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Delusional and Desperate
Dean Clay Miller, Jr., 39, didn’t know how long he’d been running or where he was headed. He’d been using methamphetamine for the past three weeks, and the day before, he’d taken his parents’ 42-inch plasma TV while they were attending a wedding. After stealing from his parents, Miller, on probation for earlier crimes, had no place to go.Methamphetamine, known on the street as crank, speed, ice, or go-fast, works on the brain to produce a dangerous mixture of euphoria, paranoia, irritability and aggression.High now on the drug, Miller was exhibiting all its worst effects. Paranoid that the dealer who sold the last “ball” of white powder to him earlier that night meant to kill him, he wandered through the quiet, upscale Pocatello, Idaho, neighborhood, a special-ops knife tucked under his arm. On that night, September 24, 2007, Miller was running from imagined enemies, hiding in a stand of junipers. Down the street, he saw a car with the headlights on. Miller ran again, believing his enemies were in pursuit. Jogging through yards and over fences, he came to a pretty yellow house in a shiny new development.
He tried a side door into the garage with a gloved hand—it was unlocked. He crept in and entered the house through a laundry room. To his left was a child’s bedroom. He peeked in and saw a small boy sleeping. Miller moved on into the living room. What he needed, he decided, was a gun.
He found the stairs to the basement, removed his shoes, to be quiet, and looked out the windows for imagined enemies. Then he returned to the main level. Near the top of the stairs was the master bedroom—and a couple sleeping. He sneaked in and rummaged through their closet. There, in a camouflage case, he discovered what he’d been looking for: a shotgun.
Something stirred Ana Mandziara awake in the middle of the night. Kade, the baby, lay in his crib under a gauzy canopy on Robert’s side of the bed, sleeping peacefully.
Ana opened her eyes and saw the silhouette of a stranger crawling across the floor near her bed. She gasped. The intruder brought a finger to his lips. “Shhh.”
He stood and pointed a shotgun at her face. Numb with terror, Ana elbowed Robert, her husband, lying next to her. The six-footer awoke. Light from the street lamps filtered through the high-arched window above the baby’s crib, dimly illuminating the room.
The intruder swung the shotgun and aimed at Robert. Instinctively, Ana looked away. Nobody spoke.
The tall, rangy Miller told them to be quiet. Then he shut the bedroom door and stood at the foot of their bed with the gun.
Nine months earlier, Robert and Ana Mandziara had moved to Pocatello, Idaho, from Los Alamos, California. Robert had been offered a great new job at the local Toyota dealer as a sales manager. The small city, with its quaint downtown and picture-perfect farmlands nearby, was so different from what the native Californians were accustomed to. California prices had been straining their budget, and Ana was concerned about violent crime near their old neighborhood, especially since there was a prison not far away.
They bought a home in the foothills with views of snow-capped mountains, and soon got to know their neighbors—the Gregans on one side, a retired police officer on the other. A couple just down the street, Dale and April Hatcher, became friends. They barbecued, shopped and held yard sales together.
All in all, Pocatello seemed like the perfect spot for Robert and Ana to raise their four-year-old son, Ayden, seven-year-old daughter, Bayleigh, and the new baby. Life there felt peaceful and secure.
Years earlier, even before they were wed, Robert and Ana had begun a discussion that would continue throughout their marriage: What would they do if they were ever in a situation of real threat? Each time they saw a news story about victims who hadn’t tried to save themselves from harm, they talked about how they would have handled things differently.
Robert was adamant. He’d sacrifice his own life, if necessary, to keep his family safe. He’d given Ana explicit instructions about what she was to do: “Run. Get to safety and get help. Don’t look back. Don’t think about it. Just do it.”
The baby woke up and started to cry. The intruder kept his eye on Robert. “Do you work in the morning?” he asked. Robert said yes. “How many guns are in the house?” Robert told him about a rifle in the garage, thinking it was best to tell the truth about anything the man might discover for himself.
Pacing back and forth between the master bathroom and the walk-in closet, the intruder was agitated, restless. He demanded to know how much money they had in their savings account. About $3,500, Robert told him.
Miller swore. “Don’t you lie to me,” he added, again threatening them with the gun.
The baby began to wail louder, and the intruder grew irritated. Miller’s movements were jerky, his demeanor increasingly hostile. “What does he need?” he asked. “Make him stop.”
Ana conjured the sound of a shotgun blast in her imagination. She tried to dispel the gruesome notion from her head and pulled the old purple quilt up as far as she could to cover herself. And she prayed. One thing she was sure of, her husband was looking for a chance to make good on his promise to save his family. She didn’t know what scared her more—that Robert might, at any moment, make his move or that he wouldn’t get the chance.
The intruder let Robert get up from the bed, walk to the crib, pick up their crying infant and lay him in Ana’s arms. Robert was aware of the man tracking his every move until he lay down again beside his wife. At first too paralyzed by his own fear to consider his options, Robert started thinking of how he could rescue his family from the gunman.
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