Terror in East Lansing: The Tale of MSU Serial Killer Donald Miller

by R. Barri Flowers

From R. Barri Flowers, award winning criminologist and internationally bestselling author of the true crime classic, The Sex Slave Murders, comes a gripping new true crime short, Terror in East Lansing: The Tale of MSU Serial Killer Donald Miller.

In the late 1970s, a serial killer prowled the campus of Michigan State University, terrorizing students and faculty alike. Donald Miller was a graduate of MSU’s renowned School of Criminal Justice, but somehow went awry and turned into a monster, targeting pretty coeds for sex assault and murder. Miller’s victims included his ex-fiancée. Only after the killer was brought to justice could the campus return to normal as a place for education and enjoyment.

Donald Miller’s path from promising Criminal Justice grad to deadly criminal is chronicled in this riveting short.

A complete second story is, “The Midwest Murders,” the shocking tale of serial killer couple, Alton Coleman and Debra Denise Brown, who went on a killing spree across four Midwestern states during the summer of 1984, showing no mercy to those in their murderous path.

Bonus material includes excerpts from R. Barri Flowers’ bestselling true crime book, The Sex Slave Murders: The True Story of Serial Killers Gerald and Charlene Gallego, and top selling true crime shorts, The Sex Slave Murders 3: The Horrific Tale of Serial Killers Leonard Lake and Charles Ng and The Amityville Massacre: The DeFeo Family's Nightmare.

Terror in East Lansing is available in Kindle, Nook, iTunes, and Smashwords.

http://www.amazon.com/Terror-East-Lan...

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Praise for True Crime Books by R. Barri Flowers

"Selected as one of Suspense Magazine's Best of 2011 books." -- John Raab, CEO/Publisher on The Sex Slave Murders

“Formidable combination of criminological expertise and sheer storytelling ability.” -- Harold Schechter, true crime historian author on Murder Chronicles

“A gripping account of the murders committed by husband-and-wife serial killers Gerald and Charlene Gallego." --Gary C. King, true crime author on The Sex Slave Murders

"R. Barri Flowers always relates an engrossing story." --Robert Scott, true crime author on The Sex Slave Murders

“A model of exposition not to be missed by anyone interested in the annals of American criminal behavior.” --Jim Ingraham, Ph.D., professor emeritus of American Studies at Bryant University on The Pickaxe Killers

"Striking, well-written tales sparkle in this ocean of murder." --Diane Fanning, true crime author on Masters of True Crime

“Exhaustively researched, each storyteller brings their own unique prose to these pages, creating what will soon become a true crime classic." --Kevin M. Sullivan, true crime author on Masters of True Crime

“This book should be a mandatory purchase and read for any true-crime buff.” —Steven A. Egger, PhD, associate professor on Masters of True Crime

“Incredible cases, psychopathic killers, unwitting victims, along with the very best writers, make for an exciting, no-holds-barred, soon-to-be true-crime classic.” —Dan Zupansky, host of True Murder on Masters of True Crime

"An indispensable sourcebook for anyone interested in American homicide, from law-enforcement professionals to armchair criminologists." —Harold Schechter, criminologist on The Dynamics of Murder

“Vivid case studies of murder to complement this well researched criminology text."—Scott Bonn, Ph.D., criminology professor on The Dynamics of Murder

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime

49 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 24, 2014

About the author

R. Barri Flowers is an award-winning criminologist and bestselling author of romantic suspense, crime and thriller fiction, crime nonfiction and true crime, relationship novels, young adult mysteries, and children's books.

The author is a member of the International Thriller Writers,

Reviews

[Kimberly Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, unbelievable story I first read in the anthology Masters of True Crime, edited by the author of this story, R. Barri Flowers. This is among the most interesting of true crime stories I have ever read.

[Nat PlainJanetheBookworm · Rating 1 out of 5]

Uhhh… No. I just didn’t like anything about this unfortunately. Brought absolutely nothing new to those of use familiar with this case, and felt as though the author had just read another book on the topic and then wrote his own quick flick, and plugged the heck out of himself at the end.

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a great read. A depressing story of course - but this is not a good handling of it. Unncessary.

[Bobby Daugherty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Short essay on a Ted Bundy wanna be.

[Rachel Dalton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, this was basically trash.


I’m finally giving into my love of true crime, and so when I learned about the East Lansing serial killer (my hometown), I knew I absolutely HAD to read this book.

This case has been in local news more and more lately as Don Miller was up for parole. Luckily, he was denied, and hopefully his parole requests will continue to be denied until he rots away in prison.

This book gives absolutely no new information. I already knew all of this from the reports and newspaper articles from the 70’s. I thought that since this guy attended the school of criminology with Don Miller, that there may be more of an insight. I thought that maybe he would have interviewed families of the victims. Nope. The book is only 58 pages, so I thought that it would be a crime short that focuses wholly on the East Lansing case, but only a quarter of the book was about the case. There was another crime short about the Midwest Murders and 3 previews of his other books that look just as uninspiring as this one.

I can look at this book from various angles:

As a fan of true crime:

This author is VERY focused on facts. And you can tell. There is very little focus on the victim (which always bothers me). When reading true crime, it is very important to me that the author do everything they can to take me back in history to when the crime occurred. It is also very important that they focus on the victim – dedicate some time to tell me about them – what were their ambitions, what made them laugh? What do their loved ones remember most about them? You need to humanize them – they were a real person and it is important that we care about them. Focusing on their killer is a complete disservice to their memory.

As an editor – I point out errors for a living:

There was absolutely no flow. Each sentence was a fact and he moved on to the next fact with few connections. Also, one of the shorts was in APA format, and the other used footnotes. I understand using different citation styles for different papers, but if you want it to appear in a collection together, it should be edited so that it all appears uniform. The visual spacing of some of the lines bothered me. I know this can’t always be corrected, but it was sloppy. The writing wasn’t awful, and I didn’t catch any major grammatical errors, but like I said, the writer lacked finesse.

Also, I find it hysterical when authors REFERENCE THEMSELVES.

So all in all, a pretty disappointing read. Luckily it was quick, like ripping off a band-aid. It’s too bad, because I really wanted to learn more about this case and the impact that it had on my community.

[Ronnie Cramer · Rating 1 out of 5]

At 59 pages, I thought this was going to be some sort of "Kindle Single" type book, but it turns out only 28 pages are devoted to the Michigan State story. The author and the perpetrator were both MSU graduates, and quite a bit of space is used discussing the school, so what's left is a brief outline that manages to telegraph the few punches it has.