Crimeatorium - The Murder of Gwen Vivian Miller

Starting point is 00:00:00 hey this is steve from great lakes true crime we tell stories from ohio and the rest of the lower great lakes region give us a listen on your favorite podcast app and follow us on twitter or facebook just search for great lakes true crime Welcome to True Crime Stories with Crime-a-Trorian. Gwen Vivian Miller didn't show up for work on Leap Day, February 29, 1968. Gwen was 60 years old, had no children, and ran the pharmacy at Bennett Clarkson Memorial Hospital, now known as Regional West in Rapid City, South Dakota. Rapid City is the epicenter of outdoor grandeur in the Upper Midwest, a picturesque tourism town in the Black Hills,

Starting point is 00:01:21 home of the Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorials and not far from the national monument Devil's Tower on the other side of the Wyoming border. Gwen lived alone. She was quiet and unassuming, independent and traveled a lot. She fit right in with the outdoors-loving, adventurous population of about 43,000 residents who called Rapid City home in 1968. She drove a gold 1966 Chevy Supersport, made tasty toasted cheese sandwiches from her own

Starting point is 00:01:58 recipe, and had an amazing rose garden. Despite her independence, though, Gwen was in declining health and had a history of medical complications due to her diabetes so when she didn't show up for work two co-workers thinking she may have gone into insulin shock went to her house at 3901 hall street inside they found gwen dead in her bed and it appeared to them that she had died in her sleep as they waited for police to arrive the nurses and a neighbor discovered the window in gwen Miller's back door was broken out. When police arrived, a closer examination revealed Gwen had a broken neck and ribs and had been strangled. It was later determined that Gwen had been sexually

Starting point is 00:02:49 assaulted as well. A full investigation was done in Gwen Miller's home. Prints gathered, forensic evidence preserved, and over 100 witnesses and suspects were questioned. Lawmen discovered that the victim's monogrammed billfold and checkbook were missing. Other of Ms. Miller's possessions, some of them of obvious value, were untouched, however. Further investigation and the autopsy revealed that robbery was at best an afterthought. The Rapid City Journal reported, he left fingerprints on the headboard, body hair on the bed, and glass at the back door from an investigative standpoint if there was glass perhaps there was blood evidence as well the rapid city journal reported detectives had a suspect

Starting point is 00:03:49 early in the investigation a man from eastern south dakota they flew across the state to talk to him and quickly determined he had nothing to do with the crime in april of 1968 rumors were circulating with a fervor that caused the pennington county state's attorney r james brennan to speak out according to the rapid city journal april 3rd 1968 at present said brennan there is an unfounded rumor existing in the community that an individual has been arrested and there may be additional rumors concerning other individuals coming up from time to time. Until there is an official statement from the state's attorney or the sheriff, these rumors can only jeopardize the continued investigation of this crime. These baseless rumors can do irreparable damage to an

Starting point is 00:04:47 individual and can also cause other persons who have fragmentary information from stating anything for fear they themselves may become targets of the gossip. They were having a really hard time developing leads in Gwen's murder, but they were afraid the rumors would prevent witnesses from coming forward. I have every confidence, Brennan said, that given time and freedom from confusion, to continue the investigation, that a desirable result will be achieved, provided the public is not afraid to cooperate because of the rumor situation. If every interview by officers is to result in a rumor,

Starting point is 00:05:32 an even more imponderable situation could arise. Based on those last few lines, it seems like maybe the police interviewed someone, someone else took that as a sign of suspicion, and the rumor mill heated up. As the expansive investigation continued, detectives spared no effort and used every resource available to them as reported by the journal.

Starting point is 00:06:02 One morning, a half a dozen prisoners in the city jail were taken to the scene and ordered to search a field in back of Ms. Miller's home. The ground was covered inch by inch, Nothing that could tie into the case was found. A neighbor reported seeing a nondescript person arrive by taxi about 10.30 p.m. on the night before Gwen's death. The witness could not say whether the person was male or female. Soon, tendrils of the investigation had extended into the taxi industry.

