Requiem for a panhandler: 'Petey' was killed execution style. He was a complicated soul

On Saturday July 8, Sterling Miller Jr. was at his usual spot, under a tree near the intersection of West Market Street and Richland Avenue, west of York, holding a cardboard sign that asked those stopped at the traffic light to contribute to his sustenance.

Miller, known as Petey, a nickname he inherited from his father, was not an aggressive panhandler, choosing to stay in the shade of the large oak as the temperature that afternoon approached 90 degrees, waiting for those stuck in traffic at the light to roll down their windows and offer him a few bills. Every so often, the pastor at the church across Richland Avenue would bring him water and chat with him. Others at the church also looked out for him, concerned that he was out in the heat for so long, sometimes inviting him into the air-conditioned sanctuary to cool off.

Going on 4 o’clock that afternoon, as late afternoon traffic was thickening, a tall, thin man walked by wearing dark blue jeans and a black T-shirt with a green fishing vest over it. The man had a camouflage mask over his face and was wearing blue latex gloves.

The man walked past Petey, witnesses later told police, then suddenly turned.

He pulled a 9mm handgun from his pocket and shot Petey in the face.

The man then walked away.

'He didn't deserve that'

Sterling C. “Petey” Miller Jr. was what is usually described as a character. He was a fixture in town, often seen on the streets. He was an adult, in his 60s, with a square jaw and thinning hair with some gray showing at his temples, often sporting a crooked grin, but those who knew him said he was childlike.

He had occasional bouts of homelessness but was often able to acquire housing in a cheap apartment, for a while anyway. He knew a lot of York City Police officers, having had run-ins with the law now and again, doing jail time for mostly minor stuff caused by his mercurial mental state. He was, in essence, harmless, a troubled soul who dealt with mental health and developmental issues, those who knew him well said.

He was, his sister Donna Miller said, “complicated.” He could be friendly and charming in his own way, but also obstinate. When conversations didn’t go his way, she said, he would just turn and walk away, ending the conversation with his distance.

He was a doting father, said his daughter, Kara Miller. He loved Kara like no other, sometimes to Kara’s dismay, and would call her constantly. Kara knew her father loved her, but at some point, she said, “I told him he had to stop.” He would, briefly, but then the calls would come flooding in again.

When his life ended – four days after he was shot – he was what seemed to be an innocent victim, a person who was shot for no apparent reason. Police have said they have no idea why someone would shoot Petey – they have not discerned any motive in the shooting – as if any explanation would in any way make sense.

Donna Miller struggles to comprehend her brother’s death.

“I just don’t understand how someone can just go up and shoot someone and leave,” she said. “He didn’t deserve that. Nobody deserves that.”

He didn't like being called Petey

Petey, his sister said, did not like the nickname “Petey,” even though that’s what everybody called him. It originated with his father, Sterling C. Miller Sr., whom everyone called “Pete,” for some reason that his family can’t explain. When Petey was born, his sister said, he merely inherited the nickname, altered to “Petey” to differentiate him from his father. “He just wanted to be called ‘Pete,’” his sister said. But Petey stuck, even into his 60s.

Sterling Miller Sr. worked at Medusa Cement off Hokes Mill Road west of York. But he was best known as a fixture in North York, where he served as a part-time cop. He also worked security at the old York Mall in East York.

Petey’s parents divorced when he was about 8 years old, his sister said. Shortly after their mother died in a car accident – she worked as a nurse at York Hospital and was killed on June 8, 1968, when she fell asleep behind the wheel on her way home from her shift – Donna went to live with her father and Petey moved in with his mother’s sister, Nancy Ruth, called Aunt Nance, and her family.

Petey had troubles. He was developmentally disabled and had some mental health issues, and it was hard for him to fit in with his new family and his four cousins, his sister said.

He wound up staying in a group home in Grantville, north of Harrisburg, his sister said. He also did a stint in the Philhaven psychiatric hospital near Mount Gretna in Lebanon County. His sister is unsure of the details as she had not kept in close contact with him while he lived with Aunt Nance.

Eventually, he returned to York and try as he may, he struggled to live. Sustained by about $750 or so a month in Social Security disability payments, he would find a place to live, usually in subsidized housing. But he moved often and sometimes found himself homeless.

Somewhere in there, he married, a union that apparently lasted just long enough for the marriage to produce a daughter, Kara. “When Kara was born,” Donna Miller said, “he needed to have supervised visits, for whatever reasons.” Those visits went on for maybe a year, she said, ending when Petey got angry with his sister after arguing with her about storing some of his stuff at her house.

