Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Crime fighter Tim Miller suspected in teen daughter's murder

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Crime fighter Tim Miller suspected in teen daughter's murder · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:07
Speaker 1: How does a long time champion of missing people, a
0:12
Speaker 1: crime victim himself turn into a murder suspect? How does
0:20
Speaker 1: that happen? I'm talking about our friend, longtime colleague. You
0:27
Speaker 1: know him well, Tim Miller, the founder of Texas Equisearch
0:41
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Remember Tim Miller's daughter goes missing.
0:54
Speaker 1: Her remains found in something called a Texas killing field.
1:02
Speaker 1: He's devoted his life to finding missing people. Then he
1:08
Speaker 1: finds out some of his daughter's remains are allegedly still
1:14
Speaker 1: at the medical Examiner's office. What in a jar? And
1:20
Speaker 1: now somehow it's alluded that he is a murder suspect.
1:28
Speaker 1: It's a lot to take in, right, I mean, see Grace,
1:32
Speaker 1: this is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us
1:35
Speaker 1: here at Fox Nation and Serious x M one eleven.
1:40
Speaker 1: Let's just try and start at the beginning the so
1:44
Speaker 1: called Texas killing fields. Take a listen to Skip Hollingsworth.
1:50
Speaker 1: Through the years, in this strange corridor between Houston and Galveston,
1:56
Speaker 1: there have been these places where bodies have been found.
2:02
Speaker 1: If you come out of Houston going south on the
2:05
Speaker 1: main interstate, the city begins to drift away and you're
2:12
Speaker 1: left with old oil films, little towns, of all the
2:19
Speaker 1: dumping grounds around this country that there have been. This
2:23
Speaker 1: is about for a serial killer, as good a place
2:27
Speaker 1: as they come. This story begins in the early seventies
2:35
Speaker 1: when girls begin to disappear around Galveston. Year after year,
2:41
Speaker 1: girls have been murdered, and sometimes their bodies would be
2:45
Speaker 1: found in the bottom of a retention pond. Sometimes their
2:49
Speaker 1: body would be found in a place called the Killing Fields.
2:53
Speaker 1: Can you imagine your daughter goes missing? Years pass and
2:59
Speaker 1: their remains are found in this lonely stretch of road
3:03
Speaker 1: called the Texas Killing Fields, and it happens over and
3:08
Speaker 1: over and over again. With me an all star panel.
3:13
Speaker 1: Ashley Wilcott, judge and trial lawyer, court TV anchor at
3:16
Speaker 1: Ashley Wilcott dot com, renowned psychoanalysts, joining me out of
3:21
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills. You can find her at doctor Bethany Marshall
3:24
Speaker 1: dot com. Thirty six years Seattle PD twenty two of
3:27
Speaker 1: That Homicide. Author Seattle's Forgotten serial Killer, Gary Jane Grant,
3:33
Speaker 1: Cloyd Steiger at Cloyd Steiger dot com, Professor Forensics, Jacksonville
3:37
Speaker 1: State University and author A Blood Beneath My Feet on
3:41
Speaker 1: Amazon Joseph Scott Morgan very special guest and longtime friend
3:49
Speaker 1: and colleague Tim Miller, the founder of Texas Equisearch. He
3:56
Speaker 1: just got the surprise news that he's considered a murders
3:59
Speaker 1: us all of this while he's fighting to get a
4:03
Speaker 1: hold of his daughter's remains. He says, authorities still have
4:08
Speaker 1: but right now, to Robert Arnold, KPRC two news reporter, Robert,
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Speaker 1: it's great to be talking to you. I wish we
4:17
Speaker 1: were meeting under better circumstances. But what can you tell
4:20
Speaker 1: me about Texas killing fields And what does that have
4:24
Speaker 1: to do with a lawsuit to get Tim Miller's daughter's
4:28
Speaker 1: remains back. Well, this goes back to as Tim will
4:31
Speaker 1: tell you himself, he is facing the possibility of having
4:34
Speaker 1: to bury his daughter's remains for the third time. Laura
4:37
Speaker 1: Miller was one of four young women who were in
4:40
Speaker 1: this spot they've come to be known as the Killing Fields.
4:42
Speaker 1: The other women or Audrey, cooked on a crude home
4:45
Speaker 1: in Heidi Marie fly And in nineteen ninety seven, after
4:49
Speaker 1: Tim had buried his daughter, he found out well he
4:51
Speaker 1: didn't get all her remains back from the Galveston County
4:55
Speaker 1: Medical Examiner's office, so he had her exhumed. When he
4:58
Speaker 1: had her exumed, he found out she had extra rib bones. Well,
5:02
Speaker 1: those rib bones were then placed in a separate area
5:04
Speaker 1: under a separate case number. And okay, wait, wait, wait wait,
5:10
Speaker 1: Robert Arnold, I know your business is to just a
5:15
Speaker 1: race to the facts. Say give me the banner, give
5:17
Speaker 1: me the headline. But I just got to take that
5:20
Speaker 1: in for a moment. I mean, I remember when my
5:26
Speaker 1: fiancee was murdered and the funeral I couldn't even Tim Miller,
5:30
Speaker 1: you and I've talked about this before. I couldn't even
5:33
Speaker 1: look at him in the casket. And then when my
5:37
Speaker 1: dad recently passed away, the thought that parts of their
5:42
Speaker 1: body are missing, and that somehow somebody else's body is
5:48
Speaker 1: in my dad's casket. Tim, how did you find out
5:56
Speaker 1: somebody else's ribs were in your daughter's casket? Well, Nancy,
6:01
Speaker 1: we actually buried. We were in nineteen eighty nine and
6:05
Speaker 1: thought that was behind us. Finally, nineteen ninety seven we
6:08
Speaker 1: had the courage to go get to medical examiner's reports.
