Forensic Files (HD) - Season 13, Episode 31 - Hair Line - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] up next a young man falls ill and no one knows why maybe he had been exposed to something
through his work despite the best of medical intensive care he dies is accidental is it suicide
is it homicide but investigators know there must be a clue somewhere the more we looked into it the
more bizarre it got the research triangle in raleigh-durham north carolina home to many high-tech research and
development companies thirty-year-old eric miller worked there looking for a cure for pediatric aids
his wife ann was also a scientist working for a large pharmaceutical company eric and anne miller were living the
american dream they had good jobs they had a beautiful baby they lived in a nice house they attended church
despite a satisfying professional life eric developed health problems that some suspected might have been
related to his job he exhibited a lot of flu-like symptoms vomiting fevers headaches
and people generally thought that he had a virus or that he had a bacterial infection
that they just couldn't isolate one night while bowling with his friends his symptoms were so
severe he had to be hospitalized anna miller said he was pale and white and he was holding a trash
can and said he had eaten a hot dog at the bowling alley and felt like he had gotten food poisoning
eric was put into intensive care but when his condition improved he was released several days later he
was hospitalized again this time doctors found a huge amount of arsenic in his system well over the
lethal level the urine test from the second hospital was um was really high it was sky high it's
tasteless it's odorless it's water soluble can easily be mixed in with food or drinks
arsenic is a poison used in pesticides herbicides and insecticides they asked him if he knew of anybody
that would have any reason to to harm him or hurt him in any way and he indicated that he did not
within hours eric miller was dead it's a very very painful way to die arsenic basically eats away at your body
from the inside out it causes you to have violent violent nausea convulsions your system starts shutting down organ
by organ but where did the arsenic come from a check of eric's workplace showed he
had no exposure to arsenic there we went to the lab and we looked at every chemical in the lab and
checked for arsenic we did not find anything that was arsenic or arsenic derivative
they also checked eric's home we seized every bottle of water every carton of milk
everything that was there again they found nothing so investigators focused on that night
in the bowling alley when eric first exhibited the extreme symptoms a witness said
eric had a beer shortly before feeling ill eric had commented during the time that
the beer tasted bitter to him that there was a strange taste to the beer he went to the bathroom a number of times
and he became so ill that in fact he brought the trash can from the bathroom over to
the lane where they were bowling witnesses said eric's friend daryl willard had given eric the beer
investigators tried to speak to daryl about that but he refused daryl said i can't talk to you anymore
i've got to talk to my lawyer then six weeks after eric's death daryl's wife found him on the floor of
the garage in a pool of blood a gun in his hand my husband just killed himself there was a suicide note tacked to the
wall of the garage i am sorry to leave you my wife my beautiful daughter like this i have
been accused of an action for which i am not responsible i have taken no one's life
saved my own i love you all i think daryl willard had to know something about the death of eric miller
in police work that's what we call a clue police in raleigh-durham north carolina
had two suspicious deaths [Music] eric miller's death was caused by a massive dose of arsenic
six weeks later eric's friend daryl willard committed suicide the two had been together at the bowling
alley on the night eric miller fell ill daryl completely out of character for him
according to everybody we talked to buys a picture of beer while they're waiting for elaine to free up
when eric took his first swallowed beer you know doesn't taste quite right and shortly before daryl willard committed
suicide he had confessed to his wife that he had been having an affair with anne miller eric's wife we don't
know whether or not he told his wife anything else about his potential involvement with arsenic
or eric miller at the bowling alley investigators searched willard's work computer and phone records
they also searched ann miller's they found ample evidence of the affair from the middle of october until
eric's death she's got like 500 cell phone calls to daryl willard's desk to his house or to his cell phone she's
called him over 500 times and also sent daryl emails i want to make you feel so many things i
want to show you new things i want to touch places in you that you didn't know existed you better leave the women alone
you have me ann miller and daryl willard both worked together at the same pharmaceutical company
[Music] investigators learned they spent a weekend together at the ritz-carlton hotel in chicago
shortly before eric's death they registered as mr and mrs darryl willard but hotel employees later confirmed that
the woman was anne miller ann and daryl ordered a lot of room service just three days later when eric miller
was in the hospital investigators learned that his wife ann contacted another man with whom she was having an
affair a fellow scientist living in california ann says my husband is gravely ill but if i could
buy you a beach house and spend the night with you i would do it in a heartbeat she also said in that email
