Bruce Leroy Miller

Who was Bruce Miller and how he met Sharee Miller?

Bruce Leroy Miller was born on July 26, 1951 in Flint, Michigan. There’s not much known about his childhood or how he grew up but once he left school, he got a job at General Motors. Bruce had a keen interest in cars, having traded in a horse for his first car when he was around 16 years old and he was a lifelong fan of NASCAR. People who knew him described him as a hard worker and he owned a salvage yard, which was a dream as he got to tinker with cars all day long. Over his lifetime, Bruce had several marriages. At the time of his death, he was on his fourth marriage.

Bruce Miller needed to hire another salvage yard employee to do the books at his business, B & D Auto Parts. He gave the job to a woman called Sharee Miller and she became interested in him, pursuing him for several months before Bruce gave in and they began dating. They only dated for around four months before Sharee and her three children had moved in with him. There was a 20-year-age difference between the pair but they seemed to be really happy. Bruce treated Sharee’s children as if they were his own and treated Sharee well. He was a hardworking husband, doing anything he could to provide for his new family.

On April 23, 1999, Bruce and Sharee got married at the Las Vegas Wedding Chapel. However, just over six months later, Bruce would be found dead at his junkyard.

Victim Was Found Dead/Start of The Crime

Sharee Miller spoke to Bruce over the phone on the morning of November 8, 1999. When she didn’t hear from him for the rest of the day, she became “worried” and told his brother, Chuck Miller, to go and check on him.

Chuck found Bruce Miller on the floor at his salvage yard. He’d been killed by a close-range gunshot wound to the chest from a .20 gauge shotgun.

The Crime Description

On November 8, 1999, Sharee Miller met Jerry Cassaday at a truck stop close to the salvage yard that Bruce owned. They’d been speaking for months, hatching a plan for Jerry to travel to Michigan and shoot Bruce while he was at work.

Sharee returned to the house she shared with Bruce and Jerry and headed to the salvage yard. A little while later, Sharee Miller’s phone rang once, and then the caller hung up. She knew that Jerry had killed Bruce and he was heading back to his home in Kansas City. It was the signal they’d discussed and she now knew that her husband was dead.

Suspect or Convicted Killer Details

Sharee Paulette Kitley Miller was born on October 13, 1971. She grew up in a trailer in a disadvantaged neighborhood and this had an impact on her childhood. Sharee has said that her childhood was not a happy one, she’d been abused repeatedly and this caused her to move out at the age of 16.

By 17, she was married and had a child. However, this marriage was not a happy one, and she was being abused again. But it wasn’t just her who was feeling the wrath of her husband, so was their child. Sharee knew that she had to get out so she did but she fell into another unhappy marriage.

10 years after leaving home, she was a single mom of three children with two failed marriages behind her. She was working hard to provide for her children but it was never enough. In 1997, Sharee became a salvage yard employee at B & D Auto Parts, working for a man called Bruce Miller. Sharee became interested in him and pursued a relationship with him for a while before he gave in.

After the pair got married in 1999, Sharee spent a lot of her time on AOL chat rooms, talking to other men. She’s said she enjoyed playing games with men, seeing how far she could go with them and how much she could get them to believe. It was in these chat rooms that she met a man called Jerry Cassaday, a former cop who worked at a casino in Nevada. Sharee Miller wanted to be in total control of him and believed everything she told him.

Eventually, the pair began to meet in person, and the relationship became physical. Sharee Miller’s lies became more and more twisted. She told Jerry that she had an abusive husband who was part of the mafia. Jerry also believed that Sharee was pregnant with his baby but that Bruce had beaten her, and she’d miscarried. Then she told him that she was pregnant with his twins, but the same thing happened. Jerry was furious, and this is when he agreed to murder Bruce.

After Bruce had been killed, Jerry believed that he and Sharee Miller were going to be together. But this isn’t what happened. She began to ignore him, mock him and even spoke to other men which he knew about. It’s believed that he realised that everything he’d been told was a lie and he’d killed an innocent man. This drove him to the suicide and he wanted everyone to know who was the mastermind behind Bruce’s death. Even though he’d comitted the actual murder, Sharee was the one who’d convinced him to pull the trigger.

Investigation Details

When Genesee County police first arrived at the scene, they believed that Bruce had been a victim of a robbery. Bruce had had $2000 on him when he’d died but this was missing from his body when he was found. Initially, police suspected one of Bruce’s business associates, a man by the name of John Hutchinson. John owed money to Bruce and he’d threatened to dispose of him. But no physical evidence could tie John to Bruce’s murder and the case went cold for a few months.

In February 2000, a man called Jerry Cassaday committed suicide in Missouri, which is around 650 miles from Flint, which is where Bruce had been killed. These two incidents wouldn’t have been linked ordinarily, but Jerry left behind some very interesting material.

Jerry Cassaday left a suicide note and a briefcase. In this suicide note, he admitted to the murder of Bruce Miller. He claimed that he hadn’t acted alone, that Sharee Miller had helped him plan and carry out the murder. Jerry had printed out instant messages and photos, and from these, police learned that Sharee had been having an online affair with Jerry while she was still married to Bruce.

As police read through the messages, they realized that Sharee Miller wasn’t the innocent widow she’d been claiming to be. Sharee had lied to Jerry about Bruce being abusive towards her and her children and this was enough to convince ex-cop Jerry Cassaday to murder Bruce. In the days before his death, Sharee gave Jerry directions to the salvage yard and even told him where to park his car. This was enough to convince the police that Sharee had been a part of Bruce’s death.

A few weeks after Jerry had died, police arrested Sharee Miller in connection with the murder of Bruce Miller.

Trial

Sharee was arrested in February 2000, and she was held without bail until her trial in December. Her case made national headlines, and everyone was interested in it.

The prosecution believed that Sharee wanted Bruce’s money, but a divorce wouldn’t have given her the money she wanted. Bruce Miller was worth more to her dead than alive.

Verdict

On December 22, after two days, the jury found Sharee Miller guilty. On January 29, 2001, Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Judith Fullerton sentenced her to life in prison for conspiracy to commit murder and 54 to 81 years for second-degree murder charge.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Sharee Miller today?

Sharee Miller is still serving her life sentence at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti, Michigan where she has a $42-a-month prison job.

How old is Sharee Miller now?

At the time of writing this in 2022, Sharee Paulette Miller is 50 years old.