True Crime Vault: You've Got Jail

Summary

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20/20 True Crime Vault: “You've Got Jail”

ABC News
Release Date: March 3, 2026

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode delves into the infamous case of Cherie Miller, focusing on how her manipulative use of online relationships led to the murder of her husband, Bruce Miller, and the subsequent suicide of her lover, Jerry Cassaday. Framed as "the nation’s first Internet murder," the episode explores the intersection of digital anonymity, obsession, and crime in the early era of AOL chatrooms. Through emotional interviews, trial highlights, and firsthand accounts, the story unpacks the tragic chain of events and their impact on the families involved.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Cherie Miller’s Background and Early Life

• Childhood Trauma: Cherie details a troubled upbringing in Flint, Michigan, marked by sexual abuse and family instability ([04:45]–[05:02]).
  • Cherie Miller: "I want to say probably three or four. And kids you take on like everything is your fault. Like, I felt responsible in that moment, not understanding what I was feeling." ([04:48])
• Struggles and Marriages: Married twice by her late twenties and raising three children as a single mom ([05:02]–[05:10]).
• Seeking Stability: Finds security with Bruce Miller, a hardworking General Motors employee with a 20-year age gap ([07:24]).

2. The Allure and Danger of Online Life

• AOL Obsession: Cherie becomes immersed in AOL chatrooms, creating multiple sexy screen names and spending hours online to satisfy her need for attention and control ([13:32]).
  • Cherie Miller: "I spent hours upon hours online talking to people...I wanted to be in control of everything, obsessively in control of that man." ([02:03])
• Internet Addiction: Admits on air to being an online sex addict ([02:21]).
• “It was like a video game”: She describes manipulating men in online relationships as playing and conquering different “levels” ([01:18], [74:33]).

3. The Jerry Cassaday Affair

• Meeting Online: Cherie connects with Jerry Cassaday, an ex-law enforcement officer turned casino pit boss in Reno ([14:22]).
• Physical Relationship: Despite being newly married to Bruce, Cherie travels to Reno, quickly escalates her online affair into a physical one ([15:09]).
• Manipulation through Lies: Cherie claims pregnancy, sends staged photos and videos, and fabricates tales of abuse to manipulate Jerry ([26:16]–[28:03], [75:30]).
• Escalating Deception: Repeatedly tells Jerry that Bruce is violent, even falsely asserting mafia involvement and that he caused miscarriages ([29:00]–[32:56]).

4. The Murder of Bruce Miller

• Cherie’s Role: Despite her stable marriage, continues her deceit and manipulation, orchestrating Bruce’s murder by convincing Jerry he must act to save her ([34:03]–[36:07]).
  • Cherie Miller: “I told Bruce that I had ordered pizza and gave him a specific time that they said it Would be done.” ([34:20])
• Aftermath: Cherie plays the role of devastated widow, even directing suspicions toward an employee who owed Bruce money ([36:43]–[37:12]).

5. The Unraveling: Suicide, Confession, and Evidence

• Jerry’s Downward Spiral: After being manipulated and left by Cherie, Jerry struggles with depression and ultimately kills himself ([45:51]).
• The Briefcase Bombshell: Jerry leaves behind a briefcase with detailed letters, chat logs, and a confession of killing Bruce under Cherie’s influence ([47:28]–[51:02]).
  • Jerry (suicide note): “I was just so blind and so stupid and so much in love.” ([51:02])
• Family Dilemma: Jerry’s family must decide whether to shield his reputation or expose Cherie’s role; they choose justice ([52:10]–[52:46]).

6. The Investigation and Trial

• Shift in Police Focus: Jerry’s confession and physical evidence redirect the investigation from the wrongly accused former employee to Cherie ([53:09]).
• Cherie’s Arrest and Interrogation: Initially denies any involvement, claiming messages are fabricated ([54:39]–[56:09]).
• Digital Evidence: Forensics confirm that emails and messages implicating her could not have been faked ([63:35]–[63:49]).
• Trial Drama: The defense attempts to blame Jerry as a jilted lover and point fingers elsewhere, but Cherie’s own admission and evidence lead to conviction ([56:26]–[65:16]).
  • Cherie Miller: “Like it's over. Like people really know what I am, what I did. I'm going to prison.” ([65:39])

7. Legal Aftershocks and Final Confession

• Appeal and Retrial: Cherie is briefly released on appeal when Jerry’s suicide note is ruled inadmissible, creating anxiety in Bruce’s and Jerry’s families ([66:07]–[67:23]).
• Confession and Remorse: Years later, Cherie pens a letter confessing her guilt and apologizing to the victims’ families ([68:03]–[69:43]).
  • Cherie Miller: “They have waited 16 years to hear me say, I am guilty. I did it.” ([69:40])
• Motivations: Reveals her true motive — fear of Bruce discovering her real self, not money ([76:55]):
  • Cherie Miller: "The consequence of Bruce dying was smaller than what the consequence would have been if he knew that I wasn't who he thought I was." ([76:09])

8. Lasting Impact and Regret

• Victim Families’ Response: Most will never forgive; others hope Cherie has genuine remorse, but skepticism remains ([81:06]–[82:00]).
• Cherie’s Self-Reflection: Expresses regret for the pain caused, particularly to her own children ([82:08]).
  • Cherie Miller: "I can't believe how much I've put them through. And they still love me. They still call me Mom. I cherish every one of those moments." ([82:08])
• No Parole Expected: Experts expect she will spend the rest of her life in prison ([83:42]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It was like a video game. And each man in each relationship was another level to me. And each level was harder. It was tan. How much I could get away with, how much I could make somebody believe.”
  — Cherie Miller ([01:18])

• "She manipulated him into thinking that Bruce was a terrible, horrible person and that the world would have been a better place without him."
  — Investigator/Reporter ([76:19])

• “If I could just say it was so I could get money, it wouldn't sound as bad as what it really was... The consequence of Bruce dying was smaller than what the consequence would have been if he knew that I wasn't who he thought I was.”
  — Cherie Miller ([76:09])

• “I am guilty. I did it. The fact that she confessed was a big deal. Because she had maintained her innocence.”
  — Investigator/Reporter ([69:40])

• "I forgive her, but still makes your skin crawl. Knowing that there's people out there that can do these kind of things. For all of the ugly devastation in this case, I hope she comes out of it understanding what she did and with a genuine attitude of making amends."
  — Detective/Police Officer ([81:37])

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Key Timestamps by Segment

• Cherie Miller’s Background & Childhood: [02:31] – [05:10]
• Marriage to Bruce Miller: [07:15] – [08:40]
• AOL Addiction & Sex-Laden Chats: [11:39] – [15:09]
• Affair & Pregnancy Lies: [18:21] – [32:56]
• Bruce Miller’s Murder: [34:03] – [36:07], [42:04] – [45:05]
• Jerry Cassaday’s Suicide & the Briefcase: [45:51] – [53:09]
• Investigation & Arrest: [53:09] – [57:22]
• Trial & Defense Strategies: [57:22] – [65:16]
• Appeals, Release, and Final Confession: [66:07] – [69:43]
• Cherie’s Motivation & Admission: [76:09] – [77:35]
• Victim Family Responses & Cherie’s Regret: [81:06] – [83:14]
• End and Outlook: [83:42]

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Tone and Narrative

The episode is told in a classic true-crime, investigative style: urgent, direct, and emotionally charged. Voices of family members, detectives, and journalists punctuate the story with disbelief, pain, and at times, empathy. Cherie’s own words reveal deep denial, cunning manipulation, and finally a raw (though sometimes doubted) remorse. The episode maintains empathy for the victims while showing the chilling way technology can compound old human failings.

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Conclusion

“You've Got Jail” is a sobering journey through a notorious crime that marked the collision of human frailty and burgeoning internet culture. With vivid detail, ABC’s 20/20 unpacks how sex, loneliness, and deception online blurred the lines between fantasy and fatal reality, leaving devastation in both digital and real worlds — and a case that continues to haunt all involved.

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Transcript

[Narrator/Host]

Step into the 2020 True Crime Vault, where you'll hear our most gripping stories.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Because she played these games, my son died. He says I was so blind and so stupid and so much in.

[Narrator/Host]

So we need to add. Call. Tell me the number. So, like that, right?

[Cherie Miller]

Yep.

[Investigator/Reporter]

All right.

[Narrator/Host]

Hi, is this Cherie?

[Cherie Miller]

Yes, ma'. Am.

[Narrator/Host]

Hey, Cherie, it's Juju Chang calling. How are you?

[Cherie Miller]

I'm good.

[Investigator/Reporter]

How are you?

[Narrator/Host]

I'm on the phone with Cherie Paulette Kitley Miller. She's a mom, she's a karaoke fan, but right now she's at the women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Michigan.

[Cherie Miller]

So I get up in the morning about 6:12. I have a real job that I go to eight hours a day. Come back, take my shower, make my food, I paint. They always have to be doing something.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Sheree Miller is accused of using sex, lies, and the Internet to get men to do what she wanted them to do, even if it meant breaking the law.

[Cherie Miller]

It was like a video game. And each man in each relationship was another level to me. And each level was harder. It was tan. How much I could get away with, how much I could make somebody believe.

[Narrator/Host]

Prosecutors say that Cherie's online antics left two men dead.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Sheree's attorney says she's only guilty of creating a complex online fantasy life.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Most of it was sex chat. It would get very graphic, very detailed about going through sexual encounters over the Internet. And she would describe lesbian fantasies, and it would go back and forth.

