Episode 134: The Murder of Gail Miles
On December 3rd, 2011, Boston Police Officer José Diaz responded to a radio call for a wellness check at 8 Wardman Road in Roxbury, Massachusetts, at 10:08am. A concerned friend had called and requested the check after she had called the woman residing in the apartment multiple times with no answer. Officer Diaz found that the front door was locked, the deadbolt was in place and there were no signs of forced entry. After breaking through the back door of the second floor apartment, José found a brutal scene. The body of an older black female was found on the floor in the kitchen lying face up. She had been badly beaten, and at first glance it appeared that she had been beaten to death. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The woman was identified as 61-year-old Gail Miles. She had suffered from blunt force trauma to the head as well as sharp force neck injuries. She also had other injuries from a sharp object on her body. She had either been stabbed or slashed across her throat in a way that was fatal in conjunction with her head injuries. The nature of her injuries, especially the beating and the wounds to her throat, indicated that the person responsible was very angry and that they likely knew her personally. Police also thought that the perpetrator knew Gail personally, especially as there were no signs of forced entry.
Gail’s friends told WBUR that Gail always carried a small handgun. Police never found her gun but told her family that nothing had been stolen from her apartment. They also told the family that the apartment had been wiped clean of any fingerprints and that they were unable to recover any at the scene.
At her funeral, Gail’s friends described her as a huge animal lover and an advocate for both animals and people. She was passionate about tenant rights issues and worked with City Life/Vida Urbana, a grass-roots community organization. Gail was also an ex-cop.
She had worked on the Watertown Police Department for almost 20 years before she retired in 2004, and she had been their second ever female officer and their first black officer. On December 2nd, the day before she was murdered, Gail had returned to her old station house in Watertown to pick up a new photo ID for retirement benefits. Later that day she had joined some other former police officers and friends at a bar.
According to Gail’s training officer Sergeant Gerard Mullen, Gail had struggled during her time on the police force. During training she had crashed a police cruiser, failed a firearm exam and a driving test. She also endured significant emotional, sexual and racial harassment and abuse at the hands of the other officers.
After Gail’s murder, her sister found papers Gail had written that detailed the abuse she was subjected to. Gail had been called degrading names, she had been groped, male officers rubbed up against her, and on one known occasion the dispatcher called her the N-word directly in front of her lieutenant. He pretended not to hear.
In 1996, the Watertown Police Department conducted an internal investigation about the abuse Gail was receiving from the other officers, and two of the officers were disciplined. Gail was transferred to a different work group within the same department. A year later, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) investigated further allegations, one of which included a claim made by Gail that a Watertown sergeant, who was also the department’s expert marksman, aimed his gun’s laser sight at her abdomen. In her personal papers Gail had written “My hair is breaking off, and I’m pulling out the rest from stress.” Around this same time she was prescribed antidepressants.
In the year 2000, Watertown Police Department settled a civil suit out of court for $150,000. The entire police department was required to attend an anti-harassment training course. Soon after this, Police Chief Deveau sent Gail a letter informing her that he was filing an application for her “involuntary retirement” and said that she was unstable and unfit to be a police officer. Gail and the police department negotiated and over the next two years she used up her time off before retiring in 2004.
Over the next seven years, Gail lost her husband, several pets, family and eventually her home. Gail and her sister Gina were not on speaking terms and had not been for quite some time due to a custody dispute over Gina’s grandchildren that Gail desperately wanted custody over. She had always wanted a family and her sister felt that she had so many pets in the home to fill the space Gail was saving for children.
She was also under a lot of financial stress. She had bought her home, a three-story row house, at foreclosure for $500 in the 1970’s. She had eventually taken out a first mortgage for $175,000 and a second for $357,000. Six months after she had taken out the second mortgage, Gail married an undocumented immigrant from Brazil and took out a third mortgage for $401,000. Her new husband, Adnilson Felix Cuencas, co-signed the loan. A Suffolk County Land Court official called the last loan Gail received “bizarre,” because it had been discharged 16 days later. Her marriage was strictly for convenience for herself and her husband, as it allowed him to get a green card and it allowed her to have a leg up in the custody battle for her sister’s grandchildren. Shortly after the wedding, Adnilson moved back to Brazil, leaving Gail with the mortgage. She made just one payment.
Several weeks before she was murdered, Gail’s home was foreclosed on. She was living there when it was sold at auction. The very same day that Gail had returned to the Watertown Police Department for her retirement ID, she had an appointment at her house in Roxbury with her building’s new owner. She was attempting to negotiate a lease so she could live as a tenant on the second floor.
Gail’s cousin, who chooses to remain anonymous, stated “Well I spoke to Gail, and, um, she was very upset, because she was waiting all day for this guy that bought the house to come by to finalize this contract. At 8:30 that night, when I talked to her, he had not come by yet. So she was waiting for him. He's the only person that I know that she was waiting to come by. That's the last I heard from her. And, um, she was found three days later, dead. But I think she was murdered that night.”
Despite the many years after her murder and her status as a former police officer, there have been few leads in Gail’s murder and the case remains unsolved. Anyone with any information on the murder of Gail Miles is asked to please call the Boston Police Crimestoppers at 1-800-494-TIPS.
Image sources:
wbur.org - “Who Killed Gail Miles?: The Unsolved Murder of a Retired Watertown Cop”