James William Miller is Australia's least likely sexual assailant and serial killer of young women. James Miller is a homosexual. Yet, by his own admission, in December 1976 and January 1977 he helped the man he loved, Christopher Robin Worrell, dispose of the bodies of seven young women who Worrell had sexually assaulted and then murdered while Miller was waiting nearby.
James Miller led police to the buried remains of some of the victims and for his part in the crimes is serving six life sentences for murder in South Australia's Yatala Prison. But while Miller admits that he drove the vehicle that Worrell used to pick the young women up in and then left Worrell to commit murder in private before returning to the vehicle and driving Worrell and the deceased women to the outskirts of South Australia's capital, Adelaide, and helping to bury their bodies, Miller steadfastly denies helping Worrell abduct the victims or that he assisted in the sexual assaults and murders that followed.
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| Christopher Worrell |
The only person who could prove James Miller's innocence is the alleged murderer, 23-year-old Christopher Robin Worrell. But Chris Worrell is dead. James Miller has never had sex with a woman. He is a convicted thief, but he has no record of violence. At the time of the murders he was 38 years old.
"I was there at the time and for that I am guilty of an unforgivable felony," Miller has said from his Adelaide prison cell. "I fully deserve the life sentences I am currently serving. I am serving out a life sentence for Chris. But I never killed any of those girls. That's the truth."
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| James Miller during a protest in prison |
Miller has been protesting his innocence of murder for years, on occasion backing up his pleas with rooftop gaol protest strikes, including one that lasted for 43 days. But he has been ignored by authorities and his conviction stands.
South Australian Chief Justice Len King agreed that Miller should be granted another hearing on the grounds that the judge at his trial, Mr Justice Matheson, had instructed the jury to find Miller guilty of murder even though he had pleaded not guilty.
The Attorney-General, Chris Sumner, refused to grant a retrial. Miller maintained: "They can give me life for knowing about the murders and not reporting them. But they charged me with murder as a pay back for not informing on Worrell. It's a load of bullshit. At least one of the jurists at my trials knows the truth. In 1987 he (the juror) paid a couple of hundred dollars out of his own pocket to help hire a lawyer to petition the Attorney-General for a retrial. If a jurist does this, he must have a fair idea of what really happened."
Protesting his innocence, Miller said: "Nobody turns into a cold-blooded murderer overnight or helps commit murder. I'm just an ordinary thief, no killer. I have never been a violent man."
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