Woman in infamous internet love triangle slaying admits guilt 17 years later

This is a pretty much unexpected turn to this story. It was, undoubtedly, one of the most disturbing murder cases I've ever read about - a woman who cruelly manipulated a very mentally unstable man to kill her husband, and then she washed her hands of him. If not for his suicide note, she likely would have gotten away with this. Her written confession is at the link:

VIENNA TWP., MI – It's been roughly 17 years since Sharee Miller's husband was shot to death at his Vienna Township auto salvage business.

Now, the woman who has repeatedly proclaimed her innocence has admitted she was involved in his killing.

Miller, in a four-page typed letter sent recently to Genesee Circuit Judge Judith A. Fullerton, admitted to her role in her husband, Bruce L. Miller's, death.

"I was living two lives and I got caught up and did not want to get caught so I planned a murder and went through with it," Miller wrote. "Instead of my family or Bruce's family finding out what I really was, I thought I could cover it up by having Bruce murdered. I cannot deny this anymore."

Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said he believes the letter and confession is authentic

"I also received a letter of confession from Sharee Miller," Leyton said. "I was very surprised."

The admission will likely bring an end to an ongoing legal case stemming from a murder that resulted in a Lifetime television movie, a best-selling book and extensive media coverage.

Bruce Miller was found dead Nov. 8, 1999, at his Vienna Township business, B&D Auto Parts. He had a shotgun wound to his neck.

At first, officials thought Bruce Miller was a victim of a robbery-gone-bad. But, a suicide months later nearly half a country away turned investigators' attention to his wife.

Former police officer Jerry Cassaday killed himself Feb. 11, 2000, 700 miles away in Missouri and left behind a suicide note and other evidence that would eventually be used to link Sharee Miller to the killing.

The evidence included an instant message conversation Cassaday had with Sharee Miller just hours before the murder of her husband. She told Cassaday how to get to her husband's junkyard and where to park.

Cassaday went on to implicate Sharee Miller in a suicide note and emails from his computer. He told relatives that Sharee Miller used sex and lies to persuade him to kill Bruce Miller.

"I had sixteen and a half hours to stop it. And I didn't," Sharee Miller wrote in her confession letter. "I knew it was going to happen and I allowed it. I allowed a man to kill another man based on my lies and manipulation."

She added that the killing happened "almost the way the prosecutor said I did."

Leyton said he informed Bruce Miller's family of the letter and that they declined comment.

Sharee Miller had visited Cassaday multiple times while he worked as a pit boss in a Reno, Nev., casino. He wanted her leave Bruce and marry him. Emails showed Sharee Miller told Cassaday her husband was in the mafia, that he beat and raped her and she lost a child she allegedly conceived through her and Cassaday's tryst.

However, Sharee Miller was unable to get pregnant following a medical procedure and she recanted the other accusations about her husband in her confession letter.

"He was a great man," Sharee Miller wrote about her husband. "He never hurt me or my children. All he did was love us. He wanted to adopt my children. He just wanted a family. The only man who loved me for me and I had him killed."

Cassaday eventually committed suicide after Sharee Miller broke off communication with him following the murder and he turned to drinking and drugs.

His family turned the evidence over to authorities, which were able to use it to secure conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and second-degree murder charges against Sharee Miller.

Detective Kevin Shanlian, who investigated the case, said the family's decision to turn over the information, even though it revealed their loved one was a murderer, was the key to the case.

"Cassaday's family had no reason to come forward," Shanlian said.

Shanlian wasn't aware of the confession until being contacted by MLive-The Flint Journal.

"I'm glad she came forward," Shanlian said. "I almost feel bad she waited so long to tell the truth."

Her trial, billed as the Internet's first murder case, started in December 2000 and drew intense interest from local and national media. Court TV covered the entirety of the trial. It later spawned a book that appeared on the New York Time's best seller list and a TV movie starring Anne Hecht and Eric Roberts.

Sharee Miller's attorney, David Nickola, said the case could have turned out much different if his client would have been truthful from the beginning, adding that a plea agreement was offered before the trial.

Shanlian said Sharee Miller would be a free woman today if she accepted the plea, which would have included a maximum possible sentence of 15 years in prison.

Instead the case went to trial, and she was eventually sentenced to life in prison.

The case then slogged through the appeals process, and even included a judge releasing her from prison in 2009 and ordering a new trial after concerns about the admissibility of Cassaday's suicide note. A federal judge ordered her back to prison three years later.

Her appeals eventually failed, and the confession will likely prevent the success of any future appeals.

However, in her confession letter, Sharee Miller said he wanted to tell the truth to her attorneys but was always advised against it.

"Throughout these 16 years I have asked three different attorney's to let me tell them the truth," she wrote. "They did not want to know it.

Nickola denied the accusation.

"She maintained her innocence, always," Nickola said. "I did the best I could do with what I had to work with."

The case was even eventually picked up by the University of Michigan Innocence Clinic, including the assignment of current state Supreme Court Justice Bridget McCormack as an attorney.

McCormack declined to comment on the case. Her counterpart at the clinic, Kimberly Thomas, could not be reached for comment.

Sharee Miller is currently lodged at the Huron Valley Women's Complex.

"I hurt a lot of people," she wrote. "I destroyed a lot of lives. It is time to end the lies and tell the truth."

http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2016/04/sharee_miller_admits_guilt_in.html