[Cherie Miller]

I spent hours upon hours online talking to people. It's sex. Like, I wanted to be in control of everything, obsessively in control of that man.

[Narrator/Host]

You were an online sex addict?

[Cherie Miller]

Very much.

[Narrator/Host]

Cherie says she never told her whole story. And now, after years in prison, she says she wants to come clean on 2020.

[Cherie Miller]

Well, this is the first time I've been in prison. Tell the truth about this.

[Narrator/Host]

And this is the first time you're admitting this?

[Detective/Police Officer]

Yeah, you've got jail.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Cherie was born in Flint, Michigan, which is a town about one hour northwest of Detroit. Recent years, sadly, it's considered perhaps the epicenter of the rust belt.

[Family Member/Friend]

When I grew up, Flint was booming,

[Detective/Police Officer]

and there were upwards of 200,000 people here.

[Family Member/Friend]

The plants were going. We had over 80,000 General Motors jobs

[Detective/Police Officer]

and all the ancillary jobs that went with that.

[Investigator/Reporter]

You didn't worry about going to college or getting, you know, a trade degree or whatever.

[Cherie Miller]

Because GM was so big.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Everybody was just about guaranteed a job here.

[Family Member/Friend]

What do we want?

[Detective/Police Officer]

What do we want and when General Motors pulled out, things turned the 75, 5000 or so autoworker jobs were gone down to about 7500.

[Cherie Miller]

Hi, I'm Michael Moore.

[Detective/Police Officer]

In my hometown of Flint, Michigan, General Motors closed the factories. If you remember the movie Roger and Me, the Michael Moore movie, about all the layoffs at various GM facilities there. And that kind of, kind of sums it up for that city at that particular period.

[Family Member/Friend]

When GM left, they tore everything down. And it's just miles and miles of basement, abandoned, empty land that used to be productive factories.

[Investigator/Reporter]

As far as where Cherie was living, probably more rural, where there's several junkyards where people go and take cars or sell parts and do that kind of thing.

[Cherie Miller]

Growing up, where I grew up, it was like your normal middle class neighborhood. Every summer they sent us to Florida with my grandma and papa, where, like, that was my safe space.

[Family Member/Friend]

She had a hard childhood, product of several divorces. That her mom had different men coming and going in her household.

[Detective/Police Officer]

She talks about being sexually abused.

[Narrator/Host]

How old were you when you were first sexually assaulted?

[Cherie Miller]

I want to say probably three or four. And kids you take on like everything is your fault. Like, I felt responsible in that moment, not understanding what I was feeling.

[Family Member/Friend]

She moved out. She got married when she was 17.

[Investigator/Reporter]

By the age of about 27, 28, she'd been married twice.

[Narrator/Host]

She had three kids.

[Investigator/Reporter]

As a single mom with three children, Cherie really had to hustle. She worked as a representative for Mary Kay Cosmetics. She worked in a nursing home. And she also got a job doing the books at a local scrapyard called BND Auto that was owned by Bruce Miller.

[Family Member/Friend]

Bruce Miller was born and raised here in Flint, Michigan. Did what a lot of people did as soon as they got out of high school. Went to work for General Motors. Always into cars.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Yep. He actually, when he's, man, I'm thinking his first car.

[Family Member/Friend]

Cause we used to have horses and stuff.

[Detective/Police Officer]

He traded a horse for his first car at 16, 17 years old.

[Family Member/Friend]

And was always into trying to race cars, whatever he loved.

[Detective/Police Officer]

He was a huge NASCAR fan. Dale Earnhardt was his favorite driver.

[Family Member/Friend]

He just was a hard worker, went to work every day. In fact, he stayed working on third shift, which is a hard shift to work 30, 40 years. But that shift allowed Bruce to tinker at the junkyard.

[Detective/Police Officer]

He was really close to retiring from General Motors.

[Family Member/Friend]

And he would have just had the junkyard to fall back on and do what he liked to do.

[Detective/Police Officer]

To have a salvage yard with all those parts and all that stuff for him to play with. Was just his idea of heaven.

[Family Member/Friend]

He also went through several marriages over his lifetime. He was married three times before he

[Detective/Police Officer]

had to be married.

[Family Member/Friend]

He had to be a married guy. He told me he knew where the court house was.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Bruce Miller was a lot older than Sherry and he met her through the work at the salvage yard.

[Cherie Miller]

This is a junkyard. This is work.

[Narrator/Host]

So what was the spark? Who pursued whom?

[Cherie Miller]

I pursued him.

[Narrator/Host]

Why? Brute.

[Cherie Miller]

Bruce was not interested. I pursued him.

[Detective/Police Officer]

It was a short courtship between Sherri and Bruce and their courtship was maybe four months.

[Family Member/Friend]

As soon as they started dating, she moved herself in with the kids.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Perhaps the 20 year difference in age between Cherie and Bruce might have raised some eyebrows. But this was a really solid man. He was a great family guy. He was a great husband. He treated her kids as his own. He was an all around great guy. I think she didn't have really any place to live, no real stability for the kids.

[Detective/Police Officer]

And so Bruce provided that. Because I asked him, you know, are

[Family Member/Friend]

you going to marry this one? That's the first thing I said.

[Detective/Police Officer]

He told me, no.

[Family Member/Friend]

Well, it wasn't. But shortly after that, they went to.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Well, they went to Vegas.

[Family Member/Friend]

They went to Vegas and we all

[Cherie Miller]

at home thought they were going to get buried.

[Narrator/Host]

Then, sure enough, Bruce and Cherie elope at a Las Vegas wedding chapel.

[Detective/Police Officer]

There's a beautiful picture of Cherie sort of looking into a mirror there. It was an odd coupling just by visualizing it and by the age difference. But at the wedding pictures, he looked happy. He liked to be married. And she seemed happy too.

[Narrator/Host]

That wedding photo was taken in Las Vegas on April 23, 1999. By the end of the year, Bruce would be dead, you know, and we

[Detective/Police Officer]

opened the door and walked around the counter,

[Narrator/Host]

my brother in law laying on the floor. Sheree Miller's life was very difficult. She says she was abused sexually as a child. And to add to that pain, one of her own children became a victim of abuse.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Today on Montel, please welcome Cherie to the show.

[Narrator/Host]

Three months before she married Bruce, Cherie appeared on the Montel Williams show and shared how her ex husband had former physically abused their infant son.

[Cherie Miller]

Baby was crying and he had dropped him in the kitchen on the floor. And he couldn't get him to quit crying, so he threw him, I think they said, four to six feet against a wall.

[Investigator/Reporter]

If you were a person who had a grievance and wanted to have a national audience listen to your concerns, you'd go to the Montel Williams show.

[Detective/Police Officer]

How much time did your husband get

[Cherie Miller]

for them, four and a half months of work relief.

[Narrator/Host]

Why did you appear on Montel Williams?

[Cherie Miller]

Trying to change the laws in Michigan. The state of Michigan gave him visitation rights and made me show up with him so he could see his son.

[Family Member/Friend]

When she was on the Montella Williams Show, I think that started her craving for more attention. She was expecting people to be really supporting her, but she never really got the recognition that she wanted.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Compared to some of Sheree's previous lovers, her new husband Bruce, was a gem.

[Detective/Police Officer]

He offered her stability. And as a mother with three kids that she needed to raise, that was attractive. But it wasn't enough.

[Investigator/Reporter]

It didn't take long before she started taking advantage of all of this stability brought to her. She started spending a lot of Bruce's money, including plenty on clothes and toys for her children. You get everything you want. Yeah.

[Cherie Miller]

Then you're spoiled.

[Narrator/Host]

Ron Brant.

[Family Member/Friend]

She's racking up his credit card. Very short period of time. She racks up over $46,000 in a credit card debt. And this is a man who's worked his whole life, paid his debts.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Well, she started paying with things with one credit card and taking another credit

[Family Member/Friend]

card and paying them.

[Detective/Police Officer]

That's how she was getting her. Without Bruce knowing about money, I was

[Cherie Miller]

on a spending spree. I ran up Bruce's charge cards and took all the money in the house. It was like a continuous void that I was trying to fill.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Despite her new marriage, it seems that Cherise still craved the attention of men. And she finds this brand new landscape to start searching for new connections. It's called aol and she is busy online a lot.

[Detective/Police Officer]

The Internet at that point was very new. AOL was the giant at that time. And people were just getting their home computers and learning how to navigate their way through the World Wide Web.

[Family Member/Friend]

AOL came about, chat rooms started coming on. She started using that and opened up a whole new world to her of talking to different people.

[Investigator/Reporter]

It was so big, everyone was so intrigued by this whole platform that a Hollywood movie was made called you've Got Mail, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. I turn on my computer, I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words.

[Cherie Miller]

You've got mail.

[Narrator/Host]

Today, the nation's largest online service is

[Detective/Police Officer]

going to get even bigger. America Online with 9 million subscribers.

[Narrator/Host]

We'll add two and a half million more from CompuServe.

[Detective/Police Officer]

America Online, the colossus of cyberspace. Everybody logged in to aol and at that point, it was the only one in the industry.

[Investigator/Reporter]

America Online, so Easy to use. So easy to get started. With email, instant messages, and a buddy

[Narrator/Host]

list, it's the easiest way to keep in touch.

[Family Member/Friend]

You've got the AOL disc. You signed up, and you could always get a free AOL account. I still have an AOL account.

[Narrator/Host]

You've got mail.

[Detective/Police Officer]

More and more people are going into Internet chat rooms looking for romance and finding it.

