Donald Gene Miller

In 2022 Lisa and Randy Gilbert told their stories in A&E television show I Survived A Serial Killer.

In 2021 his case was covered by British television show Most Evil Killers.

In 2020, a retired sheriff's sergeant from Eaton County, Rod Sadler, released a book detailing Miller's crimes, titled "Killing Women". In it, Sadler explores the crimes in detail, in addition to including letters written from prison by Miller himself.

Upon discovering this, Sue Young contacted representatives of the Chippewa County Prosecutor's Office who, after reviewing the investigation, filed charges against Miller for illegal possession of weaponry. Miller's attorneys, who had been hired by his parents, tried to convince the jury that there was no evidence that the shoelace could be used as a weapon, but Miller was nonetheless found guilty and sentenced to an additional 40 years imprisonment with a chance of parole after serving 20 years. Due to this, he would only be allowed to file another parole application in October 2018.

In the early 2010s, after many prison facilities across the USA began experiencing problems with prison overcrowding, a series of judicial reforms were enacted to reduce the number of prisoners. In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that all prisoners eligible for parole could apply out of state when they have served 25 years and reached the age of 60. Because Miller fell into this category of prisoners, he filed an unscheduled parole application in 2016. In response, his victims' relatives and many members of the Ingham County Prosecutor's Office created a petition protesting his release and presented it to the Department of Corrections. After reviewing his case, the Parole Board denied Miller's application and barred him filing any further claims until August 2021. Chris Gautz, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said in a statement that the parole was denied due to the fact Miller denied his guilt during the 1998 trial on the weapons charges. He also said that Miller had not participated in any sex offender rehabilitation programs over the years and had failed to convince the board members that he no longer posed a danger to society.

In the aftermath of his incarceration, Miller was interned at various facilities around the state, where he was always described as a model inmate who worked for the prison's newspaper. After serving 10 years in prison, Miller was allowed to apply for parole in 1989, but this was denied because of protests from his victims' families and due to the seriousness of his crimes. From then until 1997, he applied for parole six more times, but was always denied. In 1997, an organization named the Public Awareness and Protection Committee, spearheaded by Martha Young's mother, Sue, was created in order to uncover all the wrongdoings Miller had committed while imprisoned. Their first discovery was that three years prior, during a search of Miller's cell at the Kinross Correctional Facility, jailguards discovered and confiscated a shoelace that could have been used as a murder weapon.

The trial began in the spring of 1979 and lasted two weeks. A number of prosecution witnesses, including the victims, confidently identified Miller as the assailant when put on the stand. Based on various pieces of evidence and testimony, he was found guilty on all charges on May 8, 1979, and sentenced to 50 years imprisonment with a chance of parole after serving 30 years.

On June 15, 1978, Miller attacked 27-year-old Marita Choquette, an assistant editor at WKAR-TV, whom he stabbed 17 times. After killing her, he again posed her body and cut off her hands. He then transported the body to a property in Alaiedon Township, where he covered it with cinderblocks.

On August 16, 1978, two days after Stuart's murder, Miller knocked on the door of a random house in Lansing, asking to use the phone. The door was answered by 14-year-old Lisa Gilbert, and upon realizing that she was home alone, he decided to attack her. After asking the girl for a pencil and paper to write down the number, he was allowed inside, whereupon he tied up, beat, raped and assaulted her. In order to get rid of any witnesses, Miller attempted to kill Lisa's 13-year-old brother, Randy, who had just returned home from a walk. However, Randy instead confronted the assailant and allowed his sister to flee outside. Since she was only wearing nylon stockings tied around her wrists and her father's necktie, which Miller had used as a gag, Gilbert immediately attracted the attention of passers-by and motorists. In the meantime, Miller had managed to choke Randy into unconsciousness and had stabbed him three times, but despite his extensive injuries and blood loss, he survived the ordeal.

After Young did not return home, her parents contacted the police, who began an investigation. They eventually located witnesses who claimed that Miller was the last person to see her alive, whereupon he was detained for interrogation. During the procedure, Miller admitted that he had indeed spent the night with her, but insisted that he drove her to her doorstep at around 2 AM before he headed back home. Since Young's body had not been found at the time and there was no evidence to implicate him in a crime, the authorities released him. On October 20, 1977, two hunters found Young's clothes and purse near a lake in Bath. The girl's underwear was found neatly folded underneath her clothes, leading police to believe that her killer had posed the body and clothes after the murder.

In subsequent interviews, Miller told investigators how events unfolded during each of the murders. He claimed that he strangled Young in the early hours of January 1, 1977, in a fit of rage after she told him that she was no longer interested in him. He was also acquainted with Bush and had asked her out on several occasions, but when she repeatedly refused, he strangled her in a parking lot near Spartan Stadium.

In late 1976, Miller proposed to Young, which she accepted. However, in December, she broke off her relationship with him and refused to marry him. Three days later, she met with Miller on New Year's Eve. During the early hours of the morning, he assaulted and strangled her.

Following the attack, Miller attempted to drive away in his brown 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass, but numerous witnesses managed to remember his license plates and appearance. After providing this information to police, it subsequently led to his arrest at his own apartment mere hours later, with Miller being charged with the attempted murders.

Throughout the early 1970s, he attended East Lansing High School, where he was regarded as a good student who played the trombone in the school's marching band, was a youth minister at his church and was considered popular. During this period, he met a girl named Martha Sue Young, who would later become his girlfriend. After graduating from high school in 1973, Miller enrolled at the Michigan State University, where he studied criminal law. He continued his intimate relationship with Young and, in his spare time, worked part-time as a construction worker.

Donald Gene Miller (born December 28, 1954), known as The East Lansing Serial Killer or simply Don Miller, is an American serial killer and rapist who committed a series of six attacks in East Lansing, Michigan from 1977 to 1978. Four of these resulted in fatalities, to which Miller would later plead guilty and received a lengthy prison sentence with a chance of parole.

Donald Gene Miller was born on December 28, 1954, in Lansing, Michigan, one of three children of Gene and Elaine Miller. His parents, who lived in a middle-class neighborhood of East Lansing, were considered upstanding and law-abiding citizens who took good care of their son.