communication that he could call the house and they could speak by phone because
their in-laws wouldn't know any better and they wouldn't suspect anything no one knows if daryl willard knew
anne miller was involved with other men but it was clear to investigators that daryl willard and ann miller both
had a motive to kill eric at the pharmaceutical company where both anne miller and daryl willard were
employed police found arsenic they were using cacadelic acid to clean their glassware and at first
glance you might not know a cacadelic acid but it's actually it actually is arsenic this was the same
type of arsenic found in eric miller's body which meant the poison that killed him
probably came from the lab where his wife and her lover worked there were some controls with regard to
arsenic and access to arsenic in in the lab those controls were were not particularly tight but a search of both
the willard and miller homes turned up nothing we had it all tested for arsenic it all came up negative
although police considered ann miller a suspect eric's parents did not eric's parents
were very adamant that anne was not involved they had accepted ann into their family
she was their daughter-in-law and they had a good relationship with ann but strangely against the wishes of
eric's family anne insisted that eric's body be cremated everyone that follows any type of
forensic investigation knows that the easiest way to get rid of evidence is by cremating
somebody eventually anne miller quit her job sold her home and moved three hours away to wilmington
north carolina where she refused to cooperate further with investigators but even though eric's body was cremated
the medical examiner kept samples from his autopsy investigators hoped something in these
samples would prove a homicide in the search for eric miller's killer medical detectives hoped to find some
clues in tissues saved from his autopsy scientists knew eric's death was caused by arsenic poisoning
but they needed to find out when and by whom arsenic stays in your hair obviously your hair grows and so the
poisonings that occurred earlier are going to be on the end of your hair and the poisonings
that are more recent are going to be towards the scalp eric miller's hair was kept in storage
after his autopsy from the length of eric's hair investigators would have a record
of the last six months of his life in a process called neutron activation the hair samples were cut into five
millimeter sections each section represented about two weeks in eric miller's life you can't take
hair and say this person was poisoned on january 12th but you can take hair and say
this person was poisoned during this two-week period each clipping was put into its own vial
placed in a nuclear reactor and bombarded with radiation the resulting graph showed eric ingested
a huge dose of arsenic in the two weeks before his death in that two-week period
eric complained of severe symptoms on three separate occasions once was at the bowling alley when eric
was with daryl willard it's my opinion very strong opinion that daryl willard had actually given
eric a lethal dose of arsenic in that cup of beer that he served to him interestingly witnesses said daryl
knocked over eric's beer before he could finish it i think that beer got spilled because
daryl willard did not want eric miller to die i think daryl willard was a good man and i think that he got
caught up in ann miller's web if you will and he realized what was happening and and did not want to go through with
that anne told investigators she was at home with her daughter on the night eric went
bowling but a check of ann's cell phone record showed something very different at about 7 20
ann miller's cell phone was used in close proximity to the bowling alley based on where the tower was hit
in fact cell phone records showed anne actually made a call to her home to check her voicemail
the call bounced off a cell phone tower near the bowling alley so it put a little bit of a hole in ann
miller being at home a couple of days later eric had dinner with his wife alone at home and again he got sick
ann prepares a meal and serves at derrick and that night about two three hours later eric has a recurrence
of the same symptoms that he had the night of the bowling alley again eric was rushed to the hospital
but this time he was dead within 16 hours we have put it enough together to say in all reasonable probability in miller
and darrell willard conspired to kill eric but the other shocking piece of information that came from the analysis
of eric's hair was that the poisonings had been going on for months the testing showed
that eric miller had been poisoned multiple times and they were able to isolate i believe three times for certain but
multiple times over the six-month period previous to his death but if she wanted him dead why
take so long to do it there were a lot of theories about this one was that she was torturing him the most
obvious one that i think investigators kind of settled on was that she wanted to create a pattern of him appearing to
be sick so when he finally did die nobody would suspect poisoning but investigators had a problem they
knew what caused eric's death and they knew when he was poisoned but proving who was responsible
would be another matter investigators believe that anne miller had poisoned her husband
and was responsible for his death it was the motive they had a hard time figuring out since
eric didn't have a big life insurance policy money was not considered a motive the only life
insurance was in the amount of one hundred thousand dollars investigators believe anne's lover daryl
willard may have been involved in putting arsenic and eric's beer at the bowling
