William “Billy” Miller confessed to killing college student Rebekah Gould on or about Sept. 20, 2004 inside her ex-boyfriend’s house near the town of Melbourne. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison on Oct. 18.
It turns out he confessed to at least five other murders moments after confessing to Gould’s murder.
He made these confessions Nov. 7, 2020 to Arkansas State Police Special Agent Mike McNeill and two Oregon State Police detectives. Authorities, including the FBI, may be seeking information on possible victims based on the information Miller gave them. He said he killed prostitutes in Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. He also claimed to have killed a woman who was just using a payphone one night.
He offered no motive for the killings other than to say it was “a thrill” and he claimed there was no sexual component to it. When he confessed to killing Gould, he offered no motive. She had dated his first cousin, Casey McCullough and she was killed in his bedroom, according to police.
Miller offered theories about the case and sent messages to journalist and true crime author George Jared and criminology professor and former Army counterintelligence agent Jennifer Bucholtz. The two had created a Facebook page that he joined one year before his arrest. They wrote about his behavior on the page in the book “Silent Silhouette.”
Gould reportedly stayed at McCullough’s the weekend prior to her murder, and took him to work on Monday morning, although there is virtually no evidence that she gave him a ride to work. He never went home that day after work and stayed the night at a friend’s house. He told all four friends he stayed with that night that Gould was missing, per all four of their statements to police.
The next morning, he returned to his home, a trailer house in rural Izard County, to retrieve a work shirt. He’d gone to work at the local Sonic, briefly, before being told he needed to go home and get a Sonic shirt. During the few minutes he was there, Rebekah’s mother, Shirley, called the Sonic and told McCullough that her daughter was missing.
When he arrived at his house her car, purse, money, cell phone, clothes, unharmed dog and other personal items were there, but she was not. His mattress had been stripped of its bedding. Bloody pillows were under the bed and one was in plain sight on the bedroom floor. It was later discovered that the mattress had been flipped to hide blood and some of the bedding was in the washer which visibly had blood in the agitator and bleach dispenser.
During McCullough’s first interview with police, he said he opened the washer lid and wondered why the bedding was there, but he didn’t notice any of the visible blood or any of the other blood splatter strewn throughout the house. Miller claimed that he “bleached everything” and a bottle of bleach is on the counter, per the crime scene photos.
For more about what was in the case file and an exclusive talk with Miller’s wife in the Philippine listen to the latest podcast from Diamond State: Murder Board.
George Jared contributed to this report
I watched the entire interrogation, maybe this reporter should have. Bad job. Most of this is lies or poor work.
The fact that this is my dads cousin makes me hate my family on my dads side