Man Charged With Murder To Cover Up Arson

On February 21, 2006, it is said that William Craig Miller shot and killed 5 people in a Mesa, Arizona home. The reason for these murders? Prosecutors allege that Miller wanted to silence two of the victims so they couldn’t testify against him for setting his own house on fire.

According to an article from the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, Allstate paid Miller more than $440,000 for his claim. Several items, such as a big screen plasma television, assorted guns and Miller’s Toyota Tundra all were suspiciously missing from the home, which led investigators to believe that Miller was responsible for the fire.

Other clues also mounted. “Several pour patterns were found throughout the house and gas cans were located inside,” the Scottsdale police report says. The only room in the house where gasoline wasn’t found was in his young son’s bedroom.

Miller later pleaded guilty to the arson charge.

Not too long after the fire, Tammy Lovell, one of Miller’s employees, told the Scottsdale police that Miller signed on Steven Duffy, another employee, to help in burning down the home.

After a while, Duffy confessed to police. He even told them where Miller’s missing television, guns and Toyota were stashed. Several cell phone calls between Duffy, Lovell and Miller were taped, incriminating them even further. Police quickly nabbed Miller as he arrived into his company’s parking lot.

What happened next in this horrible story may end up sending Miller to Death Row.

Police state that Miller entered Lovell’s home at 2:40 am, which later lead neighbors to start calling the Mesa police, saying they’d heard gunshots inside. A SWAT team discovered the bodies of Lovell and her two children, along with Duffy and his brother.

According to CBS News and prosecutor Juan Martinez, Tammy Lovell was shot three times execution-style and her son Jacob Lovell, who was 10, was shot in the forehead at point-blank range –even though he raised his hands in surrender. Her 15 year-old daughter, Cassandra, was found shot in the chest. Lovell’s boyfriend, Steven Duffy, had been shot four times, twice in the face, along with his 18 year-old brother, Shane, who was also shot.

Miller claimed an alibi: He and a buddy were out drinking until 2 a.m. — 45 minutes before the murders — until Miller passed out.

The story changed later on however in an interview given from his jail cell. Miller said that he and an unnamed accomplice entered Lovell’s home after offering Steven Duffy’s brother $10,000 to leave the door ajar.

Miller insisted that he and his mysterious partner were only trying to recover personal items that had been stored in the Lovell’s home since the fire. He said that Steven Duffy rushed out of the bedroom and shot at him, forcing him to return fire with his 9 mm revolver. He suggested that Tammy Lovell may have been shot while fleeing to safety, and that his accomplice may have hunted down the other people in the house and shot them.

As reported in an article in The Arizona Republic, written about a month after the killings, the indictment that was filed against Miller states that he was charged with burglary and tampering with physical evidence, along with five counts of first-degree murder. The murder counts stem two different theories about the killings. Miller would either be charged for actually pulling the trigger, or acting with an accomplice to burglarize the house and killing the victims during the burglary. Under Arizona’s felony murder law, a suspect who is present during the crime can be charged with first-degree murder even if an accomplice actually fires the fatal shot or shots. The tampering charge correlates to accusations that Miller staged a burglary at his house the day after the murders. He was allegedly attempting to throw police off the track as they investigated the slayings.

The indictment said Miller made pry marks on a door to his house and also flooded it. Miller rented the house after his own house nearby burned down in November.

Martinez described the murders during a preliminary hearing for Judge Janet Barton, who stated that she would later rule on whether Miller qualifies for the death penalty.

Miller received 5 1/2 years related to the insurance scheme, and faces possible death penalty if convicted of the murders. The trial is set to start with jury selection on August 1^st.