Derril Willard told his lawyer that Ann Miller Kontz admitted administering poison to her first husband, Eric Miller, before he died -- according to evidence revealed Friday during what was expected to be a routine hearing to set bail.

The news shook Eric Miller's parents, who were seated in the front row of the courtroom. Verus Miller gasped loudly and began to cry, while Doris Miller began to visibly shake.

Superior Court Judge Donald W. Stephens later set bail for Kontz at $3 million, thought to be one of the highest amounts ever in Wake County.

Kontz is charged with first-degree murder in the Dec. 2, 2000, death of Eric Miller, 30, a pediatric AIDS researcher and her first husband. Police say Kontz and Willard, who worked together, were having an affair and had access to arsenic at their jobs.

Willard, who killed himself in 2001, told his lawyer that Kontz said she was visiting her husband in a hospital when she "took a syringe from her purse and injected the contents" into his intravenous line.

It was clear that the syringe contained poison, according to a summary of a statement by Willard's lawyer, Richard T. Gammon of Raleigh.

To make bail, Kontz, 34, would have to come up with as much as $450,000 in cash or equity in property for a bond company to underwrite the full amount. There is no time limit on when Kontz can post bail, and no date has been set for her trial.

"I haven't met many people who can make a $3 million bond," said Joseph B. Cheshire V of Raleigh, one of Kontz's lawyers. "I'd be surprised if Ann can. Her family are not wealthy people."

Kontz was arrested in September after a four-year investigation and an unusual legal battle by prosecutors to learn what Willard told Gammon before he committed suicide.

Prosecutors received Gammon's affidavit in May. But what had previously only been known as "paragraph 12" became public only on Friday.

The hearing began with Kontz's lawyers making the case to release her from jail while she awaits trial.

Raleigh lawyer Wade Smith argued that Kontz wasn't a flight risk, had no criminal convictions and could live with her second husband or parents in Wilmington if the court required.

The strongest argument for her release, Smith said, was that she turned herself in to authorities when she was indicted for murder.

"For years, she knew this was coming," Smith said. "When that day came, she came to Raleigh."

As expected, Stephens received a stack of letters from Kontz's family and friends vouching for her character. The courtroom was filled with more than a dozen people there on Kontz's behalf, many of whom wrote those letters.

Smith called Kontz's father, Dan Brier, and her second husband, Paul Kontz, to the stand. Both testified that Kontz was emotionally and mentally stable and unlikely to flee prosecution or intimidate witnesses.

They described her as a frequent churchgoer who is close to her family and has a job with a pharmaceutical company in Wilmington waiting for her. Her father said Kontz's 4-year-old daughter, Clare, whose father is Eric Miller and who lives with one of Kontz's sisters, often asks for her mother.

Prosecutors questioned Brier and Paul Kontz about what Ann Miller Kontz may have told them about her affair with Willard and the killing. Brier said his daughter only told her that Willard was a co-worker. Paul Kontz testified that his wife suggested Willard or one of her first husband's co-workers may have been the killer.

"Ann acted like she really didn't know," Paul Kontz testified. The couple married in November 2003.

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