Millers Were 'Typical Family,' Neighbor Says

RALEIGH — As the investigation into the arsenic poisoning death of a Raleigh researcher continues, more facts about his family are coming to light.

Just a few weeks before Christmas, budding UNC researcher Dr. Eric Miller died from arsenic poisoning. Police searched his home and his wife's work place in Research Triangle Park.

Last Sunday, they also searched the home of one of her supervisors Derril Willard. Hours after police revealed that he and Eric's wife, Ann, had a "relationship," Willard apparently committed suicide in his garage.

In the 1970s, Eric Dwayne Miller grew up in Cambridge City, Ind., a small farming town just east of Indianapolis.

He met his future wife, Ann R. Brier, while they were at Purdue University. Eric was a Hoosier Scholar and a member of the Science Student Council.

The couple got married in 1993, not long after they graduated. They moved to Raleigh to study at N.C. State.

Two years ago, Eric took a research job at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at UNC-Chapel Hill. Ann got a job at GlaxoSmithKline.

The Millers bought a house in West Raleigh and had a baby girl last year.

"Just a typical family," says neighbor Tim Wilkins. "They helped plan a neighborhood cookout with a couple of other families here in the neighborhood."

Since Eric's death, Ann and the baby have stayed with her parents at their North Raleigh home.