PHOTO: William Alma Miller
The probable cause affidavit for William Alma Miller reports that the Oregon resident confessed to law enforcement that he murdered Rebekah Gould.
Miller was arrested in Oregon on Nov. 7, 2020, in connection with the 16-year-old murder. On Wednesday, Izard County Circuit Court Judge Tim Weaver unsealed Miller’s affidavit, shining a little more light on the investigation into the Twin Lakes Area’s most well-known unsolved murder.
Rebekah Gould was last seen alive the morning of Sept. 20, 2004, in Melbourne. She had just dropped a friend off at work before stopping at a local convenience store. According to reports, the 22-year-old had gone that weekend to visit friends in Guion, a small town south of Melbourne on the White River, and later failed to return to her junior college in Fayetteville.
When investigators searched the residence where Gould was staying, they found a large amount of blood in various parts of it, which led them to believe she had been taken by force. Gould’s car, car keys, purse and money were all found at the house.
Gould’s disappearance sparked a community-based search across Melbourne and much of Izard County.
Her body was found a week later off a 35-foot embankment off Arkansas State Highway 9, about five miles from Melbourne. The cause of death was believed to be one or more blows to the head.
The affidavit reports that Miller was interviewed on Nov. 7 in reference to the ongoing investigation into Gould’s death. Miller, who was read his Miranda rights during the course of the interview, reportedly revealed that on the morning of the murder he drove to the residence Gould was staying at and concealed his pickup truck in a field behind the residence.
Miller then approached the residence and knocked on the door, the affidavit states, and asked Gould to let him use the telephone. Miller then pretended to use the phone while Gould went back to her bedroom to go to bed, the affidavit states. Miller then retrieved the leg of a piano found in the living room, entered Gould’s bedroom, and struck her multiple times with the piano leg, the affidavit states.
After killing Gould, Miller reportedly told police that he wrapped her body in a blanket and placed her in the bed of his pickup, dumping the body along the highway outside of Melbourne.
The affidavit does not indicate any possible motive for the murder or any connection between Gould and Miller. The original Arkansas State Police announcement regarding Miller’s arrest describes him as “a Texas man visiting Izard County in 2004,” but provides no further elaboration.
The 44-year-old Miller was arrested by a special agent of the Arkansas State Police Criminal Investigation Division in Lane County, Oregon, after law enforcement learned that Miller had returned to the state following an extended stay in the Philippines, the state police said.
The Arkansas State Police pursued clues and interviewed multiple people in connection to the 16-year-old case, which remained an active investigation and was never classified as a cold case.
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