Starting point is 00:06:40 drivers were questioned and allegedly polygraphed logs were examined and it became clear they had been chasing a ghost the journal reported it this way police officers canvassing the neighborhood spoke with a neighbor who said they saw a taxi drop someone off at miller's house but after examining taxi logs interviewing drivers and having some of them take polygraphs in sioux Falls, investigators realized no taxi was at her house that night. The longtime unsolved status of Gwen Miller's murder shouldn't be taken as an indication that there weren't suspects. There were. At one point, investigators focused their attention on a man named Michael Beckers. According to the journal, officers interviewed and polygraphed several of Miller's neighbors and co-workers

Starting point is 00:07:38 and eventually decided that Michael Beckers, owner of Beckers Pharmacy, was the main suspect. Gwen had worked at Beckers Pharmacy on Main Street when she first moved to Rapid City. Investigators discovered Gwen had hinted to her co-workers that something had happened between her and Beckers, but refused to say more. According to a detective, Michael Beckers made unwelcome advances on Gwen and would show up at her home unannounced. A neighbor once called the police after Beckers refused to stop knocking on Gwen's door.

Starting point is 00:08:17 Those who knew Beckers said he liked to drink and was known to take taxis. Hearing a damning litany of circumstantial allegations against Michael Beckers is enough to convince many he was the perpetrator, and that's probably why we should be glad we're entitled to due process because Michael Beckers did not kill Gwen Miller. Police were never able to make a case for arrest against Beckers,

Starting point is 00:08:43 and he was later cleared by DNA. In 1970, Jack Goetz of the Rapid City Journal wrote a chilling piece, Unsolved Strangulation Murder Happened Two Years Ago, in which he described the attack on Gwen Miller, A man with a history of sexual perversion crouched in the shrubbery near Ms. Miller's home. Looking through the windows, it was dark. The neighborhood in the western part of the city was quiet. The shade in the bathroom was not pulled all the way to the seal, but was raised about six inches.

Starting point is 00:09:22 Ms. Miller was bathing. As the man in the shrubbery watched, she got out of the tub, dried herself, put on her nightclothes, and went into her bedroom. The man crept to the bedroom window. There, too, the shade was raised about six inches. He watched her get into bed. He quietly walked to the back door and turned the knob, but the door was locked, so he smashed the glass,

Starting point is 00:09:50 reached through the shattered window, and turned the knob from the inside. Miss Miller must have heard the glass breaking, but no one else in the neighborhood did. She may have cried out when the intruder walked into her bedroom but no one heard her scream. The murderer knelt on the victim's chest and gripped the headboard of the bed with both hands forcing her to submit to an unnatural sex act.

Starting point is 00:10:19 He broke her ribs with his knees and then he placed a thumb on each side of her neck and killed her. he didn't immediately flee from the scene of his crime instead he rearranged or replaced everything that had gotten tipped over or pushed out of place during the attack he pulled up the bedclothes

Starting point is 00:10:42 he may have even straightened the dead woman's hair only after he was satisfied that everything was perfect did he walk out of the house and into the night Put yourself in the shoes of a South Dakota woman at the time, and that becomes absolutely terrifying to read. The killer was still out there, breathing the same air, and perhaps hunting another victim. The investigation, however, ground to a halt, and the case went cold. In 2004, Attorney General Larry Long used a grant to create a cold case unit.