He loved Kara, spending time with her and scraping money together to buy her gifts, a lot of them found at flea markets or thrift shops, an expression of his love.

Donna Miller became involved in their lives when Kara was about 10. Kara, by then, had been in York County’s Youth Development Center and a series of foster homes.

Petey worked with an attorney, Farley Holt, to get custody of Kara, but as the lawyer explained, it was clear that he couldn’t take care of her. “Kara was the love of his life,” Holt said. He spoke about her “all the time,” he said. She was the most important person in his life, his sister said. Holt did what he could do, but for all of his lawyerly expertise, he didn’t have much of a case to make. “He was barely able to take care of himself, much less a child,” the lawyer said.

Donna Miller eventually adopted Kara, now 18. Petey wasn’t happy about it, but his sister hoped that, one day, he would realize it was for the best.

Petey was always “a lovey kind of person,” Donna Miller said. “He always wants to hug everybody,” she said. “He always cared about what was going on in other people’s lives. Sometimes, though, he didn’t know when to keep his distance.”

She said, “It’s hard to explain him. He’s very street smart. He knew how to get what he wanted. He knew the resources. But sometimes, they just didn’t make sense to him.”

He lived on his own terms, she said. He could be stubborn. And he would “come and go as he wished and expected my life to just stop,” she said. She tried to explain that he couldn’t do that, that she could not put her life on hold to meet his whims. But that didn’t seem to make sense to him. “I don’t know if it makes sense,” Donna Miller said. “It didn’t make sense to me.”

She said, “He did what he thought was right, even if it didn’t make sense to other people.”

Not a lot about Petey made sense to a lot of people.

'He needed someone to take care of him'

Petey had some run-ins with the law, a lot of them. It was mostly minor stuff, harassment, disorderly conduct, things like that. “He was harmless,” Holt said. Holt defended him on a number of those charges and soon, Petey adopted Holt and his staff as a kind of surrogate family.

Holt had known Petey for some 25 years, coming into his life when he defended him on one of his minor charges. However minor, Petey spent some time in York County Prison as a result. Once, according to court records, he spent a year in jail while his case wound its way through court. Upon being sentenced, he was released because he had already spent more time in jail than his sentence.

“He could be annoying, but he could also be thoughtful,” Holt said. “He could be a pest, but he could also be a kind person.”

Petey was a huge sports fan – his favorite team was the Dallas Cowboys – and he had a rivalry with Holt, a big Steelers fan. He would gift his lawyer Steelers’ merchandise – a welcome mat or a pennant among them that he found at flea markets or thrift shops – as either an act of kindness or to rub in their rivalry.

Holt’s staff kind of adopted Petey, or perhaps Petey adopted them. He would stop by the office frequently and they would give him odd jobs to do, cleaning up trash in front of the North Queen Street office or raking leaves in the backyard or power washing the stoop to pay Holt back for his kindness.

He had trouble handling his money, what little he had. He would get his SSI check and spend it in a week, or on a few occasions, he was robbed after cashing his meager check, especially when he was homeless.

Holt’s office manager, Lisa Forbes, handled his money. She liked Petey. “He was a nice guy, but he had his challenges,” she said. “He didn’t read very well, and he needed help with things. He didn’t have anybody to help him.”

Petey was impatient, she recalled. “When he wanted something,” she said, “he wanted it right then and there.” But he was conscientious. “If you ever lent Petey money, he’d always pay you back, even if it took six months for him to pay you back,” she said.

Forbes held onto Petey’s money and would give it to him when he needed it. She helped him find housing when he was homeless. She took care of him, and she obviously cared for him. “He needed someone to take care of him,” she said. “I felt like I was his angel.”

He would call, or stop by the office, to ask for money - $5, $10, $20 at a time – and she would comply, often setting aside some of his money for savings.

He used that savings to fulfill one of his bucket-list items, attending a Dallas Cowboys game at AT&T Stadium on Thanksgiving Day. He was able to achieve that two years ago, and this year he was saving money to go to Las Vegas to watch the Cowboys play the Raiders in Allegiant Stadium.

It turned out that Petey was good at saving money. Once, Forbes said, he came into the office dragging a large suitcase and when he opened it, it was stuffed with cash, mostly singles he had collected while panhandling. He asked Forbes to count it and it turned out to be about $2,500. (He was a pretty successful panhandler; once, Forbes said, he received a $100 bill from a passing motorist.)

