by Amanda Lamb
FAMILY TIES
“To be honest with you, I think I was just as fearful as they were,” Morgan admits.
He had tried to keep in touch with the family on a regular basis and kept them as informed as he could about the case, but it was hard. He had other murders to solve. He was only one man with a staff of detectives who were already working overtime on several other cases. But like every other case he had been involved in, he walked a fine line between being a detective investigating their son’s murder, and a man who had become their close, personal friend.
“I had tried to be as careful as I could to maintain a professional relationship, which I always did,” Morgan says like a man trying to convince himself. “With a case as complicated, as heart-wrenching, as Eric Miller’s, I mean I couldn’t leave these people out there flapping in the breeze.”
He had bonded with Beth-Ellen Vinson’s family. He had bonded with Eric Miller’s family. He had bonded with Beulah Dickerson’s family. Morgan simply didn’t know any other way to do his job. It was impossible for him to get the victims or their loved ones out of his mind.
“Sometimes I’d just be drawn back to Wicker Drive . . . where Beth-Ellen Vinson’s body had been found, and I would sit there, park my car, walk over the actual exact spot where Beth-Ellen’s body had been found, and almost will her ghost, her spirit, to come and give me some kind of guidance,” says Morgan uncharacteristically. He was not a man who was naturally prone to put much stock in the supernatural.
He did the same thing with Beulah Dickerson’s house, driving way out of his way on his way home from work to “swing by” Pine View Drive one more time, hoping something would come to him, something he had not seen before.
It was around this time, the spring of 2002, that the district attorney’s office officially pronounced the Dickerson case dead in the water. Morgan met with several assistant district attorneys who told him there was simply not enough probable cause to charge his suspect, Dickerson’s former neighbor.
“Same old story; I’d heard it before and I was getting kind of tired of it,” grouses Morgan with a chip on his shoulder the size of California.
But he wasn’t tired of the victims’ families. Truthfully, he felt privileged that they allowed him into their homes and their lives, and shared their very personal sorrow with him. Yet at the same time he felt helpless. At this point it looked as if there was nothing he could ever do for the Dickersons, and there was nothing at the moment he could do for the Millers. The legal process was slow as molasses, and while it dripped one lonely drop at a time, the investigations had both come to standstills.
Morgan acknowledges that for victims’ families, the loss becomes the biggest and most significant part of their lives. Given this fact, allowing them to be involved in the investigation, even in the tiniest way, went a long way toward helping them heal because it made them feel useful.
In order to maintain their precious relationship with Clare—their only connection to Eric—the Miller family continued to have a relationship with Ann. It was close to impossible for them to interact with the woman they felt sure had murdered their son and brother, but they did it for Eric’s daughter. Morgan admired their cool detachment in dealing with Ann for the greater good of the relationship with their granddaughter and niece.
The entire Miller family, including Eric’s sisters, had kept up a brave front all along for the sake of Clare. Because neither grandparents nor aunts have any legal custody rights to a child unless specifically granted by a judge, Ann was their gatekeeper to Clare. They had to have a relationship with her in order to have access to the child. But at the same time their rage grew as they learned about the growing body of evidence against Ann.
But then the Millers went one step beyond just keeping the peace. With Morgan’s help they became pseudo investigators, hoping to glean something from Ann Miller that the police had missed, something that only someone who knew her could get out of her. They were fed up with waiting and decided to join the search for answers.
CALLING THE DEVIL
On March 13, 2002, Pam Baltzell, Eric’s sister, called Ann Miller at her home in Wilmington. This was no typical phone call.
Without Ann’s knowledge, Pam taped the telephone call as she probed Ann about the case. Because North Carolina is a one-party state, meaning that only one person needs to be aware of the taping, Pam was completely within her legal rights to undertake this bit of sleuthing. She later shared the tape with the Raleigh Police Department. Below are excerpts from that call.
PAM: What do you have to say about it?
ANN: What do you mean what do I have to say about it?
