EAST LANSING - It's been four decades since Don Miller murdered Martha Sue Young, a 19-year-old French major at Michigan State University, but her sister, Kay, wasn't going to talk with Rod Sadler until he explained why he wanted to write about her.
What Don Miller did shouldn't be forgotten, Sadler, a retired Eaton County Sheriff's Office sergeant turned true-crime author, told her when he asked for an interview.
"There's a couple generations between when this occurred and today and people have forgotten who Don Miller is," he said. "People have forgotten what Don Miller has done and Don Miller is up for parole next year."
From January of 1977 to August of 1978 Miller, a graduate of East Lansing High School, killed four women. He also raped a 14-year-old girl and attempted to kill both her and her 13-year-old brother.
If Miller, now 65 and a prisoner at the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility in Jackson, serves his full sentence he would be released in 2031.
Sadler's book about his life, crimes and conviction, "Killing Women," will be released Sept. 22, about a year before Miller is next expected to be considered for parole. His next hearing is scheduled for August 2021.
The book is Sadler's third about true crimes in mid-Michigan. It includes insight from one of Miller's victims, Randy Gilbert, who was 13 when Miller tried to kill him, and Gene Miller, Don Miller's father, who believes his son has been rehabilitated.
There are also perspectives from then-Eaton County Assistant Prosecutor G. Michael Hocking, who prosecuted and secured a conviction against Miller for rape and attempted murder, and Peter Houk, a retired Ingham County Circuit Court Judge who was Ingham County's prosecutor in the 1970s. He was the assistant prosecutor when Miller agreed to plead guilty to two counts of manslaughter in exchange for leading police to the bodies of two women he killed.
Then there are the words of Miller himself, who wrote Sadler three letters from prison. You can read one of them in "Killing Women."
Sadler spent 18 months researching and writing about Miller. It's an account of the serial killer's crimes and convictions, "from the beginning to the end," he said.
In advance of Miller's scheduled release from prison in 11 years, Sadler said, he hopes readers ask themselves some questions when they finish the book.
"Is that something that society wants? Is that something society can live with?"
A string of murders
Miller was in his 20s, a graduate of Michigan State University where he majored in criminal justice working as a security guard at a local company, when he killed four women in just over 18 months in the late 1970s.
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The first, Young, had been engaged to marry him. She ended her engagement to Miller just before she disappeared.
He killed the others — Marita Choquette, a 27-year-old editorial assistant at WKAR-TV, 21-year-old Wendy Bush and Kristine Stuart, 30, in the 18 months after Young disappeared.
"I always thought he may have killed more people," Hocking said.
Miller was a suspect in Young's murder early on, he said, but law enforcement officials in both Eaton and Ingham counties needed evidence to arrest and charge him.
Two days after Stuart’s disappearance Hocking, then a "young, green" assistant prosecutor, got a phone call from an Eaton County dispatcher he'd been dating.
Someone had called 911 about a breaking and entering at a house on Canal Road, she told Hocking.
Two siblings, Lisa Gilbert, 14, and her brother, Randy, had been assaulted and a witness had given dispatch the license plate number for the man who fled their home. The vehicle belonged to Donald G. Miller.
"I just about dropped the phone," Hocking said. "I thought, 'Oh, here we go.'"
Before fleeing, Miller raped Lisa and began to strangle her when Randy entered the home. Miller left Lisa and assaulted Randy, choking him until he passed out, then stabbing him three times. Lisa ran from the house in search of help.
An Oldsmobile worker, one of the people who stopped to help Lisa, identified Miller from a photographer, Hocking said, and that was enough to arrest him at his East Lansing apartment.
The trial, in the spring of 1979, lasted two weeks. Miller claimed he was insane and had multiple personalities, Hocking said
"I got my hands on every damn book on multiple personalities that I could read," he said.
Miller is a sociopath who manipulated the doctors who testified in his defense," Hocking said. Insanity was a role he was playing
"He was a smart guy and obviously he knew the system," he said.
Miller was convicted and sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison.
But an indictment in Ingham County on second-degree murder charges in the deaths of Young and Stuart never made it to trial.
Houk said there simply wasn't enough evidence to get a conviction. There was nothing linking Miller to the only body they'd found, Choquette's, he said.
"We went to all the families and said, 'These are the facts. This is what we have.'"
Then law enforcement listened when they asked for closure.
Miller pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter in Ingham County in exchange for leading police to Young and Stuart’s bodies. He later revealed details of Choquette's and Bush’s deaths.
Houk, 76, said today he remembers Miller as "cunning." Nearly everyone law enforcement talked to who knew him told them he wasn't capable of murder, he said.
"It couldn't be him," Houk remembers being told.
"People would come up to me after this happened and express their amazement," Houk said. "This is not who they knew."
But he said Miller led police "right to where he had dumped" Young's body in Prigooris Park off Drumheller Road in Bath Township.
When Houk oversaw Miller's plea agreement he had a young wife and children. Miller's crimes impacted him, he said.
"How could they not? I would not release him. I think he'll be dangerous."
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In prison, awaiting a chance at parole
In a letter to Sadler, Miller said when he murdered Young he was struggling with anger that he couldn't control. He didn't explain where the rage had come from but described the murders of Choquette, Bush and Stuart as "copy cat killings," Sadler said.
Miller's anger for Young was a factor in every one of them, according to the letter, Sadler said.
Miller indicated that he wrote to Sadler because he's hopeful sharing his insight will help other people with anger issues.
After 18 months of researching and writing about Miller, Sadler said he can't say what made Miller a killer. He had a normal childhood according to his father, Sadler said, although it was a strict upbringing.
He also can't speak to whether Miller is a changed man today.
Gene Miller, his father, believes he is, said Sadler, who spoke with him several times.
In 1994 prison officials found a garrote, a strangling device made from a shoestring and barrel buttons, in Miller’s cell at Kinross Correctional Facility in Chippewa County. A jury convicted him of possessing a weapon in prison, adding another 20 to 40 years to Miller's sentence.
State officials denied parole for Miller in the fall of 2016.
Hocking said securing Miller's conviction in the late 1970's jump-started his legal career. Sadler's book release comes as he enters retirement.
"If I hadn't done anything else in my career beyond the conviction of Don Miller it would have been enough for me," he said.
Hocking believes Miller will always be a danger. Sadler doesn't choose to weigh in.
Instead, he points to the words of Dr. Frank Ochberg, a clinical professor of psychiatry at MSU and former associate director of the National Institute of Mental Health."
Miller "is a member of a small, deadly, dangerous population," Ochberg said. "Murderers who stalk, capture, torture and kill; murderers who derive sexual and narcissistic from their predation; murderers who maintain 'a mask of sanity' appearing normal and harmless."
Contact Rachel Greco at rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @GrecoatLSJ.
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