6:11
Speaker 1: They gave us to many we had a show. I
6:13
Speaker 1: can't understand you. Wait, I can't understand you. You buried
6:17
Speaker 1: Laura okay, and then what happened in nineteen ninety seven,
6:22
Speaker 1: I went to the Medical Examiner's office and we got
6:24
Speaker 1: Laura's on tops of reports. Finally we had the courage
6:27
Speaker 1: to do that, and we was reading through them. And
6:30
Speaker 1: now remember nineteen eighty nine, we buried there. In nineteen
6:35
Speaker 1: ninety two, there's a chain of custody where Lake City
6:38
Speaker 1: Police Department sent off all of our remains basically from
6:42
Speaker 1: our shoulders through hips to a college you get research done.
6:47
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety four, they sent off some more of her.
6:50
Speaker 1: So I go to the police department and I said,
6:53
Speaker 1: where in the hill was my daughter? They said to
6:55
Speaker 1: carry To make a long story short, I got a
6:58
Speaker 1: turney over there. We had zoomed or his body, and
7:00
Speaker 1: I remember there's two hundred and twelve bones in a
7:03
Speaker 1: human body, Nancy Wright. Did I hear you say they
7:07
Speaker 1: took part of her bones? They said for research? We
7:11
Speaker 1: buried her. Oh yeah, yeah, did you know that was happening. No,
7:16
Speaker 1: we thought we were in the chain of custody from
7:19
Speaker 1: the Medical Exablent's office to the funeral home in nineteen
7:23
Speaker 1: eighty nine, said her complete body. So when we buried her, yes,
7:29
Speaker 1: we thought we buried all of Laura when we exhumed her. Now,
7:33
Speaker 1: remember there's two hundred and twelve bones in a human body.
7:36
Speaker 1: There was twenty eight bones Nancy. At that time, I
7:40
Speaker 1: did not even believe it was Laura, because all the
7:42
Speaker 1: guys I got from Lake City Police Department took my
7:46
Speaker 1: own daughter's skull to a dentist to go ahead and
7:50
Speaker 1: get the pental X rays. Then we filed Wait wait, wait, White, Tim,
7:55
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I can't understand everything you're saying. You said
7:59
Speaker 1: you took your own daughter's skull to the dentist, to
8:06
Speaker 1: a dentist to get dento X rays because now I
8:09
Speaker 1: didn't even believe it was Laura. Tim. I know you
8:15
Speaker 1: have been through so much already losing your daughter, knowing
8:22
Speaker 1: that she was murdyred finding her body. I just can't
8:29
Speaker 1: imagine having to take her skull to the to a
8:36
Speaker 1: dentist to try to find out is this really my daughter.
8:40
Speaker 1: I didn't believe a word they was saying, so we
8:44
Speaker 1: followed a lawsuit. We went to mediation. First, I told
8:47
Speaker 1: my attorney I don't want their money, I want Laura's
8:49
Speaker 1: remain So of course they jumped on that. So all
8:53
Speaker 1: the remains that they hadn't we had were sensive University
8:56
Speaker 1: of North Texas. My attorney calls back the next week
8:59
Speaker 1: and says, Tim, we have a new problem. Laura has
9:02
Speaker 1: thirty one ribs now where a human body only has
9:05
Speaker 1: twenty four time stories with Nancy Grace. How does the
9:24
Speaker 1: whole thing start, I'll tell you how it starts. It
9:26
Speaker 1: starts with something called the Texas Killing Feels. And Tim Miller,
9:32
Speaker 1: who's a normal guy like everybody else, loses his daughter.
9:37
Speaker 1: She turns up to be one of the women in
9:40
Speaker 1: the Texas Killing Feels. That's what we're talking about. Take
9:45
Speaker 1: a listen to CBS correspondent Aaron Mariarty become a symbol
9:52
Speaker 1: for all those girls that have gone missing up and
9:54
Speaker 1: down the forty five corn What happened to them is
9:57
Speaker 1: basically unspeakable. I was a federal agent working out of Houston,
10:04
Speaker 1: and the first detective I bumped into was Brian Getchus.
10:09
Speaker 1: I've never been able to describe the devil, but I
10:12
Speaker 1: felt he had in his office a chart that showed
10:17
Speaker 1: the girls who were missing. I was shocked. I mean,
10:21
Speaker 1: you look at I think this could have been one
10:23
Speaker 1: of your kids. It just kind of haunted me. And there,
10:28
Speaker 1: you know, it's just a perfect place, perfect place for
10:31
Speaker 1: way killing somebody and getting away with it. And someone has.
10:40
Speaker 1: Since the nineteen seventies, over thirty young women and girls
10:44
Speaker 1: have disappeared or been found murdered in the fifty mile
10:48
Speaker 1: desolate area between Houston and Galveston, a stretch of land
10:52
Speaker 1: at some call a highway of Hell. That was Aaron
10:58
Speaker 1: Moriarity at CBSTY eight hours. But I want you to
11:01
Speaker 1: take a listen to how Tim Miller as drawn into
11:06
Speaker 1: the killing fields whose Khou eleven Jessica Bourg. Since the
11:12
Speaker 1: early nineteen seventies, thirty young women have disappeared along the
11:16
Speaker 1: Gulf Freeway. Four bodies were discovered here in the so
11:20
Speaker 1: called Texas Killing Fields, about one mile from Interstate forty five.
11:25
Speaker 1: I've been out hundreds of times in cried gallons of tears.
11:31
Speaker 1: Tim Miller's sixteen year old daughter Laura was discovered right
11:35
Speaker 1: here in February of nineteen eighty six, seventeen months after disappearing.
