as long as you don't give up, justice is possible. up next, a young man falls ill and no one knows why. >> maybe he had been exposed to something through his work. >> despite the best of medical

intensive care, he dies. >> is it accidental? is it suicide? is it homicide? >> but investigators know there must be a clue somewhere. >> the more we looked into it, the more bizarre it got. the research triangle in raleigh-durham, north carolina, home to many hi-tech research and development companies. 30-year-old eric miller worked there looking for a cure for pediatric aids. his wife ann was also a scientist working for a large pharmaceutical company. >> eric and ann miller were living the american dream. they had good jobs, they had a beautiful baby. they lived in a nice house. they attended church. >> despite a satisfying professional life, eric developed health problems that some suspected might have been related to his job. >> he exhibited a lot of flu-like symptoms, vomiting, fevers, headaches. and people generally thought that he had a virus or that he had a bacterial infection that they just couldn't isolate. >> one night while bowling with his friends, his symptoms were so severe, he had to be hospitalized. >> ann miller said he was pale and white and he was holding the trash can and said he had eaten a hot dog at the bowling alley and felt like he had gotten food poisoning.

>> eric was put into intensive care, but when his condition improved, he was released. several days later, he was hospitalized again. this time, doctors found a huge amount of arsenic in his system. well over the lethal level. >> the urine test from the second hospital was really high. it was sky high. >> it's tasteless. it's odorless. it's water soluble. can easily be mixed in with food or drink. >> arsenic is a poison used in pesticides, herbicides and insecticides. >> they asked him if he knew of anybody that would have any reason to harm him or hurt him in any way. and he indicated that he did not. >> within hours, eric miller was dead. >> it's a very, very painful way to die. arsenic basically it's away at your body from the inside out. >> within hours, eric miller was dead. >> it's a very, very painful way to die. arsenic basically it's away at your body from the inside out.

>> it causes you to have violent, violent nausea, convulsions. your system starts shutting down organ by organ. >> but where did the arsenic come from? a check of eric's workplace showed he had no exposure to arsenic there. >> we went to the lab and we looked at every chemical in the lab and checked for arsenic. we did not find anything that was arsenic or arsenic derivative. >> they also checked eric's home. >> we seized every bottle of water, every carton of milk, everything that was there. >> again, they found nothing. so investigators focused on that night in the bowling alley when eric first exhibited the extreme symptoms. a witness said eric had a beer shortly before feeling ill. >> eric had commented during the time that the beer tasted bitter to him, that there was a strange taste to the beer. he went to the bathroom a number

of times and he became so ill that in fact, he brought the trash can from the bathroom over to the lane where they were bowling. >> witnesses said eric's friend derril willard had given eric the beer. investigators tried to speak to derril about that. but he refused. >> derril said, i can't talk to you anymore. i've got to talk to my lawyer. >> then six weeks after eric's death, derril's wife found him on the floor of the garage in a pool of blood. a gun in his hand. >> my husband just killed himself. >> he just what? >> he killed himself. >> okay. and he's inside the home? >> he's in the garage. >> he's in the garage? >> yes. >> there was a suicide note tacked to the wall of the garage. >> i am sorry to leave you, my wife, my beautiful daughter like this. i have been accused of an action for which i am not responsible. i have taken no one's life save my own. i love you all.

>> i think derril willard had to know something about the death of eric miller. >> in police work, that's what we call a clue. [ male announcer ] this is kevin. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for him, he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again. and now i've got to take more pills. ♪ yup. another pill stop. can i get my aleve back yet? ♪ for my pain, i want my aleve. ♪ [ male announcer ] look for the easy-open red arthritis cap. ♪ gundyes!n group is a go. not just a start up. an upstart. gotta get going. gotta be good. good? good. growth is the goal. how do we do that? i talked to ups. they'll help us out.

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polices in raleigh-durham, north carolina, had two suspicious deaths. eric miller's death was caused by a massive dose of arsenic. six weeks later, eric's friend, derril willard, committed suicide. the two had been together at the bowling alley on the night eric miller fell ill. >> derril completely out of character for him, according to everybody we talked to, buys a pitcher of beer while they're waiting for a lane to free up. but when eric took his first swallow of beer, you know, it doesn't taste quite right. >> and shortly before derril willard committed suicide, had he confessed to his wife that he had been having an fair with ann miller, iraq an's wife. >> we don't know the whether or not he told his wife anything else about his potential involvement with arsenic or eric miller at the bowling alley.