[Investigator/Reporter]

It's the new social avenue, I think, of the 90s.

[Detective/Police Officer]

AOL at that time had had these chat rooms where there would be a whole bunch of people talking about just about everything. Her screen names were all pretty sexy.

[Family Member/Friend]

Cherie had a lot of screen names.

[Detective/Police Officer]

There were over a dozen of them. And they were all like, look at me, I'm sexy.

[Family Member/Friend]

Like, sexy kitten for you. Just looking at her screen names suggests that she was sexually active.

[Detective/Police Officer]

She seemed to have a very high opinion of herself.

[Narrator/Host]

How much time were you spending online?

[Cherie Miller]

I didn't get a from in front of that computer. Bruce worked at the shop, and he had his business, so he was gone a lot. So I spent hours upon hours online talking to people.

[Investigator/Reporter]

While Cherie is perusing the Internet, one particular screen name catches her eye. That's JLC1006. The man's name is Jerry Cassaday, and it turns out he's a pit boss at Areno, Nevada casino. Hi, baby.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Hey, my little sex kitten.

[Investigator/Reporter]

I wanna do whatever I wanna do.

[Cherie Miller]

It's feeling good to me, bab.

[Investigator/Reporter]

It seems all this online flirting was heating up the keyboards. Because it didn't take long for this to turn into an actual physical romance.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Three months after she and Bruce got married, she's on her way out to Reno to meet Jerry Cassaday. She got all dressed up and went to the casino to meet Jerry.

[Narrator/Host]

What attracted you to Jerry?

[Cherie Miller]

It was a dangerous side feel.

[Detective/Police Officer]

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[Investigator/Reporter]

The ink is barely dry on the marriage license between Cherie and Bruce before she's already developing an online relationship with Jerry Cassaday, whom she's never met.

[Family Member/Friend]

Jerry Cassidy grew up in the Kansas City area, Missouri.

[Investigator/Reporter]

He was the youngest of the four boys. He was competitive. He thought he could do anything that his big brothers could do.

[Family Member/Friend]

A lot of good memories. Every year we'd go deer hunting. He had a special tree that he loved to hunt out of and nobody could get close to that area. That was Jerry's area. At a young age he actually became a police officer and it was very short time. He was promoted to lieutenant.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Jerry would meet his wife, a woman named Barbara who worked as a dispatcher at his department. She had two sons from a previous marriage. And then they had their own child together, a son named James.

[Detective/Police Officer]

I was proud of my father.

[Family Member/Friend]

I remember helping him get dressed in the mornings and watching him get his uniform on, and just a whole different person when he put on that uniform.

[Detective/Police Officer]

He was enamored by the sheriff and the undersheriff. But he started to see a lot of discrepancies.

[Family Member/Friend]

Came to find out that there was some corruption going on. He believed the undersheriff had taken and falsified a document in a murder case. They brought in a special prosecutor. As a result of the investigations, county sheriff was removed from office. In the process of that, Jerry knew that his time as a police officer was pretty much up. It's hard for someone in law enforcement to go after their boss. I mean, that's career suicide. And in Jerry's case, it was career suicide.

[Investigator/Reporter]

He was never the same after that.

[Family Member/Friend]

It spills over in every area of life.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Your purpose, your recognition is taken away. After he left the department, he got a job as security. But Harrah's casino, which was just opening

[Investigator/Reporter]

in Kansas City, he continued to. He really had a hard time grappling with the events of his life. And he ultimately decided just to get the heck out of Kansas City. They transferred him. Harris did. They had a position opened up in Reno, and he thought maybe a change of pace would be a good idea.

[Narrator/Host]

So Reno is a tourist town. It's also a gambling town, but it is not nearly as far as crazy as Vegas. Jerry was looking forward to having a fresh start. And right away, he was promoted to a dealer. We worked at Harrah's property in downtown Reno, and we're both dealers. 2am to 10am graveyard. I remember meeting him. Someone goes, oh, you know, this is Jerry. He's going to be on your shift.

[Detective/Police Officer]

And it was like, oh, yeah, we'll have some fun.

[Family Member/Friend]

It was Gloria Taylor and Carol Slaughter, and they kind of were like the big sisters he never had. They tried to guide him through life, tried to help him.

[Narrator/Host]

My own personal feeling was that he

[Cherie Miller]

was just kind of going through a

[Investigator/Reporter]

midlife crisis, you know, trying to start over.

[Detective/Police Officer]

But it just wasn't working out.

[Family Member/Friend]

As far as I can remember. As he went to work for the casinos, that's when the drinking really picked up. He was depressed.

[Narrator/Host]

In Nevada, drinking and gambling is entertainment,

[Detective/Police Officer]

and it's a way of cd.

[Narrator/Host]

It's right out in front in the

[Investigator/Reporter]

open for everybody to see. He started drinking way too much.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Yeah.

[Investigator/Reporter]

And he just spiraled.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Mom was having a hard time trying to find a job out there. Money's getting tight, led to fights, led to arguments. She moved back to Kansas City.

[Family Member/Friend]

I stayed out with him at some point in time during that, I guess, he was meeting and conversing with women and stuff online.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Jerry, of course, is newly single, and he's looking for love. He goes on to AOL and almost immediately finds the sexy Cherie Miller. And, boy, does it get hot and heavy in the chat room pretty quickly. I'm all yours to do with me whatever you feel fit.

[Detective/Police Officer]

The amount of instant messaging and emails back and forth is enormous, Talking about everything under the sun.

[Family Member/Friend]

He's going through a divorce. He's drinking a lot, he's depressed, and he's having financial problems. SRI comes along. She's paying attention to him, giving him that ego boost that he needed. But also, according to her, she's rich.

[Detective/Police Officer]

She's telling him that she owns nursing homes, that she owns a junkyard, that she has possible lawsuit settlements coming up soon that are going to give her riches. Jerry, who's who, you know, who has money trouble, sees somebody with money taking an interest in him. And of course, he responds to that.

[Investigator/Reporter]

I think she fulfilled his every fantasy. And he told me himself that he said, mom, she is the woman of my dreams. I never dreamed I would ever meet anyone like her.

[Cherie Miller]

Right after Bruce and I got married is when I met Jerry for the first time when I went to Reno with my friend Laura.

[Narrator/Host]

What attracted you to Jerry?

[Cherie Miller]

For me, like, back then, it was like family at home and then the dangerous side.

[Narrator/Host]

So, like, you were looking for danger, right?

[Investigator/Reporter]

The weekend that she came into town, we all knew that she was coming

[Narrator/Host]

in, and he was so excited. And as soon as she hit the floor, he was taking her around and

[Investigator/Reporter]

introducing her to Gloria and I.

[Detective/Police Officer]

She got all dressed up, put her best foot forward.

[Cherie Miller]

I went to the table where he was dealing and played blackjack. And we kind of played like we didn't really know each other at all. And I know I was drinking a lot that night. It felt like dangerous and a little scared, but excited by it.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Not only does she meet him, but she sleeps with him.

[Narrator/Host]

We knew the first time they spent the night together.

[Investigator/Reporter]

I think the whole casino flooring

[Cherie Miller]

the

[Investigator/Reporter]

first night they spent together.

[Detective/Police Officer]

At one point, she sends a photograph of herself wearing the same clothes that she wore that night to Jerry. This is our first night together.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Cherie returns home to Michigan to be with Bruce and the kids. But every opportunity, she Gets. Cherie is back online, trying to keep that fire burning between her and Jerry.

[Family Member/Friend]

Sheree Miller starts sending pictures of her in different states of undress. Not only does she send them pictures, she starts sending them videos of herself masturbating.

[Detective/Police Officer]

She labels it for Jerry's eyes only, which is clearly something to keep his interest sustained.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Most of the online chats between Cherie and Jerry consisted of sex talk.

[Detective/Police Officer]

You are by far the sexiest woman I've ever known.

[Investigator/Reporter]

But shortly after she actually met Jerry, she announces to him online that she's pregnant with his child.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Burn, boy, burn. I tease, tease, tease.

[Narrator/Host]

Jerry is ecstatic about the pregnancy, but the news quickly sours.

[Family Member/Friend]

So she tells Jerry that Bruce found out she was pregnant.

[Investigator/Reporter]

It I never thought I would ever tell you that.

[Cherie Miller]

He hits.

[Investigator/Reporter]

I got in trouble because I was with you.

[Cherie Miller]

We are now into our descent in

[Narrator/Host]

the Reno Tahoe International Airport.

[Detective/Police Officer]

She going to take you where she wants to. She going to take you. You in her game.

[Narrator/Host]

She gonna think Sheree Miller is a newlywed with three kids. This should have been her honeymoon period, but she's making multiple trips to Reno, leaving her kids with her in laws, Chuck and Judy Miller.

[Family Member/Friend]

We just wondered why she was making

[Detective/Police Officer]

so many, so many trips, and she

[Family Member/Friend]

just said she was going down there to do. Had a lot of people buying her

[Detective/Police Officer]

Mary Kay stuff down there.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Not only is Cherie having an affair with Jerry, but she tells him that she's pregnant with his child.

[Family Member/Friend]

He was ecstatic, overjoyed. They were making plans, you know, to get together, live together.

[Investigator/Reporter]

She sent me a long email how madly in love she was with Jerry and how she wanted to make a home with him and all of the plans that they had going down.

[Narrator/Host]

Cherie even sends Jerry a video called my family 1999.

[Cherie Miller]

This is work. Not as attractive as your work, is it?

