DAYTON — Michael Mills was gunned down at a Dayton bus stop late one night in May 2012. His murder devastated his family.
Witnesses said they saw two suspects in the darkness, but no one knew who they were.
Cold case detectives, as well as News Center 7′s Cheryl McHenry, are now taking a fresh look at the case and hoping someone comes forward to help them solve this Miami Valley Murder Mystery.
It was close to midnight that Friday when the calls started coming in. Hours later, Mario Mills got an early-morning call from the coroner that jolted him out of bed.
“That he was a victim of a homicide. That he had been shot and was dead,” Mario Mills said.
Michael Mills was Mario’s dad.
“My first question was like, ‘Why would they do that?’” Kim Mills said.
Michael Mills was Kim’s ex-husband and her children’s father.
“Michael was a worker. He was a good guy. He had a good heart,” she said.
Retired Dayton homicide detective Doyle Burke said, “We have several people that actually saw two black makes talking to Mr. Mills at the bus stop.”
Burke said Mills was killed at the corner of Victor and Wheatley avenues. He said Mills was wearing his white painter’s pants from work and stood waiting or the bus to go to his girlfriend’s.
“One of them even says it looked like they were arguing,” Burke said.
Soon after, witnesses reported hearing gunshots.
“They look, they see Mr. Mills running and at first, they think he may be the suspect because he’s running, but what has happened is he’s been shot and he’s trying to run away,” Burke said.
Michael Mills made it to an alley, where he collapsed and died.
After they heard gunshots, witnesses told police they looked out and saw two men walk away from the bus stop and go into a nearby building and then leave a few minutes later.
Detectives have generic descriptions of the pair, but no one could identify them.
“The one thing in this case, that’s odd – there’s no obvious motive. I mean, this is just a chance meeting from what we could see. Nobody knew he would be there,” Burke said.
And his family said Michael Mills was not one to pick a fight.
“He was just an easy-going guy. Never out to see how rowdy he could get or anything, just a pretty mellow guy,” Kim Mills said.
Burke said it could have been a robbery, but they’ve determined Michael Mills didn’t have much money on him and the gunmen didn’t take his cell phone or his lighter.
“We’re hoping that maybe the suspects are trying to find something of value to take from him and leave these things at the scene because they don’t have any value,” Burke said.
The items may have value now. They and the shell casings from the spent bullets could still hold the suspects’ DNA.
“These casings all come from the same weapon so one person fired, and one person didn’t,” Burke said.
But DNA alone is not enough. Detectives need information from those who know something.
“Anytime we have multiple suspects, we have a greater probability of solving the crime because you have two people talking,” Burke said. “You can all in anonymously. We don’t have to have your name. We don’t have to contact you. We just want to get an idea of what direction to go in,”
Eleven years have passed without Michael in his family’s lives.
“It hurts and people say it gets easier and it doesn’t,” Mario Mills said.
“It’s definitely taken a great big chunk out of the family, and we miss him a lot,” Kim Mills said.
Burke said catching the killers would not only bring closure to the Mills family but also get two violent offenders off the street,
“These people shot and killed a guy for nothing, absolutely nothing as far as we can tell. They need to be in jail,” Burke said.
If you have information about the murder of Michael Mills, you are urged to call the Dayton Police Cold Case Unit at 937-333-7109 or Crimestoppers at 222-STOP.
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