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