Starting point is 00:11:29 In 2005 and again in 2010, investigators tried to break the case open without success. There were no matches for the offender's profile, but at least they had the profile for future comparison. in 2018 the world changed with the identification and capture of the golden state killer joseph d'angelo using a brand new investigative technique commonly referred to as genetic genealogy in 2019 rapid city police detective wayne keith submitted the dna profile of gwen miller's attacker for genealogical testing. Forensic genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick of California-based Identifinders International used genealogy

Starting point is 00:12:23 databases to search for a suspect. Through an intensive and time-consuming process, a family tree was developed to identify potential suspects. The DNA indicated a possible match among six or seven members of a specific family, and using the family name, police searched old phone books and determined one of those family members had lived near Gwen Miller in 1968. It's quite a scene, according to the journal. Detective Keefe went to the Rapid City Library to examine Polk City directories, which he describes as a phone book on steroids that lists and cross-references

Starting point is 00:13:07 people's names, spouses, addresses, phone numbers, and occupations. There was likely a lot of strong black coffee consumed in that pursuit, but it paid off. At the end, investigators had a strong potential suspect. He was the right age and lived and worked in places where he could possibly be the killer. Perhaps most surprisingly, the suspect was a complete unknown. He had not previously been on investigators' radar. The killer's name was Eugene Carroll Field. He would have been 25 years old at the time of Gwen Miller's murder. Investigators had absolutely nothing on Gene Field, so they sought out people close to him. Two of Field's ex-wives told police he had abused them. Investigators discovered Gene Field's work history included a stint as a ticketing agent

Starting point is 00:14:08 for Western Airlines at the Rapid City Airport, a place Gwen Miller frequently traveled through. Investigators wondered whether Gwen had some personal connection to Field, because in 1963, five years before Gwen Miller's murder, he had rented a room in the house next door to Gwen's. Furthermore, the woman who lived there operated a salon out of the home and Gwen was a customer. The police were never able to conclusively say Gene and Gwen knew each other or had ever met,

Starting point is 00:14:45 but it was a possibility. genetic genealogy investigations generally end in arrest after the police are able to get a current dna sample from their suspect and match it to the dna their perpetrator left at the crime scene in this case detectives approached gene's brother for a dna sample i requested that he do was to voluntarily provide a buccal sample for me which is basically two long q-tips that is rubbed on the inside of the cheek in between the cheek and the gum and so forth to provide a DNA sample.

Starting point is 00:15:20 When the results of a DNA test of Field's brother came back, it confirmed what the authorities suspected. There was a 99.23% chance that Gwen Miller's killer was his full sibling and his only sibling was Eugene Carroll Field. All right, let's go put him in cuffs, right? Well, not so much. Unfortunately, Field escaped justice because he had already died 10 years before police identified him as being Gwen Miller's murderer.

Starting point is 00:15:58 If we're allowed to feel a sense of poetic justice, Detective Wayne Keefe said, Field died from a cancerous tumor in his throat that slowly cut off his air supply. if eugene field hadn't died keith said their evidence would have been good enough to charge field with murder in the first his death announcement listed him as the former owner and operator of ingles creek lodge his daughter tanya field and his brother gary field were his listed survivors with the case resolved all that was left was for rapid city authorities to tell the public. In June of 2019, Police Chief Carl Jegerus and Detective Wayne Keefe

Starting point is 00:16:47 announced their findings at a news conference. It is the first case in history that we have used DNA genealogy to solve a case. The full 43-minute press conference is still available online and is an interesting watch. If you're interested, you can find the link in the show notes. on june 17th 2019 the argus leader reported multiple members of miller's family were in attendance at the conference including her niece k miller temple who spoke briefly thanking authorities and everyone who's assisted with the case

Starting point is 00:17:26 the family of gwen vivian miller offers you our gratitude and our appreciation she said through tears thank you for giving us an answer to date there have been no corroborated reports of other crimes by eugene field which would make him something of a rare breed and a lucky catch for the authorities a killer like field who kills one time perhaps in a blackout stupor then never kills again is just the kind of killer who usually gets away to the best of our knowledge it is both terribly and mercifully true that gwen miller was field's only victim the rapid city police officially closed the case of the murder of gwen miller more than 51 years later it is one of the coldest cases ever solved with forensic genealogy

Crimeatorium - The Murder of Gwen Vivian Miller

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