[Investigator/Reporter]

Now, in this video, Jerry is watching images of her children playing, frolicking, having fun, this beautiful domestic setting. And she's trying to show Jerry that this is what your life can be like. If we are together and we raise our baby with my children, sure you

[Cherie Miller]

can live with us, huh?

[Family Member/Friend]

He's all excited. He's elated. The woman he loves, he's gonna have a baby with. They're gonna be rich. They're gonna live in these nice houses.

[Investigator/Reporter]

But Jerry's sense of joy and elation takes a daunting turn one day when he finds some really shocking emails in his inbox.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Jerry begins getting emails purportedly from Bruce Miller under his beady junk email address from the business, saying that he knows about Cherie and Jerry and their relationship.

[Family Member/Friend]

So Sheree tells Jerry that Bruce found out that she was pregnant and that he beat her, and that caused her to lose the baby.

[Detective/Police Officer]

She sends him a picture of her torso with alleged bruises all over her body. There was a lot of bruising.

[Family Member/Friend]

You would have to beat her a lot.

[Narrator/Host]

So Cherie is now telling Jerry that her husband beat her so badly that she miscarried. And in Jerry's mind, his baby is gone, and he's helpless to do anything about it. When you broke the news that that baby was gone, what did you say?

[Cherie Miller]

I think I wrote him on a chat. I didn't tell him on the phone. He was devastated.

[Narrator/Host]

Devastated, devastated. Devastation.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Absolute devastation.

[Narrator/Host]

I mean, he was like, one minute

[Investigator/Reporter]

he's the highest high, and the next,

[Narrator/Host]

it's like, what happened? You know? And you.

[Detective/Police Officer]

You almost feel like you're scraping them off the floor. He tells Cherie that she needs to leave her husband. Get away. Just leave Bruce. Come live with me. Bring the kids. We'll live happily ever after. Well, she said that Bruce was involved with the mafia and would beat her.

[Family Member/Friend]

Well, we know it's not true, because that was. He's never had a woman in his life. You know what I'm saying? And then she says he's in the mob. It was just getting ridiculous what was going on there. And we knew that wasn't Bruce.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Cherie was hot and cold. Some days she loves him. Someday she doesn't. Sometimes she wants to come to Reno, sometimes she doesn't.

[Family Member/Friend]

He'll find us. He'll put a bullet in our head. I can't leave him. But on the same token, I want to be with you.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Despite the potential alleged danger from Bruce, Cherie keeps making trips to Reno. And when she's there with Jerry, he is ecstatic. But when she goes back home to Bruce in Michigan, he falls into deep depression.

[Detective/Police Officer]

All of the turmoil involved in this relationship is hard on Jerry, who doesn't deal with it well. And one night, after getting off work at his casino, he goes to another

[Narrator/Host]

nearby casino, and he was playing blackjack and drinking.

[Investigator/Reporter]

He got into some sort of a

[Narrator/Host]

heated discussion.

[Detective/Police Officer]

He gets belligerent, and finally they call security to usher him out of the casino. On the way out, he slams the door, which hits one of the security people, which causes the police to come and arrest him. Got home from school that day, he wasn't there, which was strange.

[Family Member/Friend]

I got online trying to figure out

[Detective/Police Officer]

if anybody knew where he was.

[Family Member/Friend]

That's When I was able to message

[Detective/Police Officer]

a friend of his that he worked

[Narrator/Host]

with, his son called me, and he said, do you know where my dad is?

[Detective/Police Officer]

I'm like, uh, oh. The first phone call I called was jail. And that's where he was.

[Family Member/Friend]

So his family kind of gather around him, say, listen, Jerry, you're not doing well out there. Come back, be with family. I helped him move back to Missouri, Moved into basement apartment and stuff with my cousin.

[Detective/Police Officer]

He's got to work on his alcohol addiction problems. And so he begins going to aa.

[Narrator/Host]

He was telling me he was going to church again, and it sounded like

[Investigator/Reporter]

things were kind of coming back together for him.

[Detective/Police Officer]

But he was, of course, still in touch with Cherie.

[Family Member/Friend]

He carried that laptop everywhere he went. First thing he would do is connect with the laptop and get back on instant messages. It was a constant, constant distance and stuff. I could tell he was in love. That's what he wanted to spend his time doing is basically talking with Cherie.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Jerry begins to receive word of a new pregnancy. And in fact, it's twins.

[Narrator/Host]

Twins. This is huge news. And of course, Jerry is over the moon, especially because it happened so shortly after Cherie reported she miscarried.

[Family Member/Friend]

She was sending photos of the sonogram and her belly. And, you know, Jerry was just tickled to death to see and, you know, here's my kids. He was ecstatic.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Once again, Bruce storms into this relationship with brutal emails. Jerry opens his computer expecting to hear from Cherie, and he sees an email from BD Junk telling him that Cherie is going to get rid of the two bastards in her belly, that he

[Family Member/Friend]

had created his babies. Not only one, but then two twins had been killed by Bruce Miller. And that just enraged him as it would any man.

[Detective/Police Officer]

We were good friends. Me and Bruce got along great. I went to work for them down at the salvage yard. Framework paint work, mechanic work. You name it, I did it. He'd give you the shirt off his back. That's just simple as it gets.

[Narrator/Host]

But Bruce Miller's wife, Cherie, is now deep into an affair. She tells her lover, Jerry Cassaday, that he got her pregnant. And Jerry is ecstatic at the prospect of being a dad again.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Then Cherie informs him that Bruce's violence terminated those pregnancies.

[Narrator/Host]

And that terrible news will set off a series of tragic events.

[Family Member/Friend]

So Bruce Miller is just at work a regular day for him. He's getting ready to go home, have dinner with his family.

[Cherie Miller]

I had told Bruce that I had ordered pizza and gave him a specific time that they said it Would be done.

[Detective/Police Officer]

And it's getting later and later and Bruce isn't showing up with the food. She calls chuck and judy miller, Bruce's brother and sister in law, to go. Please go to the junkyard and see if there's anything wrong. Well, she was all freaked out.

[Narrator/Host]

He should have been home.

[Investigator/Reporter]

And so it was like, oh my

[Narrator/Host]

God, you know, where is.

[Family Member/Friend]

He says, well, I'll jump in the

[Detective/Police Officer]

truck and go up to the junkyard

[Family Member/Friend]

and, you know, see if it's around there.

[Detective/Police Officer]

We opened the door and walked around the counter and he was laying on the floor in a pool of blood.

[Family Member/Friend]

So I told her to call 91 1-COME-911.

[Cherie Miller]

Yeah, I need a police and ambulance at B and B. Auto sale or auto salvage.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Okay, what's the problem?

[Cherie Miller]

My brother in law owns it and

[Narrator/Host]

he's laying on the floor and there's blood.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Okay, is he breathing?

[Cherie Miller]

I don't think so. Where is he bleeding from? It looks like from the head.

[Family Member/Friend]

He ended up laying face down. There's just a big pool of blood

[Detective/Police Officer]

on the ground like he hit his head.

[Cherie Miller]

Okay, you need to find out if he's breathing.

[Family Member/Friend]

Laid my hand on him with head on.

[Detective/Police Officer]

He was cold and he's cold.

[Cherie Miller]

He's cold, he's stiff.

[Narrator/Host]

Yeah.

[Investigator/Reporter]

They asked if we wanted to do cpr.

[Narrator/Host]

He said there's no pulse, no nothing.

[Cherie Miller]

Does it look like he fell out of the chair and busted his head open? No, it looks like something went wrong.

[Narrator/Host]

I don't know.

[Detective/Police Officer]

The murder weapon was a shotgun. Bruce sort of took a blast right to the upper chest and neck. There was absolutely no evidence at all. No fingerprints, no footprints, no tracks, nothing.

[Family Member/Friend]

So about 2:00 clock in the morning, eyes went to sheree's house and informed her of what was going on.

[Detective/Police Officer]

And she is desolate. She is wailing on the floor, crying. When you go to make a death notification where, you know there is violence, you're always watching how people respond.

[Family Member/Friend]

And if you're trying to hide something, it's not natural. So you got to be very methodical. We're always looking at body language. We're looking at, you know, how they should respond with these circumstances.

[Detective/Police Officer]

But she seemed very appropriate.

[Family Member/Friend]

She was visibly upset, crying.

[Detective/Police Officer]

And after the first contact with her, I didn't suspect her.

[Cherie Miller]

And he started asking me questions about who I thought it could be.

[Family Member/Friend]

Cherie had mentioned that Bruce had problems with a gentleman named John Hutchinson.

[Cherie Miller]

I remember, like me saying that John owed Bruce money, which he did, and that they had been arguing about it.

[Family Member/Friend]

He had borrowed a large sum of money, which ended up being $2,000. I guess at that point you want to say he was our number one suspect

[Detective/Police Officer]

on the funeral. John Hutchison shows up with his wife to pay his respects to his friend Bruce. Cherie started screaming and crying because she thought for sure that John had did it. Mommy. Mommy. Daddy. Daddy. Get him out of here. He's the one who murdered my husband.

[Family Member/Friend]

So I went and asked John to leave so she would quit.

[Detective/Police Officer]

I'm not welcome here after what's been done until this is cleared up. Exact words. That was a sickening feeling.

[Cherie Miller]

Good morning, Harold.

[Investigator/Reporter]

It's scary.

[Detective/Police Officer]

One of the big things that really helped us focus on John was his brother Harold.

[Cherie Miller]

Sergeant Kevin Chandler, County Sheriff's Department was Harold Hutchinson.

