Vanished: The Story of Dawn Marie Miller

Editor’s Note: This is the fifth in a six-part series highlighting missing persons cases in Centre County.

Jennifer Cahill-Shadle is the most recent person with links to the Centre County area to disappear.

Cahill-Shadle joins a group of missing people that includes Joey Lynn Offutt, Ray Gricar, Hyun Jong “Cindy” Song, Dawn Marie Miller and Brenda Louise Condon.

In all cases, these adults seemingly vanished into thin air. Evidence in some cases suggests foul play but all of them remain a mystery.

State College residents likely remember these high-profile cases and may have information that can help answer the unknown.

This is the story of Dawn Marie Miller.

Miller, 22, was last seen leaving the Academy Apartments in Bellefonte with two men, including Miller’s boyfriend, around Oct. 24, 1992 in a brown 1982 Datsun 210 station wagon. Miller lived in Williamsport, Lycoming County with her mother. Her boyfriend resided at the apartment complex in Bellefonte.

Kenneth Mains, founder of the American Investigative Society of Cold Cases (AISOCC) and detective for the Lycoming County Detectives Office, is in charge of the cold case.

Around 2008, while working as an undercover police officer with the Williamsport Police Department, Mains says he learned about the Miller case and wanted to investigate. He says the case had gone cold and the department was not actively investigating the disappearance.

All he found on file was a two-page report. “I was just completely horrified,” Mains says.

During a preliminary investigation in 1992, Mains says the two men told police they drove Miller back to Williamsport and they didn’t know what happened to her afterward.

When questioned about scratches on their bodies, the men reportedly said they got a flat tire after dropping Miller off in Williamsport and the tire rolled down an embankment. When the men retrieved the tire, a briar bush scratched them.

Miller’s boyfriend committed suicide in 2008.

Mains believes Miller is a murder victim. However, without a body or other evidence to show that a homicide occurred, authorities have never been able to file charges.

Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller says Miller is likely deceased and more information is needed to locate her and file any relevant charges.

“The person we believe was responsible for her disappearance and death took his own life. We are always open to and hopeful for any information about her disappearance and presumed death, but since I have been in office, while we have pursued issues and leads, nothing noteworthy has developed on this case nor have any potentially viable charges against others been discovered,” says Parks Miller. “We have not foreclosed that possibility and never do.”

Parks Miller urges anyone with information regarding Miller’s disappearance to come forward.

“We want to hear what people know, even if they think it is insignificant. We really want to find her, for her family’s sake, so they can put her to rest in their own private way,” she says.

Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of Dawn Marie Miller can contact the Lycoming County District Attorney’s Office at 570-327-2456.

Vanished: The Story of Joey Lynn Offutt

Vanished: The Story of Ray Frank Gricar

Vanished: The Story of Hyun Jong Cindy Song