Posted on 09/28/2002 10:27:57 AM PDT by Sunshine55
Abused and starving, Chester Lee Miller, 18, was forced sometime this month to make a desperate 1,000-mile bus journey from the home of his mother and stepfather in Hazleton, Pa., to the Florida Panhandle, a place from which his natural father had earlier sent him packing.
Aboard the bus, in terminal after terminal, town after town, Miller said, he cried and begged strangers for help.
No one listened.
Weighing little more than 60 pounds, the famished teenager with sunken eyes finally arrived in Milton, Fla., about 20 miles north of Pensacola, only to be rejected again. There, authorities said, his relatives shut him out of their trailer home on Saturday and literally dumped him at an apartment complex.
"He looked like a Holocaust victim," said Janice Goodman, at whose door Miller knocked, pleading again for help. "I never would have thought something like this would be in Florida or the United States."
Goodman tried to help Miller, but he was by then beyond help.
Severely malnourished and succumbing to extensive organ failure, the youth died alone yesterday in a Florida hospital room.
His mother and stepfather, Lyda Miller, 37, and Paul Hoffman Sr., 38, who were charged earlier this week with aggravated assault and reckless endangerment, face additional charges, police said last night: homicide.
And in Milton, population 7,400, the stranger who took in the dying boy nobody wanted said her family is trying to raise money for a funeral.
"We're trying to at least let him have a decent burial," Goodman said. "It's the least we can do." A relative of her family has donated a burial plot.
Though still hazy, the picture emerging of Chester Lee Miller's life is one of suffering and torture.
Before he died, Miller was able to tell authorities that his father, Robert Lee Miller, dispatched him to Pennsylvania last year to live with his mother and stepfather in Hazleton, about 120 miles north of Philadelphia. He told of being kept mostly in one room, often forced to stand for hours in a corner, being beaten every day, fed only scraps of food, and not allowed out of the house to go to school or see friends.
Charged earlier this week, the mother and stepfather remained jailed last night under $500,000 bond each. Hazleton Police Chief Edward Harry said that within a week, investigators would upgrade the charges against them to homicide.
Angry and sickened, Luzerne County District Justice Joseph Zola reacted with outrage at the couple in his courtroom on Tuesday. According to a report in a local newspaper, Zola looked at photographs of the emaciated, 5-foot, 3-inch teenager and said: "Did you see these? Do you believe this? This is so bad. How can people do this?"
Hoffman told the judge that he was on disability for mental illness and was "deeply sorry" for his actions. "I have no idea why I did it," he said.
In court papers, the couple admitted forcing the teenager to stand in a corner of their house for as long as 12 hours at a time. If he moved, Hoffman would hit him, according to the affidavit of probable cause.
Zola made the defendants stand in a corner of his courtroom throughout Tuesday's hearing.
In Florida, Janice Goodman's brother, Charles Blanchard, said Miller told them that his mother and stepfather had made him sign a paper saying they had not starved or abused him.
"It's a shame that something like this could happen in this country. I've never seen anybody who looked like that - never seen anybody in that condition.
"Somebody begs for help, nobody helps him, and lets him starve like that," Blanchard said, incredulously. "He begs for help and nobody helps."
Blanchard and Goodman said that when young Miller went to his uncle's house on Saturday, the uncle told him he couldn't stay. A friend of the uncle's drove the youth to Goodman's apartment complex.
"He just happened to knock on her door," Blanchard said.
Goodman said Miller, who could barely stand, asked if he could come in, have a shower and get some sleep. "I said, 'Come on in.' There was no way you could turn your back on him."
Goodman then called her mother, who called police. Officers took one look at Miller and called for an ambulance.
He was taken to the Santa Rosa (County) Medical Center. Goodman and other members of her family visited him daily. Miller underwent intestinal surgery and had to be revived Monday after his heart stopped beating.
Goodman and her family said they had expected him to survive and were shocked to learn of his death yesterday morning.
Police in Hazleton and Milton are trying to put together the details of Miller's life and death.
According to Milton Police Detective Mike Daughtery, Miller said "he'd been here about a week and a half. But right now, we're thinking he wasn't in his right mind. We don't think he was here nearly that long."
Investigators believe that the Pennsylvania neglect started in May, Harry said.
