Police: Maine couple were homicide victims

WEBSTER PLANTATION (AP) - The deaths of a Webster Plantation couple have been ruled a homicide and prompted state police to release a sketch of a woman wanted for questioning.

AP Photo

This artist sketch provided by the Maine State Police Department on Monday, shows a likeness of woman, who was last seen at a couple's Webster Plantation home, before they died. The bodies of Michael and Valerie Miller, who were killed, were found Saturday.

The announcement that Michael and Valerie Miller, both 47, were killed came after state police investigators met Monday with representatives of offices of Maine attorney general and medical examiner, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

No other details were released beyond the sketch of a middle-aged woman seen at the Miller home Saturday morning, just hours before their bodies were found. Detectives described the woman as in her mid-50s, with her hair tied into a ponytail and wearing bifocal glasses.

Family members were told that the couple's bodies were discovered on the kitchen floor, with Valerie's head lying on her husband's chest, said Kevin White, Valerie's brother.

The deaths were initially reported to state police as possible carbon monoxide poisonings, but state police detectives strongly suspected otherwise, McCausland said.

By Monday morning, yellow crime scene tape surrounding the home had been removed and the state police mobile crime laboratory had departed, leaving lots of questions for family and friends.

Detectives declined to talk about motive, and autopsy results were withheld.

"There's just a lot of questions, but not enough answers," White said. He said he talked to his sister every day and was unaware of any problems.

The couple lived in a mobile home with an addition on a sparsely populated road about 25 miles east of Lincoln. Their closest neighbor was a Pennsylvania man who came to Maine to hunt each fall; the next-closest neighbor beyond him was a quarter-of-a-mile away, said Hazen Jipson, the town's road commissioner, who lived down the road.

There are only about 70 residents in Webster Plantation. "It's a quiet little country town," Jipson said.

Michael Miller had worked for 29 years for Walpole Woodworkers, which harvests lumber in Maine for fences that are installed from Maine to Virginia. He was a seasonal worker who'd been laid off on Nov. 20 with several others, said Chris Bridges, the company's payroll and benefits administrator in Walpole, Mass.

He and his wife married as teenagers, and they had their good times and bad times, White said. They had no enemies and Michael Miller was known to help others, he said.

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