind.

The elder Millers have driven to North Carolina every three or four months to confer with detectives and to visit with their granddaughter, said Chris Morgan, a retired Raleigh police lieutenant who led the investigation into Eric Miller's death.

Wilson has also brought Clare to Indiana to visit the Millers there, said Rodney Bertsch, a friend of Eric's who lives in Franklin, Ind. "I know they've tried to remain in touch and they've tried to see her as much as they've been able to negotiate," Bertsch said.

Clare comes first

Eric Miller's sister, Leeann M. Magee of Hatfield, Pa., said the girl's well-being is the family's priority.

"We love her very much," Magee said. "We want her to be well taken care of and, I guess, sheltered as well as possible from all of this. ... All we care about at this point is that she is OK, and she is."

Magee added that the family is taking things "one step at a time."

Thomas C. Boylan, a college friend of Eric's who remained in contact with the Millers and is a lawyer in Florida, said that some time ago they asked him about grandparents' rights in North Carolina.

Family lawyer Lee S. Rosen of Raleigh said that, as sad as Clare's situation is, she is better off than most children whose parents are involved in domestic homicides.

"She is probably the most fortunate child of a murdered parent that I've ever heard of, sadly," Rosen said. "Thankfully, there are capable people willing to take care of her."

In situations where one parent is gone and the other parent is deemed unfit, as a convicted prisoner would be, it is not unusual for the victim's relatives "to act out their anger at the overall situation in the one arena they have left -- in the child custody court," Rosen said.

Typically, a jailed parent facing trial can grant temporary custody to whomever he or she designates, Rosen said. If the parent is imprisoned, and the custody shift needs to be made permanent, then any third party can seek custody of the child. North Carolina law requires the courts to decide a child's fate based on the best interests of the child and to minimize disruptions.

"The temporary arrangement is the single best predictor of a permanent arrangement, Rosen said. "If this child has a home and it's working, it's very unlikely that the arrangement is going to change in the future."