Suspect in 43-year-old murder killed in shootout as police close in, Ohio cops say
It had been 43 years since 18-year-old Debra Miller was found “brutally” killed in her Ohio apartment, but her case was still unsolved.
The case reopened several times over the course of four decades, but her killer was not identified until 2024, the Mansfield Department of Police said in a Dec. 30 news release.
“One individual continued to draw investigators’ attention but not enough evidence could ever be provided to sustain an indictment,” police said.
The individual was the man that lived upstairs from Miller on April 29, 1981, the day she was killed, according to police.
Miller’s murder investigation reopened in 2021, when investigators decided to look at the case “through an entirely new lens,” police said.
A DNA profile created with new technology linked Miller’s upstairs neighbor, James Vanest, to the killing, according to police.
Vanest had been interviewed in 1981, but detectives approached Vanest again 40 years later at his apartment in Canton for two separate interviews.
During the first interview in 2021, police said Vanest gave the detective an “alibi” and attempted to justify why his DNA was in Miller’s apartment, though the detective had not brought up the topic.
During the second interview three years later, Vanest refused to speak to the investigator and requested an attorney, police said. He then sold his residence and fled to West Virginia, where he was arrested and convicted on gun charges, according to police.
While out on bond, Vanest returned to Canton, police said.
In November, U.S. Marshals and a SWAT team attempted to serve an indictment to Vanest at a hotel, police said.
Vanest pointed a gun at authorities, police said, and a short shootout ensued. The man was shot and killed.
Following the deadly shootout, Mansfield police said they had “proof beyond reasonable doubt that James Vanest committed the murder of Debra Miller on April 29, 1981,” and they closed the case.
Mansfield is about a 65-mile drive west from Canton.
This story was originally published December 31, 2024 at 11:56 AM with the headline "Suspect in 43-year-old murder killed in shootout as police close in, Ohio cops say."