Two other children living with the couple in Hazleton were turned over to a state social-service agency Tuesday, police said. They were in good health.
Investigators said they had located Miller's birth father and planned to interview him.
An autopsy will be conducted in Florida tomorrow. Luzerne County District Attorney David Lupas said yesterday that he was sending investigators to Milton to be on hand when the postmortem is conducted.
"It's awful," Lupas said. "It's one of the most horrible cases of abuse I've ever seen."
But they seem to have a good judge on the case. I like the part where he made the parents stand in the corner for the procedings.
Those close to dead teen say they saw no signs of abuse "God Bless Your Poor Soul!" read a sign placed at the home of Chester Miller, the abused, emaciated youth who died in Florida.
By Marc Schogol
Inquirer Staff Writer
HAZLETON, Pa. - No one who lived around Chester Lee Miller noticed any signs that the 18-year-old was being abused or starved to death.
Not his grandmother, who lived across the hall in the same house.
Not neighbors, who lived in an adjoining apartment.
And apparently not his teachers, guidance counselors or administrators at Hazleton Area High School, a doctor who reportedly examined him, or anyone else who saw the 5-foot, 3-inch youth in the last year.
Police and child-welfare workers said yesterday that they never received any reports about Miller, who died Wednesday - less than a week after his mother and her boyfriend allegedly forced him on a 34-hour bus ride to the Florida Panhandle, back to his father who had sent him packing to Hazleton in the first place. Emaciated and disoriented, the youth weighed barely 62 pounds when he arrived in Milton, about 20 miles north of Pensacola.
"You can't tell me anybody looking at that child could think he was properly cared-for," Hazleton Police Chief Edward Harry said yesterday.
Residents are outraged in this onetime coal-mining city in northeastern Pennsylvania, where Miller's mother and the man she lived with are jailed on assault and endangerment charges.
Eggs and apples were thrown at the family's home Wednesday night, only hours after Miller died 1,000 miles away in a Florida hospital. Hand-lettered cardboard signs of contempt were posted overnight in front of the house where Miller told authorities he had been fed only scraps and forced to stand for hours on end, or be beaten.
"Chester's Weight, 63; Mother and Stepfather's IQ, 63," read one sign.
Another, adorned with hearts, said: "God Bless Your Poor Soul!"
All along his $69 Trailways Bus odyssey from Hazleton to Washington, Raleigh, N.C., Savannah, Ga., Tallahassee, Fla., and Milton, Miller cried and begged strangers in vain to help him, he told police before he died. When he finally reached Milton on Saturday, he said, he was turned away from the trailer of his Florida family and dumped at an apartment complex.
There, barely able to stand and looking like a "Holocaust victim," according the woman tried to help him, he knocked at random on an apartment door where he finally found a sympathetic woman who tried to feed him and get him help.
But it was too late.
After an autopsy is completed today, Miller's mother and her boyfriend, Lyda Miller, 37, and Paul Hoffman Sr., 38, will almost certainly face additional charges of homicide, police said.
In Hazleton, where reports of Miller's tortured life and death were the talk of the town yesterday, people said they were astonished that no one responded to Miller's appearance or cries for help.
"Now, everyone's out on a limb. They won't say what they should have done," said Bertha Girard, 65, talking with a friend over lunch at the Knotty Pine Restaurant.
"You can hide a 2-year-old, but you can't hide an 18-year-old boy... . Everybody just closed their eyes."
Janice Goodman did not. It was her apartment door Miller knocked on Saturday afternoon.
"He asked if he could come in, have a shower and go to sleep. I said, 'How old are you?' He said 18. At first I didn't believe him."
Miller's maternal grandmother, Janet Meshach, 63, said that when her grandson arrived from Florida last October, he weighed about the same 62 pounds as when he died. Her daughter, Lyda Miller, was concerned and took him to a local doctor.
"The doctor saw him and couldn't believe how thin he was," Meshach said yesterday. But the doctor, whose name she said she did not recall, only told his mother to take the boy home and feed him - but not greasy foods.
"He did gain some weight," Meshach said, "but then he lost it all... . I can't believe he was so thin... . When I saw the picture of Chester on the news, I couldn't believe it."
