A Life of Death: The True Story of a Crime Scene Detective

by Jeffrey Miller

The dead speak in a silent language. What is it like to be a crime scene detective and understand the language of the dead? How do the police investigate a death when there is no one to talk to? What does death look and smell like? What would it be like to be part of a major murder case and hear the voices of the dead? Wouldn’t you like to see what is on the other side of that yellow crime scene tape? This is your chance. Retired Fairfax County Police Crime Scene Detective and forensic science professor, Jeffrey Miller pulls up the crime scene tape and offers you a rare first-person account of his Life of Death.You will follow in his footsteps as he helps to solve high profile murders. In these pages you will see how the modern version of Sherlock Holmes is able to find, analyze and accurately interpret forensic clues at death scenes. Gaze over his shoulder as he attempts to determine how this victim died. You will stand side-by-side with homicide detectives and prosecutors as they build the cases to convict some of the most notorious murderers in the Washington, DC area. This a first-person account by a detective who lived the life of death. He has the knowledge, education, training, and expertise that other true crime authors wish they had. This book has the grit and gore of the scene along with the gallows humor that only comes from those who have been there. This is the life of a detective with a personal relationship with the Angel of Death. In 1993, Det. Jeffrey Miller was the forensic detective who provided the clues to identify the terrorist Mir Kansi and sparked the international manhunt for the CIA Attacker. Det. Miller was also on the DC Sniper Prosecution Task Force in 2002 and has information never published before about the killers, John Muhammad, and Lee Malvo. Det. Miller followed these cases from beginning to their ultimate end and provides a first-person account of the executions of Kansi and Muhammad.Most true crime writers are journalists or reporters. They are writing about what other people told them. They do their best to tell a story through their own interpretation. Det. Miller is the person they are writing about. He found the body, he found the evidence, he saw the blood spatter and analyzed it. He is the person who knows best because he was there and did it. Readers get to stand behind Det. Miller while he surveys the crime scene. Det. Miller gives the reader a view through his eyes. The reader will know what he knows, see what he sees, understand what he understands. Det. Miller will give the reader what no other author can – authenticity and realism.

244 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 1, 2023

About the author

Jeffrey Miller was a crime scene detective and forensic analyst with expertise in death investigations, criminal profiling, motivational analysis, and hostage negotiation. For twenty-seven years he was a police officer and detective with the Fairfax County Police Department in Northern Virginia. He has testified as an expert witness in various forensic disciplines to include fingerprints, footwear analysis, glass fracture analysis, bloodspatter interpretation, and forensic photography. He has a master’s degree in forensic science and was an adjunct professor at George Washington University for nineteen years. He taught forensic science as an international lecturer in China and Saudi Arabia. He was a guest speaker at the Smithsonian Institute for a series of lectures on the history of forensic science, homicide investigation and classification, and crime scene investigation. He is a published author of forensic related articles and training guides. Many of his cases have been made into movies and featured on the Discovery Channel and other media outlets. Det. Miller was the lead CSI for the attack on the CIA by Mir Kansi in 1993, which initiated an international manhunt. He was also the lead forensic investigator for the DC Sniper Prosecution Task Force responsible for the trials of John Muhammad and Lee Malvo. Now that he is retired, Jeff Miller enjoys trips to London retracing the footsteps of Jack the Ripper, touring Scotland Yard’s Crime Museum and walking the streets of the city pretending to be the consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes.