Law enforcement officials in California have intensified their efforts to locate triple-homicide suspect Shane Franklin Miller. Miller is believed to be hiding in the dense, foggy redwood forest region of Humbolt County in northern California. The region is so difficult to navigate that is has long been dubbed “the lost coast.”
Miller, 45, of Shingletown, California, is suspected of murdering his wife and two daughters. The bodies of Sandy (age 34), Shelby (age 8), and Shasta (age 5) were found at 7:45 pm Tuesday. The three were shot multiple times.
Miller, who grew up in Humbolt County and knows the wooded region quite well, appears to have made the 200-mile drive from Shingletown to Petrolia, where his truck was found, sometime after the shooting.
Law enforcement officials have begun searching the region in a strategic manner for Miller, whom they regard as armed and extremely dangerous. Officials say that hiding in the rugged terrain – where parts of Jurassic Park were filmed – could be all too easy. They believe that Miller could be making for a cabin, or could simply be hiding out in the bush somewhere.
This is not Miller’s first run-in with law enforcement, though it is his most severe. In 1996 he was convicted of felony marijuana cultivation. In 2002 he was caught growing marijuana again and served three years and ten months in prison for cultivation, and for possession of a firearm by a felon.