alley but they're convinced it was at ann's direction i think dan miller was driving
the train daryl willard was a passenger he was not making these decisions and he was a
victim just like eric miller they also believe that anne put arsenic in eric's food the last meal he
consumed before his death the massive dose of arsenic was given to eric the night before he
finally went to the hospital for the last time investigators also found evidence that
eric miller had come very close to finding out about anne's affair with daryl willard
it happened when ann didn't come home from work on time eric got upset and started driving
around trying to find anne because they didn't know where ann was at nine o'clock she then calls her mom and she
finds out everyone's looking for and i think in my opinion what triggered anne to do something
it was getting closer ann miller she almost got caught by eric on november 29th of committing adultery for having an
affair and it triggered the fatal dose of november 30th i think she didn't want to be a divorced
woman she didn't want that stigma she didn't want to deal with child support child visitation
custody as a widow she got sympathy and she didn't have to deal with all of the messy stuff that comes along with
divorce before his death daryl willard made an offhand comment to investigators that made it appear he knew he'd been
set up i said daryl i think you're being used i think a woman's using you and i think
you know it'd be in your best interest to cooperate with us and the only thing he said was yeah
and she's doing a mighty good job of it the very next day willard committed suicide i mean you had
the scientific evidence and that was hard and fast but you needed a witness you needed
somebody to say ann miller did this daryl willard he was the only witness that could testify against anne miller
and could give them the information that they needed to arrest her so prosecutors asked the north carolina
supreme court to force daryl willard's lawyer to reveal what daryl told him about anne miller's
involvement client confidentiality is is one of the most important parts of our our system
the judge studied the case and ruled that a small portion of what daryl willard told his
lawyer was admissible in court in other words the attorney can talk about what his client told him
if it involves a third party who might have committed an egregious crime like murder
daryl willard told his lawyer about a conversation he had with anne miller in a parking lot just after eric's death
the attorney stated that his client daryl willard told him that anne miller went to the hospital on that first
hospital stay took a syringe and injected something into eric miller's iv which presumably
was arsenic he then stated that he asked mrs miller why she had done this and she
replied i don't know killers all share one common bond and that is they are arrogant they are
in denial that they're doing anything wrong this person's in their way they're messing up their life and they
want him out of the way and that's it it's it's very simple with a search warrant investigators
found a love note and had written to eric around the time the poisoning started some believe
this was the beginning of the cover-up others think it's a look into anne's soul
there once was a girl who knew little of sharing little of caring she knew how to love but not
unconditionally she knew little of giving and nothing of sacrifice she lived in her own world and then you
entered my world and changed everything i knew there is nothing i wouldn't do for you
and miller's a psychopath she suffers from the malignant narcissism that you know to her the whole world
revolves around what she wants what she needs rather than risk a jury trial ann miller
agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder and received a minimum sentence of 25
years in prison it's one of those cases where you are left with as many questions
as answers and so that that can be very difficult not only from the prosecutor but
certainly for the family members as you don't get the why even though anne miller tried to
eliminate the evidence through cremation it only took a single strand of eric's hair
to chart months of deception and the final act of murder and to think that a record of this poisoning was just
kept in one single strand of hair is pretty unbelievable pretty amazing people can think they can get away with
murder but the technology is going to bite people this is my first homicidal arsenic
poisoning and i hope it's my last it's just you have to look for truth and justice
you never give up the fight

Doctors don't know why the young scientist is gravely ill. When tests finally reveal the cause, it's too late to save him. Police hope that lab analysis of his hair, showing when attempts were made on his life and what was used will lead to the killer.

Brief Summary

Eric Miller died from arsenic poisoning; his wife Anne and friend Daryl were implicated in the murder plot.

Key points

The Mysterious Illness. A young man falls ill under mysterious circumstances, leading to a tragic death.
The Shocking Confession. Daryl Willard's suicide raises suspicions about his knowledge of Eric's death.
The Tragic Death. Eric Miller dies from arsenic poisoning, raising questions of foul play.
The Affair and Motive. Evidence reveals an affair between Anne Miller and Daryl Willard, suggesting motive for murder.
The Final Act of Murder. Anne Miller pleads guilty to second-degree murder, leaving many questions unanswered.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's a very painful way to die.

Describing the effects of arsenic poisoning.

2:45WatchMar 5, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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