Zeke’s Statement from 1996: Introduction & General Background
Within this case three events occurred. The connecting link between them was Clarence Miller and his relationship to me. I met Miller while I was a law student working as a summer intern for the Clerk of Courts.
Miller ran errands for the judges and constables in the courthouse and we became casually acquainted. I returned to classes at the end of the summer and did not see Miller until some months after I graduated from law school. Miller learned that I had purchased a restaurant and stopped in one day at lunch time, when I was there to check in with the manager. He came in regularly for take out orders after that and we became re-acquainted.
The first of these events was the defrauding of George Wilhelm by Clarence Miller, Thadeus Dedo, and possibly Fred Orlosky. I was never involved in this crime and was not aware of its commission until a couple of years later.
The second event is the fire by arson of a restaurant purchased by my parents. I oversaw the operations of the restaurant and arranged for Clarence Miller to burn it down. A series of bad business decisions, led me to a point of desperation, the consequence of which was the decision to have the restaurant burned down.
The third event was the murder of George Wilhelm by Clarence Miller which resulted from Miller’s fear of Wilhelm turning him into the authorities for the land fraud.
In my presence, Clarence Miller killed George Wilhelm. Because of my complicity in the arson, I agreed to protect Clarence Miller and give him an alibi. I did not want Clarence Miller to be arrested for any reason because he might discuss the fire with the police which would prevent my parents from recovering their investment and involve me in the crime of arson. George Wilhelm had nothing to do with the arson of the restaurant as testified to by Miller at my trial. At the time of the fire that destroyed the restaurant in November, 1975, I had not as yet met George Wilhelm. Miller initially did not reveal the fraud to the police and attempted to convince them that the arson of the restaurant was my motive for murdering Wilhelm. As will be developed later, Miller was unable to do this and later admitted to the existence of the land fraud and his complicity in it.
At first, Wilhelm truthfully told the FBI about the land deal as he knew it to be at that time. Miller was drawn into the FBI investigation at this point also. Miller somehow convinced Wilhelm to withdraw his complaint to the FBI on the premise that this would undo the arrangement for Wilhelm to quietly buy the land in North Carolina through Senator Schweiker’s office. Wilhelm, on Miller’s prompting, then went back to the FBI and told them that the complaint was a hoax to embarrass Senator Schweiker. Interestingly, the FBI agent, Gary Boutwell, testified at my trial that he did not believe Wilhelm when the complaint was withdrawn. Boutwell continued to believe that Wilhelm had been defrauded. According to Boutwell’s testimony, the FBI only discontinued further investigation because the United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania issued a letter of declination. At this point the matter rested because Miller was able to placate Wilhelm until the killing in February, 1976. The remaining part of the story covering the land fraud will be covered in the sections dealing with the homicide and post trial procedures.
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