[Family Member/Friend]

We begin talking to Harold.

[Cherie Miller]

We're talking about the murder of Bruce Miller. Can you state your full name, Harold? Hans Hutchison.

[Family Member/Friend]

Harold made the statement that John had called him the day after the homicide and said everything's taken care of with Bruce. You said he was disposed of.

[Cherie Miller]

That was his words, yeah. What did he mean by disposed of?

[Detective/Police Officer]

It means that he was gone.

[Cherie Miller]

Gone means what? Dead.

[Narrator/Host]

Not only that. Harold told police that he actually heard his brother threatening Bruce about that money he owed him because he said he

[Cherie Miller]

was going to kill him because of the money that he owned him.

[Family Member/Friend]

And you thought he was serious?

[Detective/Police Officer]

I have no earthly idea where that comment came from, but yeah. Did Harold say it? Yeah. Because Harold's not all.

[Family Member/Friend]

So now we got more reasons to go talk to John.

[Detective/Police Officer]

There was 50 police cars at my house, surrounding me like I was a fricking criminal. And I had no idea in hell what was going on. Confiscating guns. Nobody could leave the house. It was a joke. They turned that place upside down. Every little dust ball was moved.

[Narrator/Host]

John did have an alibi to offer up police, but there did appear to be a questionable gap around the time of the murder.

[Detective/Police Officer]

And they just said, hey, he's lying. They asked you the same question a hundred times and the answer was the same a hundred times. No, I didn't have nothing to do with it.

[Cherie Miller]

Were you there? Oh, the day. No, I was not there. Somebody's lying. Somebody's lying. That's guaranteed.

[Narrator/Host]

Police confront John Hutchinson with their suspicion that he might be involved in a scheme to overcharge customers at Bruce's lot.

[Cherie Miller]

That's pretty good motive for murder right there. Because Bruce was mad.

[Family Member/Friend]

He gets that shot on this, you're

[Cherie Miller]

looking at the wrong person.

[Family Member/Friend]

I don't think so.

[Cherie Miller]

I've Been robbed before. You're wrong.

[Narrator/Host]

Now, John denies any involvement in the scheme, but for the police, at this point, he's still pretty much suspect number

[Investigator/Reporter]

one in Bruce's murder, and the rope is tightening around his neck.

[Detective/Police Officer]

So it looked bad for me. I guarantee it.

[Narrator/Host]

And then a polygraph test definitely doesn't help his case.

[Family Member/Friend]

He looked at the polygraph machine and says, oh, I

[Narrator/Host]

burn, boy.

[Family Member/Friend]

Burn at.

[Investigator/Reporter]

But then detectives learn about a seemingly unrelated violent death hundreds of miles away. That will add the strangest twist to this case that nobody saw coming.

[Detective/Police Officer]

You got the freak in mercury.

[Family Member/Friend]

We had sex. We had murdering. We had the Internet.

[Detective/Police Officer]

You've got mail.

[Family Member/Friend]

It was dubbed the first Internet murder.

[Narrator/Host]

And how did you feel once you knew that your husband was dead?

[Detective/Police Officer]

They found each other in an AOL chat room.

[Family Member/Friend]

SRI comes along. She's paying attention to him, giving him that ego boost that he needed.

[Detective/Police Officer]

He saw himself as a white knight. She was a damsel in distress. And they could never be happy until Bruce was dead. He was laying on the floor in

[Narrator/Host]

a pool of blood, and he would not be the only one.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Jerry had told his brother that if anything happened to him. There was a briefcase under the bed. Get a hold of it before anybody else did. There was a. A bombshell inside that briefcase.

[Narrator/Host]

This can't be happening.

[Family Member/Friend]

That's a special kind of evil.

[Detective/Police Officer]

How do you understand somebody who kills as part of a game?

[Cherie Miller]

I just wanted to do one right thing before I leave this world.

[Detective/Police Officer]

You've got jail.

[Cherie Miller]

911 call from BND Auto Part reporting a possible DOA. There's no pulse, no nothing.

[Family Member/Friend]

They find Bruce murdered.

[Narrator/Host]

He's laying on the floor, and there's blood.

[Family Member/Friend]

Any type of these investigations, when they're whodunits, and that's what this was, a whodunit. We had no idea who done it.

[Detective/Police Officer]

They wanted John Hutchison for the murder. That's the only suspect they had. I couldn't leave the state, couldn't leave the county. Can't do this. Don't do that. And then when you go somewhere, they look at you like a cockroach on a birthday cake. Put yourself in my position. How would your life be done?

[Investigator/Reporter]

Police give John a polygraph test, and the results are inconclusive. But they tell him he failed. Just to see what his reaction was.

[Family Member/Friend]

I believe at that time is when he looked at the polygraph machine and says, oh, I'm.

[Investigator/Reporter]

And then he took the test again, and he failed.

[Cherie Miller]

What do you think about these polygraphs you took?

[Detective/Police Officer]

I think they're crap.

[Cherie Miller]

I think you have a lot more knowledge than you're giving me. I wish I did.

[Family Member/Friend]

These denials are very weak, and he's given us deceptive answers with his body language.

[Cherie Miller]

You don't think he had any motive

[Detective/Police Officer]

to do anything to Bruce?

[Cherie Miller]

No, I don't. None whatsoever.

[Family Member/Friend]

Usually when you have somebody accused of murder, they're pretty adamant. About what? What are you talking about? Why you think I had anything to do with it.

[Cherie Miller]

I think you are either directly involved or normally a lot more than you're

[Family Member/Friend]

willing to give up.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Investigations are very grueling for people because we have to use different tactics to elicit the truth.

[Family Member/Friend]

You did it. You know you did it.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Which is hard to hear it when you're in that box.

[Investigator/Reporter]

It turns out that John Hutchinson had once had a brief affair with Cherie. Could that have caused more tension?

[Detective/Police Officer]

He'd actually slept with her, I think, before her and Bruce got together.

[Cherie Miller]

Tell me about your affair with Cherie Miller. We slept together a couple times, and

[Investigator/Reporter]

me and my wife split up later on. When Bruce started dating Cherie, John was quick to offer some advice.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Thought he was making a huge mistake because I knew she was a good road to go down for trouble. He said, don't worry about it. I got it under control. Okay, I warned you.

[Narrator/Host]

Now, investigators have been keeping the pressure on Hutchinson for months, but they just can't move, make a case.

[Detective/Police Officer]

We didn't have any hard evidence against him.

[Family Member/Friend]

Nothing that actually said, you're the guy

[Detective/Police Officer]

and we're going to get a warrant for you.

[Family Member/Friend]

The weapon that we'd taken from his house was a 16 gauge. We had learned from the crime lab that the shotgun that was used was a 20 gauge.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Cherie was upset about the lack of progress and stormed into the Genesee County Sheriff's Department demanding to find out, what's going on here. What are you guys doing to solve my husband's murder?

[Investigator/Reporter]

At this point, the murder investigation has come to a halt until something incredible happens 800 miles away that changes everything.

[Narrator/Host]

It involves that former homicide detective, Jerry Cassaday, who'd been in a hot and heavy affair with Bruce's wife, Cherie Miller. But now she's giving him the cold shoulder.

[Detective/Police Officer]

The silence in his life was deafening. And then it starts to play in

[Family Member/Friend]

like, wait a second, I am being

[Detective/Police Officer]

kicked to the curb here.

[Family Member/Friend]

Jerry was downstairs in his apartment in Odessa, Missouri.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Jerry sat down in a big easy chair overlooking the lake, and he had a picture of his ex wife, the mother of his son. He had a picture of his son and he had a picture of Cheri Miller.

[Narrator/Host]

There was a wedding ring on the windowsill. And his divorce decree on a nearby table.

[Family Member/Friend]

And a Bible in his lap.

[Investigator/Reporter]

He opens it to Matthew 5, which says, you shall not murder, and whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.

[Family Member/Friend]

So you've got to think that he made his peace with God.

[Detective/Police Officer]

And at that point, he took a.22 caliber rifle, put it in his mouth and. And pulled the trigger.

[Narrator/Host]

And he took his own life.

[Family Member/Friend]

It's an extreme shock. I knew he had issues. Jerry had issues and that sort. I never thought he would. He would do this.

[Investigator/Reporter]

You're not supposed to bury your children. But Weaver.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Mike got the duty to clean Jerry's stuff out of the apartment.

[Family Member/Friend]

I spent some time just downstairs, trying to grasp what was going on.

[Investigator/Reporter]

He had told his brother that if anything happened to him. There was a briefcase under the bed to get a hold of it before anybody else did.

[Family Member/Friend]

So I went into the bedroom and looked under the bed, and I found a black briefcase.

[Detective/Police Officer]

It's got three letters attached to it and a note. Do not open this alone, Mike.

[Family Member/Friend]

Do not open. Contact John o', Connor, The Attorney General. Connor just knows of Jerry professionally. Didn't know if maybe he had pissed him off professionally.

[Investigator/Reporter]

They were like, well, this could be booby trapped.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Maybe the case is rigged. Maybe it's a bomb inside. So they have the bomb squad examine the briefcase.

[Investigator/Reporter]

He made his peace, but he left a mess. For the rest of us,

[Detective/Police Officer]

It's the Paradise Podcast.

[Narrator/Host]

I am your host, Ryan Michelle Bathe with my husband Sterling.

[Detective/Police Officer]

What's up?

