Deadly Dose (21 page)

Even a tough guy like Morgan was not immune to pressure. Suddenly things were starting to pile up. Almost every day his friend and colleague Captain Ken Mathias was coming into Morgan’s office and asking when he was going to retire. The truth was Mathias wasn’t asking because
he
wanted to know; he was asking because
Chief Perlov
wanted to know. Morgan felt like Perlov was ready to send him out to pasture. Morgan was the kind of employee who simply stirred the pot too much, and he assumed that she saw him as an old-school cop who didn’t embrace her progressive ways. It was very unlikely that this impasse between two strong-willed people was ever going to be bridged.

Morgan tried not to let it get to him, but it did. According to him, the tension between himself and the chief worsened when she accused his unit of failing to find and arrest a man on an accessory-to-murder charge. Morgan recalls that his colleagues were aghast when he challenged Chief Perlov’s accusations in a meeting in front of everyone. Two detectives were making gestures at him to “stop already.” One had his hand on his throat; the other was covering his mouth with one hand and making a “cut” sign across his neck with the other. But Morgan couldn’t help himself; he was hot and everyone, including the chief, knew it.

“It ticked me off,” Morgan says.

And then, in early 2004, as if he was not under enough pressure, Morgan’s eighty-year-old mother came down with kidney cancer. Again, life was throwing him a curve-ball, getting in the way of work, as work had gotten in the way of Morgan’s life so many times before.

“My mother had been such a definite and great influence to me, as well as my best friend, that it was devastating news to me,” says Morgan, choking back tears.

The idea of retirement started to surface again, and this time seemed like a logical step. Clearly, the brass wanted Morgan out. And clearly, Morgan had an obligation to be there for his mother as she had been there for him throughout every moment of his life.

“Thirty years of being a police officer is long enough for almost anybody,” Morgan says. “But up until that point and time, the only thing that had occupied my future was seeing Ann Miller go to jail for killing her husband . . . I hadn’t stayed for the benefit of the Raleigh Police Department. I stayed for the benefit of Verus Miller and the rest of the Miller family.”

Morgan was torn by his desire to stay and solve the case, and his need to move on. He’d always had a hard-to-kick habit of getting closer than he should to the families of murder victims. It had happened with the Millers; it had happened with the Bennetts. He was fully aware of the problem yet powerless to do anything about it. This made it even harder to leave.

“I got close to them because they needed it, and I needed it,” Morgan admits. “What I think they got from me [was] they always knew who to call.”

But ultimately, common sense won out. Morgan knew that he had stayed at the party way too long, longer than most people. It was truly time to go. He wasn’t sure what was on the other side of the mountaintop, but he was sure looking forward to finding out. Now that District Attorney Colon Willoughby had won the case in the North Carolina Supreme Court, Morgan was confident that Ann Miller would eventually be brought to justice. This meant he could leave knowing that he had done his job.

But before he could walk out the door, Morgan had to do one more thing. He had to tell the families who depended upon him to solve their loved ones’ murders that he would no longer be their point of contact,
their
detective.

Verus Miller was disappointed, but not shocked. Morgan told him that the wheels were in motion now to solve the case, and that it would happen with or without him. Morgan recalled that Verus bravely and graciously accepted the news of his retirement. He expected nothing less from the man whom he had grown to know as a salt-of-the-earth stand-up guy over the years. In short, Morgan considered Verus Miller to be a class act all the way, and he admired the incredible strength that Verus had shown throughout the entire investigation.

But telling Carmon Bennett, Stephanie Bennett’s father, was another story. Morgan dreaded it, almost as much as he dreaded making a death notification to a family. Unlike the Miller case, there was no suspect in Stephanie Bennett’s murder. Unlike the Miller family, the Bennetts had no expectation of justice in the near future. Morgan felt like he was leaving them empty-handed after he had promised them he would be there until the end.

Because he knew how devastating the news would be to Carmon Bennett, Morgan decided to tell him about his pending retirement in person. He took a trip to Roanoke, Virginia, the small town where Stephanie grew up, several hours north of Raleigh. He brought along the detectives who were going to take over the case to show Carmon that the investigation would continue.