11:39
Speaker 1: I think I've searched every square into this property trying
11:43
Speaker 1: to find Laura's little decklists or her clothes. Laura's body
11:47
Speaker 1: was found just feet away from where League City police
11:49
Speaker 1: had found the body of twenty three year olds Heidi
11:52
Speaker 1: Villarel Fry, who had vanished six months earlier in the
11:56
Speaker 1: same area at the end of Caulder Road. Two other
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Speaker 1: sets of remains never identified, the body of Jane Doe
12:03
Speaker 1: found on the same day in nineteen eighty six as
12:05
Speaker 1: Laura's by children riding dirt bikes, and the skeletal remains
12:09
Speaker 1: of Janet Doe found in September five years later by
12:13
Speaker 1: horseback riders. We're hearing about so many young women found
12:19
Speaker 1: in that same area. After Robert Arnold, APRC two news reporter,
12:24
Speaker 1: it seems to me that after the first body would
12:26
Speaker 1: be found, that the whole place would be swarmed to
12:30
Speaker 1: look for other remains. Not it was a different time
12:34
Speaker 1: back then. No, it's not the way it happened, And
12:36
Speaker 1: not all the girls were found, you know, immediately after.
12:39
Speaker 1: Like as you heard in that one story, it took
12:41
Speaker 1: quite a while to find Tim's daughter after she disappeared.
12:44
Speaker 1: And that's the whole reason. He'll tell you this why
12:46
Speaker 1: he found in Texas equisearch. Because when people would first
12:49
Speaker 1: disappear back during the late seventies, early eighties, even in
12:52
Speaker 1: the nineties, police departments really didn't have the capability to
12:56
Speaker 1: launch these massive search efforts like they do now, and
12:59
Speaker 1: we certainly didn't have some like Texas Equisarch back then either.
13:02
Speaker 1: With me. The founder of Texas Equisearch, Tim Miller, who
13:06
Speaker 1: is now after burying his daughter, his beloved daughter, multiple
13:13
Speaker 1: times as having to sue the government, and in the
13:19
Speaker 1: midst of all of it all, he's told that he
13:24
Speaker 1: is a murder suspect. Tim Miller, tell me what led
13:29
Speaker 1: you to found to create Texas Equisearch. Well, Nancy, I
13:35
Speaker 1: remember every minute that seventeen months when Lauren disappeared. I
13:38
Speaker 1: remember going to the police department. I remember asking them
13:42
Speaker 1: in the very beginning to search that area in Lake
13:46
Speaker 1: City was a small town. The reason I was interested
13:50
Speaker 1: in Caulder's right wid Laura's body was found the county
13:52
Speaker 1: field is because three months before Laura disappeared, Laura's mother
13:57
Speaker 1: went to a garage sale. When she came home and
13:59
Speaker 1: she was and she said, Tim, I just left the
14:02
Speaker 1: groadshell this family's house and their daughters the one that
14:04
Speaker 1: was found out there. So when I went to Lake
14:07
Speaker 1: City Police, I said, you know what, we have a
14:09
Speaker 1: small town this doesn't happen when you play search that area,
14:13
Speaker 1: and Nan said they lied to leave then and they said,
14:16
Speaker 1: that's an isolated into. Then it's private property, it's offense
14:20
Speaker 1: and go home. Wait by your phone. Laura's going to
14:23
Speaker 1: be calling. Seventeen months later, we read the newspaper and
14:27
Speaker 1: said remains of two females found. We take the reduced
14:32
Speaker 1: paper to Lake City Police Department and says, is there
14:34
Speaker 1: any chance one of these girls could be our daughter?
14:37
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, Nancy. They did not even have
14:39
Speaker 1: a missing person report because they knew Lord disappeared. And
14:43
Speaker 1: I told them, then you have blood on your hands.
14:46
Speaker 1: If you would have listened to me, you would have
14:47
Speaker 1: found Lord. Yes, you would have been dead, but you
14:50
Speaker 1: could have determined cause of death and there probably would
14:54
Speaker 1: have been evidence in Jane and didn't know it be
14:56
Speaker 1: alive today. That's the first lie they gave me. It
14:59
Speaker 1: was with property. And you know why they named me
15:02
Speaker 1: as a suspect, because, oh, why did you choose call
15:06
Speaker 1: to drive? They weren't listened last year when Jayden Janet
15:10
Speaker 1: though is identified as Donna Purdillam, I said, oh my god,
15:14
Speaker 1: I knew her. A guy worked for me Larry Nesby
15:17
Speaker 1: dated her in nineteen eighty eight. I met her one type. Oh,
15:21
Speaker 1: now that I could ask the killing fields. Now that
15:26
Speaker 1: I know Donna, I'm the suspect straight out to Joseph
15:30
Speaker 1: Scott Morgan, Professor Forensics, Jackson State University. You see police
15:38
Speaker 1: making in their mind the connection between our friend Tim
15:44
Speaker 1: Miller and the victims because one of these women dated
15:53
Speaker 1: a guy who worked with hold On. Jo Scott Morgan
15:56
Speaker 1: speaking of the victims, we know some of their identities,
16:01
Speaker 1: of course Tim Miller's daughter. But take a listen to
16:04
Speaker 1: ABC thirteen Courtney Fisher. Audrey Lee vanished her mother in Tennessee.
16:10
Speaker 1: Thought her free spirited thirty year old daughter on a
16:13
Speaker 1: motorcycle just wanted to do her own thing, but Audrey
16:17
Speaker 1: would never abandon the family. On Shirley Love says, I
16:21
Speaker 1: began to search, you know, after about a year, thinking
16:26
Speaker 1: this is just not like her, you know, and I
16:29
Speaker 1: begin to search. And when the Internet came along, you know,
16:34
Speaker 1: I could search better. Shirley tracked down old landlords in
16:38
Speaker 1: Channel View in Houston, Audrey's old boss at a balloon
16:41
Speaker 1: party store, the roommate. Audrey moved to Texas with nine
16:45
Speaker 1: years earlier, yet end after dead end, ten years went
16:50
Speaker 1: five and twenty. My personalities not want to give up.
16:54
Speaker 1: What Shirley didn't know is that Audrey Lee had been
16:57
Speaker 1: found dead murder two months after sending her last letter.
