Her body was discovered in a basement of the building after a neighbor complained about a smell, Ryan said.
She said her office's cold case unit had collected evidence that Miller was the victim of a murder plot by 65-year-old Edward J. Watson, who was arrested Monday morning in Mattapan. He will be charged with murder in Cambridge District Court on Monday afternoon.
No attorney was listed for Watson in online court records.
Ryan said Watson allegedly killed Miller at the behest of her abusive partner Daniel Innis, who died in prison in 2012 while serving time on an unrelated involuntary manslaughter conviction. Ryan did not provide any information about the cause of death, nor did he provide details about how Watson was allegedly linked to the murder, other than to say he was an associate of Innis.
“Michelle Miller was the mother of two beautiful children whom she adored,” Ryan said. “She had served in the military, but in 1992 she fell on hard times. She was abused by Mr Innis, who was threatening and violent, and he threatened to take the children away from her.”
Miller disappeared on July 28, 1992, the day after she told her social worker that she would seek a restraining order against Innis, Ryan said.
She was discovered partially naked in the basement of 245 Washington St., her face covered with a blanket, Ryan said.
By reviewing archived records from the state child welfare agency, cold case investigators uncovered new details about the abuse Miller suffered and how she tried to protect herself immediately before her disappearance.
The records contained detailed “information that Ms. Miller had shared [social workers] The day before she disappeared, she told me that she was going to apply for a restraining order due to the violence she had suffered at home.”
Ryan said she spoke with Miller's adult son and daughter and her brother on Monday. She told them that Watson was arrested because he committed the murder on the instructions of “her biological father.”
“It's really a reminder, especially at this time of year, of the long-term impact of these types of crimes and how they tear a family apart and the void they leave behind,” Ryan said. “And of course, having received all of this news, the family has asked that their privacy be respected as they process everything they have learned today about the incident.”
Evidence of the alleged contract killing was “completely new” to the family, she said.
Her children knew that their father “had gone to prison for something else many years after Michelle disappeared.” But at the time of her death, “the children were very young, and obviously what they learned was largely filtered out by their biological father,” she said.
Ryan was asked why investigators were not keeping an eye on Innis and his associates at the time of the killing.
“It wasn’t clear at that point that it was a murder,” Ryan said. “It wasn't that easy, we found someone who was clearly murdered.”
She said officials would discuss Miller's cause of death at Watson's arraignment, but an “immediate cause of death” had not been determined at the time of the killing.
“But suffice it to say that we are confident that we have sufficient evidence to charge Mr. Watson with this murder,” Ryan said.
This current story will be updated.
Travis Andersen can be reached at [email protected].
