The bra murders were a series of murders committed against five sex workers from 1967 to 1971 in Stamford, Connecticut. Most of the victims were black sex workers or in active addiction, each had been strangled, sometimes with their own bras, from which the murders' moniker originated.
Benjamin Franklin Miller, a self-styled preacher from Norwalk, was charged and later acquitted by reason of insanity, spending the rest of his life in a mental institution. His guilt has been questioned and remains the subject of debate to this day.
Murders
The murders began on or after August 4, 1967, when 29-year-old Rose Ellen Pazda (known as "Sissi Rush") was reported missing from Stamford. Despite the authorities' efforts, they were unable to locate her until April 4, 1969, when her skeletonized remains were found. Due to the advanced state of decomposition, the coroner was unable to determine her exact date of death.
On May 2, 1968, 22-year-old Donna Roberts was reported missing and found dead on the next day, followed up by 21-year-old Gloria Conn on September 8, whose corpse was found only 60 yards away from where Roberts had been killed. Conn, from Mount Vernon, New York, was the only victim not native to Connecticut.
The next victim was 19-year-old Gail Thompson, who was found strangled on July 10, 1971, in an abandoned house. On August 22, the fifth and final confirmed victim, 34-year-old Alma T. Henry, was found inside a trash can by two passing motorists who were on their way to watch a football game. She differed significantly from previous victims, as she was not known to be a sex worker or in active addiction, but instead lived with her husband and four children in Southfield Village, a low-income housing project within Stamford.
According to the investigators' conclusions, the murders ceased after her death. They were quickly linked together by the fact that all victims had been found within 400 meters along Merritt Parkway and the fact that three of the victims (Roberts, Conn, and Henry) had been strangled with their own bras.
Investigation
In April 1969, the Stamford police received a call from a man who identified himself as a preacher named James Miller. The caller then told them where they could find Pazda's remains, claiming in turn that he had been told of the location during a phone call with a man he did not know. As they wanted to question him in person, investigators compiled a list of every clergyman in the state who bore the surname Miller, which eventually drew their attention to a resident of Norwalk: a 42-year-old white man by the name of Benjamin Franklin Miller.
According to the investigators, Benjamin Franklin Miller, Jr., a native of Aurora, Illinois, moved to Connecticut in 1948 and within a few years changed several occupations. He had shown signs of a mental illness as a teenager, and due to this, he was repeatedly incarcerated or interned at psychiatric clinics beginning in 1951. In 1962, he found a job as a postal clerk with the Postal Service, where he worked until early 1972. Miller was married and had a 12-year-old daughter, but was considered a loner by family members and coworkers.
Due to his introverted nature and trouble with communication, Miller had no close friends or meaningful relationships with relatives. As a religious fanatic, he distributed religious literature while sorting mail at work and reportedly admired evangelist Billy Graham. From time to time, he exhibited concerning behavior: he often felt anxious, fearful, agitated or depressed; was haunted by obsessive thoughts, suffered from hypochondria and had trouble sleeping. Miller spent most of his free time attending church in Stamford's African-American community, and from the mid-1960s, he became a self-styled preacher who exposed his religious beliefs and doctrines on a street corner, paying special attention to black girls and women.
The investigation into the murders was criticized by the aforementioned African-American community in Stamford, who accused the police of negligence due to the fact that the victims were poor, black women. Some called for an internal investigation to be conducted on the city's police department and for the negligent officers to be punished on the grounds that they violated civil rights.