The hunt for Evelyn's killer
Nearly a year after Evelyn Miller, 5, turned up dead, her relatives hunger for answers. No one has been charged, but the lead investigator is confident that there will be a conviction.
JENNIFER JACOBS
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
June 18, 2006
Floyd, Ia. — Five-year-old Evelyn Miller's body silently drifted downstream until it snagged in tree branches in a crooked nook of the Cedar River called Devil's Elbow.
Family members know that much, but almost a year has elapsed and they still aren't certain who killed her.
Although there's been scarcely any news from authorities investigating her murder, there's been plenty of other turmoil and criminal intrigue - pornography charges, allegations of drug use, child welfare hearings, a bar fight, domestic violence, a stolen car.
Evelyn's grandfather Richard Christie shakes his head at all the drama. "This case gets me madder and sadder every day that passes," he said. "I can't wait until it gets figured out."
Because Evelyn's body was exposed to water for as long as six days, her relatives worry any evidence proving her cause of death, or whether she was raped, may have been contaminated and the case may never be solved.
"We still don't know how she died or when she died," said her father, Andy Christie, who last saw his daughter at his wedding on Father's Day 2005. "We're still in the same place as we were a year ago. They've said they have suspects, but they won't say who or how many or how sure they are."
No one has more insight into Evelyn's murder than Jim Wertz, the Division of Criminal Investigation agent who was assigned to her case the day she went missing, July 1, 2005, in Floyd.
Everyone who knows he's the lead investigator asks him repeatedly: "Will you arrest someone?"
His answer: Yes. He's certain the killer, or killers, will be convicted.
"I'm not just saying that," said Wertz, a 30-year investigator.
A busy year distracted him from focusing exclusively on Evelyn: a homicide in Iowa Falls, then in Oelwein, then in Eldora. "In some ways it may have extended the investigation. But did it affect the quality? Not at all," Wertz said.
And then there was the child pornography case against Casey Frederiksen, the man who helped raise Evelyn since birth. A parade of people connected to Evelyn testified before a federal grand jury, but rules prevented prosecutors from grilling them about her life or death, only the pornography case. Wertz was privy to the details the prosecutors gleaned, but he won't say whether that was helpful.
"It probably prolonged the homicide case," he said.
Wertz can't say much more. The top prosecutor in Floyd County, Marilyn Dettmer, erected a wall of silence around the investigation and to this day fastidiously guards details that only the killer would have known.
Just after news of Evelyn's disappearance from her mother's apartment was broadcast nationally, tips rolled in: from people in faraway places who thought they'd seen the girl, from psychics, and from Floyd County residents reporting suspicious items in ditches. There's still a $5,000 reward, but the leads have slowed to a couple a month.
"Anyone with anything to say," Evelyn's grandfather Richard Christie said flatly, "would've already said it by now."
Wertz acknowledges his hopes have not always been high. "Do I get down on days and up on others? You bet I do," he said. "But I'm confident this case will have a successful conclusion."
Girl's homes are gone
Evelyn's ashes were split between her father, who lives in Waterloo, and mother, who now lives in Charles City.
Her bedrooms in both towns - Floyd and Waterloo - are gone.
In Floyd, the three-story brick apartment complex on Quarry Road, a former county home for the poor and mentally disabled, is about to be demolished.
More than half of the units were unoccupied when the nearby ethanol plant bought it in May. It wasn't just the specter of a 5-year-old girl vanishing from the building that spurred residents, mostly low-income folks, to abandon the place. Residents said the landlord had been saying for more than a year that he intended to sell.
Recently, Evelyn's father, Andy Christie, and her stepmother, Lindsey, climbed the back steps, past the spot where Evelyn had carved her name in the wooden railing, and quietly placed flowers in the girl's empty former bedroom.
The walls were torn out and the ceilings ripped open.
They didn't stay long.
Frederiksen's mother, Sandy Kuykendall forces herself to drive past the apartment on her way to work. It represents her regret. She had offered her son and Noel Miller a home in a rental property she'd purchased in Floyd, but they wanted to stay at Quarry Road because of its above-ground pool and circle of friends.
"I want to see it gone," Kuykendall said.
The Waterloo bedroom where Evelyn slept when she visited her dad, a forklift driver for John Deere, was cleared out in November. Andy and Lindsey Christie bought a house and moved out of the rented home.
Boxing up the Barbies and toy ponies was painful, "but not having to go past her room every day makes it easier," said Andy Christie, 26. "Her room was right across from our bedroom, and every time we walked out of our room it was a reminder."
Feeling public scrutiny
Nothing makes Evelyn's relatives more upset than her unsolved murder.
The most public scrutiny has focused on Frederiksen, Evelyn's mother's former fiance, who pleaded guilty in February to three felony charges of child pornography for downloading hundreds of images of children engaged in sex acts. But Evelyn's relatives dismiss the idea that he killed the girl.
"It would be real easy to believe he did it, but we don't," said her grandfather Richard Christie, 58, who lives in Windsor Heights. "Were it Casey, he would've needed the cooperation of a third person because he didn't have transportation to get to the river."
