Backlog: Church deacon arrested for murder committed 33 years earlier

...and be sure your sin will find you out. Numbers 32:23b

As reported by Sasha Goldstein of the New York Daily News, April 21, 2014:

A 78-year-old disabled church deacon was collared by cops in East Texas for a murder he allegedly committed some 33 years prior in Pennsylvania.

Joseph Lewis Miller fled Harrisburg, Penn., after he gunned down Thomas Waller in a parking lot in January 1981, police said.

The violent felon was on the lam until Monday, when an investigation finally turned up Miller, who used the alias Roy Eugene Eubanks, in Mineola, Texas, a tiny town some 80 miles west of Dallas.

“The murder occurred more than three decades ago, and while this case presented us with a significant challenge, it also exemplifies the dedication, thoroughness and diligence the fugitive task force has toward cold cases,” U.S. Marshal Martin J. Pane said in a news release announcing the collar.

“I am proud of the hard work they displayed. While not an easy case, justice has prevailed.”

Miller was previously convicted of firing a shotgun on a Harrisburg couple in 1959, killing John H. Lumpkins. The ex-con served more than 11 years of a life sentence, but he had his punishment commuted in 1971 by former Pennsylvania Gov. Raymond Shafer, according to the U.S. Marshals.

Miller fled after the alleged murder a decade later and settled in Texas, where he married at least twice, most recently in 2010.

Those in the tiny town know Miller as Roy Eubanks, a former paper plant employee who has collected disability checks for 20 years and walks with a cane, according to the Associated Press.

His wife, Gennell Eubanks, told the AP he had come clean to her about the alleged crime some 30 years ago. The man she knows now has trouble getting around as he struggles with arthritis, his cane and a Pacemaker.

“He said it was an accident and he didn't mean to do that," she told the AP. "He was trying to help his brother."

No criminal record under his assumed — or real — name could be found in the last 33 years, and Mineola residents knew the man as an active and helpful force in the community.

The U.S. Marshals know Miller as a two-time killer.

“It is my sincere hope that the victims’ family and the surviving victim can and will rest easier knowing the alleged perpetrator is now in custody,” Pane said.

I've been unable to find out what happened to Mr. Miller after he was brought back to Pennnsylvania for trial two months later, but this blogger is suspicious of his claim to be a Christian. If he were really born again, why didn't he then turn himself in to the authorities instead of continuing under an assumed name, especially since he may have killed a third person? For an excellent, detailed account of Mr. Miller's life and crimes, see On the Run for 33 Years: How a Harrisburg Killer Fooled a Sleepy Texas Town by John Luciew of Pennlive, April 29, 2014.