17:02
Speaker 1: Audrey's family never got a call because police didn't know
17:06
Speaker 1: it was Audrey Wow. So Audrey Lee Cook one of
17:11
Speaker 1: the women found in the so called Texas killing pills,
17:15
Speaker 1: and now here's Courtney Fisher once more. February second, nineteen
17:20
Speaker 1: eighty six, two children playing in the woods near a
17:23
Speaker 1: dirt bike trail found a body of a sixteen year
17:26
Speaker 1: old girl not far from called a road. That teen
17:29
Speaker 1: was identified as Laura Miller, who had been missing for
17:33
Speaker 1: seventeen months. The story had been big news in League City.
17:38
Speaker 1: What many people didn't know is that the very same day,
17:41
Speaker 1: laying a few feet from Laura Miller, detectives found Audrey
17:46
Speaker 1: Lee's decomposed body. Police called her Jane Doe. She had
17:51
Speaker 1: no idea she had been shot in the back, a
17:54
Speaker 1: few of her ribs broken. I think she just kind
17:57
Speaker 1: of got pushed aside, and and that's not right, it's
18:01
Speaker 1: not fair. These are just a good idea of what
18:05
Speaker 1: was found out on calder Road. Detectives collected items nearby,
18:09
Speaker 1: hoping something could help them figure out who this woman was.
18:13
Speaker 1: Everything photographed, business cards, he choose hair, but it was
18:18
Speaker 1: hard to tell what was evidence and what was just trash.
18:23
Speaker 1: To Joe Scott Morgan, So the cops are now intimating
18:27
Speaker 1: that Tim Miller is a murder suspect because his daughter
18:32
Speaker 1: was killed and he had cops or asked them, begged
18:37
Speaker 1: them to go look in this location. They assured him
18:41
Speaker 1: they should not, and one of the other victims dated
18:46
Speaker 1: a guy that worked with him. So that's why they're
18:50
Speaker 1: making the connection that Tim Miller must be the killer. Yeah,
18:54
Speaker 1: that sounds that sounds far fetched on the part of
18:58
Speaker 1: the police that they would be able to kind of
19:01
Speaker 1: extrapolate that, uh, simply based upon a man's desire to
19:06
Speaker 1: track down his daughter. And you know, I think my
19:10
Speaker 1: bigger question is when they when this term police is
19:14
Speaker 1: being thrown around, are we simply talking about the League
19:17
Speaker 1: City Police Department in Texas? Are we talking about the
19:22
Speaker 1: Texas Department of Public Safety? And are the rangers involved
19:26
Speaker 1: in this sort of thing? Because you've got this one
19:28
Speaker 1: centralized area where these bodies are being found and it's
19:33
Speaker 1: a tiny jurisdiction. Uh, you know, they don't have the
19:37
Speaker 1: resources to handle these cases, so people literally get blown
19:40
Speaker 1: off were these remains are being sent to these far
19:45
Speaker 1: away places. You think about the Galveston Medical Examiner's Office,
19:49
Speaker 1: which is down the road from League City, but they've
19:53
Speaker 1: got other cases coming in and then they're sending off
19:56
Speaker 1: anthropological for anthropological examination up to University of North Texas.
20:01
Speaker 1: They have a fun anthropology program Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys,
20:21
Speaker 1: we're talking about the so called Texas killing fields. But
20:26
Speaker 1: it relates to our friend, our colleague, Tim Miller, who
20:30
Speaker 1: is now having to sue the government for his daughter's
20:33
Speaker 1: remains after three burials that I know of, having her exhumed,
20:38
Speaker 1: having to carry her skull himself to the dentist to
20:41
Speaker 1: find out is this really even his daughter? After it
20:45
Speaker 1: turns up half her body is missing in the casket,
20:49
Speaker 1: ribs are attributed to her that do not belong to her.
20:53
Speaker 1: It is a nightmare. On top of losing your daughter
20:57
Speaker 1: and having to search for her for so long. Take
21:00
Speaker 1: a listen to ABC thirteen years reporter Steve Campion. Jane
21:04
Speaker 1: Doe has been identified as Audrey league Cook for the
21:08
Speaker 1: first time ever we heard their names, we saw their faces.
21:12
Speaker 1: Janet Doe has been identified as Donna Prudome. League City
21:15
Speaker 1: Police did what many thought impossible. Detectives cracked open one
21:19
Speaker 1: of the city's biggest mysteries today saying they're now on
21:22
Speaker 1: the hunt for Audrey League Cook and Datta Prudome's killer.
21:26
Speaker 1: Officers discovered their bodies in nineteen eighty six. In nineteen
21:29
Speaker 1: ninety one in an area off Calder Road. Investigators found
21:33
Speaker 1: the bodies of Heidi fi in nineteen eighty four and
21:36
Speaker 1: Laura Miller in nineteen eighty six in the same area
21:39
Speaker 1: now notoriously known as the Killing Fields. And what a milestone.
21:43
Speaker 1: I never thought i'd be here, Sam, We got these
21:49
Speaker 1: girls identified. Just knowing what these girls must have gone
21:52
Speaker 1: through to get to where they were found is very unnerving.
21:55
Speaker 1: Always so, League say. Police say, if you work with
22:00
Speaker 1: Audrey or Donna back in the nineteen eighties, if you
22:03
Speaker 1: know them, they want to hear from you. They say,
22:06
Speaker 1: no information is too little as a search for justice.
