Man Charged in 1992 Murder-for-Hire Plot Against U.S. Army Soldier, Allegedly Organized by Victim's Abusive Partner

A Massachusetts man was charged in a murder-for-hire plot that left a soldier dead in 1992 and remained unsolved for decades. 

Michelle Miller, 29, a soldier in the United States Army, was found dead in the basement of a vacant apartment in Cambridge, Mass., two weeks after she was last seen alive, the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office says.

Prosecutors charged 65-year-old Edward J. Watson with first-degree murder in connection with Miller’s 1992 death. 

Watson is accused of killing Miller at the behest of her partner, Daniel J. Innis, who died in 2012 after he was sentenced to 15 to 20 years in prison for an unrelated manslaughter charge.

“Michelle Miller had served her country as a U.S. Army soldier, and she was a mother of two beautiful children, whom she adored,” District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a statement. “By 1992 she had fallen on hard times. She was abused by a jealous and violent partner, who had threatened to take away custody of her children.”

Miller told a social worker that she intended to obtain a restraining order against Innis on July 28, 1992, Ryan says. The next day, she disappeared.

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According to authorities, Miller’s body was found with her head covered by a blanket and partially naked.

Authorities did not specify what led them to charging Watson with murder. But a map of Cambridge released by prosecutors appears to show that the suspect lived just blocks away from where Miller’s body was ultimately found.

It is not immediately clear if he has retained an attorney or entered a plea.