Noel Miller had driven the couple's only car, a 1983 Chrysler borrowed from Frederiksen's stepfather, to her night shift while Frederiksen was home with Evelyn and his two sons.
And, Richard Christie said, Frederiksen's grief was genuine. As darkness fell July 1, Frederiksen and Miller were distraught. They shouted profanities at police, furious that the search for evidence seemed centered on their apartment.
"This is our daughter!" Frederiksen yelled. "You think we did this? Get out there and search for her!"
Prohibited like all the relatives from joining the search parties, Miller and Frederiksen drank cans of beer and screamed at each other. She blamed him for not waking up when the intruder entered, and he took out his frustration by injuring himself. He smashed his head against a wall, and TV cameras captured footage of him dripping blood.
A rumor ripped through town that a man with a blond girl had been seen at the Fourth of July beer tent in Charles City.
"Casey flipped out," said his sister, Brandi Hoffmann, a tax attorney who lives in Des Moines.
Another man said he has felt the intense heat of inspection by law enforcement. Randy Patrie, who works in a Charles City factory, was one of the last people to see Evelyn alive when he and a friend, Dan Slick, stopped by Quarry Road at 2 a.m. "to catch a buzz" with Frederiksen. Evelyn, who had been sleeping on the couch, answered the door. In an interview, Patrie acknowledged that he has no verifiable alibi and failed parts of a lie-detector test. But he insisted that Evelyn was safe in the living room when he and Slick left.
Patrie still feels like people on the street look at him suspiciously. "I avoid everybody," he said.
Investigators haven't approached him in more than a month, he said.
"I don't know how they feel, but I figure if they think I was involved, they'd still be talking to me," he said.
In January, he got his "face busted up" in a bar fight in Chickasaw County. Patrie thinks Chad Kroeze, 34, of Nashua punched him because he thought Patrie killed Evelyn. "I think it was why, but I can't prove it," Patrie said.
Nashua Police Chief Ernest Willsher said Patrie's suspicion could be paranoia. Judging from statements of witnesses, the chief doubts Kroeze knew anything about Patrie. Police charged both men with disorderly conduct.
Troubled histories
As an emotional outlet, Richard Christie created an Evelyn blog. He toyed with the idea of doing a poll where the public could vote for their "favorite suspect." Instead, he posted a message saying: "Who killed Evelyn? Opinions and tips sought." Other murder blog sites linked to his Web page and made drastic assumptions about his granddaughter's killer.
Richard Christie second-guessed everyone: himself, her caregivers, police, child abuse investigators.
After hearing allegations of marijuana use - federal prosecutors contend in court documents that Frederiksen, 27, smoked and sold marijuana - Richard Christie blasted the Department of Human Services for not considering pot "a dangerous drug" that contributes to child neglect.
Records show Noel Miller and Casey Frederiksen didn't like intrusion by the DHS. As youths, both received DHS services, according to court documents.
Frederiksen was determined to be hyperactive as a child, said his mother, Sandy Kuykendall, who, after a divorce, became a single parent of three. One night, after her son unloaded the contents of the refrigerator onto the kitchen floor, Kuykendall said, she spanked him pretty badly.
"I was just so tired, and I lost it," she said.
Kuykendall sought help from the DHS, who told her to take Frederiksen to a doctor. He was hospitalized in Waterloo for two weeks for psychiatric evaluations, she said. He was still "just uncontrollable," so she opted to place him in foster care with her brother and his wife. Frederiksen spent time in two other foster homes and, at one, was accused of inappropriately touching a girl when he was 13, court records state. Kuykendall struggled to care for her son for a few years and then sent him to live with his stepfather, Dennis King.
When Frederiksen started dating Noel Miller, she was a pregnant 15-year-old girl. She had just exited the foster care system herself. Her mother, Diane Mae Miller, states in court documents that she signed Noel into a shelter because "she was heading the wrong way" and was verbally and physically abusive.
Another broken home
Six days after Evelyn's body was discovered, Frederiksen and Miller's sons, Gabriel, then 2, and Damian, then 1, entered foster care. Kuykendall had cared for them but had difficulty dealing with their parents, who, on one night, pounded on her doors and windows, demanding to see the kids and calling her names until she called the police.
"It was my decision to put them in sequestered foster care, and that was one of the hardest things I did," she said.
The boys' aunt Brandi Hoffmann, 31, said that when she saw them first time after that, she wept and felt certain she would want to adopt them. Since then, she and her mother have seen "a complete turnaround" in the boys' behavior.
"They wouldn't listen to you. Now it's 'please' and 'thank you,' which they would never say before," said Kuykendall, 55.
A hearing on the boys' future was held Thursday. Iowa law requires that a permanent placement plan be created no later than one year after children are placed in foster care. The state believes that Noel Miller is not a safe option for them, but the public has no way of knowing on what grounds her parental rights could be terminated. Judge Gerald Magee, who handled hearings involving Noel Miller when she was in foster care as a teenager, closed Thursday's hearing to the public.
