by Amanda Lamb
It has been clearly established through this investigation that Derril Willard was not in contact with Eric Miller at any time after the night of November 15, when the initial poisoning occurred. During the solitary interview with Ann Miller she never mentions having any visitors during the time Eric’s parents went to dinner on the night of November 30, 2000. She never mentions at any time during that interview, or in any conversations with her family or Eric’s family, before or immediately after his death, the name of Derril Willard.
Derril Willard was spoken to only once by officers. On January 21, 2001, a search warrant was executed for his residence. I had a brief conversation with Mr. Willard. At that time I told him I felt he was being used by a woman. Derril Willard responded: “Yes, and she is doing a good job of it.” He then asked if he could call his lawyer and no further conversation of a substantive nature ensued. The next day, January 22, 2001, Derril Willard was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot in the garage of his residence. Willard left a suicide note, which was found near his body. In the note he states that he is “not responsible for the death of anyone” other than himself.
When Morgan’s song and dance was over, it was Ann’s turn. At sentencing, defendants have an opportunity to speak to the judge and the court, to express remorse about their actions and apologize if they so choose. In many instances defendants are too anxious to speak and instead ask their attorneys do it for them. Ann Miller opted to have Joe Cheshire read her statement.
“For reasons I do not now understand I permitted myself to knowingly participate with Derril Willard in events which cost my husband his life. I feel a deep sense of remorse and regret that things happened,” Joe Cheshire intoned, reading the words he told the court Ann Miller wrote.
“I will struggle for the rest of my life for how this could have happened. Most of all I regret it for my husband Eric and his family. I also regret it for my husband, daughter and for my family. They are all good and decent people,” Cheshire went on as Ann sobbed at the table next to him, “and do not deserve the pain they have suffered. I have asked God to forgive me and I hope that God will also help those others who I have hurt to find it in their hearts one day to forgive me as well. No punishment I will receive today can compare to the pain and remorse I feel in my heart that I was a knowing instrumentality in the death of my husband. I will never get over this event, but I will try to answer my duty to God’s law and man’s law with humility. In doing so I hope and pray to be able to move ahead and one day to receive forgiveness in this world and the next. Signed Ann Miller Kontz.”
And then it was Eric’s turn. While he couldn’t speak for himself, his family spoke for him, eloquently, graciously, and with the weight of grief hanging over every word.
“Eric was a kind and loving and considerate young man. He was a wonderful son, and brother, and a wonderful father to his daughter in the short time that he spent with her,” said Doris Miller as she stood stoically at the end of the prosecution table looking up from her notes periodically to catch the judge’s eye.
“I can see him as a child, running through the house, laughing and playing with his Star Wars figures, his Matchbox cars. I can look out the window and see him riding his horse in the corral. I drive by the school and I see him playing tennis on the courts,” Doris Miller said, pausing as if she were sifting through these past images in her mind.
“He was so happy when he graduated from high school. He went off to college. He was going to accomplish so much. He wanted to help mankind. He graduated from Purdue and came down here and I remember he discussed the accomplishments he made when he got his doctorate in biochemistry. He was so happy with what he was doing with his research in pediatric AIDS. He wanted to make a difference. He wanted to help children. He wanted to help people, but I most of all remember his wonderful smile, and the gleam in his eye when he held his infant daughter. He was such a proud father and he loved her so much. And one day he said to me, he said Mom you always said you loved me, he says now I understand exactly how much.” Her voice heavy with pain, Doris Miller bowed her head for about thirty seconds and then continued.
“Ann, you murdered my son,” she said, looking across the courtroom at her former daughter-in-law. “He died a cruel and agonizing death that no one should ever have to suffer, especially someone who loved you so much. You can never, ever, spend enough time in prison, enough years. I have a hole in my heart and pain in my chest every day and with every breath I take. You have taken my son from me. I won’t ever hold him again. He will never sit at my table. I will never see his smile. You have taken him physically away from me but you can never, ever take his love for us, and you can’t ever take away our love for him, and most of all you can never, ever take away my precious memories.”
Doris walked back to her seat in the front of the courtroom and embraced her daughter Leeann before sitting down. Morgan only wished there was something he could do to alleviate some of the grief from this broken family. While he knew that making these statements was cathartic for them, he also knew it was emotionally draining in a way that even he could never truly understand.
Verus Miller took his place at the end of the prosecution table with a pile of photographs in front of him. He sat in a chair and shuffled through the pictures, describing each one to the judge. Eric at Christmas, Eric playing tennis, Eric with his sisters, Eric on his horse, Eric with his daughter. With each photograph his voice became more and more agitated until finally, he was almost yelling.
“I wonder what Ann’s favorite picture is of Eric? I’ve got an image in my mind that I’m going to share with you, an image of Eric lying in a hospital bed dead with a tube sticking out of his mouth where the doctors had tried to resuscitate him. I have a picture of him lying in the casket. He didn’t look like himself. I have an image of him being cremated—that killed my wife, that killed Doris. I couldn’t see why that had to happen. Now I see why it had to happen. I can’t understand this, so I’m going to call it evil, and I don’t say that lightly,” said Verus, looking right at Ann, whose head was bowed, her face obscured by her shiny blond mane.