“[Carmon Bennett] had reached a point of desperation and was still circling desperation daily,” recalls Morgan, “because we still had absolutely no idea who was responsible for the murder of his daughter. He had tears in both eyes, and I think I did, too, because our relationship, while it would remain a good relationship between good friends . . . it was taking a turn that I don’t think either one of us really wanted.”

Sergeant Clem Perry and Detective Ken Copeland would be taking over the case when Morgan left. Carmon Bennett welcomed them and accepted Morgan’s glowing review of their skills despite his skepticism. In hindsight Morgan credits himself for picking Copeland to lead the charge. Called the “garbage man,” Copeland was known for picking up every piece of evidence, no matter how trivial it seemed, and examining it thoroughly. Ultimately, years later, Copeland, along with another bright detective, Jackie Taylor, would be able to do what Morgan hadn’t—catch Stephanie Bennett’s killer.

It was done. Morgan was leaving. The paperwork was in. The retirement parties were under way, one after another. He was roasted. People told stories about “Bump.” He got gifts, cakes, and plaques with his name on them. Finally, he was ready to go.

When Gammon’s appeal was denied by the North Carolina Supreme Court on May 7, 2004, all Morgan could do was smile. The dominoes were in place. They were falling in the right direction on a smooth path to justice. Now he could sit back in his worn recliner and watch them land from the comfort of his own home.

“I was waiting for Perlov to ask me to stay and then I could leave with a clear conscience,” Morgan jokes.

On May 27, 2004, Rick Gammon delivered a small white envelope to Colon Willoughby. It contained one single sheet of paper. It was the information that Gammon had been ordered to turn over based on the very narrow ruling handed down by the North Carolina Supreme Court.

Because of the extreme sensitivity of the information, Gammon chose to hand-deliver the envelope to the Wake County District Attorney’s Office. The media created a circuslike atmosphere, following Gammon from his office across the pedestrian mall into the Wake County Courthouse. They piled into the elevator with him and jockeyed to get closer to the white envelope in his hand, as if they might be able to see its contents with their X-ray vision. Gammon, no stranger to media attention, smiled coyly as reporters threw out questions at him that he politely refused to answer.

After Gammon entered the Wake County District Attorney’s Office, he handed the envelope to Colon Willoughby. Willoughby had assembled his team of prosecutors in his office, as well as investigators, including Morgan, for the big event. Morgan remembers that before Gammon turned to leave, he flashed everyone his trademark wry smile as if to say: “Have at it!”

Willoughby immediately handed the envelope to Morgan. Morgan then read what would come to be known in the media as “paragraph 12” and in court as “Exhibit A”. It was the one paragraph of Gammon’s long affidavit that Judge Donald Stephens said must be released. In line with the Supreme Court’s order, it indicted Ann Miller in Eric Miller’s death, but it did not incriminate Derril Willard. It fit the very narrow standard the justices had outlined in their ruling.

One thing it didn’t fit, however, was anyone’s speculation or expectations about what it would contain. No one, including Morgan, had expected the information to be so direct and so damning to Ann Miller.

The actual text of paragraph 12 reads as follows:

Mr. Willard then stated that on one recent occasion he had met Mrs. Miller in a parking lot, and they had a conversation while in an SUV. He stated that during his conversation Mrs. Miller was crying and that she told him she had been to the hospital where Mr. Miller had been admitted. She stated to Mr. Willard that she was by herself in the room with Mr. Miller for a period of time. She then told Mr. Willard that she took a syringe and needle from her purse and injected the contents of the syringe into Mr. Miller’s IV. Upon being questioned as to the contents of the syringe, Mr. Willard either stated that the substance was from work, or that Mrs. Miller told him it was from work. He then stated that he asked Mrs. Miller why she had done this, and she replied, “I don’t know.” Mr. Willard surmised that Mrs. Miller was attempting to end Mr. Miller’s suffering from his illness with these actions. Although Mr. Gammon and Mr. Fitzhugh do not recall specifically whether Mr. Willard or Mrs. Miller used the word “arsenic” with reference to the contents of the syringe, it was clear that the substance contained in the syringe was poisonous. Mr. Willard then stated he knew nothing further of the circumstances surrounding Eric Miller’s death. He also stated that he had not told anyone including his wife, about Mrs. Miller’s statements to him.

