Truro murders

Australian True Crime released a podcast in 2022 titled Serial Killers at Truro.

On 21 October 2008, at the age of 68, Miller died of liver failure, as a complication of having hepatitis C. He also suffered from prostate cancer and lung cancer. At that point he was one of the longest-serving prisoners in the state.

In 1999, Miller applied to have a non-parole period set under new laws, and on 8 February 2000, Chief Justice John Doyle granted a non-parole period of 35 years, making Miller eligible for parole in 2014.

In 1984, Dick Wordley, ghost wrote James Miller's autobiography entitled Don't Call me Killer. It has become the established narrative of how the killings occurred. Miller's account of the murders follows;

Miller stood trial for the murders, and was found guilty of six of the seven murders (with the exception of the first murder, Veronica Knight) on 12 March 1980. Unusually, he was convicted of murder despite allegedly having never touched a victim; he was sentenced to the maximum six consecutive terms of life imprisonment.

In May 1979, she collected a $30,000 reward after providing the information to police leading to Miller's arrest and capture. Amelia said that she had not come forward earlier because she had no proof the admission was true and that there was not much point in going to the police as Worrell was dead. It was only after reading of the murders in the newspaper that she came forward. It is highly likely that the murders would have gone unsolved if Amelia had not come forward.

Miller was brought in for questioning on 23 May 1979. Initially he denied knowing anything, but eventually stated that Amelia had "done what I should have" and told detectives that there were three more bodies. Miller was driven under guard to Truro, Port Gawler and the Wingfield dump where he pointed out their locations.

The Truro murders is the name given to a series of murders uncovered with the discovery in 1978 and 1979 of the remains of two young women in bushland east of the town of Truro in South Australia. After police searches, the remains of seven women were discovered in total: five at Truro, one at Wingfield, and one at Port Gawler. The women had been murdered over a two-month period in 1976–1977.

On 20 April 1978, William "Bill" Thomas and his brother found what they thought was the bone from the leg of a cow whilst mushrooming in bushland beside Swamp Road near the South Australian town of Truro located about 70 km northeast of Adelaide. Bill's wife Valda had concerns about the find and two days later convinced her husband to have another look. Upon closer inspection, they noted that the bone had a shoe attached; inside the shoe was human skin and painted toenails. Clothes, blood stains, and more bones were found nearby. The remains were later identified as those of Veronica Knight, an 18-year-old woman who had vanished from an Adelaide street two days before Christmas of 1976. The lack of an obvious cause of death along with the location led to a belief that Knight may have gotten lost and died of thirst so the death was not considered suspicious. Almost one year later, on 15 April 1979, police discovered the skeletal remains of 16-year-old Sylvia Pittmann, about 2 km from where Knight's remains had been located. Pittmann had disappeared around the same time as Knight.

Worrell and a female friend, Deborah Skuse, were killed in a car crash on 19 February 1977, thus ending the murders. Miller survived the car accident.

The testimony at his trial revealed a terrifying story. Miller and Worrell would cruise the city streets every night in Worrell's 1969 blue-and-white Plymouth Valiant wagon, looking for women that Worrell could have sex with. Worrell was 23, charismatic and good-looking, so Worrell had no trouble in regularly "picking up" local girls for casual sex. Miller would drive Worrell and the woman to a secluded place, where Worrell would have sex with the women, often after tying them up, while Miller waited outside the car. Miller would then drive them back into town and drop them off.