Until last Friday - when police say Hoffman bought the youth a bus ticket and told him to go back to his natural father in Florida - Miller lived with his mother, her boyfriend, and two half-siblings in a twin house that had been converted into four apartments. Meshach said she moved into one of those apartments earlier this month, across the hall from her daughter's family.
Her grandson was a 10th grader at Hazleton Area High School until May, when authorities believe the worst of the abuse began.
Meshach insisted she never saw any signs that Miller had been abused or starved.
"I didn't go over there all the time," she said.
High school staffers said yesterday they had been directed by their superintendent and district lawyer to say nothing except that Miller had been a student from October until May.
Meshach acknowledged that she had seen her grandson being disciplined by Paul Hoffman Sr., whom she described as a "very quick-tempered" man.
"A couple of times, I went over there and [Chester] was standing against one wall. Paul said he wasn't listening - that he had to stand."
Chester Miller's father, Robert Lee Miller - who is still legally married to Lyda Miller - has not commented or been available for comment. Milton Police said he had been interviewed, but they could not disclose what he said because of the investigation.
The other two children in the Miller-Hoffman household, a 13-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter, were turned over to a state social services agency after Lyda Miller and Hoffman were arrested on Tuesday. Miller and Hoffman are being held in the Luzerne County Correctional Facility on $500,000 bail each.
Meshach said "nothing was wrong" with either of her daughter's other children when they were taken into custody.
Yesterday morning, Meshach was keeping an eye on her daughter's apartment. With here were two other grandchildren, the sons of another of her four daughters.
One grandchild, Clifford Shipps Jr., 22, said he last saw Chester Lee Miller over the summer. He seemed healthy and weighed at least 110 pounds, he said.
His teenage brother, Timothy Shipps, played with an electronic game and explained why he thought Hoffman had sent his cousin away.
"I think he just thought this kid was a real pain... and put him on a bus to get him the hell out of here," Timothy Shipps said.
Investigators who reconstructed Miller's last days said he boarded the Florida-bound bus Friday afternoon, and arrived in Washington about 6 p.m. Meshach said the youth called home to report his safe arrival. He transferred to another bus, which pulled into Raleigh at 11:15 p.m. There, he got on another bus bound for Savannah. Two more bus rides got him into Milton, about 20 miles north of Pensacola, at 4 p.m. Saturday.
The famished teenager attempted to find his father, Robert Lee Miller, at the trailer but he told police that an uncle turned him away, telling him he wasn't wanted. A family friend drove the youth to the apartment complex where Janice Goodman lives, and dumped him there.
On Wednesday, Goodman said her family would donate a burial plot and was trying to come up with enough money to give Chester Lee Miller a decent burial. Many people offered to contribute financial help but Milton police said a local mortuary and cemetery have offered to pick up all the funeral expenses.
Given what he had endured, Goodman said, "It's the least we can do."
May this child have a special place in Heaven and those that tortured him deserve a special place in hell!!
God bless the lady that took him in and visited him during his last days.
Mother: Son's food was laced
Lyda Miller said her boyfriend drugged sandwiches he packed for Chester Lee Miller's trip to Fla. The teen died Wednesday.
By Marc Schogol and Jonathan Gelb
Inquirer Staff Writers
When Chester Lee Miller began his long bus journey from Hazleton, Pa., to Milton, Fla., last Friday, he brought along some sandwiches to eat on the 34-hour trip.
Those sandwiches, Miller's mother Lyda says, were made especially for the teenager by her longtime live-in boyfriend, Paul Hoffman Sr. - and she says she believes Hoffman laced them with crushed Adderall, the amphetamine her son took to control his hyperactivity.
Lyda Miller's mother, Janet Meshach, said yesterday that when Hoffman finished making the sandwiches, he remarked: "Chetty will be calm on the bus... .
"And I don't care if he dies."
Chester Lee Miller, 18, weighed barely 62 pounds when he arrived in Milton last Saturday looking for his natural father. He died four days later, but not before telling Florida authorities that his mother and Hoffman had abused and starved him for months. He also told of begging strangers in vain for help along the 1,000-mile bus ride.
An autopsy conducted yesterday determined Miller died of peritonitis, an abdominal infection caused by a rupture of his stomach. Tests to determine the cause of the rupture could take several weeks, authorities said.