“In her statement she says ‘I don’t know why I did this,’ or something to that effect. She wants forgiveness? Where’s the forgiveness been for the last five years? Yeah, she’s sorry, she’s sorry she got caught,” Verus said, his upper lip and white mustache trembling. “I didn’t hear those words out of her mouth, I heard them out of her attorney’s mouth. Can’t accept them as sincere when they don’t come out of the person it’s supposed to be coming out of. Just lacks sincerity. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if they weren’t written by her attorney.”
Verus Miller asked the judge for a moment and then continued. “It haunts me to know that Eric will never enjoy the things that I’ve enjoyed in life because it was cut short by evil. And you can see evil in this world every day. Just watch your television and read the newspaper. It haunts me that he will not be able to see Clare grow up and graduate and accomplish things that I was fortunate enough to see with my children. And he’s dead, Ann, and you’re alive, and your parents will still be able to see you, but we’ll never see Eric again.”
Pam Baltzell, Eric’s sister, stood up to read her statement and directed every word at Ann. She punctuated her sentences with wild hand gestures and, at one point, had to quell her emotions when the judge peered at her with concern over the rim of his glasses.
“Why, Ann? Why did you brutally murder my brother Eric?” Pam shouted. “Poisoning him, watching him suffer? Why? I’ve racked my brain trying to make sense of this, but the only explanation I can find is the fact that there is pure evil in this world. Evil comes in all types of packages. Today we are looking at pure evil. The only thing that Ann Brier Miller Kontz is sorry about is the fact that she was caught.”
And then it was Leeann’s turn to speak. She also stood and directed her comments at Ann. But unlike Pam’s words, which were at a fever pitch right out of the gate, Leeann’s anger grew thro
ughout her statement, and eventually boiled over at the end.
“There’s no way to quantify how his absence has and will affect us all,” said Leeann, wiping away a constant flow of tears. “But Clare, his daughter, has definitely lost the most. She will have no memories of her father and will not benefit from his complete love and devotion to her and attention to the moral and spiritual guidance he would have given. I don’t believe that you, Ann, truly love your daughter. How could you when you have taken away one of the most precious gifts that she will ever have—her father? Why would you set her up to face a life of difficulty and trauma as she grows and begins to understand that her mother poisoned and killed her father and betrayed him in multiple other ways with affairs and lies?” Leeann said directly to Ann, who was hunched over the table as Joe Cheshire tried to block her from the television cameras’ view.
“A child is the ultimate and most precious gift from God and you do not deserve to be her mother. I find tremendous comfort in knowing that you will be removed from Clare’s life, thus protecting her from further pain or danger inflicted by you. I will continue to pray for her to be strong and to overcome the hurdles that you have placed before her,” Leeann said.
“I am angry that my last memories of Eric are ones of suffering, watching him in a hospital bed writhe with pain, hallucinate, put in restraints, wasting away to the point where he couldn’t walk or bathe himself, or have a restful night. I am so thankful that I was able to spend some time with him during those dark moments, providing some comfort,” Leeann went on to say, her voice brimming with pain.
“I will never understand, Ann, why you just didn’t divorce him. Why did you have to torture him for months and make him endure such a painful death? He loved you and you completely and utterly betrayed him ultimately by taking his life. I will never forgive you and a lifetime in prison will never be enough time and enough punishment for what you’ve done to me and my family, but you will get your just punishment in death with eternity in hell,” Leeann said full of rage.
At the end of the emotional hearing, Judge Stephens accepted the plea deal and sentenced Ann Miller to a minimum of twenty-five years and a maximum of thirty-one years and six months in prison. A small price to pay for a life, Morgan thought, but better than no price at all.
FINAL GOOD-BYE
“Naturally it wasn’t the end of the story,” Morgan says with his trademark grin, easing back into his chair.
Ann Miller had left Clare in the custody of her sister and brother-in-law Danielle and Dan Wilson, in Wilmington. (Paul Kontz hadn’t been with the child long enough to really be a father to her.) Verus and Doris did not dispute the fact that the Wilsons loved Clare and took good care of her, but it bothered them tremendously that Clare was visiting her mother in prison. This was exactly what they did not want to happen. It had also come to their attention that when she spoke to her family, Ann was apparently in total denial of her guilt about the crime despite her guilty plea in court. She took no responsibility for Eric’s death, and instead put all of the blame on Derril Willard.
Thus, in early 2006, when Ann Miller’s murder trial would have begun had she not pleaded guilty, a custody dispute between Eric’s family and Ann’s family erupted. Verus and Doris, and Rich and Pam Baltzell, petitioned the court for joint custody of Clare. They accepted the fact that she would be in the physical custody of the Wilsons, but they wanted more time with her. They also asked New Hanover County judge Phyllis Gorham to deny Ann any access to her daughter. Judge Gorham did grant the Millers joint custody of Clare, and in an even larger victory, she also granted an order preventing physical visits between Ann and Clare. This came after expert testimony from a doctor who interviewed Ann in prison and said she was still in total denial about her guilt. The judge kept the case open so that Danielle and Dan Wilson could petition the court at a later date to change this order when Clare was older and more able to understand the situation.