Hoffmann and Kuykendall hope the judge will sever Noel Miller's parental rights, allowing adoption by the foster parents, who have said they would maintain a relationship with Hoffmann and Kuykendall.
"My main concern is the boys' happiness and safety," Kuykendall said, "and where they're at now, they're safe."
Noel Miller's mother, Diane Miller, said she has heard the two boys are miserable. "They cry and want to be home," she said.
Diane Miller, who has an emotional disorder and is not currently allowed to see the boys, and Noel's sister Alithya Runyan hope the judge will return custody to their family.
Glare of media spotlight
The Floyd County community - and statewide media - at first embraced Noel Miller and her fiance with compassion.
The sympathy soon soured.
"They're pretty unpopular," said Deb King, who works at a gas station in Charles City. "I think people just disapprove of their lifestyle."
On Sept. 8, reports surfaced about the child pornography on the computer in Evelyn's apartment. On Sept. 16, Miller went on KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids shrilly accusing the community of thinking she and Frederiksen were at fault for Evelyn's death. On Sept. 21, Frederiksen was hospitalized with a self-inflicted knife wound to his forearm. About a week later, he was arrested on the pornography charges. His sentencing will occur in late July or early August.
In October, Des Moines' WHO-TV aired the unflattering footage of Frederiksen on July 1 with blood on his face. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier printed neighbors' statements about seeing and smelling Frederiksen and Miller smoking pot. And the Charles City Press reported that Noel Miller's boyfriend, Jasper Clay, 26, was arrested April 22 for domestic assault for biting and pushing her. Clay had a bag of marijuana in his pocket, according to a police report.
Noel Miller's mother and sister deny that Noel ever smoked marijuana - even though many around her are linked to drugs.
"I wouldn't have nothing to do with her if she did that," said Runyan, 32.
"Gossip is causing more trouble she doesn't need," said Diane Miller, 50. "She can't even get a job."
Noel Miller, who was working at a nursing home in Nora Springs when Evelyn died, is now unemployed.
On April 28, she was arrested for operating a vehicle without the owner's consent, court documents show. Frederiksen's stepfather, Dennis King, revoked Noel Miller's access to his 1983 Chrysler this spring, but Miller took it from his driveway, he said. King reported it stolen. When police pulled Miller over, a passenger, Jamie Griffin, 24, had what appeared to be a marijuana pipe in her diaper bag, according to police.
Bad year ends with hope
In the midst of all the criminal intrigue, Evelyn's relatives have been taking time to remember what a great kid Evey was, digging out home videos they hadn't watched since before she died.
For a while, Kuykendall displayed the girl's porcelain tea set on a bookcase just inside her front door.
"It was just too sad," she said, "so I put it away."
It's only been in the last couple weeks that Evelyn's paternal grandmother, Linda Christie, 58, has been able to do much after her job selling cosmetics at Younkers other than pull the covers over her head. She has stopped going to church. She stopped cleaning anything but the kitchen and bathroom.
Diane Miller, Evelyn's maternal grandmother, said her side of the family plans to float candles in the river near the spot where Evelyn was found, a long trek off Rotary Park Road across a field, over a fence and through thick woods.
It's been one of the worst years in all of Evelyn's relatives' lives.
But there was good news. Evelyn's aunt Brandi Hoffmann and her husband, Joe, who threw tea parties with Evelyn, are expecting a child.
The baby - a girl - is due in November.
Key people involved in the case
The death of Evelyn Miller, 5, has affected the lives of many people in the past year. Here is a brief look at some of those people, and an update on what has happened to them in the past nearly 12 months:
Noel Miller
Evelyn’s mother, who worked at a nursing home when the girl died, is now unemployed. On April 28, she was arrested for operating a vehicle without the owner’s consent, court documents show. Her two sons have been put in foster care.
Casey Frederiksen
The former fiance of Noel Miller pleaded guilty in February to three felony charges of child pornography for downloading images of children engaged in sex acts. Some people have speculated he was involved in Evelyn’s death, but her relatives dismiss that idea.
Andy Christie
Evelyn’s biological father last saw the girl on Father’s Day 2005. Christie, a forklift driver for John Deere in Waterloo, has moved from the rented home where he and his wife, Lindsey, kept a bedroom for Evelyn.
Richard and Linda Christie
Evelyn’s paternal grandparents live in Windsor Heights. Richard Christie has created a Web log, or blog, about Evelyn’s murder. They have planned a candlelight vigil for July 2 to remember Evelyn.
Brandi Hoffmann and Sandy Kuykendall
Hoffmann, sister of Casey Frederiksen, and Kuykendall, mother of Frederiksen, want the state to sever Noel Miller’s parental rights to her two sons. They would like to see a foster family adopt the boys.
Marilyn Dettmer
The top prosecutor in Floyd County, she has kept much of the investigation out of the public eye and to this day fastidiously guards details that only the killer would have known.
Jim Wertz
Wertz is the state agent leading the investigation. Wertz, an investigator for 30 years, says authorities have suspects in the case, but he cannot share their identity — or say if authorities are close to making an arrest.
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