22:10
Speaker 1: Thirty year old Ausrey Leye Cut named, thirty four year
22:13
Speaker 1: old Donna free Dam named, twenty three year old Heide
22:17
Speaker 1: villareal Phi named, and six day year old Laura Miller
22:24
Speaker 1: named as victims there in the Texas killing fields. But
22:29
Speaker 1: it doesn't end there. Here's Khou eleven Jessica Board police
22:35
Speaker 1: announcing they now know who Jane and Janet Doe really
22:38
Speaker 1: are identifying them through DNA using the Houston based genetic
22:43
Speaker 1: genealogy company family Tree DNA. Miller says getting to have
22:47
Speaker 1: a proper burial will help bring the families peace. I've
22:50
Speaker 1: had that opportunity to say good volume go through that long,
22:54
Speaker 1: painful grieving process. Miller turned his pain into creating Texas Equisearch,
22:59
Speaker 1: which helps track down own missing people. Right he thought
23:03
Speaker 1: he was finding peace. He thought it'd never find his daughter,
23:07
Speaker 1: Then her remains were found. In his grief, he starts
23:11
Speaker 1: Texas Equisearch to help other people avoid the pain he
23:17
Speaker 1: went through. But the suffering didn't end there. Listen to
23:21
Speaker 1: KPRC to Robert Arnold, their murders have not been solved.
23:26
Speaker 1: Part of this mystery has now been solved more than
23:29
Speaker 1: three decades later. The short answer is part of remains
23:32
Speaker 1: from one victim, Audrey Cook, got mixed up with another victim,
23:36
Speaker 1: Laura Miller. To help sort through all this, we spoke
23:38
Speaker 1: with the Galveston County Medical Examiner, who's inherited this issue.
23:43
Speaker 1: We never want to magnify a family's grief, but our
23:48
Speaker 1: policy is always that honesty is the best policy. Doctor
23:51
Speaker 1: Arin Barnhard is talking about Audrey Cook's family being told
23:55
Speaker 1: seven of her ribs were found in storage. That call
23:58
Speaker 1: came after the family was told Cook's remains were returned
24:01
Speaker 1: to the family intact and after she was cremated. We
24:05
Speaker 1: did not have those remains here, but we did have
24:07
Speaker 1: documentation that those remains had been sent to sam Houston
24:11
Speaker 1: State University for storage. Cook is one of the so
24:14
Speaker 1: called Killing Fields victims, along with Laura Miller. Some of
24:17
Speaker 1: Cook's ribs got mixed in with Miller's remains. That mix
24:21
Speaker 1: up was discovered when Miller's body was exhoomed in nineteen
24:24
Speaker 1: ninety seven, except at the time, no one knew who
24:27
Speaker 1: the extra bones belonged to because Cook had not yet
24:30
Speaker 1: been identified. Maybe I just don't understand. I'm just a JD.
24:38
Speaker 1: The medical examiners are mds, But how do you mess
24:45
Speaker 1: it up that badly? True? You may not know who
24:48
Speaker 1: Jane Doe is at the time, but why would her
24:51
Speaker 1: remains get mixed in with Laura Miller's I mean doctor
24:56
Speaker 1: Bethany Marshall psycho alis joining out of Beverly Hills. You
25:00
Speaker 1: think that your daughter goes missing, You go seventeen months
25:04
Speaker 1: without answers, You feel the police aren't trying to help you.
25:06
Speaker 1: She's found, she's dead. You have a funeral, and that's
25:12
Speaker 1: kind of just the beginning of your nightmare. You never
25:16
Speaker 1: get a chance to move on with your life, or
25:20
Speaker 1: at least even try to, because then you find out
25:24
Speaker 1: all of this. I mean, what does that do to
25:26
Speaker 1: a person, Nancy. The unknown is agonizing for families whose
25:34
Speaker 1: daughters and loved ones go missing. As Tim Miller said,
25:39
Speaker 1: he knew probably that she was gone, that she was dead,
25:43
Speaker 1: but he didn't know where her body was or what
25:46
Speaker 1: had happened to it. He didn't have people around him
25:49
Speaker 1: cooperating with him. And in the face of the unknown,
25:52
Speaker 1: we read our worst possible fears of the loved one
25:55
Speaker 1: being brutalized in some particular way, or not knowing what
25:58
Speaker 1: happened with the body. Nancy, I want to say for
26:01
Speaker 1: a second here, I want your audience to really know
26:04
Speaker 1: who Tim Miller is. I sat on your show night
26:07
Speaker 1: after night for twelve years on the Nancy Gray Show,
26:10
Speaker 1: and Tim Miller, founder of Equisearch, volunteered his time, his energy,
26:16
Speaker 1: his personal resources. I would imagine hundreds of thousands of dollars,
26:21
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of hours, equipment, time, energy to help
26:25
Speaker 1: families find their missing loved ones countless cases. In my mind,
26:31
Speaker 1: he's a hero. And what you're talking about about, what
26:34
Speaker 1: does it do to a family to not know where
26:36
Speaker 1: their loved one is. Well, Tim Miller is the poster
26:39
Speaker 1: child for the best response possible. He's helping other victims.
26:45
Speaker 1: He made meaning out of Laura Miller's death, and he
26:48
Speaker 1: went up against the police department who sadly are now
26:51
Speaker 1: accusing him of being murderous after having history on my
26:58
Speaker 1: arms to say to suggest Tim Miller is the killer.
27:06
Speaker 1: Robert Arnold KPRC, I just don't understand what did how
27:11
Speaker 1: is this happening to him? According to the League City Police,
27:14
Speaker 1: when I asked him that question directly, they said, no,
27:16
Speaker 1: he is not a suspect, and they're sorry. They understand
27:19
Speaker 1: that his frustration, but they say it is a misunderstanding
27:22
Speaker 1: that when new detectives reopen these cases after they got
27:25
Speaker 1: Donna and Audrey's idea that they were simply going over
27:29
Speaker 1: everything again to make sure no detail had been missed,
27:31
Speaker 1: but that they told me directly he is not considered
27:34
Speaker 1: a suspect. It was a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding. See, I
27:38
Speaker 1: don't even understand what you're saying, but I know you're
27:41
Speaker 1: telling me what the cops told you. Why would you
27:46
Speaker 1: say this is a misunderstanding. This is what happened. That
27:50
Speaker 1: new detectives were on the case and they didn't want
27:53
Speaker 1: to leave any stone unturned. Something happened. Something was said
27:59
Speaker 1: to Tim Miller. Tim Miller, you're with me. You're Laura's dad,
28:03
Speaker 1: You're the founder of Texas equist Arch. You devoted your
28:05
Speaker 1: whole life to helping other people after what you and
28:10
Speaker 1: your family went through. How did you first learn that
28:13
Speaker 1: they were discussing you as a suspect. Well, the talk
28:18
Speaker 1: was around Leak City Police Department, and of course there
28:20
Speaker 1: was leaks, and I was hearing it and I was
28:22
Speaker 1: hearing it and I was hearing it. And then last
28:24
Speaker 1: year when Jane and Janet where I can defy, I said, listen,
28:27
Speaker 1: I'm tired of these rooms round this police department. I
28:30
Speaker 1: want to polygraph test and I want my DNA. They refused, well,
28:35
Speaker 1: you're jumping ahead. My question is and did everybody hear that?
