August 28, 2017
Police in central Pennsylvania are hoping a concrete slab removed from the basement of a home provides the answer to a more than two-decades-old missing-person case.
Authorities are trying to determine whether Barbara Elizabeth Miller, who disappeared in 1989, was fed through a wood chipper and buried in the structure of a house in Milton, Northumberland County, The Associated Press reported Sunday.
Police said they found the presence of wood chips in the wall, removed from the home in June, "highly suspicious."
Sunbury Police Chief Tim Miller, who isn't related to Barbara Miller, told The Daily Item that the discovery of the wood chips, as well as other unspecified findings, "continue to confirm that we are definitely looking in the right place."
Barbara Miller was last seen by friends at a wedding on June 30, 1989. Her ex-boyfriend Joseph Walter Egan reported her missing five days later.
Egan, an ex-police officer who wasn't on the force at the time of the disappearance, is the lead suspect in the case. He denied to the AP that he had anything to do with Miller going missing.
Tim Miller began digging into the cold case after getting a tip that Egan's sister Cathy Reitenbach, who died in January, was one of the last people to see Barbara Miller. Reitenbach rented the home where the slab was removed from in 1989.
The police chief then discovered old reports suggesting the home may be the key to solving the case, including a 2004 report that claimed Egan put the body inside the wall of a home.
Investigators then looked in the basement of the home and found an added-on concrete floor with parts of apparently hand-mixed concrete as well as a "peculiar" small room with concrete walls and an exhaust fan.
Police also recently searched the home that Barbara Miller used to live in.
"The puzzle is coming together, and it is just a matter of time until we get our answers," Tim Miller told The Daily Item. "I will continue to keep the public informed as much as possible in an effort to continue to be transparent."
