Reward fund started to find Summerlin killer

Jen Lawson

Thursday, Feb. 6, 2003 | 10:56 a.m.

Doug Miller's wife was killed while taking her nightly walk through the Summerlin area, but he doesn't want residents of the area to be afraid.

Carol Miller's body was found two days after she set out on her walk, dumped near Interstate 215 and Far Hills Avenue in an area considered one of the safest in the Las Vegas Valley. Authorities said she had been strangled and that the attacker might have been after her jewelry.

It was a fluke, Doug Miller said.

"What happened to Carol is the exact opposite of winning the lottery," Miller said. "She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's no reason not to go out and live your life."

Metro Police Homicide Lt. Tom Monahan said detectives don't have any suspects, but that they are chasing down leads.

Miller and his business partner, Wayne Allyn Root, are hoping reward money will help police come up with clues that will lead to the arrest of Carol Miller's killer.

On Wednesday alone, after Miller and Root made a few phone calls to friends and business associates, the reward pot reached $37,000.

"Whoever did this is going to brag about what he did, and someone's going to make a phone call to the police and rat out their buddy," Root said from his office at GWIN, Inc., a professional sports handicapping business that he shares with Miller.

"There's a vicious killer out there," Root said. "I want this guy, bad."

Carol Miller, 58, originally from New York, was a children's clothing designer. She sold her company several years ago and was doing consulting work for clothing lines and retail chains. She was also serving as the primary caregiver for a friend in California who has cancer, traveling home to Las Vegas on weekends.

The Millers moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in August. Carol Miller, who had high cholesterol, began a low-carbohydrate diet and started exercising, enjoying the dry desert weather.

About 5 p.m. Saturday, Carol Miller left the Millers' home in the Canyon Gate subdivision in the Lakes for her walk.

When Carol hadn't come home by 6:30 p.m., he started to get concerned, he said. He drove around the area and called neighbors, but no one had seen her.

"Of course, I (thought I) knew what had happened -- she had a heart attack," Miller said.

He called Metro Police, and they gave him a list of emergency room phone numbers. He started calling, asking if they had a Carol Miller or a Jane Doe, thinking she might be in the hospital but unconscious and unidentified. He called every hour, on the hour. He also called the Clark County Coroner's Office.

"Sunday morning, when I realized nobody had her, I knew the likely scenario no longer was a heart attack," he said.

He put together fliers, and was getting ready to launch a media blitz when police came to his house Monday afternoon and told him they had found Carol's body.

He thinks a possible motive for Carol's homicide is robbery -- her body was found without her necklace and other jewelry -- but he said the pieces she was wearing weren't worth her life.

While he hopes whoever killed Carol is caught, he said his main concern is his two sons, Alexander, 18, who is a college student in Southern California, and Nicholas, 14.

He also is left with the heartbreaking task of going through his wife's address book and telling friends what happened.

"I got up the other morning and I knew one of my jobs was to call friends," he said. "She knew people from all over the world, and so many of them considered her their best friend."

"When you call, you have to give the whole story, and you start talking and the tears start flowing. I quickly realized their loss was just as great as mine."

Carol Miller began her career as an architect, but left that for the fashion business.

Her garments were sold in high-end department stores such as Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue.

Within the past several years, Doug Miller said his wife decided she had outgrown the children's clothing business and went into women's fashion.

A New Yorker at heart, Carol was also assertive and "tough as nuts," Miller said. When she lived in New York, someone tried to snatch her purse, but she beat the man off her, Miller said.

"If they find whoever did this to her, look for them to be a little beat up," Miller said. "Whatever happened, she didn't go calmly."

But she was also a caring person, he said.

"Carol is the world's greatest friend," Miller said. "She was just one of those magic people."

Anyone with information on this case is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 385-5555 or Metro's homicide section at 229-3521.