KILLING WOMEN: The True Story of Serial Killer Don Miller’s Reign of Terror

Will A Serial Killer Soon Walk The Streets Again?

Don Miller was quiet and reserved.  As a former youth pastor, he seemed a devout Christian.  No one would have ever suspected that the recent graduate of the Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice was a serial killer.

However, when Miller was arrested for the attempted murder of two teenagers in 1978, police quickly realized he was probably responsible for the disappearances of four women. Offered a still-controversial plea bargain, he led police to the bodies of the missing women.

Now, after forty years in prison, Miller has served his time and is due to be released into an unsuspecting population. In KILLING WOMEN, author Rod Sadler examines the crimes, the “justice” meted out, and the impending freedom of a man nationally renowned psychiatrist Dr. Frank Ochberg wrote:

“… is a member of a small, deadly, dangerous population: murderers who stalk, capture, torture and kill; murderers who derive sexual and narcissistic gratification from their predation; murderers who maintain a ‘mask of sanity’ appearing normal and harmless.”

From The Book:

Tom Bengston was the last in the line of twelve men walking along the two-track trail.     

When his client stopped and told the men where her body was, he was pointing to a small animal trail running perpendicular to the trail they were on.  Since the line of officials had already passed it, they turned around, and Bengston was now leading the line.  He started making his way down the trail.  After twenty-five yards or so, he quickly changed direction and began heading back in the direction he had just come from.  “She’s over there,” he said.  Ironically, the defense attorney representing the man who had killed Martha Sue Young was also the first person to see what was left of her body after two-and-a-half years.  Her skeletal remains were scattered in a small area near a large oak tree.  It was 11:30 a.m..

Under police escort, Bengston and his client were quickly taken back to the three cars parked along the two-track.

The killer had agreed to lead police to the bodies of two women, but this was only the first.  The deal wasn’t complete.  

The investigators who stayed with Young’s remains stood in a heavily overgrown area of the park.  Her skeleton was lying on a downward incline sloping toward a marshy area.  Her feet were pointed down the incline in a northeasterly direction.  Her skull and arms had become dislocated from the rest of her remains, and several of her teeth were missing from the skull. 

East Lansing Police Lt. Dean Tucker had worked tirelessly for the previous two and a half years trying to find the young coed.  He had become close friends with Martha’s mother Sue, and he kept her updated at every turn in the investigation.  As he stood over the remains of Sue Young’s daughter, he couldn’t contain his emotions anymore as tears welled in his eyes.