Serial killers and true crime

Realizing that parole would be denied, “Freeway Killer” accomplice Gregory Matthew Miley agreed to a three-year continuance of his request until 2014.

The 50-year-old is serving a 25 years to life prison sentence in Corcoran for the kidnappings, sexual assaults and murders of two boys in Orange and Los Angeles counties in 1980. The boys were two of the 14 murder victims pinned to William Bonin, the first inmate to die by lethal injection in California.

Gregory Matthew Miley could have (IMO Should Have!) received the death penalty for his role in the kidnappings, sexual assaults and murders of two boys in Orange and Los Angeles counties the morning of Feb. 3, 1980. But because Miley helped put away “Freeway Killer” William Bonin the then-18-year-old was sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison.

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas opposed the now 50-year-old Miley’s parole on grounds that he remains a “significant threat to public safety” as proven by the circumstances of the murders and multiple prison rules violations.

A sadistic Vietnam War veteran out of Downey, Bonin spent most of the seventies behind bars for sex attacks on young men. He was paroled in 1978 and got a truck driving job in Montebello.

Parole for serial criminals, especially those that are sexually motivated and / or violent needs to stop.

For the next two years, Bonin would pick up young male hitchhikers, sexually assault them, strangle them to death and leave their bodies along Southern California freeways. Bonin often used sadistic young helpers, one of whom was Miley.

In the early morning hours of Feb. 3, 1980, Bonin was driving his van with Miley aboard when they picked up 14-year-old Charles Miranda near the Starwood Ballroom in West Hollywood. They drove several blocks, parked, and then Bonin sodomized Miranda. Miley tried to do the same, but he was unable to sustain an erection. Bonin and Miley then tied Miranda’s hands and feet together, Bonin grabbed Miranda’s shirt, put it around the boy’s neck, and began twisting the shirt to suffocate him. Miley then held the shirt while Bonin picked up an iron bar, wrapped it in the shirt and twisted it until the victim suffocated to death. Miranda’s body was dumped in a downtown Los Angeles alley before the killers drove on to Huntington Beach.

Later that same morning, they lured into the death van 12-year-old JamesMcCabe, who was walking to Disneyland. As Miley drove, Bonin sexually assaulted McCabe. Once the van was parked, Bonin and Miley murdered McCabe by holding him down and twisting a shirt around the victim’s neck until he suffocated to death. McCabe’s body was placed in a dumpster in the city of Walnut.

It is not like he was uninvolved,  just kept his mouth shut. No, he was an active participant in the murders and would have been in the rapes as well if he could have kept it up. I am betting it was drugs that stopped him from being able to get an erection not the horror of their actions! He should have gotten the same as Bonin.

Why would we let this man out ever?

Miley was living in Houston, Texas, on Aug. 22, 1980, when, during a recorded phone conversation with a friend, he admitted to participating in the sexual assaults and murders of the two victims. Miley waived extradition on charges of murdering Miranda and McCabe, plus two counts of robbery and one count of sodomy.

During the latter months of his killing spree, Bonin was under police surveillance as some of his other accomplices had ratted him out to save their own skins. One, Vernon Butts, chose to hang himself in jail. Bonin was sentenced to death in 1982 for 10 LA County murders, and he received the ultimate penalty again the next year for four other Orange County killings. Bonin later told a television reporter his actual body count was 21.

Butts did the right thing, Miley should have followed his lead.

On Nov. 22, 1983–Miley was sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison for the Orange County murder. However, he was allowed to serve the time concurrently with his previous LA County conviction, also first-degree murder.

According to an OCDA statement, Miley has racked up 26 prison rules violations, including nine serious violations for threats against an inmate, sexual behavior for attempting to engage in non-consensual sodomy, refusal to report and remain in school, possession of unauthorized medication, renting out property to another inmate, failure to report, failure to comply with grooming standards, and responsibility for counts.

Because Miley cannot follow rules in a controlled environment, the OCDA reasons he won’t be able to once outside, making him a threat to the community. His drug use and the ugly nature of his crimes don’t hold out much hope either.

 I do not understand why we would ever even consider releasing a child killing serial criminal who can not even control himself in prison. He has tried to rape other prisoners for crying out loud. That should have added time to his current sentence and made him unable to be on parole forever.

That being said the charade of the hearings should also be stopped. The only thing that comes from these hearing are the cost to the general public, the poking at wounds for the family members and the killer getting extra attention from the board, lawyers and others that are attending the hearing.

Tax payers should not be paying for hearings that are just for show. Families should not have to deal with the trauma that this has to drag up every time there is a hearing when it is just for show.  The monster should not be allowed to put on his performance in front of the audience when there is nothing that can really be gained or lost.