Read Online Terror in East Lansing: The Tale of MSU Serial Killer Donald Miller by R. Barri Flowers - Free Book Online Page B

that he was anything but a safe bet—not
until it was too late to change the dark destiny in store for
her.
    * * *
    New Year's Day 1977 marked the start of the
winter term at Michigan State University, with students streaming
back on to the campus from Christmas break, prepared to resume
their march toward fulfilling necessary requirements for degrees.
Then, of course, there was catching up with old friends, making new
ones, and partying—both to welcome in the New Year and simply for
the sake of keeping up with campus traditions.
    It was on that cold day that Martha Sue Young
went missing. East Lansing police officer Kenneth Ouellette had
just begun his shift when the call came in. It was from Gene
Miller, Donald's father. Ouellette knew the Millers because he and
Donald had sometimes gone to a local sportsman and rifle club
together.
    Gene Miller was calling the station at the
request of Sue Young, Martha's mother. The young woman was missing
after allegedly being dropped off at her home by Donald a few hours
earlier, having gone out with him as friends.
    Ouellette went to Young's house, initially
believing there was probably nothing to worry about. "Typically,
most of these things turn out to be that they stayed at a friend's
house or their date's house," the officer suggested. "It's that
college-town type of thing you associate with it."
    But Ouellette changed his tune once he got to
the house. Martha Sue Young's disappearance suddenly struck him as
anything but normal. As he honed in on some of the things about her
and Donald, such as that they did not drink, that neither were
known to be active in the party scene, that both still lived at
home, and that both attended church regularly and held religious
views that were conservative, the officer grew increasingly
concerned about Martha's unexplained absence.
    * * *
    In 1985, Michigan State University's School
of Criminal Justice celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. With a
rich history of producing graduates who went into fields across the
criminal justice spectrum and around the world, there was reason to
celebrate.
    When the new program began in 1935, there
were a mere twenty-three freshman and eleven sophomore and junior
enrollees. By 1985, enrollment in the school had soared to six
hundred undergraduate students, one hundred and fifteen students
seeking master's degrees, and twenty PhD candidates.
    Among the school's accomplishments was the
first annual Institute on Police Community Relations in 1955 and a
designation by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration in
1973 as a national center of excellence. According to a 1979
article in the Journal of Criminal Justice, "Michigan State
University ha[d] the highest known reputation among the almost
1,200 criminal justice programs in the country." Moreover, the
Joint Commission of Criminology and Criminal Justice Education and
Standards had consistently rated the School of Criminal Justice as
one of the top two such programs in the nation.
    In all, nearly six thousand students had
graduated from the School of Criminal Justice in the program's
first fifty years, many going on to distinguished careers in law
enforcement, government, criminology, and other related fields.
    * * *
    A few days before Martha Young's
disappearance, the coed had expressed relief that Donald Miller had
seemingly accepted the end of their engagement with no hard
feelings. As a result, she even agreed to attend Miller's birthday
party at the home of a friend of his grandmother the following
evening as previously planned, if only to keep up appearances for
his family.
    On Friday afternoon, New Year's Eve 1976,
Young stopped by the Great Steak Restaurant in East Lansing, where
her mother was having lunch with a friend, to show the two women
the shoes she had purchased for a party she planned to attend on
New Year's Day. It seemed as though 1977 was destined to get off to
a great start for the college student.
    That evening, Sue Young was in the