28:40
Speaker 1: Everybody in the studio, He said, take my give me
28:44
Speaker 1: a polygraph, no qualms, No, I want this polygrapher, I
28:49
Speaker 1: want these questions, or I won't take a polygraph, or
28:51
Speaker 1: maybe I will, maybe I want take my DNA, Take
28:54
Speaker 1: my polygraph. Tim, you say rumors were leaked and got
29:00
Speaker 1: back to you from within the police department. What were
29:03
Speaker 1: the rumors. Well, one of the rumors were theist tut
29:08
Speaker 1: Milion is now probably going to be assistant chief, told
29:10
Speaker 1: people that m F and Tim Miller murdered his daughter.
29:17
Speaker 1: Now if they didn't think I suspect literally, then about
29:20
Speaker 1: six weeks ago they contact me and they said, we
29:24
Speaker 1: need you to take the polygraph, and I said, yes,
29:26
Speaker 1: I will. At last Wednesday I did take my polygraph.
29:31
Speaker 1: So yes, they had had a suspect then. And let
29:34
Speaker 1: me guess, I bet you passed. Well, you know, the
29:37
Speaker 1: polygrapher said you passed. He went and talked to Tisdale,
29:40
Speaker 1: the lead investigator and everything, and he told them how
29:44
Speaker 1: they score him a plus four. You passed the Brits too,
29:47
Speaker 1: You fail he said, the highest passing score he's ever
29:51
Speaker 1: got was a plus eight. He looked at Tuesday and
29:53
Speaker 1: he said, Tim Miller just said a plus twelve. I
29:57
Speaker 1: had the highest passing a score in the history of
30:02
Speaker 1: this poligrapher that's been doing up for twenty three years.
30:20
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we are talking to
30:26
Speaker 1: Tim Miller, crime victim. His daughter Laura was murdered. He
30:31
Speaker 1: begged police to search a certain stretch it's now known
30:35
Speaker 1: as the Texas Killing Fields, whose daughter's remains were ultimately
30:40
Speaker 1: found there, along with remains of many other young women.
30:46
Speaker 1: Now we learn that Laura's remains have been mixed up.
30:51
Speaker 1: He had to have her exhumed. Part of her body's missing.
30:55
Speaker 1: Then turns out somebody else's ribs are in her. He's
31:01
Speaker 1: buried his daughter. Now I think three times he had
31:06
Speaker 1: to carry her skull to the dentist to see is
31:10
Speaker 1: this really my daughter? Just hold that thought for a moment.
31:16
Speaker 1: And then to top it off, Tim Miller gets here's
31:21
Speaker 1: someone within the police department, says he the MF Tim
31:25
Speaker 1: Miller murdered his daughter, and they police ask him to
31:31
Speaker 1: take a polygraph. Now, I don't know about you Kloyd Steiger,
31:36
Speaker 1: thirty six years, Seattle PD, twenty two in homicide. Author
31:41
Speaker 1: at Cloyd Steiger dot com. But when cops ask you
31:44
Speaker 1: to take a polygraph, you're a suspect. I don't care
31:49
Speaker 1: what they want to call it, but you're a suspect
31:51
Speaker 1: when you are asked to go in and take a polygraph,
31:54
Speaker 1: agree or disagree? Yeah, I agree most of the time.
31:56
Speaker 1: But you know, this is the whole thing is ridiculous.
31:58
Speaker 1: The problem is enjoy Scotland right on. This department is
32:02
Speaker 1: not equipped to handle a case like this, and there's
32:06
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that, but they have to know to
32:08
Speaker 1: ask for help and ask for people that do know
32:11
Speaker 1: how to do this. Well. I don't know about Chloyd,
32:13
Speaker 1: but there's h E L L lot wrong. We're going
32:17
Speaker 1: to the victim's father this way and they know too,
32:23
Speaker 1: asking him to take a polygraph. Yes, jump in. This
32:26
Speaker 1: is not incompetency or being overwhelmed as a police department.
32:29
Speaker 1: I don't know about the law in this area, but
32:31
Speaker 1: I know human psychology. This is pointing a finger at
32:35
Speaker 1: Tim Miller because he's holding them responsible. This is shooting
32:39
Speaker 1: the victim, shooting the messenger. This is Tim Miller never
32:44
Speaker 1: resting because there are numerous bodies in this field, the
32:48
Speaker 1: killing fields, they have not been identified, the bones has
32:51
Speaker 1: been messed up, there's been gross incompetency. And Tim Miller
32:55
Speaker 1: is shining a light on this. That is all he
32:58
Speaker 1: is doing. That's what this entire discussion is about. He
33:03
Speaker 1: is providing sunshine and they are resenting it. And the easiest,
33:08
Speaker 1: most low level thing a person can do is to
33:12
Speaker 1: accuse the person that's shining a spotlight on them. And
33:15
Speaker 1: that's what this is about. He wants the truth. They
33:19
Speaker 1: want to malign him. It's that simple, you know, Ashley
33:22
Speaker 1: Wilcott with me judge and trial lawyer, anchor Court TV
33:25
Speaker 1: at Ashley Wilcott dot com. I don't care what they
33:28
Speaker 1: are saying. I don't care what they told. Robert Arnold.
