Sharee Miller manipulates Jerry Cassaday to murder husband

Northwest of Detroit, and just about an hour from the state capital Lansing, Flint isn't a strange city in Michigan anymore. The 1989 Michael Moore documentary film Roger & Me shed some light on Flint, after GM had moved a large number of manufacturing jobs about of the area. Starting in 2014, Flint gained national infamy after a change of its water-sourcing led to about 100,000 of its residents being exposed to unsafe levels of lead. In 2016, President Obama authorized assistance from national agencies by declaring a federal state of emergency. But in 2001, Court TV's case of Michigan vs. Sharee Miller had already brought awareness of many around the country to Flint, Michigan.

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

By the time Sharee married Bruce Miller, a man 20 years her senior, she'd had two divorces and three children. No judgement from me here – many of us have valid attempts and false starts to relationships and adulthood. In fact, Sharee had found a man in Bruce who was willing to adopt her children and embrace an instant family by marrying her. She seemed to have it good, given that Bruce had a steady job, owned a business, and was considered all-around to be a decent guy. But given that Sharee was in online chatrooms complaining about dissatisfaction in her marriage less than a month after her wedding, she apparently felt differently about Bruce.

Soon after Bruce's murder, Sharee was quick to give up her ex-boyfriend John Hutchinson as a person of interest. The episode cited that Hutchinson owed Bruce Miller thousands of dollars, but additional motives were brought up by the defense attorney during trial. In fact, the defense's entire case played to the idea that Jerry Cassaday didn't murder Bruce Miller (though he admitted this). Rather, John Hutchinson was in fact the real killer. Most of my knowledge of this case initially came from the episode's content, but I've read and seen additional material since. But I still say that other theories besides the one presented in the show are preposterous. John Hutchinson may've had additional motives outside of his debt to Bruce Miller, but the overwhelming evidence of conspiracy and manipulation between Sharee Miller and Jerry Cassaday is indisputable.

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

That said, it was interesting that Hutchinson collapsed during his police-administered polygraph examination. And in denying involvement in Bruce's murder, the lie-detector indicated that he was being deceptive. But there are reasons polygraph results are mostly inadmissible as evidence in a trial, and there was nothing additional corroborating Hutchinson's participation. On the other hand, a written admission in the suicide note from Jerry Cassaday alone is stronger evidence. This was further substantiated with the chat transcripts and emails showing Jerry's and Sharee's plan to murder her husband. If she thought she'd be able to sell Hutchinson as the killer, Sharee had some tough questions to answer: Why would she craft a story to Jerry about Bruce being abusive, a drug-user, and a member of organized crime? Why would she lie to Jerry about being pregnant and then convince him that Bruce had caused her to miscarry? Why would they have the exact same (mis)information about "John P Occonnor"? She suggested a version where Jerry was so creative, and so out to get her back for ending their relationship, that he concocted this entire narrative and created all of the corresponding evidence (chats, emails, photos, etc).

In 1999, there were not many folks who could be categorized as a "computer whiz". If Jerry had only crafted all of the correspondences over the weeks and weeks, in a way that fooled AOL's own Director of Investigations, he'd have been considered a genius. I'm pretty good at computers, and I'm pretty sure I couldn't pull it off, even back then. Moreover, Jerry would have to be one prolific guy to spin all the prose of a two-way dialog, fabricating the entire tale. But he'd have also had to fake the pictures of the pregnancy test, the sonagram, the abuse pictures, and even the ‘baby pooch' images in order to make Sharee's version true. But think about it – we're talking about a guy using computers in 1999 – a guy who printed out some of his chat transcripts. The only people I've known over the years who print correspondences are older folks and somewhat "unsavvy" computer users.

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

This episode featured computer forensics in a window of time when computers were still becoming mainstream. Similar to Over and Out (s08e32) where a bomb was mailed via UPS to Chris Marquis, it took the experts of the time infiltrating the Jerry's and Sharee's computers to dig out the truth. The episode seemed to make it a point to indicate that the experts "easily" made their way into the couple's private files. They identified 1000s of hits on keywords that clearly showed a long-running and intimate interaction. It makes me wonder what Sharee thinks about concepts of VPNs and cloud computing now, knowing her digital interactions were key to her conviction.

I worked with a seasoned Business Intelligence gentleman who taught me the phrase "Trust, but verify". As a seasoned homicide investigator, Jerry Cassaday would've been wise to heed this proverb. The first red flag should have been the fact that Sharee was cheating on her husband – this opens the door to consider her propensity to lie. But it was seen in his suicide note (and additionally in the defense attorney's opening statement during trial) that Jerry had been a troubled man. He was not making good choices, and his life seemed to be spiraling out of control. His divorce had hit him hard, and he was making other questionable decisions. With evidence of substance abuse and previous ideas of suicide, it was easy to see how Jerry had been a good target of Sharee's manipulation. She took advantage of Jerry, down on his luck and on himself, to rid herself of her problem – her husband of less than one year. Multiple life insurance policies and the sale of Bruce's junkyard business probably further fueled her motivation. Her cold-hearted exploitation of Jerry was became quite evident when she completely dismissed him after Bruce's murder. She had used Jerry to get what she wanted and basically threw him aside.

