Morrisville murder case still cold
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Police probe mystery of Morrisville murder (08/27/81) By Patricia Wandling Staff Writer
Editor's note. The story states that James Miller was shot. The information was incorrect. It was later confirmed that he was stabbed.
Posted: Friday, August 26, 2011 6:15 am | Updated: 10:00 am, Fri Aug 26, 2011.
The week before he was murdered, James Miller told police he was worried about getting robbed.
He would’ve made a worthwhile target. His Morrisville bungalow was filled with rifles and muskets and other guns as well as a handsome coin collection.
And he liked to tell people about it.
“Some might call it bragging,” Miller’s brothers, Robert and Joseph, wrote in a Courier Times opinion piece a week after Miller’s death in 1981. “In Jim’s case, he was just sharing a little of his personal, hard-earned joy of life.
“Apparently, ears were listening, attached to empty and evil-minded heads devoid of any and all humanity, who thought only in terms of larceny, pillage, greed, torture and wanton murder,” the brothers continued.
But here’s the thing: Most, if not all, of Miller’s valuables were still in his Clymber Avenue house after the murder, police said.
Miller’s body — which was bound, gagged and stabbed — was found 30 years ago this morning. His murder remains unsolved.
Bucks County detectives and borough police interviewed “a lot of people,” Morrisville Lt. Tom Herron said this week. “But they didn’t come up with anything concrete.”
‘A quiet life’
Miller, 36, was a husky man who looked like he could take care of himself, neighbors said in the days after he was killed. His last job was heading a work crew in a New Jersey prison.
After he was laid off from that job, Miller supported himself through carpentry and was planning to start a business selling firewood. He also bought and sold auto parts. At the time of his death, four engine blocks dotted his property at 324 Clymber Ave.
“Like most of us, Jim had faults,” his brothers wrote in the newspaper in 1981. “His marriage ended in divorce, creating much unhappiness and loneliness for him, his wife, and sorrowfully, for his 6-year-old daughter.”
Miller almost always wore glasses and a baseball cap. He kept to himself, neighbors said. He lived alone, although he had boarders at one time; the last one left in the month before he was killed, a neighbor said in 1981.
“He was a nice, friendly person, but he didn’t go out of his way,” neighbor Marion Piscopo recalled this week. “I think I saw him once with his little girl over there. Nobody bothered him. He lived a quiet life.”
Other neighbors, who were quoted in 1981 but wouldn’t give their names, claimed it was murder — not robbery — that Miller was afraid of. However, no motive was ever stated. At that time, police insisted to the newspaper that Miller was concerned with getting robbed, not killed.
A week before the murder, an elderly man who also lived on Clymber Avenue was hit over the head and robbed, the newspaper reported in 1981.
‘Excruciating pain’
Piscopo can still remember the hours before the murder. She was planting pachysandra ground cover around her house. At about 5 p.m., she saw a well-dressed young man ring Miller’s doorbell.
“I don’t know who he was,” she recalled. “He went to the door and Miller let him in.”
All was quiet for the rest of the night, she said. Then, about midnight, Piscopo and other neighbors heard an explosion. Miller’s house was on fire.
“My son ran across in his bare feet,” she said. “The man next door ran over.”
Herron, then a corporal with the department, and other officers arrived. Pressure from the flames appeared to have blown out a window in Miller’s house, Herron said. They found Miller’s body inside.
Herron said fire crews did what they were supposed to do — rush in to put out the fire, but those actions compromised the crime scene.
“James Miller, our baby brother, was found cruelly bound hand and foot, blindfolded, gagged and tortured unmercifully,” the Miller brothers wrote in 1981. “There was excruciating pain, unlimited suffering and no mercy by the killers, except finally death itself.”
The newspaper initially said that Miller was shot, but the cause of death was later found to be stabbing, Herron said.
The lieutenant said police later found that gunpowder had been poured on the floor, which perhaps may have been the killer’s attempt to try to start the fire, which gunpowder wouldn’t do.
“Could someone have taken something (from the house)?” Herron asked. “Certainly. But why didn’t they take all of it? A good number of coins and guns were returned to the family.”
The newspaper was unsuccessful in reaching Miller’s brothers for this article. But in 1981, they seemed convinced robbery was the motive for the killing.
“He was simply an ordinary, hard-working honest American citizen who had a hobby, which because of the wickedness of our society, killed him,” the Millers wrote.
Gene Ross, a Morrisville police officer at the time, said Miller was afraid of becoming a burglary victim.
“But no one was ever able to specify what he was worried about happening to him or why,” said Ross, who retired as a corporal.
“I don’t have a real theory,” Ross added. “We could never establish if anything had ever been stolen from the house. This one (case) really bothered us.”
Piscopo, the neighbor, said the pachysandra she planted in the hours before Miller was killed 30 years ago is still growing outside her house.
“I think we all forgot about it,” Piscopo added. “It was scary then, and I put an alarm system in my house. But nobody ever talks about it.”
He would’ve made a worthwhile target. His Morrisville bungalow was filled with rifles and muskets and other guns as well as a handsome coin collection.
And he liked to tell people about it.
