Dystiny Myers killer committed suicide

July 7, 2016

Cody Miller, one of the five people convicted in the brutal killing of runaway Santa Maria teen Dystiny Myers, committed suicide, the Kern County coroner has ruled. Miller, 25, was found dead in his Tehachapi prison cell last month. [Tribune]

The coroner ruled the cause of Miller’s death was asphyxiation. Authorities have not released any details about the suicide.

Miller, a Fresno resident, turned down a plea deal that would have given him a 39-year sentence. Instead, he accepted life in prison without the possibility of parole.

When Miller opted to spend the rest of his life in prison, his attorney, Gael Mueller, said he did not feel he belongs in society. There was concern at the time that Miller was a suicide risk.

In Sept. 2010, firefighters found the badly burned body of Myers, 15, in a shallow grave near Santa Margarita. Myers was found hogtied with her legs bound behind her, a glove stuffed in her mouth, one of her eyes plucked out, sweat pants tied around her throat and her hands duck taped across her chest.

Co-conspirators gave Miller the task of keeping Myers quiet, beating her, carrying her in a bag and dropping her in a makeshift grave. One co-conspirator, Jason Greenwell, testified that Miller duct taped Myers’ throat before the teen was fatally beaten and stuffed a glove down her throat when she was dead.

Following the murder, Miller was digging a grave when his cohorts turned on him and began beating him in the face with a shovel. Miller escaped and was taken to a local hospital where he received facial surgery, had his jaw shut and was treated for burns.

Miller told firefighters and investigators that Ty Hill, one of the primary conspirators, had raped him with a baseball bat before the murder. Miller also told investigators he participated in the killing because otherwise he would have been injured or something bad would have happened to him.

Four of the five defendants in the Myers murder case received sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Greenwell, the only defendant who testified during the trial, received a sentence of 15 years to life in prison.