When an Online Affair Turned Deadly

The tragic case involving Sharee Miller her husband Bruce Miller and former investigator Jerry Cassaday is a disturbing story of manipulation obsession and a murder-for-hire plot that ultimately destroyed several lives.Sharee Miller met Bruce Miller while working at his auto salvage yard in Flint, Michigan.Their relationship moved quickly, and the two soon married. On the surface, their life appeared stable, but behind closed doors the marriage was marked by constant conflict and emotional turmoil. Friends and investigators later described the relationship as deeply troubled, with repeated arguments and growing resentment on both sides.

As the marriage deteriorated, Sharee increasingly turned to online chat rooms, where she spent long hours forming relationships with men she had never met in person. These online spaces became an emotional escape from her unhappy marriage and eventually a gateway to something far more dangerous.

Among the men she encountered online was Jerry Cassaday, a former homicide investigator from the state of **Missouri**. Cassaday was older, experienced in law enforcement, and initially cautious. However, frequent conversations with Sharee quickly grew more personal and emotionally intense. Over time, their online relationship became romantic, and eventually, the two met in person and began a physical affair.

During their relationship, Sharee painted herself as a victim trapped in an abusive and unbearable marriage. She repeatedly told Cassaday that Bruce was violent and controlling. In two separate instances, she claimed that she had become pregnant by Cassaday, only to later tell him that she had miscarried after Bruce allegedly assaulted her. These stories deeply affected Cassaday and strengthened his emotional bond to her. He came to believe that Sharee’s safety—and even her life—depended on Bruce being removed from the picture.

As the relationship intensified, Sharee began to encourage Cassaday to “take care” of her husband. According to later evidence, she made it clear that she wanted Bruce gone permanently. Cassaday, emotionally invested and convinced that Sharee was in danger, ultimately agreed.

In November 1999, Cassaday traveled nearly 800 miles to Michigan to carry out the plan. On November 8, 1999, he arrived in **Mount Morris, Michigan**, where Bruce Miller was located at the time. There, Cassaday shot and killed Bruce in what investigators would later describe as a calculated and deliberate act. Bruce, who had built his livelihood around his salvage business and was trying to hold his life together, never saw the attack coming.

In the immediate aftermath of the killing, Sharee initially maintained contact with Cassaday. However, her behavior quickly changed. Once Bruce was dead, she distanced herself emotionally and eventually cut off communication altogether. The woman for whom Cassaday believed he had risked—and ultimately destroyed—his life suddenly disappeared from his world.

The emotional collapse that followed was devastating. Cassaday realized that the relationship he had trusted so completely had been built on manipulation and deception. He came to understand that Sharee had used him as a means to eliminate her husband and then discarded him once her goal was achieved.

Overwhelmed by guilt and despair, Cassaday took his own life not long after the murder. Before his death, however, he left behind critical evidence. Investigators uncovered written materials and other documentation that directly linked him to the crime and, more importantly, detailed his relationship with Sharee and her role in urging him to kill Bruce.

Those materials became the foundation of the case against Sharee Miller. Prosecutors argued that although she never pulled the trigger herself, she orchestrated the crime by manipulating Cassaday, exploiting his emotions, and repeatedly reinforcing the idea that Bruce had to be eliminated for her safety and future happiness.

During the trial, the prosecution focused on Sharee’s online communications, her claims of abuse and miscarriage, and the timing of her sudden withdrawal from Cassaday after the murder. The narrative presented in court showed a pattern of deliberate emotional control and calculated influence over a vulnerable and emotionally invested man.

The jury ultimately found Sharee Miller guilty of her role in the murder-for-hire scheme. She was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, where she remains today.The case stands as a chilling reminder that modern technology and online relationships can become powerful tools for manipulation. What began as casual conversations in chat rooms escalated into a deadly conspiracy that cost one man his life, another his freedom, and left families on both sides permanently scarred. The story of Sharee Miller and Jerry Cassaday illustrates how emotional dependency, deception, and unchecked obsession can converge into irreversible tragedy.