“Some might call it bragging,” Miller’s brothers, Robert and Joseph, wrote in a Courier Times opinion piece a week after Miller’s death in 1981. “In Jim’s case, he was just sharing a little of his personal, hard-earned joy of life.
“Apparently, ears were listening, attached to empty and evil-minded heads devoid of any and all humanity, who thought only in terms of larceny, pillage, greed, torture and wanton murder,” the brothers continued.
But here’s the thing: Most, if not all, of Miller’s valuables were still in his Clymber Avenue house after the murder, police said.
Miller’s body — which was bound, gagged and stabbed — was found 30 years ago this morning. His murder remains unsolved.
Bucks County detectives and borough police interviewed “a lot of people,” Morrisville Lt. Tom Herron said this week. “But they didn’t come up with anything concrete.”
‘A quiet life’
Miller, 36, was a husky man who looked like he could take care of himself, neighbors said in the days after he was killed. His last job was heading a work crew in a New Jersey prison.
After he was laid off from that job, Miller supported himself through carpentry and was planning to start a business selling firewood. He also bought and sold auto parts. At the time of his death, four engine blocks dotted his property at 324 Clymber Ave.
“Like most of us, Jim had faults,” his brothers wrote in the newspaper in 1981. “His marriage ended in divorce, creating much unhappiness and loneliness for him, his wife, and sorrowfully, for his 6-year-old daughter.”
Miller almost always wore glasses and a baseball cap. He kept to himself, neighbors said. He lived alone, although he had boarders at one time; the last one left in the month before he was killed, a neighbor said in 1981.
“He was a nice, friendly person, but he didn’t go out of his way,” neighbor Marion Piscopo recalled this week. “I think I saw him once with his little girl over there. Nobody bothered him. He lived a quiet life.”
Other neighbors, who were quoted in 1981 but wouldn’t give their names, claimed it was murder — not robbery — that Miller was afraid of. However, no motive was ever stated. At that time, police insisted to the newspaper that Miller was concerned with getting robbed, not killed.
A week before the murder, an elderly man who also lived on Clymber Avenue was hit over the head and robbed, the newspaper reported in 1981.
‘Excruciating pain’
Piscopo can still remember the hours before the murder. She was planting pachysandra ground cover around her house. At about 5 p.m., she saw a well-dressed young man ring Miller’s doorbell.
“I don’t know who he was,” she recalled. “He went to the door and Miller let him in.”
All was quiet for the rest of the night, she said. Then, about midnight, Piscopo and other neighbors heard an explosion. Miller’s house was on fire.
“My son ran across in his bare feet,” she said. “The man next door ran over.”
Herron, then a corporal with the department, and other officers arrived. Pressure from the flames appeared to have blown out a window in Miller’s house, Herron said. They found Miller’s body inside.
Herron said fire crews did what they were supposed to do — rush in to put out the fire, but those actions compromised the crime scene.
“James Miller, our baby brother, was found cruelly bound hand and foot, blindfolded, gagged and tortured unmercifully,” the Miller brothers wrote in 1981. “There was excruciating pain, unlimited suffering and no mercy by the killers, except finally death itself.”
The newspaper initially said that Miller was shot, but the cause of death was later found to be stabbing, Herron said.
The lieutenant said police later found that gunpowder had been poured on the floor, which perhaps may have been the killer’s attempt to try to start the fire, which gunpowder wouldn’t do.
“Could someone have taken something (from the house)?” Herron asked. “Certainly. But why didn’t they take all of it? A good number of coins and guns were returned to the family.”
The newspaper was unsuccessful in reaching Miller’s brothers for this article. But in 1981, they seemed convinced robbery was the motive for the killing.
“He was simply an ordinary, hard-working honest American citizen who had a hobby, which because of the wickedness of our society, killed him,” the Millers wrote.
Gene Ross, a Morrisville police officer at the time, said Miller was afraid of becoming a burglary victim.
“But no one was ever able to specify what he was worried about happening to him or why,” said Ross, who retired as a corporal.
“I don’t have a real theory,” Ross added. “We could never establish if anything had ever been stolen from the house. This one (case) really bothered us.”
Piscopo, the neighbor, said the pachysandra she planted in the hours before Miller was killed 30 years ago is still growing outside her house.
“I think we all forgot about it,” Piscopo added. “It was scary then, and I put an alarm system in my house. But nobody ever talks about it.”
4 comments:
At least the Courier Times knows where the murder happened...Clymber Avenue...more proof that Morrisville is at most an afterthought to most people.
it appears our illustrious PR person wrote the article she should know what the proper street names are of the town that pays her
In defense of Pat Wandling, Ben Finley wrote the current article. Pat Wandling wrote the original article from 30 years ago, and got the street name right. She wrote that the victim was shot and it turned out he was stabbed, but that might not have been known at the time of the 1981 article.
Robert Morris gets a lot of attention in Morrisville for obvious reasons, but according to that font-of-all-accurate-knowledge Wikipedia, George Clymer (March 16, 1739 – January 24, 1813) was an American politician and founding father. He was one of the first Patriots to advocate complete independence from Britain. As a Pennsylvania representative, Clymer was, along with five others, a signatory of both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. He attended the Continental Congress, and served in political office until the end of his life.
So, apparently he was a real social ... wait for it ... climber.
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