Martha Sue Young, a 19-year-old Caucasian female, vanished during the early morning hours of New Year's Day in 1977 after meeting with her former fiancé in East Lansing, Michigan. A student at Michigan State University, she had recently ended her engagement to Donald Gene Miller but agreed to see him one last time. When she failed to return home, her mother immediately suspected Miller, a seemingly respectable criminal justice student and youth minister who was the last person to see her
alive. Despite the suspicion, Miller maintained that he had dropped her off safely at her residence, and for months, investigators lacked the physical evidence to challenge his story.
The investigation took a grim turn in October 1977 when hunters discovered her purse and clothing in a wooded area of Bath Township. The personal items were neatly arranged in a pile, but there was no sign of her remains. Law enforcement continued to scrutinize Miller, who remained free and was later linked to other disappearances and attacks in the area. The community was left in a state of fear as the case went cold, with authorities unable to locate her body or secure a murder indictment without further proof.
Justice finally caught up with Miller in August 1978 following his arrest for a brutal home invasion involving the rape and attempted murder of a teenage girl and an attack on her brother. While facing a significant prison term for those crimes, he was indicted for the murders of Young and another missing woman. In a controversial move to provide closure and recover the victims' remains, prosecutors offered a plea deal. Miller confessed to strangling Young in a fit of rage after she rejected him, and he subsequently led police to her shallow grave in Priggooris Park. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges and received a sentence that ran concurrently with his other convictions.
