More Details Emerge About Widow Of Poisoned Raleigh Researcher

RALEIGH — Ann Miller is not a suspect in the arsenic poisoning of her husband, but police have not ruled her out. A paper trail and several people are shedding light on who she is.

Ann Miller was born in Batavia, N.Y. in 1970. After graduating high school in Pennsylvania, she met her husband, Eric, at Purdue University. Eric is from Cambridge City, Indiana. They got married at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church before moving to Raleigh in 1992.

The Millers were both graduate students in the biochemistry department at N.C. State. That is where graduate student Bernie Brown met them.

"They were always holding hands and happy. They came in the morning together, they left together. You know, they just seemed to be the perfect couple," she says. "Ann was, I think, the more dominant of the two in the relationship. She liked to call the shots."

The case started in December when Eric Miller was found dead of arsenic poisoning. An arsenic compound was found in his wife's lab at GlaxoSmithKline.

Last week, Ann's co-worker, Darril Willard, shot and killed himself. Police say they had some sort of relationship. Willard left a suicide note, claiming that he had nothing to do with Eric Miller's death.

Brown says Eric Miller's poisoning has shocked former classmates at N.C. State as well as neighbors who knew the Millers when they lived in Holly Springs, and later, in west Raleigh.

Neighbors say since Miller's death, Ann has stayed mostly with her parents in northern Wake County, and she did try going back to work at GlaxoSmithKline.

Lynette Mayo says Miller came to her house a few weeks ago to thank her for taking care of a few things at her west Raleigh home.

"I saw her and she saw me, and she just started crying and I started crying," she says.

After Eric's death, neighbors say she spent Christmas with his family in his hometown of Cambridge City, Indiana. Neighbors also say Eric's parents came to Raleigh for their granddaughter's first birthday.