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East Side murder case set to begin
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A husband and wife are set to go on trial today on separate charges in the shooting death of a man on the East Side in September.
Randall Miller, 38, is charged with the murder of Frank James Brown, who was found shot to death Sept. 28.
His wife, Megan Miller, 36, is charged with tampering with evidence.
Jury selection is to begin today before Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Maureen Sweeney.
Randall Miller has been in the county jail since his arrest Oct. 7. Megan Miller has been free on bond, but a request by her attorneys to travel out of state before her trial was denied twice by Judge Sweeney, on March 10 and 13, according to court records.
Prosecutors also had asked to continue the trial, but Judge Sweeney denied that motion March 19.
Police said Brown, 33, was found dead about 3:40 a.m. Sept. 28 with a gunshot wound to the head on South Truesdale Avenue amid shards of glass that appeared to have been auto glass. They also said Brown was shot inside a 2002 Cadillac owned by Megan Miller, who was a cashier in the city finance department at the time of Brown’s slaying.
Megan Miller had told police the car had not been recently cleaned, but when they served a search warrant at her South Hazelwood Avenue home, they found that a window had been replaced and that efforts had been made to clean the car.
Investigators found shattered window-glass fragments and blood in the car and on its running board, along with glass fragments on the Millers’ garage floor and in the garage drain, police said.