A police officer walks toward the line of cars outside the East Lansing Police Department. Shot on Sept. 10, 2020.
East Lansing serial killer, Don Miller, was denied parole for the ninth time last week, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections.
The parole board's decision comes two months after Miller was interviewed by them in mid-April. Decisions typically take 30 days.
State officials also denied Miller's parole in 2016.
Miller killed four women between January 1977 and August 1978. Martha Sue Young, Miller's first victim, was engaged to him. Before Young disappeared, she ended their relationship.
In the 18 months after Young disappeared, Miller killed Marita Choquette, a 27-year-old editorial assistant at WKAR-TV, 21-year-old Wendy Bush, and 30-year-old Kristine Stuart. In their family's Delta Township home, Miller raped then-14-year-old Lisa Gilbert and attempted to kill both her and her then-13-year-old brother Randy Gilbert.
Miller pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter in exchange for leading police to Young's and Stuart’s bodies. He was sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison and later revealed details of Choquette's and Bush’s deaths, according to a Lansing State Journal report.
Additionally, Miller was charged in Eaton County with rape and attempted murder for the attack on the Gilbert children, where he was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison.
An indictment against Miller in Ingham County on second-degree murder charges for the deaths of Stuart and Young never made it to trial.
On Feb. 2, Ingham County Prosecutor Carol Siemon sent a letter to the parole board objecting to Miller's parole.
"I believe the Parole Board correctly decided in 2016 that Miller was not a suitable candidate for community-based parole supervision and nothing has changed in these years to change that belief for me," Siemon said in the letter.
Attorney General Dana Nessel also urged officials to deny Miller's upcoming chance at parole in a letter to the state's parole board in early February. She told LSJ that she believes Miller is still a "predator."
"The release of Don Miller will absolutely endanger this community from the moment he steps outside prison walls," Nessel said in the LSJ report. "The horrific details of his crimes are enough to prove that this man is where he belongs, behind bars, ensuring he can never again harm any person."
According to the LSJ, state police have confirmed they are currently investigating a woman's claims that Miller attacked and assaulted her in August 1978.
Miller is a prisoner at the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility in Jackson and will be released in 2031 if he serves his full sentence.
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