An associate medical examiner in Florida, Andi Minyard, said possible causes include disease, a hard blow to the abdomen, or ingestion of a toxic substance. Although Miller was not "nutritionally sound," she said, malnutrition alone likely would not have caused the rupture.
"By no means has he been adequately cared for," she added.
Adderall, commonly prescribed for hyperactivity, can be addictive and even fatal if taken in large amounts. Among the medication's side effects are appetite suppression and weight loss. A pharmacist at Temple University Medical Center said yesterday the exact effect of any overdose would depend on the type and amount of drug ingested.
Lyda Miller, 37, and Hoffman, 38, jailed in Luzerne County on charges of aggravated assault and endangerment, gave sharply differing versions of what happened to her son before he was packed aboard the bus for the trip.
Lyda Miller, contending that she also had been abused by her boyfriend of 16 years and that she feared for her life at times, said Hoffman explained to her and her mother why he put the Adderall in the teenager's sandwiches.
"He told me and my mom as we were sitting at the kitchen table [it was] because he felt like it and didn't care if [Chester] lived or died," she said.
When the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader interviewed Lyda Miller at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility on Thursday, she said Hoffman laced each of the four sandwiches with 30 to 40 milligrams of Adderall. Her son's daily dose was a total of 30 milligrams, she said.
Hoffman vehemently denied doctoring the sandwiches, telling the Times Leader that if autopsy tests showed extremely high levels of Adderall in Chester Miller's blood, "I want to know."
In a telephone interview from jail, Hoffman said he told the mother out of spite that he had poisoned the teenager's sandwiches.
When Chester Miller called home last Friday night to report that he'd reached Washington, Lyda Miller said he told her he had eaten the sandwiches. She said she did not tell him what Hoffman said he had done.
Investigators for Hazleton police and Luzerne County were in Florida yesterday for the autopsy. District Attorney David Lupas would not discuss the findings yesterday, but Police Chief Edward Harry said homicide charges could be filed against the mother and her boyfriend.
The other two children in the Miller-Hoffman household, a 13-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl, were removed from the home by child-welfare authorities this week. Authorities said they appeared to be in good health.
Investigators believe the worst of their half-brother's abuse and starvation began in late May, after Miller - who stood 5 feet, 3 inches tall - turned 18.
Before he died, Miller told Florida authorities he had been kept mostly in one room, often forced to stand for hours in a corner. He said he was beaten every day, fed only scraps of food, and not allowed out of the house to go to school or see friends.
In court papers filed when Lyda Miller and Hoffman were arrested Tuesday, the couple admitted forcing the teenager to stand in a corner of their home for as long as 12 hours at a time. If he moved, Hoffman would hit him, according to the affidavit of probable cause.
Lyda Miller has since said that when she tried to feed her son, "my boyfriend would push the food away so I couldn't give it to him, or throw it in the garbage... .
"I couldn't protect my son because I was afraid of my boyfriend. He told me if he ever went to jail, when he got out he'd find me and kill me, and I know he would have."
Chester Miller was dispatched to Florida to go back to his father, Robert Miller, who had sent him to Hazleton last year.
When he arrived on Saturday, he told authorities, he went to a trailer park where his uncle lived. But his uncle told him he wasn't wanted and had a friend drive the teenager to an apartment complex where Robert Miller lived.
At the complex, he knocked on the door of a stranger, Janice Goodman, who, alarmed by his appearance, took him in and eventually called police. Officers summoned an ambulance to take Miller to the Santa Rosa (County) Medical Center.
There, he underwent surgery to remove a large portion of his intestines. Earlier in the week, he nearly died when his heart stopped. He died on Wednesday.
A local funeral home and cemetery have donated a burial plot and arrangements for Miller's funeral. Services will be held at 1 p.m. Monday at Pace Assembly of God Church in Pace, Fla., five miles west of Milton.
Lyda Miller said her boyfriend drugged sandwiches he packed for Chester Lee Miller's trip to Fla. When Hoffman finished making the sandwiches, he remarked: "Chetty will be calm on the bus... .
"And I don't care if he dies."
Would anyone on this post ignore him?
Tell it to the judge...
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