33:32
Speaker 1: Not accusing you, Robert Arnold, You're just the messenger kp
33:35
Speaker 1: orc that Tim is not a suspect. But when you
33:39
Speaker 1: the police call you on the phone and say we
33:42
Speaker 1: need you to go take a polygraph, I call that
33:45
Speaker 1: a suspect. Absolutely a suspect, no doubt in my mind.
33:49
Speaker 1: You do not request that if there's not some reason
33:51
Speaker 1: that you want to further your belief that they are
33:55
Speaker 1: a suspect. They are, in my mind, accusing Tim of
34:00
Speaker 1: having committed some of these murders. In one way to
34:04
Speaker 1: do it at say, I want to polygraph, and as
34:06
Speaker 1: soon as they can allege you didn't pass a polygraph,
34:09
Speaker 1: then in their minds, I believe they're finding someone and
34:13
Speaker 1: they're going to make the evidence match that person, versus
34:17
Speaker 1: doing what they should do and follow the evidence to
34:20
Speaker 1: identify the purpose. So Robert arnoldsie ye if yeah, listen,
34:27
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you going back. Yeah, I'm mad at you,
34:30
Speaker 1: Joe Scott, because you work with the medical examiners, and
34:33
Speaker 1: the medical examiner's got all of the remains exactly. Now
34:39
Speaker 1: you have nothing to do with it. But perhaps I
34:42
Speaker 1: can assure you. I have not worked in Texas. But
34:45
Speaker 1: let me tell you how it normally works. When you
34:47
Speaker 1: have skeletal remains. The skeletal remains are treated very delicately
34:53
Speaker 1: because they're fragile by their nature. That means they've been
34:56
Speaker 1: you know, out and they've been decomposed, they've been exposed
34:58
Speaker 1: to the elements, and so by virtue of that, just
35:02
Speaker 1: from a scientific standpoint, you have to keep very close
35:06
Speaker 1: watch over these and they are a sign what are
35:08
Speaker 1: referred to as a session numbers. That means it's kind
35:11
Speaker 1: of like a case number, and that a session number
35:14
Speaker 1: literally represents a human individual, human life. Just grab onto that,
35:20
Speaker 1: just for a second. Now, out out at cases, lots
35:24
Speaker 1: of times you get multiple skeletal remains. We call it
35:27
Speaker 1: co mingling, where you have a couple of bodies that
35:29
Speaker 1: are together. But how do you co mingle remains at
35:33
Speaker 1: a medical examiner's office? And now you're shipping them off?
35:36
Speaker 1: You know that this has only been mentioned very briefly,
35:40
Speaker 1: but how are you shipping them off all the way
35:42
Speaker 1: from Galveston to the north part of Dallas, which is
35:45
Speaker 1: where the University of North Texas is where the anthropology
35:48
Speaker 1: lab is, and you're getting these remains mixed up? And
35:53
Speaker 1: lots of times these remains are not transported by the
35:57
Speaker 1: medical examiner. They're literally mailed sometimes now and so, how
36:01
Speaker 1: how are these remains getting so? How are they so
36:04
Speaker 1: unaccounted for? How can you be so how can you
36:08
Speaker 1: hold human life in such disregard? Because you know, to
36:13
Speaker 1: the medical examiner, it's going to be another case. But
36:15
Speaker 1: to somebody like Tim, this is his precious baby, This
36:19
Speaker 1: is his daughter. Okay, and so it's a real slap
36:22
Speaker 1: in the face. And there, you know, now you're talking
36:25
Speaker 1: about the cops that are accusing him or at least
36:28
Speaker 1: saying he's potentially a suspect. And to me, it just
36:32
Speaker 1: kind of goes to this this kind of theme that's
36:35
Speaker 1: running through this whole thing, and it's it can be
36:38
Speaker 1: kind of summed up in this term gross incompetence. You know,
36:43
Speaker 1: don't look at us and what we've done to screw
36:45
Speaker 1: this man's life up. And all these other families, you know,
36:49
Speaker 1: don't don't don't look at that. Let's look at him.
36:52
Speaker 1: And so that's a real insult. And it's a real
36:54
Speaker 1: slap in the face. Yeah, when you said these other families,
36:57
Speaker 1: the reality is Robert Arnold kp RC two investigative reporter
37:02
Speaker 1: Tim Miller finds out another young ladies bones are mixed
37:08
Speaker 1: in with his daughters. He's not the only victim. There's
37:11
Speaker 1: the other family and the lord only knows who else.
37:14
Speaker 1: But right now, Tim Miller, founder of Texas Sequasearch, longtime
37:18
Speaker 1: friend and colleague of ours, sues Galliston County over his
37:22
Speaker 1: daughter's remains. Robert Arnold explained the lawsuit to me essentially
37:28
Speaker 1: they mishandled her remains then, and it's also a violation
37:31
Speaker 1: of the settlement from the first time he sued the
37:33
Speaker 1: county over the handling of her remains. He was told
37:37
Speaker 1: that his daughter was returned intact the second time around,
37:41
Speaker 1: and he comes to find out now that that is
37:43
Speaker 1: potentially not accurate, that there are more remains that were
37:46
Speaker 1: found in the office that have yet to be tested.
37:48
Speaker 1: Found in the office. Wait, yes, what do you mean
37:52
Speaker 1: found in the office? Her bones box marked marked mark. No,
37:58
Speaker 1: it's not bones, it's remains. The way he was explained
38:01
Speaker 1: to me, in a zip block back in a box
38:03
Speaker 1: that had Laura's case number on it was found in
38:06
Speaker 1: the medical examiner's office. And that's what triggered all of this.
38:09
Speaker 1: And Nancy, can I put in yes? Please them? All right?