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

Sharee's interviews with police during the episode painted her as what she truly was – a narcissistic liar who'd say anything to anyone to get what she wanted. This was evident when she immediately lied to police about sending Jerry a seductive video of herself. Then when the police came clean and showed her that they had the tape, she continued to lie, this time telling them, "I know him, but he's crazy." And when it was proven she had been the one on the phone with Bruce while an intruder entered his workplace and shot him, Sharee denied this as well. How could a juror believe anything she could say after seeing this evidence of persistent deception?

A couple of closing questions that continue to haunt me:

• If Sharee Miller was trying to convince Jerry Cassaday that Bruce had beaten her enough to cause her to miscarry her (fake) pregnancy, why would she think the make-up to falsify bruising would be best applied to her abdomen? I don't recall much evidence of abuse indicating the subject was beaten around the torso.
• In Jerry's suicide note, he indicated he had "all the proof" to show Sharee's complicity. But why didn't Jerry make the damning evidence more readily apparent? I feel he could have used his experience to make his relevant evidence available to investigators.

Where is Sharee Miller now in 2024?

Seven years after her incarceration, a federal judge overturned Sharee Miller's conviction and ordered a new trial. He said Jerry Cassaday's suicide note should not have been admitted as evidence for the state. Nearly a year later, a federal judge ordered Sharee's immediate release from prison, on bond, pending her retrial. But the Genesee County Prosecutor ordered her re-arrest the next day. She was to be held without bond to await new charges.

Just a few days later, new charges were filed against Sharee Miller. But an appeal delayed her retrial, and she was released on a $100,000 recognizance bond on July 29, 2009. Over the new few years, the case was remanded to the lower courts, and finally on August 2, 2012, Sharee Miller returned to the Michigan Department of Corrections, her original sentences having been reinstated.

Finally, in 2016, Sharee Miller admitted to her role in Bruce Miller's murder in a four-page letter sent to Judge Judith A. Fullerton.

Sharee Miller 20/20 interview: You've Got Jail

On Friday, February 11, 2022, ABC aired their new 20/20 episode "You've Got Jail". This two-hour exposé included several of the same key players from the Forensic Files episode. One distinct addition was John Hutchinson. His role was not characterized as Sharee's ex-boyfriend, but rather as Bruce Miller's business partner. 20/20 described Hutchinson's relationship with Sharee as an affair (John Hutchinson had been separated from his wife), and it'd been very short-lived.

Quite a bit was revealed about Sharee Miller through the course of the phone interview. Sharee admitted to being sexually abused from a very young age. She also claimed her ex-husband had molested their infant son, and she had him convicted. After he received only a 4-month sentence, Sharee appeared on the Montel Williams Show in 1998, appealing to the state Michigan to update sentencing laws. Sharee revealed that she'd met Jerry Cassaday before her wedding to Bruce. And while Forensic Files wasn't clear on how many face-to-face meetings the couple had, 20/20 indicated that Sharee Miller flew out to Reno where Jerry was working on several occasions. Friends of Jerry suggested that he was suffering from what almost seemed like bipolar highs and lows – he would become elated when Sharee was in town, and then sink into a depression when she'd have to return home to Flint.

20/20 elaborated on how Sharee was able to fool Jerry Cassaday into believing all the lies she was telling him. One of the videos she mailed Jerry included her family, and Sharee's angle was, "This would be our life, raising our children with mine." Sharee also sent Jerry fake emails that seemed to come from Bruce himself, further vilifying her husband. These emails would demean Jerry, almost taunting him to "rescue" Sharee from her "awful" life. Sharee detailed the specific steps she and Jerry had taken on the night of her husband's murder. She spoke of meeting Jerry at a truck stop with a cell phone, alerting him when she knew Bruce would be alone, and receiving a signal from Jerry when the murder was complete.

The interview revealed a few other interesting ideas as well. It wasn't just "Jerry's twins" that Bruce had supposedly caused Sharee to miscarry. The same scenario had played out once before with a single pregnancy and outcome. Sharee also admitted to manipulating all of the men in her life using her sexuality. She had a dozen online screen names, most with a sexual connotation, and she would spend "hours upon hours online" chatting and flirting with men.

Sharee had already admitted to her involvement and guilt in a four-page letter to a judge in 2016. Her 20/20 interview included the same sentiments – she was finally wanting to stop lying to everyone and lying to herself, and "do something right for once in her life." Sharee admitted that money was not the only motive that led to her kill Bruce. She claimed she feared that he was becoming close to learning her "true self" and all of the deceptions and manipulations in her life. Interestingly, Sharee still denied being the person on the phone with Bruce when Jerry shot him, but I believe the phone record evidence showed this in fact had been the case.