The description makes it difficult to imagine that 30 years ago the street was home to the man who would become East Lansing’s first — and, to this point, only — serial killer.

The responding officer

On New Year’s Day of 1977, East Lansing police Officer Kenneth Ouellette was 35 minutes into his shift when he received a call he said “would haunt the city” for more than a year and a half.

When he answered the phone, Ouellette heard the familiar voice of Gene Miller. Ouellette said he and Miller’s son, Donald, occasionally traveled to the local sportsman and rifle club.

Gene Miller called the station on behalf of Sue Young, the mother of Donald’s girlfriend, Martha Sue Young.

Miller told Ouellette that Martha Sue Young was missing just hours after Donald had supposedly dropped her off at her house.

Ouellette came out to Young’s house after receiving the call.

“Typically, most of these things turn out to be that they stayed at a friend’s house or their date’s house. It’s that college-town type of thing you associate with it,” Ouellette said.

But when Ouellette arrived, Martha Sue Young’s disappearance didn’t add up.

“We started to focus in on the fact that Donald was not a drinker or a partier, Martha Sue was not a partier, they both lived at home, they both had conservative religious views, they were active in the church,” Ouellette said. “As I would eliminate some of these things, the concern grew.”

Because of his concern, Ouellette turned his attention to the last person who had seen Martha Sue Young: Donald Miller.

The new prosecutor

At the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1, 1977, Peter Houk became the Ingham County prosecuting attorney. His first case would be one of his most highly publicized.

Houk watched as police officers and detectives discredited Miller’s alibi over the next months.

Evidence showed Miller didn’t tell police all of the places he said he went the day of Young’s disappearance. He failed two polygraph tests. His complete lack of emotion puzzled those around him.

Police and prosecutors knew they had their man, but what they didn’t have was evidence.

As a result, Miller continued to live at his parents’ home and worked as a security guard after graduating from MSU with a criminal justice degree.

Nearly a year went by before police had a break in the case. In October 1977, Young’s clothes were found in Bath Township, systematically placed as if she’d levitated out of her clothes.

“That’s when our office, in particular, and East Lansing knew we were dealing with something out of the normal,” Houk said. “We were convinced we were dealing with some type of psychopath.”

Still, an era without DNA-detecting technology, police received little evidence from the discovery. Without physical evidence, police couldn’t charge Miller.

For a second time, police hit a dead end.

The lead detective

East Lansing police Detective Rick Westgate was one of the two officers leading the investigation.

From the start of the inquiry into Young’s disappearance, Westgate quarreled with Miller’s parents and lawyers while working to get information about the case.

“If the parents hadn’t been so stubborn and they had listened to all of the information we had regarding where he had been, if they wouldn’t have blocked us, there wouldn’t have been three other homicides,” Westgate said.

In the summer of 1978, the consequences of Miller’s freedom became apparent.

In June, Marita Choquette, 28, disappeared from her Grand Ledge apartment. Two weeks later, her body was found in Holt. The same day, 21-year-old MSU student Wendy Bush was last seen alive outside Case Hall. In August, Kristine Stuart, a 30-year-old middle school teacher who lived blocks from Miller’s house, went missing.

The incidents sent local media and residents into a near-frenzy.

“It was very unnerving,” Westgate said. “You just don’t have things like that go on in the community.”

But three days after the third disappearance in as many months, police finally got their man.

The arrest

On Aug. 15, 1978, Miller walked into the house of two East Lansing teenagers and tried to kill a brother and sister. The house was chosen at random, police would later determine.

He escaped from the house, but a nearby fireman noticed Miller’s car leaving the scene and phoned East Lansing police.

Westgate, the man who had spent countless hours investigating Miller, finally caught his suspect in the act.

He picked up Miller, confident that the man who had put East Lansing on edge was finally in custody.

The news was welcome relief to members of the city — Houk in particular.

“I had a wife, I had a young daughter and I used to be terrified at night when Donald Miller was on the loose because I was certain he was a serial killer,” Houk said. “I used to take to sleeping down on my couch in the living room.”

Even with Miller behind bars, police did not have the bodies of any of the victims.

In a strange twist, Houk, with the consent of Sue Young and Kristine Stuart’s husband, Ernie, engineered a plea bargain for the case.

Miller agreed to disclose the location of each of the bodies in exchange for receiving a sentence of 30-50 years in prison. Miller pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter, two counts of assault with intent to commit murder and one count of criminal sexual conduct.

Following the plea, Miller directed Westgate to the site of the bodies.

“He knew exactly where he was taking us,” Westgate said. “He didn’t even get out of the car. He just pointed to where she was.”

Twenty years would pass with Miller behind bars, but the shape of Michigan’s government would put his sentence in limbo.

The near escape

After two decades in prison, Miller was set to be released on parole in 1999.

“You talk about a guy who had unbelievable luck,” Houk said. “Michigan enters into a real crisis in prisons, and we start whopping all sorts of prison time off of prison sentences, so his 40-year prison sentence in the Eaton County case gets reduced by almost half, and he became eligible for parole.”

The threat of Miller’s release put several community members on alert.

“These guys don’t get better,” said Dr. Frank Ochberg, a local resident and former director of the Michigan Department of Mental Health. “After they pass such a certain threshold, none of them can be treated or reformed. They are ruthless predators.”

As a result, Ochberg, Young, Houk and a group of interested residents pulled together to find ways to keep Miller in prison. The group also made plans to keep the city safe if Miller was released, including having someone befriend Miller to keep tabs on him.

After months of searching, Eaton County Prosecutor Jeffrey Sauter made a discovery that would keep Miller in prison.

Miller was punished in prison for possessing a weapon — information which Sauter took to court. Miller was convicted again in 1998 and sentenced to an additional 20-40 years in prison.

“That means, in my lifetime, he’s never going to get out of prison,” Ochberg said. “It really was a wonderful thing.”

The campaigning mother

In the 30 years since Martha Sue’s death, Sue Young has fought to reduce the violence that took her daughter’s life.

She has spent time campaigning for anti-violence and increases in punishments for criminal acts.

Though she has struggled in her legislative efforts, Young’s perspective has given her a platform to offer advice on how to reduce crime.

“We need to start looking at the things we tolerate,” Young said. “We’re naive in thinking that there isn’t real evil in the world, and we have a high toleration for that.

“People need to not shrug their shoulders and say there’s nothing we can do.

They need to find a way to rein in the violence.”

Young said the story of her daughter should serve as a notice to all women.

“If you have that vague sense of fear, trust it,” Young said. “In not wanting to hurt Don’s feelings, she was killed.”

Still, Martha Sue Young’s murder could hardly have been predicted, even by her mother, with whom she was close.

“He was normal, everybody thought,” Young said. “He was the guy next door.”