Ex allegedly left mark on St. Paul house - and home page

To any person who's ever thought about seeking revenge on an ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend, let this be a cautionary tale:

Portlyn L. Miller, 21, is charged with two felony crimes after she allegedly wreaked havoc on her former flame's home on St. Paul's East Side, not once but three times.

The damages included dousing the inside of the house with green, white and pink paint, filling the house with trash, impaling a teddy bear on a pole with a knife through its head and much more.

When confronted about the damage, Miller told her ex "that he couldn't prove a thing," according to the criminal complaint filed last week in Ramsey County District Court. That might have been true, at least until she posted a photo from the interior of the house on her MySpace page, the court document said.

Miller is charged with second-degree burglary and first-degree criminal damage to property. She's on the lam; a warrant has been issued for her arrest. Her previous criminal record consists of failure to pay parking tickets.

The complaint lays out the ugly -- but gaily painted -- allegations:

A St. Paul officer was called to the house in the 1700 block of E. Cottage Avenue on Oct. 15 by a man identified in court documents as A.T.T. When police went inside, they found fresh green, pink and white paint splashed on the walls and floors, in the toilet, the washing machine and bathtub, on the computer and keyboard, on the furniture and the refrigerator and on the man's clothes.

The man told police that Miller and her friend had moved into his home at the end of August and that he'd told her to move at the end of September, the complaint said.

On Oct. 5, the man said he sent a text message to Miller asking if she had moved her belongings. She texted him back "to come see," the complaint said. When he arrived, her possessions were gone and the house was filled with trash. The garage had been filled with toilet paper and a teddy bear had been impaled on a wooden pole with a knife in its head.

On Oct. 8, the man said his garage and his vehicle had been egged with fluorescent pink and green eggs while he was at work, and smelly tuna cans had been scattered throughout the garage, the complaint said. The man said he saw Miller and her friend sitting in a vehicle nearby, laughing.

The complaint doesn't say why Miller might have thought the man had done her wrong. It does say that Miller found out that the man was seeing another woman when he broke up with her.

She posted a MySpace message on Oct. 14 saying, "It's time to retaliate ... ," the complaint said. The next day, her MySpace page said, "I win. ... It's a fact: you [messed] with the wrong [woman]."