PAM: Well, you know, Rich [Pam’s husband] and I were just down here and we asked you about Willard. You told us he was stalking you, and we’re just trying to understand what this is about in this affidavit. [Pam is referring to the police affidavit that had indicated a relationship between Ann and Derril Willard.]
ANN: I guess I haven’t read an affidavit, you know I haven’t read anything about— [Pam cuts her off.]
PAM: You haven’t seen what’s out in the papers?
ANN: Pam, I don’t read the papers. I had the media chasing me down at work today. I just don’t read the papers. I stay away from all of it. You can’t, I don’t believe what I read in the papers and I don’t you know, I just stay away from the papers.
PAM: I mean, what do you think Gammon has to say? I mean, they’re pretty hot and heavy on getting him to talk, I mean— [Ann turns the tables and cuts Pam off.]
ANN: I have no idea. [Ann is clearly done with the conversation at this point.] Yeah, they chased me down at work about it today, so, you know, I just—
PAM: They did? Did you talk to them?
ANN: No!
PAM: Who chased you down?
ANN: Media.
PAM: The media?
ANN: Chased me through parking decks, shoved cameras and microphones in my face. You know, I don’t think, I think everybody thinks that I’m just, I mean it’s very extremely upsetting and stressful, and you know, I just . . . [Ann’s voice wells up with tears and trails off.]
Morgan had tipped off a local television news crew from WRAL-TV in Raleigh about where Ann was working and what kind of car she drove. Reporter Len Besthoff had aggressively pursued Ann in the parking garage as she tried to get to her car, shouting questions at her that she refused to answer. To the general public it might have appeared that Ann was being attacked, harassed, unjustly accused, her privacy invaded, but Morgan knew better.
“I thought it was time to take the gloves off and once again, sometimes when your hands are tied in every other direction, you have to use the resources that are available,” Morgan says, referring to his friends in the media.
PAM: You know, I mean I can understand that. [Pam is obviously trying to appear sympathetic in order to gain some common ground.]
ANN: You, I don’t think, I don’t think you can. You can’t understand it, and you know, even when I know it’s coming, and I’m told, look, the media are probably going to come get you and to talk to you. Until you are chased down, chased to your car, chased back into your office with cameras and bright lights and microphones and people shouting at you, shoving them in your face, you can’t understand it. As much as I think, okay, this could happen someday and I’m going to be prepared, I can’t stop shaking. It took me four hours to stop shaking and to stop crying. And I don’t think anybody can understand that. It happens to you, you can’t understand it, and even in my head I think, well, I can be prepared for this, but you can’t until it, you know, and it’s not, and everybody goes, they get the media all stirred up and they get everything all stirred up, and you can’t understand what it’s like, you know.
PAM: Well, I might not know about the media but I do know how stressful all this is because, you know, we just want the whole thing over.
ANN: That’s all I want, too. [She sounds sincere.] You have no idea how badly I want this over. Y
ou know, and I have to, I have to plan to camp out for the next three or four days at Danielle’s house. I mean it’s just insane, just insane. I’ve lived out of a suitcase more in the past year and a half, or year than I have— You know, I just, nobody has any idea. They just, I don’t know what everybody thinks, but nobody, I don’t think it ever has occurred to anybody how hard this is. [Ann’s voice cracks like a boy going through puberty.]
PAM: Well what I don’t understand is if you don’t want to live like that—
ANN: If I don’t want to live like this, I should just go to the police and talk to them and I won’t have to live like this? Do you think I have anything to tell the police I didn’t tell them a year ago? You think anything has changed in my life in the past year? PAM: I don’t know.
ANN: I talked to the police a year ago. I have a lawyer who has asked me not to; you know they took things. They have taken things that my parents have said and twisted them. They have taken things that my friends have said and twisted them. [Ann sounds defensive.]
PAM: Like what? [Pam sounds genuinely interested.]
ANN: An officer dressed in blue is not a friend— [Ann laughs nervously] —to me and you, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be cynical, but they’ve done nothing but take things people had said and twisted them.
