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.
Now you get to live the rest of your life knowing you were responsible for your son starving to death far, far from "home". Hey, but at least you're alive.