[Narrator/Host]

Join us here on Hulu and Hulu on Disney, where we'll discuss each episode with the cast and crew of Paradise. I'll be getting all the secrets from Dan Fogelman, James Marsden, Shailene Woodley, Julianne Nicholson and Sterling Kelby Brown. Paradise, the official podcast is now streaming and stream paradise on Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers terms apply.

[Family Member/Friend]

ABC Wednesdays. The Emmy winning comedy Scrubs is all new. This is a whole new chapter for me. No more sad sad.

[Detective/Police Officer]

That's what I'm talking about.

[Family Member/Friend]

I want both of our sacks to be fun.

[Detective/Police Officer]

You two idiots are perfect for each other. From executive producers of Ted Lasso and Shrinking.

[Family Member/Friend]

We were all a part of this victory. Now get those nachos out of the preemie warmer. Nachos. Feels like there's more applause for the nachos than my speech.

[Detective/Police Officer]

The new season of scrubs. Wednesdays, 8, 7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.

[Investigator/Reporter]

The end of the Affair with Cherie Miller drove Jerry Cassaday to suicide. He left that mysterious briefcase, not knowing

[Family Member/Friend]

Jerry's state of mind at the time. They were going to X ray it to make sure everything was safe there. So they had the bomb squad actually open the briefcase. Of course, there was no bomb.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Now the family is gathered in the attorney's office, and we'll find out what's inside.

[Narrator/Host]

First, they read the suicide note he wrote to his mother that he had taped on the outside. Jerry writes that he finally realized that Cherie had been lying to him about her husband Bruce.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Well, she said that Bruce was involved with the mafia, was into money laundering. He'd already killed three babies, and he would kill her. He saw himself as a white knight. She was a damsel in distress.

[Investigator/Reporter]

He said, I went to Flint and I walked in the door and I said, hi, I'm Jerry. And I shot him.

[Detective/Police Officer]

There was so much rage that he

[Family Member/Friend]

made sure he brought a shotgun. He hated Bruce Miller at the time.

[Investigator/Reporter]

And then he said, I found out it was. It was all lies, Every bit of it.

[Family Member/Friend]

All for Cherie.

[Detective/Police Officer]

And she never really loved me.

[Family Member/Friend]

It was all a game.

[Narrator/Host]

And Jerry goes on to say, I was just so blind and so stupid and so much in love. And he ends with, I'm so sorry, mom. I love you.

[Investigator/Reporter]

My God. This was almost worse than Jerry dying to find out why he died and what it was all about.

[Family Member/Friend]

Before, it was justifiable homicide in his mind. Now it was first degree murder.

[Investigator/Reporter]

He judged himself, found himself guilty, and executed himself. That was his way of trying to make amends as best he could.

[Family Member/Friend]

Good for a wife.

[Narrator/Host]

Now it's time to finally open that briefcase.

[Family Member/Friend]

We forced the briefcase open, and there were just pages among pages of information and stuff there.

[Narrator/Host]

Records of airline flights, hotel rooms, emails and chat messages between Jerry and Cherie that seemed to implicate her in her husband's murder.

[Family Member/Friend]

John o' Connor says, we can lock this briefcase up. You can take it and throw it in the river. Nobody ever know. Or we can turn it over to the Genesee County Sheriff's Department. And the family had a hard decision to make. They're gonna ruin their son's reputation forever, calling him a murderer. Or they can just shut the briefcase and go on with their lives.

[Investigator/Reporter]

But that wasn't the point. The point was she should pay for what she did. Otherwise, two good men would have died in vain.

[Detective/Police Officer]

John o' Connor contacts authorities in Michigan and says, I have some information you're going to want to look at.

[Family Member/Friend]

I got a briefcase Here. That indicates a Cherie Miller may have committed it.

[Detective/Police Officer]

I hung up the phone and said

[Family Member/Friend]

some rather loud words that I shouldn't have said in the office. He was jumping around saying, she did it, she did it.

[Narrator/Host]

The detectives hop on a plane to Missouri to bring that briefcase home.

[Detective/Police Officer]

It was a treasure trove of evidence. It was a treasure trove of explanations they didn't have. I think the most damning thing in there is the instant message where they plotted the murder. A very intricate plan where they were going to meet at a rest area, and Sherri was going to give him her cell phone where to park at the junkyard.

[Family Member/Friend]

When you go inside, don't ask him any questions, don't say anything. Just kill him.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Great detail.

[Family Member/Friend]

I'm talking line by line, play by play.

[Detective/Police Officer]

But their plan worked.

[Family Member/Friend]

And he would not have been able to put any of that together without

[Detective/Police Officer]

her being the mastermind behind it.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Clearly, investigators need to speak to Cherie Miller, but at the time, she's not in Flint, Michigan. Where is she? Well, she's in Reno, Nevada, partying it up with her new boyfriend. Why aren't you home mourning?

[Narrator/Host]

Why aren't you with your kids?

[Investigator/Reporter]

Why aren't you with his family?

[Narrator/Host]

It's like, what the hell are you doing, woman? It's like, do you not feel anything? I mean, anything?

[Detective/Police Officer]

The sheriff's department, they were waiting for them at the Flint airport. Took her back to the department, and Cherie was pretty sure she was still in good shape. Do you know Jerry, Cassie?

[Cherie Miller]

Yes, I do.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Did you develop a relationship with him?

[Narrator/Host]

No.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Nothing at all?

[Cherie Miller]

A friendship?

[Detective/Police Officer]

You never had a physical relationship or ever had sex with Jerry?

[Cherie Miller]

No.

[Detective/Police Officer]

With Jerry? Cassie.

[Cherie Miller]

No.

[Detective/Police Officer]

She had erased everything on her computer, but unbeknownst to her, Jerry had not erased everything on his.

[Cherie Miller]

What would I tell you if I

[Detective/Police Officer]

told you that Jerry had saved his emails and instant messages that you and him had?

[Cherie Miller]

I would tell you that you can change them. And you know that. And everybody knows that. I can change any email that somebody sends me.

[Narrator/Host]

Did you realize that they had you?

[Cherie Miller]

I still thought that. There's no way they're going to not believe me if you say it. It's reality.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Isn't it true that you wrote play?

[Cherie Miller]

No, it is not.

[Detective/Police Officer]

No, she continued the lie, which is she had nothing to do with it. I have an email that lives it out right here in front of me about how you and Jerry Cassidy planned his murder. Murdered. That's why. Why would Jerry even think about changing?

[Cherie Miller]

I don't have a clue. Maybe because he was mad because I would have nothing to do with him. I don't know.

[Detective/Police Officer]

They're fake. That's my response. Stick with that theme until proven otherwise.

[Cherie Miller]

I did not write that stuff. I don't know who changed that stuff, but I did not write that stuff. No, I didn't.

[Family Member/Friend]

Sure.

[Cherie Miller]

No, I didn't sit down and rely. No, because you guys are. That is all.

[Detective/Police Officer]

They were able to surprise her, which is a great interrogation technique. Catch them in their lies.

[Family Member/Friend]

And at some point, Captain Capo decided it was time to arrest her.

[Cherie Miller]

They said, you're under arrest for the murder of your husband. I got hysterical.

[Family Member/Friend]

ABC12, News at 5.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Miller was arrested Friday, charged with the murder of her husband.

[Detective/Police Officer]

She planned and helped to carry out that murder.

[Narrator/Host]

But despite all those damning instant messages and emails, this is still a tough case to bring to trial. It's essentially circumstantial evidence.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Sherry Miller, someone who is an experienced

[Investigator/Reporter]

actress, she's duped a police officer. There's a concern that 12 jurors might very well believe her story.

[Family Member/Friend]

She used manipulation to get everything from a free lunch to someone to commit murder for.

[Narrator/Host]

Prosecutors say that Cherie and her lover Jerry plotted over the Internet to kill Bruce.

[Family Member/Friend]

You've got mail.

[Narrator/Host]

It was fueled by a steamy sex charge, Internet romance.

[Investigator/Reporter]

It was eye opening to me about the power of the Internet.

[Detective/Police Officer]

It was what everybody was talking about. You had the glare of a national

[Narrator/Host]

audience watching in what is being dubbed

[Investigator/Reporter]

the nation's first Internet related murder.

[Detective/Police Officer]

This case is about Sherry Miller manipulating and using her lover to kill her husband. Bruce Miller and Cherie, they dressed her very conservatively and modestly.

[Narrator/Host]

It's like that's her because she had

[Investigator/Reporter]

this suit on that she never would have purchased.

[Narrator/Host]

They wanted her to look as innocent, as dowdy as

[Investigator/Reporter]

possible.

[Detective/Police Officer]

All the Cassidys were there and of course Bruce's family was there.

[Investigator/Reporter]

We really didn't blame Jerry, I mean, even though he was the one that pulled the trigger. We hugged and shed a couple of tears because we had both lost a son because of Cherie.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Her lover, Jerry Cassidy, used a 20 gauge shotgun to kill Bruce Miller.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Marcy Mabry was amazing as a prosecutor.

[Detective/Police Officer]

She used a computer and his emotions to get him to do it.

[Investigator/Reporter]

There may not be any, a bloody trail of evidence, but there's an electronic trail. And this is something new in the prosecutor's arsenal,

[Family Member/Friend]

really. The only truth in the whole emails was that she was married and she was a female.

[Detective/Police Officer]

The jury needed to see. While she may not have pulled that trigger, she Was the mastermind. They bring in deputies to begin reading passages back and forth.

[Family Member/Friend]

It made it easier for people to understand what was being said. They just read the words. But still it rang in here.

[Narrator/Host]

That exchange was a dramatic part of the court TV coverage.

