Deadly Dose (7 page)

In Morgan’s mind everyone, but especially Tom Ford, was approaching the case from the perspective of the legal hurdles it would pose down the road.

“You can’t investigate homicides on that basis,” Morgan says indignantly. “The investigation of killing another human being has a rhythm of its own and . . . it can’t be neatly categorized.”

Morgan says that’s why veteran investigators are needed to peel through the layers of a homicide case as opposed to “slick-sleeved rookies” who don’t have the blood on their hands that comes from years of turning over dead bodies.

Morgan asked the question even though he knew what the answer would be. “Can’t we go ahead and lock this guy up, let the chips fall?”

Under North Carolina law, officers have the right to arrest anyone if they believe there is probable cause to do so, but this doesn’t mean they do it without the prosecutor’s permission. Morgan has looked back on this decision countless times and wondered
what if?
What if they had arrested Willard? Would things have turned out differently?

It’s a question that’s haunted Morgan probably more than any other he asked himself during the entire course of the investigation. It’s a question he still asks himself on a regular basis years later. But like a good soldier he followed orders and went to Willard’s house with only a search warrant,
without
an arrest warrant in hand.

“I better go with the flow and do things as I’ve been instructed to do,” says Morgan of his thought process at the time. A thought process that he later deduced was fatally flawed.

On Sunday morning January 21, 2001, all the investigators involved in the operation to confront Derril Willard met at the police station. Sergeant Fluck and Lieutenant Britt had returned to town and were told by Captain Overman that the search would take place regardless of whether or not everyone agreed it was the right course of action at this point. As a result of this perceived usurping of their power, there was a palpable feeling of tension in the air, recalls Morgan.

The plan was for Morgan and Detective Brad Kennon to head to Willard’s house in North Raleigh with a team of investigators to execute the search warrant. Morgan had handpicked Kennon, one of his best detectives, to help him on this mission. Two other investigators would head to the Miller house and speak to Eric’s family about what was going to happen. This move was in preparation for the fact that much of the information in the case was about to become public record as soon as the search warrant was filed, and the police did not want the Millers to be blindsided by headlines the next day.

Although it had a Raleigh mailing address, Willard’s house was in the county, not in the city limits. This meant that the Wake County Sheriff’s Office had jurisdiction and that a deputy would have to assist in the execution of the warrant. The latter official stationed himself down the street from the house while Morgan and Kennon pulled up in their car. It was an unmarked Crown Victoria, but they were unmistakably cops coming to call on Derril Willard.

Willard answered the door with his two-and-a-half-year -old daughter, Kelcey, wrapped around his leg. Kelcey had bright blue eyes and white-blond hair, and it was easy for Morgan to see even in that brief moment as the door opened that Willard and his daughter were closely bonded.

“She was just a little angel terribly intimidated by my large rotund self standing at the door,” Morgan says with a somber touch of humor.

Kelcey wasn’t the only one who was intimidated. Morgan saw something in Willard’s eyes, something he will never forget, and something he now wishes he had paid more attention to at the time. Not unlike the detectives who interviewed Ann Miller that one and only time, Morgan never realized he would get only this one crack at Willard.

“He had the look, very much, of a man who expected to be handcuffed and taken to jail. And I’ve often looked back and thought in retrospect, what would have happened in this case if I had followed my first instinct, if I had not been afraid of starting a firestorm?” Morgan says. “Because I think he was starting, for lack of a better term, [to] wake up and smell the coffee. I agree arresting Derril Willard that morning would have been pushing the envelope, but I still believe in my heart of hearts it would have gotten a positive result.”

But as Morgan hadn’t been given the authority to arrest him, even if Willard had offered his wrists to be handcuffed and said he was ready to go, there would have been nothing Morgan could have done.

So instead of making an arrest, Morgan explained to Willard that they needed to search the house, but first they wanted to have a word with him alone in the Crown Vic. Morgan specifically told Willard that they needed to speak with him out of the presence of his wife. Willard asked no questions about why they were there, or what they wanted to talk to him about, because surely he
knew.
He had been expecting them for some time.