>> investigators searched willard's work computer and phone records. they also searched ann miller's. they found ample evidence of the affair. >> from the middle of october until eric's death, she's got like 500 cell phone calls to derril willard's desk, to his house, or to his cell phone. she's called him over 500 times. >> ann also sent derril e-mails. >> i want to make you feel so many things. i want to show you new things. i want to touch places in you that you didn't know existed. you'd better leave the women alone. have you me. >> ann miller and derril willard both worked together at the same pharmaceutical company.

investigators learned they spent a weekend together at the ritz carlton hotel in chicago shortly before eric's death. they registered as mr. and mrs. derril willard. but hotel employees later confirmed that the woman was ann miller. >> ann and derril ordered a lot of room service. >> just three days later when eric miller was in the hospital, investigators learned that his wife ann contacted another man with whom she was having an affair. a fellow scientist living in california. >> ann says, my husband is gravely ill. but if i could buy you a beach house and spend the night with you, i would do it in a heart beat. >> she also said in na e-mail communication that he could call the house and they could speak by phone because their in laws wouldn't know any better and they wouldn't suspect anything. no one knows if derril knew ann miller was involved with other men, but it was clear to investigators that derril willard and ann miller both had

a motive to kill eric. at the pharmaceutical company where both ann miller and derril willard were employed, police found arsenic. >> they were using cacodylic acid to clean their glass wear and at first glance you might not note what cacodylic acid is, but it actually is arsenic. >> this was the same type of arsenic found in eric miller's body, which meant the poison that killed him probably came from the lab where his wife and her lover worked. >> there were some controls with regard to arsenic and access to arsenic in the lab. those controls were not particularly tight. >> but a search of both the willard and miller homes turned

up nothing. >> we had it all tested for arsenic and it all came up negative. >> although police considered ann miller a suspect, eric's parents did not. >> eric's parents were very adamant that ann was not involved. they had accepted ann into their family. she was their daughter-in-law, and they had a good relationship with ann. >> but strangely against the wishes of eric's family, ann insisted that eric's body be cremated. >> flan follows any type of forrencic investigation knows that the easy way to get rid of evidence is by cremating somebody. >> eventually ann miller quit her job, sold her home and moves three hours away to wilmington, north carolina where she refused to cooperate further with investigators. >> no comment. >> but even though eric's body was cremated, the medical examiner kept samples from his autopsy. investigators hoped something in these samples would prove a homicide.

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in the search for eric miller's killer, medical detectives hoped to find some clues in tissues saved from his autopsy. scientists knew eric's death was caused by arsenic poisoning. but they needed to find out when and by whom.

>> arsenic stays in your hair. obviously, your hair grows and so the poisonings that occurred earlier are going to be on the end of your hair and the poisonings that are more recent are going to be towards the scalp. >> eric miller's hair was kept in storage after his occupies. from the length of eric's hair, investigators would have a record of the last six months of his life. in a process called neutron activation, the hair samples were cut into five millimeter sections. each section represented about two weeks in eric miller's life. >> you can't take hair and say this person was poisoned on january 12th, but you can take hair and say this person was poisoned during this two-week period. >> each clipping was put into its own vial, placed in a nuclear reactor, and bombarded with radiation. the resulting graph showed eric

ingested a huge dose of arsenic in the two weeks before his death. in that two-week period, eric complained of severe symptoms on three separate occasions. once was at the bowling alley when eric was with derril willard. >> it's my opinion, very strong opinion, that derril willard had actually given eric a lethal dose of arsenic in that cup of beer that he served to him. >> interestingly, witnesses said derril knocked over eric's beer before he could finish it. >> i think that beer got spilled because derril willard did not want eric miller to die. i think derril willard was a good man. and i think that he got caught up in ann miller's web, if you will, and he realized what was happening and did not want to go

through with that. >> ann told investigators she was at home with her daughter on the night eric went bowling. but a check of ann's cell phone records showed something very different. >> at about 7:20, ann miller's cell phone was used in close proximity to the bowling alley based on where the tower was hit. >> in fact, cell phone records showed ann actually made a call to her home to check her voice mail. the call bounced off a cell phone tower near the bowling alley. >> so it put a little bit of a hole in ann miller being at home. >> a couple of days later, eric had dinnerith his wife alone at home, and again, he got sick. >> ann prepares a meal and serves it to eric. and that night, about two, three hours later, eric has a recurrence of the same symptoms that he had the night of the bowing alley.