[Investigator/Reporter]

I want to make mad, passionate love to you always. I am trying to leave. I will when I can, honey.

[Cherie Miller]

I hate that man.

[Detective/Police Officer]

He will pay. No one is going to get away with the things he has done to you.

[Family Member/Friend]

Why did you want to have Bruce killed?

[Detective/Police Officer]

If you got together, you got married and you decided, okay, this isn't really

[Family Member/Friend]

what I want after all. Walk away.

[Investigator/Reporter]

It seems that the only plausible motive is money. But she got tens of thousands of dollars. It wasn't a gold mine.

[Detective/Police Officer]

I felt a little bit off balance because I couldn't understand why did she have to kill him? Why didn't she leave him? And it's our position then you know that the defense is going to bring that up. There's absolutely no motive for her at all to have killed her husband.

[Investigator/Reporter]

David Nicola is a great trial attorney. He is flamboyant and he's just this big hair and he's this big voice,

[Detective/Police Officer]

this former police officer. He's no pawn, he's no sucker, he's no wimp. This was his moment and he was defending this innocent 28 year old wife, widow, mother.

[Family Member/Friend]

He was not manipulated at all.

[Detective/Police Officer]

He was the one manipulating.

[Investigator/Reporter]

There's also the claim by the defense that Jerry is a jilted lover.

[Detective/Police Officer]

And what happened is he became bitter and hostile and vengeful towards her.

[Investigator/Reporter]

And you know, he made this all up because he was pissed off that he was duped and dumped and that

[Detective/Police Officer]

he framed her out of bitterness when

[Family Member/Friend]

she rebuffed his advances, that he went after her and then killed himself.

[Detective/Police Officer]

We have a killer, ladies and gentlemen, in this case.

[Investigator/Reporter]

So the defense's theory is essentially that the real suspect is Bruce's former employee who owed him money and didn't want to pay it back.

[Detective/Police Officer]

The real killer is, ladies and gentlemen, is John Hutchinson.

[Narrator/Host]

So the defense puts John's brother Harold on the stand.

[Cherie Miller]

Good morning, Harold.

[Narrator/Host]

And he repeats claims that he made to police during the investigation that John told him he did it.

[Detective/Police Officer]

It made me look like crap that there pretty well ended my relationship with him. We haven't talked long enough to have a hot dog since then.

[Investigator/Reporter]

I made several phone calls trying to find him to see if he dropped off a car someplace.

[Detective/Police Officer]

The fatal mistake, in my opinion, that sealed her fate was when she testified.

[Family Member/Friend]

We had so many things that she said that she did in those emails, that I think that she felt she had to testify to try to explain some of it away.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Sheree admits on the stand that she wrote most of these exchanges, but she also wanted the jury to understand that in her mind, this was a fantasy world. You can make up what you want,

[Narrator/Host]

but how does she explain all those messages to Jerry complaining about the terrible abuse she supposedly suffered at Bruce's hands?

[Investigator/Reporter]

I thought by writing stuff like that

[Cherie Miller]

that he would leave me alone, that

[Investigator/Reporter]

at that point he wouldn't want anything to do with me. It didn't work. I wanted to just jump in and you're lying.

[Narrator/Host]

That's not true.

[Investigator/Reporter]

It turns out that Cherie Miller lied about those pregnancies that brought so much joy to Jerry.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Jerry believed that he had impregnated Cheri Miller and he believed that Bruce Miller had killed those children.

[Investigator/Reporter]

She claimed that the reason why she told Jerry that she was pregnant was because he was depressed. That is so twisted. It was really sad when you learned in court that she had her tubes tied and it wasn't even remotely a possibility.

[Narrator/Host]

The defense claimed that those instant messages at the heart of the prosecution's case, her step by step plan on how Jerry should murder her husband Bruce, they claimed those were phony, too.

[Family Member/Friend]

She was claiming that Jerry faked it

[Detective/Police Officer]

and we found it on her computer. He couldn't have put it on her computer if he faked it.

[Family Member/Friend]

So David Nicola brought on an expert witness saying that emails can be easily faked.

[Investigator/Reporter]

But when pressed by the prosecutor about these specific exchanges, he says there's no indication that they were made up, which

[Family Member/Friend]

kind of blew all that out of the water.

[Detective/Police Officer]

What you have is a cold, calculated, premeditated murder by Sherry Miller.

[Family Member/Friend]

On the day of the verdict, I saw her all dressed up and made up and all that stuff. I'm thinking she thinks she's getting out of here.

[Narrator/Host]

We not only get a verdict, we get yet another unexpected turn in the case.

[Investigator/Reporter]

I was just like, this can't be happening.

[Family Member/Friend]

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[Investigator/Reporter]

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[Family Member/Friend]

The jury finds the defendant guilty. Is charged of conspiracy to commit first degree premeditated murder.

[Investigator/Reporter]

She just stood there, no expression at all.

[Family Member/Friend]

Guilty of second degree murder. As an aider and abettor.

[Investigator/Reporter]

You can't believe the feeling of relief when they read the verdict. Guilty.

[Narrator/Host]

And then it was like you could actually breathe.

[Investigator/Reporter]

You were shocked.

[Cherie Miller]

Yeah, like it's over. Like people really know what I am, what I did. I'm going to prison.

[Detective/Police Officer]

She had been there for six, seven, eight, nine years. And then in stepped a federal judge.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Cherie Miller is free to post bond which would release her from prison.

[Family Member/Friend]

You're granted an automatic appeal in the state of Michigan. The judge determined that the suicide note shouldn't have come in. And so she was to be retried.

[Detective/Police Officer]

A tearful and emotional Sheree Miller walks quietly out of the Genesee county jail with her legal team at her side.

[Investigator/Reporter]

I was just like, what?

[Narrator/Host]

This can't be happening.

[Investigator/Reporter]

She knew where we lived, but we didn't have any idea where she was.

[Family Member/Friend]

Even her own family, they were kind of scared of Sheree being out of prison. They didn't know what she was capable of.

[Narrator/Host]

What was that like to be free again?

[Cherie Miller]

I tried to live. I tried to make amends so much.

[Investigator/Reporter]

She had a chance to know her daughter and her grandchild and realized what she had done to Jerry's family.

[Family Member/Friend]

It pissed everybody off quite a bit. But then the fact was, you know, this woman's not worth our time to think about.

[Narrator/Host]

But you're still holding on to those lies.

[Cherie Miller]

There was so many layers that was like calloused on. Slowly those starting to fall off.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Clearly there was something wrong with that decision. And eventually it was litigated.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Prosecutors fought long and hard to get that conviction reinstated. After three years, they did. A court ruled that the suicide note was in fact admissible. So there will be no new trial for Cherie and. And she's ordered back to prison.

[Cherie Miller]

That day when I had to walk through the door is when the full impact of everything that I did to everybody just. It hit me really hard that day.

[Narrator/Host]

Cherie told me that saying goodbye to her daughter and granddaughter really changed her. But it would take another three plus years before the biggest change happened. When she sent a letter to the judge and prosecutor for the first time, finally admitting what she'd done.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Now that was truly astounding to open up my mail one day and get a letter from Cherie Miller professing her guilt.

[Family Member/Friend]

She said, we Got a couple things wrong. But for the most part, we got everything right. And that she was no longer gonna file her next appeal.

[Investigator/Reporter]

This is a copy of the letter. It's four pages long, typewritten, and it reads in part, I don't want Bruce's or Jerry's family to have to suffer anymore. They have waited 16 years to hear me say, I am guilty. I did it. The fact that she confessed was a big deal. Because she had maintained her innocence.

[Cherie Miller]

Like it made me wonder, why now?

[Narrator/Host]

Why do you think it took you so many years to fess up?

[Cherie Miller]

Well, it was so much easier lying about it to myself. It's so much easier to look at yourself when you don't pass. Have to look at yourself with the truth.

[Family Member/Friend]

She even says it right in her letter. I know I'm not going to get

[Detective/Police Officer]

parole out of this.

[Family Member/Friend]

I don't know what her reasoning is.

[Cherie Miller]

I did it because it was the right thing to do. And I've never done the right thing. I just wanted to do one right thing before I leave this world.

[Narrator/Host]

And so you take responsibility?

[Cherie Miller]

I absolutely do. Not just for Bruce, but for Jerry's death as well.

[Detective/Police Officer]

At that moment, maybe for the first time ever, I had some amount of

[Family Member/Friend]

sympathy for Cherie L. Miller. I like to think that finally she realized what she had done. Everything she does, there's a scheme behind it, there's a plot behind it.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Who does it really benefit?

[Family Member/Friend]

Benefits Cherie Miller.

[Detective/Police Officer]

She wants everyone to believe that I'm finally being honest. She's not really honest whether people believe

[Narrator/Host]

what Cherie wrote in that letter or not. In our interview, she goes much further. She goes into great detail exactly how she says the murder happened.

[Cherie Miller]

We had been talking about it for a while.

[Narrator/Host]

Was it days or weeks or months, do you think?

[Cherie Miller]

Probably weeks.

[Investigator/Reporter]

On the day of the murder, Jerry Cassaday follows Cherie's instructions. He drives to Michigan, and he meets with Cherie so that she can give him a cell phone to use.

[Cherie Miller]

It was almost like a movie that we were just playing a game. But after I met him at the truck stop, I knew this was going to happen.

[Narrator/Host]

What. What was the plan moving forward?

[Cherie Miller]

I was supposed to call to make sure that Bruce was alone.