There was no date on the document stating when this gruesome incident took place, but Morgan had one in mind. On the evening of November 19, 2000, during Eric Miller’s first hospital stay at Rex, his condition had started to deteriorate again after he had showed signs of improving. That night the on-call physician wrote in his chart that he didn’t expect Eric to make it through the night because his symptoms had worsened. This was the same day that a heavy-metals test had been ordered on Eric. The results hadn’t come in yet, but Morgan wondered, had Ann
known
they might be onto her? Did she overhear someone talking about the test? Had she gotten nervous and tried to end Eric’s life once and for all?

“Something had to happen to send this kid downhill like he went. I think that likely as not that was the night that Ann, as described in paragraph twelve, comes in there and juices him with arsenic one more time, trying to get this over with,” Morgan says with disgust.

This theory was one that ultimately gelled and became bedrock of the investigation, although it was almost derailed by a well-meaning nurse. Nurse Charlene Blaine reported seeing a man who looked like Derril Willard enter Eric Miller’s room on the night of November 19. This was a problem, a big problem. This smacked of reasonable doubt, because if Willard had been there, then conceivably
he
could have given Eric poison in his IV instead of Ann. Yet there was no indication from anyone else, including the hospital’s visitor log, that Willard had ever been there. But Blaine was convinced.

Then Morgan had an epiphany. He realized that Blaine was identifying Willard from the picture of him that had been widely circulated on television, his high school graduation picture. Willard the grown man looked nothing like his former boyish self. Morgan realized that Nurse Blaine had probably mistaken one of Eric’s sisters’ husbands for Willard. After sharing pictures of the men with her, Blaine positively identified the brother-in-law as the man who had visited Eric’s room that night,
not
Derril Willard. The train was back on track.

Paragraph 12 was not what Morgan had expected, but it was exactly what he needed. It was the piece of the puzzle Colon Willoughby needed to convict Ann Miller in front of a jury of her peers. It was the final piece of evidence Morgan needed to allow him to retire with a clear conscience.

“I realized at that point that Ann Miller was going to go to jail for the murder of her husband,” Morgan says with a smile.

Morgan heard her coming down the hall before he saw her. He could hear her high heels clicking on the linoleum and her pleasant, even voice as she said hello to people she passed. His heart skipped a beat not because this was the woman of his dreams, but because she was the
prosecutor
of his dreams.

Morgan felt as if Assistant District Attorney Becky Holt had ridden into his office on a white horse to save the Eric Miller case.

“She said, ‘I’m up here on the Miller case
.’
I said, ‘That’s Ford’s case.’ She said, ‘Not anymore
,’ ”
Morgan recalls with sheer exuberance in his voice.

Morgan couldn’t conceal his excitement. He liked and respected Holt very much and considered her to be a cops’ prosecutor. She was someone who valued the opinions of investigators and treated them as part of the prosecution team. She also informed him that Assistant District Attorney Doug Faucette would help her prosecute the case. Morgan viewed Faucette, who “looked like the boy who mowed my lawn,” as one of the brightest young stars in the district attorney’s office.

“At that point I was saying, ‘Ann Miller, you don’t know what’s happened to you, girl, and you’re fixing to go down,’ ” Morgan states with vengefulness.

All of a sudden Morgan was having second thoughts again about his retirement. He knew that paragraph 12 would help Becky Holt take the case to the grand jury and that she would no doubt get an indictment, but he worried about what would happen after that. How would she prepare for a trial based on a four-year investigation without the help of the lead investigator?

“I was really torn,” says Morgan.

But he had made a decision, a very difficult decision, and he intended to stick with it. His last day on the job, May 31, 2004, started like any other day, except for the boxes stacked up in the corner of his office. His colleagues came in to say their good-byes and spend one more afternoon in his office talking junk. They traded stories and jabs. It felt good to know that he had developed such close relationships with his cop friends over the years. He would miss them, but he knew he would see them again. Morgan kept telling himself that this wasn’t an ending, but a beginning to a whole new chapter in his life, even if he didn’t know exactly where it would lead.