Holman had been right. Charles Miller was not from the West Coast. According to the records from the funeral home on Chincoteague, Charles Miller was from Brunswick County, Virginia, and he was the only brother of Daniel Miller and listed as his next of kin. According to the paperwork, it took nearly three weeks for Charles to be notified about the plane crash. By that time, the bodies had already been cremated in accordance with Virginia State law, but Charles Miller did sign for the remains of his brother and his family on October 18, 1959. It had to be the same man Holman and I spoke to yesterday. Why had he lied? If he hadn’t been so adamant about his family being from the West Coast, I could have reasonably believed the lapse could have been the result of old age. Then again, if his memory was fading, he’d be more likely not to know where he was from as opposed to straight up lying. My gut told me he had not wanted us to make the connection between him and his brother. The big question, of course, was why.
The minute I got back to the newsroom, I called Silver Meadows and asked to speak with Charlie. Rhonda, whose voice I recognized, asked who was calling and when I said my name, her voice changed. “Charlie isn’t up to talking to anyone today.” I asked if he was all right and she said yes, but with a definite edge.
“What if I came back to visit him this weekend?”
“I’m sorry, honey, but that’s out of the question.”
“How come?” I asked, surprised.
“No visitors. Family’s orders.”
So, the day after Holman and I talked to Charlie Miller about his brother, his family clamped down the security? That seemed super shady. What was his family hiding? Why didn’t they want to be connected to the Millers who died in that plane crash? If I couldn’t get access to Charlie, I’d just have to take my questions to someone else in the Miller family. I replayed my conversation with Charlie from my voice notes to listen for any clues as to how I might get in touch with his family. He mentioned a daughter who lives in North Carolina, a granddaughter who lived in Texas, and a grandson who was a practicing CPA. I had no more information to go on than that—not even their last names, unless his daughter used her maiden name.
“Since he isn’t feeling up to another interview, I wondered if I could talk to his daughter?”
My question was met with silence. No surprise there. I figured a couple of the reasons people pay the big bucks for a place like Silver Meadows is privacy and security. I followed up with, “I know you probably can’t give me her name or contact information, but could you get a message to her?”
After a moment, Rhonda said, “Why not? She calls over here every morning to check on her dad. I can give her a message tomorrow morning.”
“That’d be great,” I said. “Just tell her Riley Ellison from the Tuttle Times is doing a story on her cousin, Shannon Miller.”
“Shannon Miller?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Huh,” Rhonda said. “Well if that ain’t the darndest thing!”
“What?”
“To have the same name as your first cousin.” She laughed. “I’ll bet that got confusing around the family table!”