Suspect in stabbing of parents captured after nearly 30-hour manhunt

Lyon County Sheriff's deputies lead Adam Miller away from the abandoned barn where he was captured. (Photo courtesy of LCSO)

Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter

A nearly 30-hour manhunt for a man accused of stabbing his parents Wednesday morning ended Thursday afternoon when he was captured in an abandoned barn.

Adam Miller, 19, was arrested after the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team found him hiding in the rafters of a three-story barn in a neighborhood southeast of his home on Farm District Rd., where the stabbings took place.

The incident had Fernley schools in lockdown and traffic blocked on a portion of Farm District Rd. on both Wednesday and Thursday.

Miller is accused of stabbing his adoptive parents in their home on Farm District Road. Lyon County Sheriff Brad Pope said during a press conference Wednesday, held just moments before Miller was captured, that Miller’s father was killed in the attack and his mother was in a Reno hospital, but was expected to survive.

Pope said it was Miller’s mother who called 911 and reported that she and her husband had been stabbed and that her husband was most likely dead. Deputies responded to the scene and the Sheriff’s Office immediately issued a shelter in place order for residents in the area and all Fernley schools were placed on lockdown.

Pope said the suspect had about a 20-30 minute head start on the deputies who began searching for him. Miller had left the scene on foot, and Pope said deputies believed he had gone south toward the foothills. LCSO obtained Ring camera footage at about 4 p.m. Wednesday that showed Miller running southward at about 10 a.m., in the area where Sheriff’s K9s tracked him before losing the trail.

Despite being inundated with calls and tips, deputies found no sign of Miller on Wednesday, except for cell phone data that showed his phone was located in the area where deputies had originally believed he had gone. Pope said LCSO and other agencies helping with the investigation followed up on a multitude of tips that turned out to be false.

Lyon County Sheriff's Office set up an incident command center in a vacant lot on Farm District Rd. next to Crosswinds Church. (Photo by Robert Perea)

“We’ve responded up to 10-15 miles away for reported sightings,” Pope said. “Even though we believe that it was not possible that he made it that far, we still responded to clear those tips. It does pull assets away from the scene, but we take every tip seriously and have to respond.”

At a press conference Thursday afternoon, Pope said LCSO had narrowed the search down to an 800-meter radius through cell phone pinging technology.

“That radius has not changed and that location has not changed since we began pinging the phone yesterday,” Pope said. “We’re confident that the cell phone is in that radius that I described, and the cell phone continues to be powered on and off, so it’s obviously being manipulated by a person, and we believe that person is our suspect.”

Pope said there are 16 houses inside that 800-meter radius, and at Thursday’s press conference, he said the LCSO and Washoe County Sheriff’s Office SWAT teams had searched all 16 of those houses multiple times and was focusing on outbuildings and possible man-made bunkers.

But just as Pope was speaking at the press conference, the  LCSO SWAT team was preparing to check out an abandoned barn off Drayer Ln. Barely 15 minutes after Pope finished speaking to the press, LCSO announced that Miller had been captured.

In an exclusive interview, Pope said the barn is on a large property with a lot of abandoned vehicles and outbuildings. SWAT checked the barn level-by-level before finding Miller in the rafters. He said the barn is a three-story building with a loft area that’s difficult to access, and rafters above the loft.

“Our SWAT guy did a peek up in the rafters, thought he saw a sleeping bag and did another peek, and when he looked the second time, the suspect was looking right at him,” Pope said. “He went at pistol point right away.”

Pope said he believes Miller was hiding in the barn the entire time deputies were searching for him.

“Our intelligence tells us that he does like to hang out in this desert area, especially when he gets in trouble,” he said.

The barn where Miller was found was slightly outside the 800-meter radius Pope had previously referred to, but he said the building could have deflected the tower signal.

“It’s not an exact science, especially when you only have one cell tower,” he said. “Had we been able to bounce off of several cell towers, we might have been able to triangulate a little bit better.”

Speaking at the press conference before Miller was captured, Pope refuted rumors that Miller had been sighted wearing different clothes or that someone was helping him hide or escape. Pope said until he was found in the barn, searchers at no time had a visual sighting of Miller.

“Our intelligence and even (the FBI) analyzing the cell phone data does not believe that he has contact with anybody,” Pope said.

Nevada Department of Transportation set up a roadblock on Farm District Rd. and Clearwater Pkwy. (Photo by Robert Perea)

Pope said Miller does have a criminal record, but he said that is mostly as a juvenile, so he declined to provide any details.

“And the one case as an adult is an active investigation, so I can’t speak to that case either,” he said.

Since LCSO does not have a helicopter, deputies were using drones to help with the search until the WCSO Regional Aviation Unit (RAVEN) arrived to assist. While the drones are equipped with infrared cameras, Pope said their battery life is very short.

“We’re getting 15 minutes of flight time per battery, whereas a helicopter in an hour can cover the whole area and continue to search,” he said. “So, you have to have a pinpoint location with the drone to get an accurate search.”

LCSO was assisted in the search by the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, Nevada Department of Investigations, Nevada Highway Patrol, Yerington Police Department and Lyon County Search and Rescue. The Nevada Department of Transportation was on the scene to control traffic on Farm District Rd. and Lyon County Emergency Management assisted with communications.

“They worked diligently. They’re tired, they’re exhausted, but they weren’t going to give up,” Pope said. “It’s a very manpower-intensive, very labor-intensive operation, with a lot of area to cover. The Sheriff’s Office does have a lot of resources, but we do depend on our law enforcement partners for their resources, and they came together and helped.

“I was just relieved that the threat to the community was neutralized,” he added.