Forensic Files

The dean of a prestigious university

had a secret life that may have led to his death.

A tiny piece of a latex glove and some broken glass

where the only clues.

To solve the mystery, investigators

needed to know what he was doing with an 18-year-old girl.

For 12 years, students and faculty at Texas Tech

University could set their watches

by Douglas Miller's schedule.

As the Associate Dean of Libraries,

he would arrive promptly by 8:00 AM.

A schedule that never varied, until one day,

he just didn't show up.

If he was ill he would call in,

and that sort of thing.

So we were aware that things weren't exactly

the way they were supposed to be.

Police found his car in a drainage ditch in Canyon

Lake State Park, just five miles from the university.

53-year-old Doug Miller was dead in the backseat.

And there was an 18-year-old woman, Viola McVade,

found dead in the front passenger seat.

Both were shot with a .380 caliber pistol.

There were six bullets recovered at the scene,

that all six were able to be able to be

identified as .380 auto caliber.

And they were all fired from the same firearm.

Gunfire had broken both of the car side windows.

But there was no broken glass in the drainage ditch, which meant

the murder took place elsewhere.

It took hours for them

to check the ground and the sticks and everything

possible around the car, before they could even

pull the card out of the gully.

And after that, they would remove the bodies out.

The car was dusted for fingerprints.

And the only ones found belonged to Doug and Viola.

And investigators soon discovered why.

They found what appeared to be a small piece

of a latex glove beneath Doug Miller's body.

It was the tip of a finger, is what was.

It was less of a half an inch.

If the killer was wearing rubber gloves,

this was a clear indication the murders were premeditated.

You wondered right away,

why is 53-year-old male in the car with an 18-year-old female?

You know, what's that connection?

Which of course, we were all asking.

Investigators learned that Doug Miller met

Viola McVade for the first time just

a few hours before the murders.

A known prostitute, Teresa Williams had introduced them.

Doug Miller called Teresa Williams looking for a date.

And Williams suggested her friend, Viola McVade.

- He would take out a young woman on a date several times

and see where it would go.

That it was not a situation he asking

for someone to sleep with him.

Not real common, but it happens.

Not that uncommon, either.

As far as I know, this might have been a lonely man that

just enjoyed the company of these young girls.

And maybe that's the naivety in me, you know, that says that.

Doug Miller was a divorced father

of two grown children.

Viola was an aspiring model, and hadn't

yet graduated from high school.

Words can't describe how I felt.

I loved her, but the way I truly felt for her,

you can't... I can't explain it to you.

Her fiance, Terremy Beaver,

knew nothing about this paid date,

but wasn't entirely surprised.

She loved money, I know that.

Whatever it would have took for her to,

you know, to get, to provide for her and her family,

that's what she was going to do.

She didn't care what it was, or how she had to go and get it.

She just had that mentality.

Investigators knew Beaver had nothing

to do with the crime, because he was

in jail that night on a drug charge.

I always tell folks, it's almost impossible

to killed in Lubbock, unless you're doing something

you shouldn't be doing, unless you're

some place you shouldn't be.

The double homicide of a college dean

and a teenage girl was going to be difficult to solve,

since Doug Miller and Viola McVade were barely acquainted,

and each have different backgrounds to look into.

When questioned by police, Doug Miller's friends

said, he had no known enemies.

Everyone we asked, his friends,

his co-workers were completely shocked.

They had no idea why he would have been in this part of town,

or with this person.

In fact, Doug Miller had a reputation as one

of the most private and generous people

at the university where he worked.

He anonymously set up a scholarship

for a student assistant in the library.

Now they all knew that a scholarship was available,

but they didn't know who funded it.

And I just always thought that was very interesting, that he

had every opportunity to say, you know, put his name on it,

or say, I did this.

But he never did that kind of thing.

The crime scene suggested that Doug Miller may

not have been the primary target,

but that Viola McVade was.

I think she had three gunshot

wounds to the head, very close.

She had stippling that was, you know,

gunpowder burns, that we're very close.

Almost close contact wounds to her head.

High impact blood spatter

inside the car on the driver's side

proved that Doug Miller was shot in the front seat,

and then moved to the backseat.

- With the amount of blood that was in the seat,

and it being all smeared, would indicate

that after he was removed from that seat,

that someone had to sit down in that blood,

and transfer that blood from the seat to their person.

Both victims still had their wallets,

jewelry, and other personal items.

So robbery was not considered a motive.

The bodies were in Doug's car in a ravine in Canyon Lakes Park.

There was no glass on the ground from the broken windows...

An indication the murders took place elsewhere.

But where was the murder scene?

Police records revealed a potential clue.

Around 10:00 PM on the night before the bodies were

discovered, several people called police headquarters

to report gunfire in a dark alley.

- I think the reason nobody saw anything

is because nobody wanted to see anything.

I think this from an area of town

where you don't want to be involved in telling what you

may or may not have seen or heard.

A close inspection of the alley

revealed shattered glass, which was sent

to the forensics lab for testing.

Analysts tested the glass for what's

known as its refractive index.

Refractive index is the measure of the speed

of light as it passes through a substance.

It's the reason that, when you put a straw

in a glass of water, it looks like the straw bends.

The sample is crushed into small pieces

and placed in a drop of oil, then heated.

When the oil and the glass reach the same refractive index,

the glass disappears.

We change the temperature of the oil

until we see that glass disappear,

and then we know, at that temperature,

the oil is this refractive index,

therefore, the glass is that same refractive index.

The refractive index of the glass in the alleyway

was similar to the glass from Doug Miller's car.

To be absolutely certain, scientists heated the glass

with an argon plasma torch to identify its chemical makeup.

If the levels of all nine of those elements

from the question sample fall within the range

of those same levels for the known,

then we say that's a positive association.

And this proved the class in the alleyway

was from Doug Miller's car.

- That definitely was our first, I guess, link saying,

those two scenes are connected.

We knew where the crime scene was.

We were able to determine that the glass that was found

in the alley came from the victim's vehicle.

Next, investigators wanted

to know where Doug Miller and Viola

McVade were before they were killed.

In Doug Miller's home, investigators

found a lipstick-stained cigarette butt.

Testing was performed

on that cigarette butt.

And that was actually determined to be consistent with the DNA

profile of the female victim.

Next, investigators checked Doug Miller's telephone

records and found something interesting.

Someone, presumably Viola, used Doug Miller's

phone to call her sister, Liza.

But Liza's boyfriend, Vaughn Ross, answered the phone.

They didn't get along.

They never got along.

Not even from the first day that they actually met.

They never got along.

She always said there was something about him.

Those are just rumors of me.

What the hell you talking about?

According to Liza McVade,

she never got to speak with Viola that night.

She said that Vaughn and Viola argued,

and that Vaughn hung up on her. - Hello?

Perhaps the most telling piece of information

was that Vaughn Ross' apartment was just 15 feet from the alley