Morgan pictured Willard in the days following Eric’s death peeking out through his blinds to see if an unmarked police car was sitting in front of his house. He imagined Willard readjusting his rearview mirror every time he saw a blue-and-white pull in behind him on the highway, wondering if this was it. Would the cop turn on his lights and pull him over and say, “You’re the guy we’ve been looking for. Ann Miller told us all about you”?

Another person who proabably had been expecting the police was Willard’s wife, Yvette. Seconds after Morgan and Kennon arrived at the door, Yvette joined her husband in the front hallway. She stood behind him and listened as Morgan explained their intentions. Investigators would later learn that Willard had already told his wife about his relationship with Ann Miller—on December 7, 2000, just five days after Eric Miller’s death. Morgan suspected that Yvette Willard also thought he might lead her husband away in handcuffs.

Willard appeared unsure whether he would be returning home. He looked anxious, pained, like a man who was carrying a very large burden on his shoulders. He asked Morgan if he would be coming back after the chat in the car. Morgan assured him that he didn’t need to take his toothbrush with him,
not yet
.

Morgan claims Derril Willard was exactly what he’d pictured a midlevel researcher for a big pharmaceutical company would look like. Willard was pale, with tousled brown hair and a scraggly graying beard, an intellectual type. He wasn’t the sort of guy Morgan would probably go fishing or share a beer with, but he immediately pegged Willard as a good guy who had become tangled up in something much bigger than himself, something he had no control of.

Morgan had done his research—Derril and Yvette Willard had their only child later in life than is usual, after Yvette turned forty. The stress of work combined with the energy drain of having a young child at a mature age had taken its toll on the couple. It was clear to Morgan even before it was ever confirmed that Yvette Willard already knew
something
about her husband’s relationship with Ann Miller when she came to the door that day.

Willard agreed to go to the car with Morgan. He was ushered into the backseat as Morgan took his spot in the front passenger seat and then turned around to look the man in the eyes. Morgan had rehearsed this meeting many times over the previous forty-eight hours, yet what he had planned to say didn’t seem right at that moment. Instead, he went off script and said the first thing that came to his mind.

“I said, ‘Derril, you’ve been used,’ ” Morgan recalls. “ ‘I think you’ve been used by a woman.’ Derril looked directly into my eyes and said, ‘Yeah, and she’s done a good job of it.’ ”

And then came the words every investigator dreads to hear. Derril Willard told Morgan that he could not say anything more until he talked to his attorney. Just as Sergeant Jeff Fluck had predicted, Willard had “lawyered up” and nothing else was coming out of him. As if that was not bad enough, Willard told Morgan that Rick Gammon was his attorney—another high-profile, high-priced, criminal defense attorney in Raleigh. He was a former Raleigh cop who was still admired for being able to straddle the thin blue line even as a very capable and well-respected defense attorney. Morgan and Gammon had been friends on the street when they were young beat cops on patrol. Morgan knew that Gammon wouldn’t let Willard talk to them about what he had for breakfast, let alone about his love affair with Ann Miller. Gammon would protect his client at all costs.

Being the streetwise investigator that he was, Morgan just happened to have Gammon’s number programmed into his cell phone, and he allowed Willard to use it to call Gammon. He was investing in the good-karma bank on the off chance that this gesture might at some point soften Willard’s resolve. Morgan left Willard alone in the car so that he could have privacy. Ironically, it was this same privacy that Morgan would seek to breach years later in order to solve the case.

Morgan paced, as quickly as a large man can pace, around the perimeter of the car, ruing his misfortune and wishing he could hear what Willard was saying to Gammon behind the tinted windows of the Crown Vic. Why had all of the players in this case suddenly retained the best lawyers money could buy in Raleigh, North Carolina? He could come to only one conclusion: they had something to hide.