[Detective/Police Officer]

I will send you a signal by calling that cell phone. And that means he's alone. Go do it.

[Narrator/Host]

So that was the signal for Jerry was you called, rang once and hung up.

[Cherie Miller]

Yeah. And while I was on the phone with Bruce is when Bruce said that somebody was pulling up. And that's when I knew that Jerry was there.

[Narrator/Host]

Jerry walks in and shoots Bruce. He had planned on saying, hi, I'm Jerry, so that the supposed abusive Mafia criminal would know exactly who was killing him. So you weren't on the phone with Bruce when the.

[Cherie Miller]

No, but within minutes. I mean, it had to be a minute.

[Family Member/Friend]

Jerry had actually told me that she was on the phone with him at the time he did it because she wanted to hear it done. That's a special kind of evil.

[Narrator/Host]

And so how did you learn that

[Cherie Miller]

the deed was done afterwards? He called my landline and let it ring once and hung up. That was his signal to tell he was on his way back to Kansas City.

[Narrator/Host]

And how did you feel once you knew that your husband was dead?

[Cherie Miller]

I think it was shock. Even though I knew it was happening, it was still a shock. You're like, this really happened. I really did this.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Part of the plan was somebody had to discover the body, and she called his brother to go look for him.

[Family Member/Friend]

She sent me right up there to go find him.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Just what she did. The hurt that she inflicts on people is remarkable. As if knowing that Bruce has been murdered is not bad enough.

[Investigator/Reporter]

If we are to believe Cherie, then we understand the how. But what will come next is a shock to everyone. Her answer to the question of why.

[Narrator/Host]

Why did you want him dead?

[Cherie Miller]

It took a long time for me to try to put this into wor. I still have a really hard time looking in the mirror, knowing what I did.

[Narrator/Host]

And yet there are plenty of people who knew you when you were lying all the time, who think you're lying now, and that this is some sort of big act.

[Cherie Miller]

I'm sure I can't make anybody believe me. All I can do is is show them. You know,

[Narrator/Host]

Cherie Miller told me she wanted to come clean about everything. For example, she admitted for the very first time that she started contacting Gerri Cassaday online even before she married Bruce. She also reveals that she used sex as a weapon against men.

[Cherie Miller]

That's how I got what I wanted. It wasn't just Bruce or Jerry. It was any man. It was what you could see you could get a man to do. It was like a video game. And each man in each relationship was another level to me.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Cherie's manipulation of Jerry started with sex and moved on to more or involved lies. All of it ultimately enough to convince a former homicide detective to commit murder.

[Narrator/Host]

How did Jerry react when you told him that you were pregnant with his baby?

[Cherie Miller]

He wanted another baby so bad. He was really happy about that.

[Narrator/Host]

You'd had your Tubes tied earlier. How were you able to fake the belly button?

[Cherie Miller]

I just pushed my belly out. Jerry wanted to believe it so bad that I believe that EC seen the pregnancy, even though it wasn't there.

[Narrator/Host]

When you broke the news that that baby was gone, what did you say?

[Cherie Miller]

I wrote him on a chat. He was devastated.

[Narrator/Host]

Devastated.

[Cherie Miller]

Devastated.

[Narrator/Host]

And you told him not just that you'd lost the babies, but that Bruce had beaten you to the point of losing those babies.

[Cherie Miller]

I did. I did.

[Narrator/Host]

And so Jerry saw red.

[Cherie Miller]

Very, very much so.

[Narrator/Host]

I mean, you were a Mary Kay cosmetics consultant. Was that makeup on your belly?

[Cherie Miller]

Yes, it was. I remember being in the mirror and just trying to make it be more real, trying to create more reality.

[Investigator/Reporter]

She manipulated him into thinking that Bruce was a terrible, horrible person and that the world would have been a better place without him.

[Detective/Police Officer]

She definitely took advantage of Jerry Cassidy. There's no doubt. And set him right up to

[Investigator/Reporter]

come

[Detective/Police Officer]

up here and shoot my brother. Why did you have to do that? Ruin people's lives the way you did? For what reason? What did you have to gain?

[Narrator/Host]

I wasn't sure she was going to answer that question. But when she did, what she said really surprised me.

[Cherie Miller]

If I could just say it was so I could get money, it wouldn't sound as bad as what it really was. Bruce was so close to knowing who I really was. Like, what was really, really inside of me. The consequence of Bruce dying was smaller than what the consequence would have been if he knew that I wasn't who he thought I was.

[Narrator/Host]

So rather than face the truth, you were willing to have your husband be killed?

[Cherie Miller]

Yeah. Yeah, it was a game to me.

[Detective/Police Officer]

How do you understand somebody who kills as part of a game? It's hard to wrap your head around

[Narrator/Host]

in her effort to, as she claims, be open and honest. Cherie went on to say that after the murder, she not only knew that Jerry was suicidal, she knew he wanted

[Cherie Miller]

to confess because he had been suicidal before. I think that people just didn't to want. But I believed him. He told me about the briefcase.

[Narrator/Host]

He told you he had a briefcase full of evidence against you?

[Cherie Miller]

Yeah, but I felt like I could talk my way out of anything.

[Narrator/Host]

And so when the trial was approaching, did you feel like you were gonna be found not guilty?

[Cherie Miller]

Yeah. I still, in my head, felt like there's no way they're not going to believe me.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Sheree said she felt so confident about her case that she rejected a plea offer during the trial.

[Narrator/Host]

You could have saved yourself if you had simply told the truth.

[Cherie Miller]

Yes, I could Have. And I waited to tell the truth until I get nothing from it. But hopefully, hopefully a sense of peace.

[Narrator/Host]

I've heard you say that you deserve to be in prison for the rest of your life.

[Cherie Miller]

I do. I don't feel that I deserve to live life and be happy when they don't, you know, they don't get that chance.

[Narrator/Host]

What we didn't expect in our conversation was that Cherie was going to share that she had written apologies to the victims families.

[Cherie Miller]

Would it be okay if I read them?

[Narrator/Host]

Sure.

[Investigator/Reporter]

For the very first time, the victims families are about to hear from Cherie. I would kind of like to hear what she had to say.

[Detective/Police Officer]

So when you're ready, if you just kind of push, play and you guys

[Cherie Miller]

can listen, there's no way.

[Investigator/Reporter]

How will they react?

[Cherie Miller]

There's no way for me to change or undo what I did. I eternally hurt you, and I am so sorry for that.

[Narrator/Host]

Cherie Miller read what she called letters apologizing to the people she hurt.

[Detective/Police Officer]

So when you're ready, if you just kind of push plenty.

[Narrator/Host]

And when we interviewed some of those victims families, we asked if they wanted to hear the recording.

[Cherie Miller]

Mike, Jerry's brother. Jerry would have never hurt anyone. He didn't murder Bruce. I did. I am so sorry for lying to and lying on Jerry. He just wanted to protect and love me, Bruce's family. Not only am I responsible for Bruce's death, I'm responsible for continuing to open the wound over and over by lying for 17 years. Through it all, you showed an unbelievable amount of grace towards my family. For that, I thank you.

[Investigator/Reporter]

My response to that letter. I just hope she rots in hell. That's where she belongs.

[Family Member/Friend]

It's difficult to believe anything that the woman has to say. I don't know if I could ever forgive her.

[Investigator/Reporter]

I want to say that I could forgive her, but I can't.

[Family Member/Friend]

I can't.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Some things are not forgivable, and she is not forgivable.

[Detective/Police Officer]

I forgive her, but still makes your skin crawl. Knowing that there's people out there that can do these kind of things. For all of the ugly devastation in this case, I hope she comes out of it understanding what she did and with a genuine attitude of making amends.

[Narrator/Host]

One last question from me, which is, how would you describe your relationship with your children and grandchildren today?

[Cherie Miller]

Amazing. Like, I can't believe how much I've put them through. And they still love me. They still call me Mom. I cherish every one of those moments.

[Narrator/Host]

And Bruce and Jerry don't get those.

[Cherie Miller]

They don't get those. They don't.

[Family Member/Friend]

Jerry was a good guy all the way around. He loved to have fun, loved spending time with his family at the lake. That was Jerry.

[Investigator/Reporter]

He never knew when he died that he was going to be a grandfather. And he would have made a wonderful grandfather. He never got to know any of that. It was just such a waste.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Bruce is my brother. It's been 22 years, so. Seems like yesterday.

[Family Member/Friend]

You're just never gonna forget it.

[Detective/Police Officer]

That's. That's all there is to it. Bruce was a hell of a guy. He'll never be replaced. I love him. And despite Cherie Miller's admission and apology, the only way she could get out of prison is if the mission governor actually grants her clemency.

[Narrator/Host]

And our experts say there is virtually no way that will happen.

[Detective/Police Officer]

From all of us here at ABC News in 2020, good night.

[Narrator/Host]

Thanks for listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. We hope you'll join us Friday nights at 9 on ABC for all new broadcast episodes. See you then

[Detective/Police Officer]

from 30 for 30 podcasts.

[Narrator/Host]

Did you say someone got shot?

[Family Member/Friend]

Brian Pata, senior defensive lineman from Miami,

[Detective/Police Officer]

gunned down the key to this case.

[Family Member/Friend]

It's Brian.

[Detective/Police Officer]

An hour before he died, he was on the phone arguing with somebody.

[Family Member/Friend]

This might be a hit.

[Detective/Police Officer]

You want the truth? They just want a conviction. Being placed under arrest. We had a killer amongst us. Murder at the U. Listen now.