38:13
Speaker 1: So anyhow, I'll never forget get that call out of
38:16
Speaker 1: money motiing from the FBI. Ask if I come down
38:19
Speaker 1: there on the Wednesday. So I go the FBI office
38:21
Speaker 1: and Jack Cood, the DA Kevin Petrops assistant das Er
38:26
Speaker 1: And this was in October, and they said, we don't
38:28
Speaker 1: know how to tell you. I just tell you some
38:31
Speaker 1: remains are found. They were sent off their horrors, and
38:35
Speaker 1: I remember saying, you know what, in the perfect world,
38:38
Speaker 1: a child buries their parents. Unfortunately, once a while we
38:42
Speaker 1: have to bury our child. Is it fair that we
38:44
Speaker 1: have to bury the same child three times because of
38:47
Speaker 1: y'all's mistake? Then I called doctor gil King. Let me
38:51
Speaker 1: go back to Leak say please defer it again one
38:53
Speaker 1: more time. So I called doctor gil King. I said,
38:56
Speaker 1: Doctor Gilking, what do we need to do now? Doctor
38:59
Speaker 1: kil King says Tim, we work on science, not speculation.
39:03
Speaker 1: He said, I'm sure there Laura's remains. He said that.
39:06
Speaker 1: I called Lake City Police Department and told them again,
39:10
Speaker 1: we work on science and I need DNA to compare
39:13
Speaker 1: them to before I positively sign off. Leake City Police
39:17
Speaker 1: Department told doctor gil King's office at University of North
39:20
Speaker 1: Texas well, we asked mister Miller to submit his DNA
39:24
Speaker 1: and he refused. So it was another line. Now, what
39:28
Speaker 1: parent would refuse to submit their DNA to get their
39:33
Speaker 1: child's remains positively identified? I knew nothing about them remains,
39:40
Speaker 1: And again Leake City Police Department said, they asked for
39:44
Speaker 1: my DNA and I refused, And there's no truth in it.
39:48
Speaker 1: We could have had this time, Laura's remains buried again.
39:54
Speaker 1: So I asked doctor gil King. I said, well, I'll
39:56
Speaker 1: submit my DNA now, doctor gil King, he said, well
39:59
Speaker 1: today ago I sent them back to Ghost County Medical
40:02
Speaker 1: at Sailor's office. So Laura, those remains were still there.
40:06
Speaker 1: Now that we file the suit. Now I got to
40:08
Speaker 1: submit my DNA. Now we have to find a private
40:12
Speaker 1: labup to go ahead and send my DNA or these
40:15
Speaker 1: remains off to which before there wouldn't have been no expense.
40:19
Speaker 1: Now to Miller has to come up with the money
40:22
Speaker 1: to get the private layup to compare my DNA to
40:25
Speaker 1: these other DNA up to these other remains that we
40:29
Speaker 1: know our lawyers, but we can't sign off until they
40:32
Speaker 1: positively match the DNA. No, there's another lie by dam
40:39
Speaker 1: Leak City Police Department. Nancy, could I make a comment
40:43
Speaker 1: about this. Yeah, there seems to be this powerful social
40:47
Speaker 1: psychology group psychology going on in the police department. The
40:51
Speaker 1: true story is that Laura Miller was dropped off at
40:55
Speaker 1: a phone booth to talk to her boyfriend. She ended
40:59
Speaker 1: up in the killing fields. Tim Miller has devoted his
41:03
Speaker 1: entire life to seeking the truth, not only for her,
41:06
Speaker 1: but for other victims, this is the truth. The bones
41:09
Speaker 1: were mingled, This is the truth co mingled the police department.
41:14
Speaker 1: There's some powerful, disturbed personality in that police department that's
41:19
Speaker 1: creating what we call an alter reality, a reality that's
41:23
Speaker 1: not the true reality, a story. We can call it
41:26
Speaker 1: a lie, we can call it a false narrative, whatever
41:29
Speaker 1: language we want to use. There's a powerful false narrative
41:35
Speaker 1: that's taking place that Tim Miller is a murderous suspect,
41:40
Speaker 1: that he could, after all these years devoted to helping
41:45
Speaker 1: families whose loved ones have gone missing, now he's the
41:48
Speaker 1: murderous one. And hopefully this story that we're telling today,
41:52
Speaker 1: covering the story is to put the correct narrative out there,
41:56
Speaker 1: which is that he's had to bury his daughter times.
42:01
Speaker 1: That is the correct story and the false whoever is
42:05
Speaker 1: putting this false narrative out if it's one powerful person
42:10
Speaker 1: in this police department, and then other people are following suit,
42:13
Speaker 1: hopefully they're listening to this show into this story, and
42:16
Speaker 1: that they will correct this false narrative at some point.
42:20
Speaker 1: But group psychology is so powerful. Once a false narrative
42:25
Speaker 1: gets going, it develops a life and energy of its
42:28
Speaker 1: own and it just it has to stop. It has
42:31
Speaker 1: to stop here. It has to stop. Guys, I understand
42:38
Speaker 1: what police go through. I've been in the system since
42:42
Speaker 1: my fiance was martyred, side by side, shoulder to shoulder
42:46
Speaker 1: with police. But if I have to go up against
42:50
Speaker 1: the police, I will Who would heap this abuse onto
42:57
Speaker 1: a grieving father? If you have any information, please call
43:06
Speaker 1: two eight one three three eight eight two two zero.
43:11
Speaker 1: Tim Miller. As always our friend, our colleague. Our prayers
43:19
Speaker 1: are with you and your family. But somehow you will
43:24
Speaker 1: find peace if we even know what that is anymore.
43:31
Speaker 1: And we are here beside you, supporting you and believing you,
43:35
Speaker 1: regardless of what the police are saying. We wait as
43:41
Speaker 1: justice unvolds, and we pray that it does. Nancy Grace
43:47
Speaker 1: Crime Story signing off, goodbye friend,