Martin Miller retrial: Former mistress testifies about four-year affair

Martin Miller waits for the fifth day of his retrial to begin on Friday, April 3, 2015 in Judge Paula Martin's courtroom at the Douglas County Courthouse. Miller is charged with first-degree murder in the 2004 death of his wife, Mary Miller. Miller was awarded a new trial in 2014 because of an erroneous jury instruction.

Martin Miller’s former mistress, Carrie Parbs, testified Friday morning about her and Miller’s four-year affair, which culminated in a commitment ceremony just weeks before his wife’s death.

Miller, 56, is charged with first-degree murder in the July 28, 2004, death of his wife, Mary Miller, 46, at the family’s central Lawrence home. A Douglas County jury convicted Miller in 2005 of first-degree murder, but the Kansas Court of Appeals ruled in February 2014 that Miller should get a new trial based on an erroneous jury instruction.

Prosecutors allege that Miller strangled Mary Miller because the family was in financial straits and he was having an affair with Parbs, formerly of Eudora. Miller’s attorney, Richard Ney, argues that Mary Miller died of natural causes, not by homicide.

Parbs told the court Friday that she met Miller in November 2000 on an adult-only dating website. They began emailing, had lunch a few times, then had their first sexual encounter, Miller testified in 2004. Parbs said that in December 2000 she accompanied Miller to Indianapolis to a woodworking convention.

Parbs testified that the relationship progressed over the next four years, during which they played sexual “games,” engaged in bondage and took trips to Wichita, South Dakota and Missouri. Eventually, Parbs said, Miller talked about divorcing Mary Miller and marrying Parbs.

Miller tried to incorporate Parbs into his family life, Parbs said. He invited her to his house to help with gardening and asked her to volunteer at his church and to go swimming with him and his two children.

“He wanted me to do those things because the children would be around and used to me (when he divorced Mary Miller),” Parbs said.

Later, Parbs said, Miller backed out of the idea when he thought of how it would affect his finances, business, church and children. Miller said that when his children graduated from high school he would divorce Mary Miller. His children were 11 and 14 in 2004. Parbs said the news was “upsetting,” but she told him she would wait for him.

Parbs said she and Miller held a “commitment ceremony,” during which Parbs wore a white dress and Miller gave her a ring. They celebrated their commitment to each other with a trip to St. Joseph, Mo., in July 2004. Mary Miller died on the 28th of that month.

The relationship ended sometime after Mary Miller died, Parbs said, and Miller’s current wife, Laura Cuthberson, began caring for Miller and helping Parbs get over the relationship.

“She thought that if I purged my apartment of everything from Marty, it would make me feel better,” Parbs said.

That fall, Parbs “confessed her sins” about her affair in front of her church congregation as Cuthberson looked on, she said. Cutherberson then took Parbs to brunch to celebrate her “freedom,” and afterward told Parbs that she and Miller were in love, Parbs testified.

“I was upset. I was concerned that she would be hurt like he hurt me,” Parbs said. “She looked at me and she said, ‘But he tells me I’m beautiful.'”

Also on Friday, Lawrence detectives testified about the contents of Miller’s computer, including online dating profiles, photos of Miller and Parbs, emails to Parbs and a “marriage diary” detailing Miller’s feelings toward his wife.

Mike Schneider of the Lawrence Police Department read the marriage diary to the court. In it, Miller complained about Mary Miller, stating they had only had sex three times in the past two and a half years and that Mary Miller was dampening his “playful” tendencies.

“I need to have fun. (Mary) doesn’t have a fun-loving and playful spirit,” the diary read. “I honestly believe that she would straighten the pictures in a burning building.”

Miller conceded in the diary that he loved Mary and that she was a “wonderful woman.” Still, he felt the relationship lacked intimacy.

“What we have is a business relationship with defined duties. There is a deep love, but it is more of a friendship love.”

The state argued during opening statements Wednesday that Miller’s marital unhappiness led Miller to kill his wife, but the defense pointed to the lack of physical proof that Mary Miller died by homicide. On Friday afternoon, Douglas County Coroner Erik Mitchell testified for the state that Mary Miller’s body showed “no signs of disease or injury.”

Mitchell said there was petechial hemorrhages in Mary Miller’s eyelids, which Mitchell said is a sign of asphyxia. Ney said he will have another pathologist testify that petechia can occur through natural causes.

Mitchell also said that a single bruise in Mary Miller’s throat indicated that “pressure” had been applied. A second bruise inside Mary Miller’s throat had been caused by Mitchell, he said.

Additionally, there was bruising to Mary Miller’s scalp, but Mitchell was unable to indicate when the bruising may have occurred. He estimated that it would have been caused about one to two days prior to the autopsy.

Based on his findings, Mitchell decided that Mary Miller died by asphyxiation, and she could not have caused it herself.

Mitchell’s testimony will continue Monday. The trial is expected to last through Friday.


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