And there was also another unresolved issue. Against the Millers’ wishes, Ann had had Eric’s body cremated and interred at St. Francis of Assisi in Raleigh. For years Verus and Doris Miller had been fighting for custody of Eric’s ashes so that they could bring him back to Indiana. It was all they had left of their son, and they desperately wanted him at home, where he belonged.
Morgan watched both of these battles from the sidelines. He had no power to help the Millers with issues in a civil courtroom; in fact, his mere presence might annoy the judge, given what a high-profile figure he’d been in the criminal case. So Morgan offered his emotional support. He met the Millers every time they came to Raleigh, be it for a meal, a chat, or simply a quick hug and an encouraging pat on the back.
When Ann pleaded guilty, the rights to Eric’s ashes reverted to Ann’s sister Danielle Wilson and her husband, as the executors of Clare’s estate. As part of the custody arrangement, the Wilsons agreed to let the Millers take Eric’s remains back to his hometown. While it appeared to be a symbolic gesture, to the Millers it was more, much more. It meant their boy was coming home. In July of 2006, the Millers had a proper funeral service for Eric, five and a half long years after his death. Morgan was honored to be invited, and he and Kay decided to make the six-hundred -mile trip. By car, of course.
“It was a time that I’ll always remember,” Morgan says wistfully.
While Morgan had gotten to know Eric over the years through the memories of his friends and family, it wasn’t until he was in the house where Eric grew up, surrounded by his loved ones, that he really truly understood who Eric Miller had been. He was standing in the kitchen by the table where Eric had probably eaten a thousand breakfasts, blown out dozens of birthday candles, and spent countless hours doing his math homework. At once, all of the pieces came into place like a murky kaleidoscope image that suddenly comes into sharp focus. At that moment he knew that nothing he had done for Eric had been in vain. He realized that this all-American, squeaky-clean vision he had had of Eric over all these years had in fact been accurate.
But there was one more person who gave Morgan his final and clearest insight into Eric, one he carries with him to this day, and one that drove him to tell his story and share it with the world—Clare Miller. She was six years old by this time, not a baby, not yet a young lady, but a little girl trying to figure out who she was going to be. For Morgan, so much of the case had been about protecting Clare, but he realized that nothing he or anyone else could do would prevent the child from feeling the weight of her past, a past that she would never remember, but would surely learn about someday.
On July 24, 2007, the Millers went back to court after the Wilsons asked for Clare’s visitation with Ann in prison to be reinstated. They also asked that “Wilson” be added to Clare’s last name so that the child could be a “complete” member of their family. The Millers were strongly against both of these moves.
Danielle Wilson testified that Clare had become depressed and was acting out. She told the court that as her niece’s de facto mother, the woman raising Clare, she should be able to decide what was right for Clare and, in Danielle’s mind, seeing Ann might help the child.
“I am here because I see my child struggling, and I see her attitude affecting our house. I see her anger, and I see her sadness,” Danielle said on the witness stand. “I love her dearly, and that is why this breaks my heart.”
Danielle also testified that she had finally told Clare the truth about what her mother had done. Even with this information, she claimed that Clare still longed to visit Ann in prison.
“ ‘Ann was involved [in] and responsible for the death of Eric,’ ” Danielle Wilson testified, recalling her words to Clare at the dinner table one evening. “ ‘She is not here today because she is in prison. Ann stepped up and took responsibility. She said she was sorry. Dan and I have forgiven her.’ ”
Ultimately, a judge ruled that a trauma expert would be needed to decide whether or not Clare could see her mother, and also whether or not it was appropriate an
d necessary to add “Wilson” to Clare’s last name.
But Morgan couldn’t be concerned with what the court would do on these fronts. He was done. There was nothing more he could do. Yet he couldn’t stop worrying about Clare. Seeing her in Indiana on the day of Eric’s funeral— it was an image that he couldn’t get out of his head.
“The child [Clare] appeared so frail and somewhat confused. There’s almost a painful look to her [as if] somewhere deep down inside she understands on one level,” Morgan says. “I still hope at some point and time she will understand everything.”
But how could she understand? How could anyone ever truly understand Ann Miller’s actions? These are questions Morgan still asks himself almost every day. He doesn’t know where he will be when Clare Miller grows up, but he wants her to know the truth; not Ann’s truth, but the real truth.
EPILOGUE
There’s a time for departure even when there’s no place to go.
—TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
Morgan had a lot of time to think as he was driving home from Eric Miller’s service, through the flatlands of Indiana, the rolling hills of Ohio, cutting across West Virginia into beautiful, green North Carolina.
“Why did Ann kill him?” Morgan remembers the question that kept kicking around in his head.
It was a question he has asked himself so many times over the years, yet he never came up with an answer, not even with miles of asphalt unrolling in front of him and nothing but landscape to ponder.