Hopes dying Truro mass-murderer will tell all
AS Truro mass-murderer James Miller lay on his deathbed last night, the daughter of one of his victims was clinging to hope that he might finally give up his dark secrets.
Much is still unknown about the horrific events of the summer of 1976-77, when Miller embarked on a killing rampage with acolyte Christopher Worrell that left seven women dead, most of them buried in shallow bush graves near the town of Truro, 80km north of Adelaide.
Miller has insisted that he did no more than drive and help with the disposal of bodies, while 23-year-old Worrell took care of the rest of the bloody business.
Somewhat conveniently for Miller, Worrell died in a car accident a week after the death oftheir last victim, 20-year-old Deborah Lamb. Lamb was last seen in the city on February 12, 1977, near sites where Worrell and Miller had picked up three other victims. It was just 12 weeks after Lamb had given up her then 10-month-old daughter Niki.
Now 32 and with two children of her own, Niki Lamb said yesterday an admission from Miller that he was directly involved in her mother's death would mean a lot to her.
"I would love nothing but to hear the words out of his mouth that 'Yes, I was there, I helped', instead of the run of-the-mill-story that he's said for the last 30 years," Ms Lamb said yesterday.
She believes there was no way that Worrell acted alone in the killings.
"My mother was a heavy-set girl and I was told that it was quite hard to hold her down when she was angry and she would have been fighting for her life," Ms Lamb said.
Police involved in the original investigation agree that Miller was much more involved in the murders than he has admitted. But time is running short.
The 67-year-old life prisoner, in the terminal throes of cancer, was transferred on Thursday from Yatala maximum security prison to a secure ward of the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
South Australian police will not say whether they have sought or carried out a deathbed interview with Miller. The head of the major crime investigation section, John Venditto, said it was police policy to keep such matters confidential. "We are not going to talk about individuals," Superintendent Venditto said.
But he added: "In solved murders, there are often unanswered questions and, as a general point, we would be seeking any opportunity to answer those questions."
Retired police detective Ken Thorsen, who headed the Major Crime Squad during the Truro investigation, has always questioned whether Miller did more than he admitted. "If you look through his history, he was an institutionalised person," Mr Thorsen said. "He committed a lot of crimes."
Miller's involvement first came to light at Worrell's funeral, where people heard Miller talking about his partner.
A tip-off led to his arrest and, in the middle of the night, the serial killer offered to take police to the burial sites of the final three victims.
In 1980, Miller was found guilty of murdering Lamb, Juliet Mykyta, 16, Vicki Howell, 26, Tania Kenny, 15, Connie Iordanides, 16, and Sylvia Pittman, 16.
He was acquitted of murdering Veronica Knight, 18.
At the time, South Australian law did not set non-parole periods. The law was amended and in 2000 Miller was handed a 35-year non-parole term, due to expire in 2015. Now suffering what are reported to be psychotic episodes, Miller has told doctors he wants to be left to die.
That is fine with Ms Lamb, who says she wants Miller to die a painful death and rot in hell. "I hope he sees every girl's face flash by him before he goes and, when he does go, I hope it burns on the way down," Ms Lamb said.
Mykyta's father, Irush, does not care if there is a deathbed confession, nor does he have a final message for Miller.
"There's not anything that he's likely to change, particularly when he's built a lot of his life around being innocent," Mr Mykyta said. "He's a rather poor excuse for a human being."