WILMINGTON - The daughter of admitted killer Ann Miller Kontz is either a troubled 7-year-old who needs to resume visits with her imprisoned parent or a child at risk of deep psychological scars unless she is quickly told her mother poisoned her father.

That was the central issue for District Judge Phyllis Gorham as a three-day hearing ended Thursday. Clare Miller's paternal grandparents and aunt sought a regular visitation schedule and a permanent ban on Kontz having any contact with her only child.

Gorham is expected to make a ruling next week.

"What in the name of Ned does this woman, who is an admitted murderer, who lied, who manipulated ... have to offer this child?" Raleigh lawyer Robert Ponton Jr. asked during closing arguments.

Kontz's attorney, Al Clyburn, said Clare Miller shouldn't be punished for her mother's crime. He said the first-grader started having behavioral problems after being barred from seeing her mother.

"This case is not about whether Ann should be able to see Clare. It's about ... whether Clare needs to see Ann," Clyburn said.

No visits since March

Kontz, who did not attend the hearing, is serving a 25-year prison sentence after admitting she slipped fatal doses of arsenic to her first husband, pediatric AIDS researcher Eric Miller in 2000. Since March, she has been barred from seeing her daughter under an agreement Gorham accepted.

The agreement also gave primary custody to Kontz's younger sister, Danielle Wilson of Wilmington, and her husband, Dan. Secondary custody was granted to the girl's paternal grandparents, Doris and Verus Miller of Cambridge City, Ind., and her aunt, Pam Baltzell, and her husband.

The battle over visitation rights is the latest chapter in a murder case that has included a romantic relationship between Kontz and a co-worker who committed suicide within days of Eric Miller's death in December 2000. Kontz remarried, settling in Wilmington in 2003 with Paul Martin Koontz, a Christian rock guitarist.

On Tuesday, Raleigh child psychologist Ginger Calloway recommended cutting off all phone calls and visits between Kontz and her daughter. In her report to Gorham, Calloway, an expert hired by the grandparents, said a trauma specialist should explain to the child her father's murder and the reason Kontz is in prison. Calloway's report also warned that further contact with Kontz might result in the daughter emulating her mother, who Calloway said shows no remorse.

But Thomas Mates, a Wilmington child psychologist brought in by the Wilsons and Kontz, said supervised visits between mother and daughter should resume and could benefit the child.

Mates also recommended Clare Miller stay with the Wilsons, whom she refers to as her mother and father. But he noted the daughter has not been told her mother murdered her father, resulting in a long prison term. Instead, Mates' report said Kontz has told her daughter "that I have made a very big mistake and I'm in mommy's Time Out and have to be here for a long time."

Danielle Wilson said Clare Miller, who is on medication for a possible case of attention deficit disorder and has been seeing a child psychiatrist, should be told the truth gradually in an "age-appropriate way" -- not all at once.

"It's my job to protect Clare," said Wilson, a stay-at-home mother with four children of her own. "It's my job to protect all my kids."

Wilson said her niece was energized by two-hour visits with her mother at the women's prison in Raleigh. "It was two hours where she sat on Ann's lap ... they'd braid each other's hair. It was time where Clare would get loved on."

When those visits were halted in March, leaving phone calls as the only contact between them, Clare Miller started to get "clingy" and fearful she had be abandoned, Wilson said. The child also started losing her ability to focus. She ignored house rules and was unfazed by lectures or discipline.

In closing, Ponton suggested the child's behavior was caused by phone calls from Kontz that could not be followed by a visit. He asked Gorham to issue a permanent order barring all forms of contact between mother and daughter.