PAM: Like what? I don’t understand.
ANN: You know, you know, stuff my dad has talked to Rich about, stuff, they’ve told one person one thing and another person another thing, and you know, there’s things they have—truth they have twisted. You know, even my grandmother. They interviewed my grandmother and my grandmother caught them in a lie. I can’t sit here and list them, but . . . [Ann sounds flustered.]
PAM: Okay. [Pam quietly nudges Ann to go on.]
ANN: The more . . . the more I say, the more there is for them to twist. [Ann speaks in a little-girl voice.] They just take every word and do whatever they want with it. Same with my phone, I don’t even like talking on my phone. I don’t use phones unless I have to. [She chuckles.] Because we all know my lines are so incredibly tapped that it’s insane. You know, and this is how I live, each phone conversation, every move I make, every conversation I make is all trashed, everything, it’s hell, a living hell. And I don’t think anybody has a clue.
PAM: I just don’t think people understand— [Pam interrupts Ann’s stream of consciousness.]
ANN: Can you imagine living and knowing that every conversation you have is being tape-recorded and kept in some big machine? You know, can you imagine going through life like that? And I’m thinking, you know, if anybody wants this over, Pam, you have got to realize I want this over.
Morgan thoroughly enjoyed the idea that Ann Miller thought her phones were being bugged. In reality, he wasn’t that good. Getting a wiretap order from a state court in North Carolina was about as easy as getting a cab in New York City during rush hour. It was close to impossible, but clearly Ann believed her phones were tapped, and that gave Morgan a great deal of satisfaction.
“I can remember on several occasions when we were following her, we would see her making cell-phone calls while she was driving through traffic and then all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, Ann would pull over and pull up to a pay phone at a convenience store and use the pay phone.” Morgan chuckles about her paranoia. “That’s just so out there.”
PAM: Well, how are we—how are you going to get it over? I mean, what do your attorneys say about it? I mean, they want you just to keep living like this?
ANN: They just tell me to take a day at a time. And to not worry about tomorrow, but just take a day at a time and that’s all I ever try to do. Actually, they tell me to take more like a minute at a time, an hour at a time. And now the media even knows where I worked. I don’t even know how they figured that one out. The only people—the only people that know where I worked was you and the police. So I’m thinking, okay, who called the media [about] where I work? You know, and I just—did you tell them where I worked?
PAM: Did I tell them where you worked? [She repeats the question incredulously.]
ANN: Did anybody tell the media where I worked?
PAM: I didn’t tell them.
ANN: How did they chase them down at my employment?
PAM: I don’t know. I mean, Rich found out where you worked when he was down there before. So it’s probably not hard if they really want to do it.
Like a seasoned investigator, Pam Baltzell probed her sister-in-law, asking her the same questions over and over again, each time in different ways. Most of all she let the silences breathe, hoping that Ann would feel compelled to fill them. These were the desperate measures of a grieving sister, a grieving family, willing to go straight to the devil to get the answers they needed.
ANN: You know, I can’t answer questions or anything. I’ve tried to be very— [Ann ends her sentence midstream with nervous laughter.]
PAM: And I don’t understand that. Why can’t you answer these questions? [Pam sounds exasperated.] It’s out in the newspapers that you called Willard like—I don’t know how many times. And that you called him, you were on the phone with him two hours before Eric died at one in the morning! What is that all about? I’m sorry to be so upset about this, but I mean, I just don’t understand. I mean we were just down there two weeks ago and you said this guy was stalking you.
Ann struggled to describe her relationship with Willard to Pam without giving away too much. She revealed little in the way of facts about the case, but in Morgan’s opinion she revealed a lot about her character. When Pam turned the tape over to Morgan, it gave him a great deal of insight into just who Ann Miller was, and who she was pretending to be: a victim who refused to take responsibility for anything that had happened. She was a woman who appeared to be either a fantastic liar or totally in denial that she had done anything wrong. One thing was clear to Morgan: Ann Miller thought she was being unjustly persecuted by the police and the media.
