Free Terror in East Lansing: The Tale of MSU Serial Killer Donald Miller by R. Barri Flowers Page A

derived
from the Morrill Act, signed in 1862 by President Abraham Lincoln
to provide a generous "grant of land to each state, the revenue of
which was to be used for the development and support of agriculture
schools."
    Within this context, the land-grant
institution became the first college in the nation to offer a
bachelor of science degree in police administration, the intent
being to use scientific education and training to properly prepare
students for careers in law enforcement, private investigation, and
in other areas of criminal justice.
    By 1977, MSU's School of Criminal Justice had
presented undergraduate and graduate degrees to thousands of
students under the direction and tutelage of such criminal justice
and criminology legends as Donald Bremer, Arthur Brandstatter,
Ralph Turner, Robert Scott, Louis Radelet, Zolton Ferency, Leon
Weaver, Vincent Hoffman, and Robert Trojanowicz, among others.
    Donald Miller was among those graduates to
receive a degree in criminal justice from Michigan State. But
rather than use it to pursue a career in law enforcement,
government, or perhaps teaching, he took a decidedly different and
dark path, turning into a psychopath, rapist, and serial
killer.
    * * *
    Born on December 28, 1954, Donald Gene Miller
was described as the "quintessential boy-next-door." Having grown
up in a peaceful, middle-class area in the college town of East
Lansing, Michigan during the rebellious 1970s, it would have been
quite easy for him to have gotten caught up in the type of crowd
among which long hair, drug use, and sowing one's oats was fairly
common. Instead, by all accounts, Miller walked the straight and
narrow, respected his elders, kept his hair short, and was a youth
minister at the local church. He attended Michigan State
University, majoring in criminal justice. It seemed like he was
well on his way toward finding a successful career in law
enforcement or some other impressive occupation within the world of
law and order.
    Adding to this picture of apparent
perfection, Miller had started dating a girl from his church,
Martha Sue Young, who lived down the street and was friends with
Miller's older sister. By the winter of 1976, Miller, twenty-one,
and nineteen-year-old Young, who also attended Michigan State, were
engaged. The couple seemed to be headed toward matrimony and a good
life as two bright students in love with life and each other.
    But that all changed rather abruptly. Just
before New Year's Eve 1976, Young called off the engagement.
According to her mother, Sue Young, there were a number of reasons
her daughter did not go through with the marriage, such as "the
fact that Don was twenty[-two] years old and never had a job,"
apart from a brief stint working in a resort community the previous
summer.
    The two also differed in their attitudes
about education. Whereas Young loved college and was serious about
studying and getting good grades, Miller felt just the opposite.
"Don never studies, and his grades aren't good," Martha told her
mother. Sue Young noted that her daughter enjoyed athletics and
socializing in college but complained that "it's not only that
[Don] doesn't, but he doesn't want me to either."
    Whatever the reasons, or combination thereof,
for breaking off their engagement, an embittered Miller had no
intention of fading into the woodwork as Young sought greener
pastures. Miller was able to convince her that they should remain
friends at the very least, insisting that she keep the engagement
ring, with no strings attached, with regard to the promise of
future romance.
    Young, who may have been wary of such an
offer, chose to give her ex-fiancé the benefit of the doubt and
maintain the friendship. Based on Miller's clean record with the
law, on their being members of the same church, and on the strong
camaraderie between their families, it seemed there was no harm in
giving Miller at least this much.
    But Young could not read Miller's devious
mind. Nor did she realize