MILLER, Gene 1928-2005

(Gene Edward Miller)

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born September 16, 1928, in Evansville, IN; died of cancer June 17, 2005, near South Miami, FL. Journalist and author. Miller was a longtime reporter at the Miami Herald and winner of two Pulitzer prizes. A 1950 graduate of Indiana University, he served in the U.S. Army's Counter-Intelligence Corps for two years during the Korean War. After working briefly for the Wall Street Journal, he was a reporter for the Richmond News Leader through the mid-1950s, and then settled into his Miami Herald position in 1957. Miller remained at the paper even after his official retirement in 2001, serving as a mentor to younger reporters and occasionally contributing articles. Known for his outstanding research and deceptively simple writing style, Miller earned his Pulitzers in both cases for helping to free prisoners wrongly accused of murder. In the first instance, he won the prestigious award in 1967 for helping free Joe Shea and Mary Katherin Hampton, who were involved in two separate cases; in 1976 he helped win exoneration for Wilbert Lee and Freddie Pitts, who supposedly killed two gas station attendants. It took eight years of dogged investigative journalism to prove these two men innocent. In addition to these awards, Miller was credited by many for helping the Herald and its reporters win additional Pulitzers. Miller was the author, with Barbara Jane Mackle, of Eighty-three Hours till Dawn (1971) and the solo work Invitation to a Lynching (1975).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, June 21, 2005, section 2, p. 13.

Los Angeles Times, June 18, 2005, p. B19.

New York Times, June 18, 2005, p. A11.

Washington Post, June 18, 2005, p. B6.