AUBURN – Sitting with a group of people around a picnic table in early March, Rebecca Miller made a comment about wanting to set fire to her husband’s apartment building.
The 21-year-old had recently heard allegations that her husband, Clifford J. Miller Jr., had sexually assaulted a 14-year-old, and she was planning to leave him. Clifford Miller was indicted in April on three counts of sexually assaulting young girls.
About a week after Rebecca Miller’s comment, on March 22, the building at 127 Newbury St. in Auburn, where Rebecca and Clifford Miller shared an apartment on the fourth floor, went up in flames.
Fire investigators quickly confirmed it wasn’t accidental.
Miller wasn’t the one charged.
Kenneth Rideout Jr., the man she was dating at the time, was. The 35-year-old is standing trial in Androscoggin County Superior Court on a charge of arson.
His defense: Rebecca Miller did it.
Miller took the stand Tuesday, the second day of the trial. She acknowledged making the comment while sitting around a picnic table with Rideout’s stepmother and other family members.
“But I wasn’t serious,” she said.
Miller testified that she and Rideout started dating in January, shortly before her husband was admitted to the hospital for medical problems. She was planning to end the marriage and had already started the process of leaving by removing her cats, porcelain dolls, some clothes and other belongings from the apartment.
On the morning of the blaze, while Clifford Miller remained in the hospital, she and Rideout drank vodka in a nearby park. That night, they returned to the Newbury Street apartment and got into an argument after Rideout accused Miller of having oral sex with another tenant in the building.
Miller testified that Rideout knocked over the television and threw some things around before they decided to stop fighting and drive to Newfield, where Rideout’s sister lived.
They left the apartment together, but Rideout turned around and went back, Miller testified. He returned five minutes later and they started driving toward Lewiston. That is when Miller claims to have noticed the smoke.
“I asked Kenny where it was coming from and he said he set my apartment on fire,” Miller testified.
The couple didn’t make it far. They were pulled over on Lisbon Street by a Lewiston police officer, and Rideout was arrested on a charge of operating under the influence.
The arson charge came later, after another inmate at the Androscoggin County Jail told investigators that Rideout confessed to him.
Robert Judd, a Livermore Falls man jailed on drug-trafficking charges, testified Tuesday that he spoke to Rideout in his cell the day after the fire.
“He said, I don’t know what I was thinking when I set the fire,'” Judd said. “He was stressing about, you know, going back to prison.”
Judd’s testimony was brought into question later in the day when Rideout’s attorney, Thomas Goodwin, called another inmate to the stand.
Ryan Bachelder testified that Judd told him during a recreation break that he lied about Rideout’s confession because he hoped to get a deal on his own charges.
It will be up to the 12-person jury to decide which inmate to believe.
Miller may return to the stand Wednesday morning to answer additional questions about a conversation she recently had with her husband. Then both sides will give their closing arguments and the jury will begin deliberations.
If convicted, Rideout could face up to 30 years in prison.
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