>> again, eric was rushed to the hospital, but this time, he was dead within 16 hours. >> we had put enough together to say in all reasonable probability, ann miller and derril willard conspired to kill eric. >> but the other shocking piece of information that came from the analysis of eric's hair was that the poisonings had been going on for months. >> the testing showed that eric miller had been poisoned multiple times, and they were able to isolate i believe three times for certain, but multiple times over the six-month period previous to his death. >> but if she wanted him dead, why take so long to do it? >> there were a lot of theories about this. one was that she was torturing him.

the most obvious one that i think investigators kind of settled on was that she wanted to create a pattern of him appearing to be sick so when he finally did die, nobody would suspect poisoning. >> but investigators had a problem. they knew what caused eric's death, and they knew when he was poisoned. but proving who was responsible would be another matter. dad, why are you getting that? is there a prize in there? oh, there's a prize, all right. [ male announcer ] inside every box of cheerios are those great-tasting little o's made from carefully selected oats that can help lower cholesterol. is it a superhero? kinda. ♪

investigators believe that ann miller had poisoned her husband and was responsible for his death. it was the motive they had a hard time figuring out. since eric didn't have a big life insurance policy, money was not considered a motive. >> the only life insurance was in the amount of $100,000. >> investigators believe ann's lover, derril willard, may have been involved in putting arsenic in eric's beer at the bowling alley. but they're convinced it was at ann's direction. >> i think ann miller was driving the train. derril willard was a passenger. he was not making these decisions. and he was a victim. just like eric miller. >> they also believed that ann put arsenic in eric's food the last meal he consumed before his death.

>> a massive dose of arsenic was given to eric the night before he finally went to the hospital for the last time. >> investigators also found evidence that eric miller had come very close to finding out about ann's affair with derril willard. it happened when ann didn't come home from work on time. >> eric got upset and started driving around trying to find ann because they didn't know where ann was. at 9:00, she then calls her mom and she finds out everyone's looking for her. in my opinion, she almost got caught by eric for having an fair and it triggered the fatal dose on november 30th. >> i think she didn't want to be a divorced woman, she didn't want to deal with child support, child visitation. custody. as a widow, she got sympathy. >> before his death, derril willard made an offhand comment to investigators that made it appear he knew he had been setup.

snoopy said, derril, i think a woman's using you. and i think you know, it would be in your best interests to cooperate with us. and the only thing he said was, yeah, and she's doing a mighty good job of it. >> the very next day, willard committed suicide. >> i mean, you had the scientific evidence, and that was hard and fast. but you needed a witness. you needed somebody to say, ann miller did this. derril willard, he was the only witness that could give them the information that they needed to arrest her. >> so prosecutors asked the north carolina supreme court tore force derril willard's lawyer to reveal what derril told him about ann miller's involvement. >> client confidentiality is one of the most important parts of our system. >> the judge studied the case and ruled that a small portion

of what derril willard told his lawyer was add missable in court. >> in other words, the attorney can be talk about what his client told him if it involves a third party who might have committed egregious crime like murder. >> derril willard told his lawyer about a conversation he had with ann miller in a parking lot just after eric's death. >> the attorney stated that his client, derril willard, told him that ann miller went to the hospital on that first hospital stay, took a syringe, and injected somethinging into eric miller's iv which presumably was arsenic. >> he then stated that he asked mrs. miller why she had done this, and she replied, i don't know. killers all share one common bond, and that is they are arrogant. they are in denial that they're doing anything wrong.

this person's in their way. they're messing up their life and they want them out of the way. and that's it. it's very simple. >> rather than risk a jury trial, ann miller agreed to plead guilty to second degree murder and received a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison. >> it's up with of those cases where you are left with as many questions as answers. and so that can be very difficult not only for the prosecutor but certainly for the family members as you don't get the why. >> even though ann miller tried to eliminate the evidence through cremation, it only took a single strand of eric's hair tore chart months of deception and the final act of murder. >> and to think that a record of this poisoning was just kept in one single strand of hair is pretty unbelievable.

>> people can think they can get away with murder but the technology is going to bite people. >> this is my first homicidal arsenic poisoning and i hope it's my last. >> it's just you the have to look for truth and justice. you never give up the fight. up next, a bullet riddled car, a missing driver and no witnesses. >> it would seem that she was still alive when she was removed from the car. >> who would do such a thing like this on a public roadway? >> was it an ambush or a random attack. >> it was a head scratcher from the get go. >> some tiny evidence provides the answer. >> it was on her skin, on her jacket. you can't get rid of this stuff. everyone celebrates independence day. some celebrate a little bit too