He told her he was going to buy a trailer with it. Forbes said that was fine, but where was he planning to park it? He wasn’t concerned about that. He thought he had a plan. He did buy a trailer and parked it on the property of an old friend. The old friend took umbrage, according to Forbes, and that led to a disagreement.

The details are sketchy, but the result was Petey developed a powerful urge to leave his hometown and strike out for more fertile ground.

“I’ve had it with York County,” he told a number of acquaintances. “I’m moving to Florida.”

Last summer, he bought a one-way ticket to Orlando and left York County for what he thought was good. When he arrived in Florida, he lived in the sprawling Orlando International Airport for a week before deciding to return home. “I don’t know what possessed him to do that,” Forbes said. Upon his return, he told his sister that he was just on vacation. But he amended that statement, saying that the airport security staff was upset with him because he kept leaving his luggage unattended.

Upon his return, homeless, he lived on the steps of a church rectory across the street from Holt’s office for a few weeks. One day, Forbes said, he showed up at the office not wearing pants, saying that someone stole his pants while he was sleeping. “He was holding a towel in front of him and started putting on pants right here,” Forbes said, “I told him to go back to the bathroom.”

After that, Forbes helped him find an apartment in York, on East King Street near South Broad Street.

That’s where he was living when he died.

'It wasn't Petey, was it?'

Tanya Brubaker first came to know Petey when he was panhandling across Richland Avenue from her church, Calvary United Methodist at the intersection of Richland and West Market Street.

Brubaker, pastor of the church, would talk to Petey now and then, tending after his comfort, taking him cold water and inviting him into the church to cool down on hot days.

Their conversations didn’t veer into the spiritual, most often talking about sports. Brubaker is a Steelers fan and she and Petey would often joust over the Pittsburgh-Dallas rivalry. “He was like ‘Rain Man’ and could rattle off stats,” Brubaker recalled. “He always wanted to talk about the glory days of the Cowboys, not the losing days of the Cowboys.”

She didn’t know a lot about his life, but he often spoke about his daughter and how much he loved her and missed her. “I’d say he was complicated,” she said. “Most of the time, he was pretty engaging if he was talking about something he wanted to talk about. He would put his arm around you when you talked to him. He was comfortable with that human contact. But if you said something that irritated him, the conversation was over. I guess that switch was easily turned. He’d get upset and he’d leave.”

The day Petey was shot was a shock, Brubaker said.

A police officer came to the church to ask about surveillance cameras, saying that someone had been shot. She asked, “It wasn’t Petey, was it?”

The police officer told her he couldn’t say.

But deep down, Brubaker said, she felt it.

“In a sense, we knew,” she said, “but we didn’t know for sure.”

The uncertainty was based on one thing: Who would shoot Petey?

'It doesn't make sense'

Four days after Petey was shot, York City Police, using surveillance video as evidence, arrested Brandon Michael Ellerbe, a 30-year-old York man. That same day, Petey succumbed to his injuries and died in York Hospital. He was 65. Ellerbe was charged with criminal homicide and remanded to York County Prison without bail.

The criminal complaint filed against Ellerbe describes the surveillance video, including one clip that shows him shooting Petey in the head at point-blank range, a shooting that had been described as execution style. Police said they have not determined a motive for the shooting; they don’t have to as Pennsylvania’s criminal code does not require police or prosecutors to prove a motive in a murder. In many cases, the evidence reveals the motive for a killing. In this case, the evidence doesn’t.

Donna Miller said, “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

She has no idea why someone would want to kill her brother. She doesn’t know whether it was some kind of gang initiation or whether the shooter had some kind of beef with her brother or whether it was something else entirely.

She just knows one thing.

“My brother,” she said, “didn’t deserve this.”

Thinking of Petey

Shortly after Petey’s memorial service at Calvary United Methodist, Forbes called Donna and told her he had some money she had saved for Petey for his trip to see the Cowboys in Las Vegas, about $1,200. Forbes wanted Donna to pass the money on to Kara, as Petey would want that.

When Donna went to the lawyer’s office, she brought a candle as a gift. Now and then, the office staff will light the candle and think of Petey.

Columnist/reporter Mike Argento has been a York Daily Record staffer since 1982. Reach him at mike@ydr.com.

This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Requiem for a panhandler in York PA: Petey was killed execution style