Morgan knew that innocent people also hired lawyers when pressured by police. But Willard had clearly hired Gammon prior to any police pressure. Investigators would later learn that Willard had retained Gammon on December 8, 2000, just six days after Eric Miller’s death. Morgan felt certain Willard had hired a lawyer because he was guilty of something; but at this point Morgan didn’t know if Willard was guilty of
doing
something, or simply
knowing
something.

When Willard was done with his phone call, he told Morgan he and his family would leave the house at Gammon’s advice while investigators conducted their search. Morgan was disappointed, but expected nothing less of a man represented by Rick Gammon. Gammon was a first-class attorney, someone who played by the rules, and knew how to advise his clients in tough situations. From what Morgan could tell, it didn’t get any tougher than this.

At the very same time, across town, another uncomfortable visit was taking place. Detectives had been instructed to go to the home Ann had shared with Eric in West Raleigh and speak to Verus and Doris Miller about the case. The Millers were staying with Ann as part of their January visit to celebrate Clare’s first birthday.

It was decided that the time had come for the police to fill the family in on their suspicions about Ann and her possible involvement in Eric’s death. Up until this time, Morgan says, the Millers had become indignant at any insinuation that Ann might be responsible for murdering their son. They defended her as strongly as they cherished Eric’s memory. It was as if blaming Ann would make Eric a fool for loving her, and that was another pain the family could not bear to face.

But Captain Donald Overman decided it had to be done. He assigned detectives Debbie Regentin and Randy Miller, the same investigators who’d conducted the first interview with Ann, to go to the house and speak with Eric’s parents about what police had learned so far. Regentin and Miller were the lead investigators on the case at this point, and Regentin later gave Morgan a play-by-play of what had happened at the Miller house while Morgan was on the other side of town executing the search warrant at Willard’s house.

When the detectives went to the house, Doris Miller, Eric’s mother, opened the door to them, but Ann, Regentin told Morgan, ran upstairs and locked herself in the bathroom with her cell phone, saying she had to call her attorney. Despite requests from Doris to come out of the bathroom, Ann vehemently refused.

Morgan was not surprised by Ann’s reaction to a visit from the Raleigh police. This behavior would become a pattern with Ann when things got hard. She would go into hiding and try to wish her problems away with the “magical thinking” that allowed her to deny that she had done anything wrong. But as far as Morgan was concerned, the pressure Ann was feeling from him and the rest of the investigators would only intensify.

Investigators told Doris and Verus Miller about their suspicions—that Ann was a serial adulterer and might have had something to do with their son’s death. It was an important conversation. It had to be done right. It was time to bring the Millers into the loop, to make them aware of what was going on, and at the same time solicit their help with the investigation. It was something Morgan would continue to do for years after their son’s death as he forged a close bond with the family.

“I think the Millers were just aghast,” Morgan said about revealing the news that Ann might be involved in Eric’s death.

After several weeks of defending their daughter-in-law, it was like someone had sucked all of the oxygen out of the room and left them gasping for air. They quickly packed their belongings, left the home their dead son once shared with his now-suspect wife, and went to a hotel. Ann’s parents, Dan and Nancy Brier, who lived in Raleigh, arrived to take care of Clare since Ann was still locked in the bathroom.

Ann Miller’s carefully constructed fantasy world was beginning to crumble, and Morgan was smack-dab in the middle of the destruction with a pickax. But it would take years to make that one big crack that would completely open and divide that stone of fantasy.

As Ann Miller’s world unraveled in her bathroom, Morgan was concentrating on Derril Willard.

The thirty-seven-year-old scientist was the one person among his immediate and extended family who had actually “made it.” He was the only member of his immediate family to go to college, and certainly, the only one who became a
scientist,
of all professions.

“He was a source of great pride to his family,” says Morgan.

Derril Willard was the one who escaped his small town in the foothills of the Ozarks with his sharp mind and talent, a talent that might have been buried in other people born under the same circumstances. He was the one who followed his dreams and made everyone he knew back home honored to know him.