Murder suspect Jason Michael Miller blabbed freely about how he shot Kiera Lynn Foley, dismembered her body and drowned her little dog in a toilet, witnesses testified during the first day of Miller’s preliminary hearing.
Two women testified Thursday that Miller told them about the murder. A third woman, Crystal Gonzales, said she was in Miller’s motel room when he showed her Foley’s body in the bathtub. Gonzales said a small dog was on Foley’s body, shivering, when Miller picked up the dog and drowned it in the toilet.
“Ha, ha, bubbles,” Gonzales recalled Miller saying.The dog’s name was Bubbles.
Miller, 41, is charged with killing the 32-year-old Foley on or about April 15, 2021. According to one witness, Foley and Miller had been in a sexual relationship, but he began to suspect she was about to rob him. His solution, allegedly, was to shoot her, chop up her body and bury it. The body has never been found.
About a dozen of Foley’s friends and family members were in the courtroom during the gruesome testimony.
Rose Cooper, Miller’s former girlfriend, testified she had been living with Miller at the Laguna Inn in Eureka for about two weeks when he confessed.
Cooper, crying, testified she was taking a bath when Miller walked in and started talking.
“He only knew (Foley) for about two weeks,” Cooper testified under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Jessica Watson. Miller told her Foley lied to him a lot and he believed she was going to rob him.
Miller allegedly forced Foley into the motel room bathtub and “mentally tortured her,” Cooper said. One minute he would tell her she could go home, the next minute he’d say he was going to kill her. Cooper couldn’t recall whether Miller said the torture went on for four hours or four days.
“And then he walked in and shot her.”
“He said he bled her out and cut the body in pieces and that he killed her dog in the toilet — drowned it.”
According to Cooper, Miller said he forced Gonzales to help him, and he buried Foley “under a briar bush.”
For four days Miller kept going back to the burial site and digging, Cooper recalled. When he talked about that “he was laughing. He scared the shit out of me.”
Cooper also said that after Miller was arrested in June, she found a notebook in which he had written “No corpse, no crime.”
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Andrea Sullivan, Cooper said both she and Miller were using “heroin, speed and alcohol.” She stayed with Miller because he treated her so well, Cooper said. She had been working as a prostitute, and “he told all my tricks that I wouldn’t be out there anymore. Like I said, he was real good to me.”
She said Foley also was a prostitute. When Sullivan asked whether Foley ever went missing, Cooper said yes. Foley would disappear for months on end. Once she joined a carnival crew and was gone for six months.
Cooper said Gonzales helped cut up Foley’s body, and she kept the body in her car while Miller was digging the grave.
“She was driving around town with Kiera’s body,” Cooper said. “Driving around, doing errands, going to the store.”
Another witness, Phyllicia Korn, said she lived at the Laguna Inn and knew Miller.
“He was my dealer,” Korn said.
Korn recalled Miller coming to her door and telling her about killing Foley and the dog.
“He asked me if I wanted to see (the body) and I said no.”
“Did you believe him?” prosecutor Watson asked. Korn said yes.
“Just the look in his eyes,” she said. “Like there was nothing there. No soul.”
Korn is expected to continue testifying this morning.
As for Gonzales, her testimony was difficult to take seriously. She had a hard time staying awake and admitted she took a half-dose of methadone. Earlier in the day she was sleeping and softly snoring, with the bailiff threatening to kick her out of the courtroom.
She also acknowledged she has several mental disorders. Cooper testified Gonzales is one of two women in Eureka called “Crazy Crystal.”
“Believe it or not, there’s more than one out there,” Cooper said.
Gonzalez, under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Roger Rees, said Miller put a gun to her head and forced her to walk into the bathroom and view the bloody body and the little shivering dog. He told her “now you’re involved.”
She denied helping with the body, saying Miller told her he didn’t have to worry because “the mafia” or “the cartel” would take care of everything.
Sullivan, during her questioning of Gonzales, pointed out that in Miller’s motel room “there’s no physical evidence, no blood, no bullet hole, no sign of trauma whatsoever.”
She also pointed out that at one point, Gonzales searched the Internet for information on how to get rid of a body.
“I don’t believe that,” Gonzales said.
On Thursday Miller sat next to Sullivan in his orange jumpsuit. Need it be said that he looks nothing like his mugshot? Now he’s plump and wears glasses.
Judge Kaleb Cockrum is presiding over the hearing. Watson and Rees are co-prosecutors.
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