Williamsport police chief: Suspect confessed to witnessing 1992 murder

WILLIAMSPORT — The Williamport police chief said Thursday night that a suspect has confessed to witnessing the murder of a Williamsport woman last seen in Centre County more than 15 years ago.

The prime suspect in the murder of 22-year-old Dawn Miller is dead, said police Chief Gregory Foresman. He related the information while presenting Williamsport Detective Kenneth Mains with a Police Officer of the Year Award Thursday.

Mains has been working with Centre County authorities to investigate the disappearance and presumed murder of Miller. She was last seen leaving the former Bellefonte Academy apartments with two men on Oct. 24, 1992 in a 1982 Datsun 210 brown or maroon station wagon.

Mains, who joined the force in 2003, reviewed reports about Miller’s disappearance and re-interviewed the two suspects who gave conflicting information about their relationship with the woman, Foresman said.

The lead suspect committed suicide on Oct. 15, Foresman said.

The second suspect lives in Centre County and is being represented by attorney Bruce Manchester. Foresman said that while Mains was executing a search warrant to obtain the man’s DNA, the man confessed that he was present when Miller was killed.

Foresman said the man, who has not yet been charged, provided detailed information about Miller’s killing and showed police a spot where he said Miller had been buried in a shallow grave.

Despite countless hours of searching and digging in the Jacksonville Quarry area near Bellefonte, however, no body has been found.

“My client didn’t kill anybody,” Manchester said Friday. “Yeah, he knows who did it.”

Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira said he can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, but he did say that this could be a multi-jurisdictional case.