I Had Coffee With a Murder Suspect!!!!
OMG. I cannot BELIEVE this. I was sitting having lunch today with 2 coworkers, and one of them was reading aloud an article in the newspaper regarding new developments in the case of the 5 people (including 2 children) shot to death in an apartment in Mesa two days ago. Apparently, one of the victims was Steven Duffy, who worked for William Craig Miller, the owner and operator of Puroclean (a disaster and damage clean-up company).
There were new developments in the story today: Miller had been arrested on Dec. 1 of last year for arson - he’d told Duffy that he was having financial problems and needed the insurance money, so he had Duffy assist him with the arson of his home.
The court documents indicate that a female had reported the arson incident to the police, and that she identified her boyfriend as Steven Duffy. The court documents also state that Miller was armed, and that Duffy and his girlfriend were concerned for their safety. The victims of the shooting were Steven Duffy, his girlfriend Tammy Lovell, her children Jacob, 10, and Cassandra, 15, as well as Duffy’s 18 year old brother. I expect that this William Craig Miller character will be named as a suspect.
Anyhow, as my coworker was reading this, alarm bells went off in my head. "Puroclean???" "William Miller???" I told her, "That’s the guy who handled the restoration in my townhouse last summer!" I had a water heater that went kaput and caused damage to my walls, and had to call a restoration company to repair it. William Miller was the one who came by and did the inspection. He also sat at my kitchen table for over an hour as we engaged in small talk: we were both from NY, we talked about Long Island and baseball, and college. He came back several times for the job. He even had a key to my house. I’ve emailed him, talked to him on the phone, several times. My boyfriend at the time (who was living with me then) was also there, and insisted that the guy was bad news. I sensed nothing out of the ordinary. Seemed like an okay guy to me, I told him. He was clean cut, good-looking, dressed nicely, college-educated, etc.
How was I to know he would turn out to be a murderous psycho?