ANN: Obsessed might have been a good word [she is referring to Willard’s feelings for her], but there’s a difference between the two and so—but I don’t know, you know. I don’t know what you want me to say.
PAM: I wanted you to tell us what happened. [There is growing rage in her voice.] What this is all about?
ANN: Would it make any difference? [Ann sounds smug.] Would anybody listen to me?
PAM: Yes, we’re listening, that’s why—
ANN: I don’t think so. [Ann cuts Pam off.] I really don’t. I really don’t. I really don’t think anybody would listen to me.
PAM: Yes, we would!
ANN: No, I really don’t think you would, Pam.
PAM: Why, why?
ANN: I just don’t feel like you guys—I don’t think you have given me a chance or, you know. [Ann punctuates each pause with nervous laughter.] I think, and your parents, you read the papers and you’ve already—you already have foregone conclusions in your head about—I don’t think, I think I could talk until I was blue in the face and I don’t think—
PAM: Ann, you’re not telling us anything. And what you just told Rich and I about the stalking doesn’t make sense now with what was just put in the papers this week. And we’re just trying to understand. [Pam’s tone softens.]
ANN: I said that the man was obsessed and I will leave it at that.
PAM: Why were you calling him back, then?
ANN: We were friends.
PAM: At one in the morning before Eric died? [Pam sounds flabbergasted.]
ANN: You remember they told us not too long before that they figured out what it was and that they were going to, you know, and I was . . . I don’t . . . I’m not going there. [She gives a hearty, knowing chuckle.]
PAM: Why not, how are we going to get through this? How are we ever going to get through this?
ANN: I don’t know [she says flatly.]
PAM: Don’t you want this over?
ANN: I pray about that every day. I do want it over. I want this over more than anybody. You have no idea
how much I want this over. You’re not the one who has media chasing you down; you’re not the one that drives around dark alleys trying to get into your home. You’re not the one who has police coming. You’re damn straight I want this over. I want this over more than anybody. For myself and for Clare and for both of us. ’Cause I can’t keep on living like this. I want it over. [Ann sounds tearful.]
PAM: You know if you would just talk to the police, and talk to people, they wouldn’t be thinking all of this stuff.
ANN: I have told Wade [Wade Smith, her attorney] a long time ago that I will do anything that he tells me to and I told the police and I did, I sat down and I talked to them for a while. And I told Wade, I said, you know, I’ve hired you, whatever you say from here on out. I have wanted to talk to them and he has just asked me for now to not. I don’t—he’s just asked for me to not.
PAM: Okay. [Pam sounds resigned.] Well, I just—I just had to call and talk you about this. It was just, um, you know, quite a bit different than our conversation before.
Pam tried to bring the conversation back to Clare, someone they could talk about without animosity. Pam asked Ann how Clare was sleeping and how she was feeling. But the detour lasted just a few moments before the conversation returned to the virtual elephant in the middle of the room.
ANN: I wish there was something that I could say or give you or do, or something you know, but it—you just have to understand that I do want this to be over.
PAM: It’s just hard, this stuff is just all sprouting in the news, people ask us about it. You know, what can we say? We don’t have anything to say. Except—
ANN: I mean it’s hard, and it’s hard and I’m just thinking of Clare, keep thinking about how all of this is, you know. I wish . . . I have this attorney and I have to let him do his job. That’s all I can say. You know. He has been doing what he’s been doing for forty-some-odd years and he’s seen more police, and you know, I don’t know, but he’s seen more police damage more innocent lives than he has not. You know? And I really feel that he has mine and Clare’s interest at heart here. So I have to trust him. I just have to trust him and I’m just doing what he’s telling me to do because I do trust him and I have faith in him and I watch the police and I watch them tearing at our families and it’s hurtful, you know. And you asked when you were here, you said: “What are you going to tell Clare?”
