[chris]

A Palm Beach County middle-school band teacher who was cleared after fatally shooting a masked intruder during a February 2009 home invasion later went to prison on charges that he sexually abused four of his own students.

Heath Miller, 34, and his wife, Mirelle, were asleep in their rented Wellington duplex when their Jack Russell terrier began barking, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. A man in a ski mask had entered through the sliding glass doors off the back patio, carrying a gun.

Miller grabbed a .38-caliber revolver from his nightstand and fired until it was empty, then went for a .22-caliber rifle, deputies said. The intruder was hit twice, once in the thigh and once in the heart, and died at the scene. Mirelle Miller hid and called 911. "Someone just broke into my house," she told a dispatcher. "And my husband just shot him." A dispatcher later called the home back for more information.

Deputies identified the intruder as Robert Rashard Tomlin, 22, who according to jail records had prior arrests that included a 2007 battery on a pregnant woman. The sheriff's office classified the death as justifiable, with a report noting, "Justifiable circumstances: Felon killed by private citizen." Miller was not charged in the shooting.

Miller taught band at H.L. Watkins Middle School in Palm Beach Gardens and was popular with hundreds of students, according to the Broward-Palm Beach New Times. Within weeks of the shooting, he was arrested on accusations that he had sexually abused four eighth-grade female students, including at least one encounter in the band uniform room.

In March 2012, Miller pleaded guilty to sexual battery of a minor and three counts of lewd and lascivious conduct. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison followed by eight years of probation and ordered to give up his teaching certificate. Florida Department of Law Enforcement records list him as a registered sex offender in state custody.