Crime Beat

cancer,” Alarcon said.
    John Dyer, a business consultant who subcontracted with Miller to share office space with him, said that on the occasions that Miller did come to the office, his moods changed noticeably.
    “I think it was obvious to everyone who saw him that his state of mind had changed—changed considerably,” Dyer said. “He would have times of anger—open outbursts. And sometimes, he was open, his friendly old self.”
    Miller was finally forced to close his office April 18, Hopkins said. Faced with foreclosure and liens for unpaid debts, he and his new wife signed ownership of the Granada Hills house over to a bail bondsman named Bert Hopper on May 7, according to county records.
    The mortgage foreclosure was withdrawn, but other debt holders said they never got their money. Hopper did not return repeated phone calls for comment on the house transfer.
    Miller then moved his new wife to Sanford, Fla., a small town outside Orlando. Dorothy Miller said that by this time her husband had already moved her from Orlando to Belle Vernon, Pa., once again telling her that the move was required as a security precaution.
    But after making the move, Dorothy Miller said her husband stopped his routine of calling her every day. He also stopped making even infrequent visits home and she had no idea where he was. She said years of building suspicion finally got to her and she began making calls.
    First, she said, the CIA told her David Miller was not an employee, freelance or otherwise. Next, calls to Chamber of Commerce officials in the Valley revealed that her husband had been active in the area until only a few months earlier—until he had gotten married.
    “I thought, ‘That’s funny, since I already am his wife,’” Dorothy Miller said. “But nobody knew about me there. They thought I was a crazy woman.”
    Dorothy Miller said that when her husband did finally telephone her in midsummer, she confronted him and he admitted that he had remarried. She said she cut off all communication with him and asked the police in Belle Vernon to investigate.
    Meantime, David Miller had taken his new wife and her parents to Europe in June despite his financial burdens. It is unclear how he paid for the trip. Vince Bertolini, also a former United Chambers of Commerce president who had worked with Miller, said he happened to run into his old friend June 26 in the lobby of a hotel in Rome.
    “It was very strange,” Bertolini said. “He told me he was representing the Kuwaiti government, resolving issues from the Persian Gulf War. It was kind of off the wall.”
    Bertolini said Miller also acknowledged that he was having financial difficulties and said the experience taught him that “you really know who your friends are.”
    After returning from Europe, the marriage of David and Jayne Miller foundered. Police said the two separated after repeated fights and each sought restraining orders against the other. Jayne Miller said in court documents that her husband had repeatedly threatened to kill her.
    Suspicious of her husband’s dealings and debts, Jayne Miller next hired private detective Bob Brown to make inquiries. Brown said Jayne Miller told him her husband had claimed to be a tax attorney in California who moved to Florida to work at Disney World.
    Brown made routine computer checks and found David Miller’s name linked with the name Dorothy Miller on car and house titles and tax rolls. He found no record of the couple being divorced.
    “I told Jayne that it looked like this guy already had a wife,” Brown said. “It looks like he had two houses, one here and one in California. He had evidently been commuting back and forth between wives.”
    Using Brown’s information and old phone records left behind by her husband, Jayne Miller tracked down Dorothy Miller in Pennsylvania and the two confirmed each other’s existence. Dorothy Miller said Jayne Miller told her that she was determined to confront their shared husband and expose him by going to the media with the story of the high-profile bigamist.
    “I told her he was dangerous and warned her to stay away from him,” Dorothy Miller said.
    Brown said he gave his client the same warning. And her friend Bowen sent her a plane ticket so that she could move back to California.
    But Jayne Miller would never take the flight. On Sept. 15, according to Sanford police records, Jayne Miller called her husband and told him she was removing his property from a