Rod Sadler

This true crime biography reveals the disturbing story of a serial killer who terrorized central Michigan—and now has a chance to go free. As a former youth pastor who attended the Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice, Don Miller seemed like a decent young man. But in 1978, he was arrested for the attempted murder of two teenagers. Police soon connected Miller to the disappearances of four women. In exchange for a controversial plea bargain, he led police to the missing women’s bodies. Now, thanks to the deal he was offered and changes to Michigan law, Miller is allowed to seek parole once a year. In Killing Women, author Rodney Sadler examines the crimes, the “justice” meted out, and the possibility that Miller could be unleashed on the world once again.

Killing Women

On a cool, spring day in 1897, Alfred Haney left his Williamston, Michigan home to earn a day's wage. He knew his wife's peculiar behavior had become more frequent, and he had planned on her seeing the town doctor, but she assured him she was feeling much better. They would go the following day instead. When he returned home later that day, he discovered a macabre murder so bizarre that it shook the entire community to its core. His mother's severed head was set on the dinner table, adorned with a knife and fork on either side. Lying nearby was the old woman's body, soaked in kerosene and set ablaze. Screaming, Alfred Haney ran from the house in search of the law, and while neighbors tried to extinguish the smoldering, beheaded corpse, Haney's wife, Martha, removed herself to the back yard and began digging wildly with her hands. Shortly after the discovery, a sheriff's deputy arrived, taking Martha into custody and lodging her in the local jail at the village hall. Ingham County Sheriff John Rehle, known as J. J. among his constituents, arrived by train and surveyed the carnage. He and his deputy discovered the murder weapon, an axe, hidden behind some boards under the rear stoop. Rehle organized a Coroner's Inquest that was held inside the house where the old woman's body lay. In an attempt to determine her state of mind at the time of the crime, local doctors interviewed the murderess. She told them she spoke frequently with her own dead mother, and her mother had told her to kill the old woman. Over the next several days, court hearings decided her ultimate fate. A panel of three doctors was commissioned to determine her sanity. In the end, there would be no prosecution. Deemed insane, she was sentenced to the Michigan Home for the Dangerous and Criminally Insane in Ionia. What made Martha Haney snap and behead her mother-in-law? Had she been insane from the beginning? Had domestic violence pervaded her short life? Or was it the e

To Hell I Must Go: The True Story of Michigan's Lizzie Borden

A Slayer Waits In September, 1955, Nealy Buchanan, a trustee at the State Prison of Southern Michigan, was denied parole. Because of his trustee status, he was assigned to pick up local trash from area farms in a prison truck, which provided the perfect opportunity to escape. Running out of gas near the small town of Stockbridge, Michigan and continuing on foot, he hid out inside the barn of Howard and Myra Herrick, an elderly farm couple. Buchanon was planning to steal their car to further his escape. Surprised when Howard Herrick returned early, he killed the elderly man by crushing his skull with a hand grinder. Hearing the commotion in the barn, Myra Herrick came in and was viciously bludgeoned her to death next to her husband. Their killer quickly hid their bodies under bales of hay. Unable to hot-wire their car, Buchanon hitchhiked to the small town of Mason, caught a cab to Lansing, and bought a Greyhound bus ticket, and fled to New York using Howard Herrick's identity. Thinking Buchanon was still in the area, fearful residents armed themselves, and looked upon strangers with suspicion. Ingham County Sheriff Willard Barnes led the hunt for the killer, searching for months, but the investigation came to a dead end. Harry Doesburg, a neighbor to the Herrick's, raised a $3000 reward, and he contributed much of his own money to find the killer. Doesburg sent wanted posters across the country, and paid for 'wanted' ads in various newspapers and magazines. Thirteen months after the murders, an informant in Baltimore, Maryland, recognized Buchanon from a wanted ad in a magazine and turned him in. Buchanon was quickly returned to Michigan, signed a confession, pled guilty, and was sentenced to life in prison, all within a 72-hour time period. Ten years after his sentence, Nealy began appealing his conviction on numerous grounds, including police misconduct, racial threats, and improper court proceedings. For twenty-five years, Nealy had never been represented

The True Story of a Michigan Double Murder

A Slayer Waits

When widow Frances Lacey was murdered in July 1960 on Mackinac Island, only a few meager clues were found by police, and the case soon turned cold. But more than sixty years later, will those same clues finally solve the mystery? On July 24, 1960, the quaint charm and serenity of Mackinac, nestled between Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas, was shattered by Lacey’s brutal death. Despite a massive manhunt and thousands of pages of police reports, her killer was never caught. Now, in GRIM PARADISE, true crime author Rod Sadler (Killing Women) delves into the secrets of one of Michigan's most perplexing murder cases. Offering an in-depth and suspenseful account of the long-standing mystery, he poses the question: Could advanced DNA technology lead to the identity of the Mackinac Island murderer as it did recently in the case of the Golden State Killer?

Rod Sadler

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