BETH MILLER COLD CASE: FRESH SEARCH YIELDS NO SIGN OF TEEN LAST SEEN IN IDAHO SPRINGS IN AUGUST 1983

Employing excavating equipment and scientific clues, police this month returned to a wooded site in Clear Creek County in the search for Beth Miller, 14, last seen in Idaho Springs in 1983.

Miller - who stood 5-foor-4 with strawberry-blonde hair - was jogging in white shorts, a blue T-shirt and white running shoes. The Colorado Bureau of Identification Cold Case Unit classified the disappearance as "homicide" and a court declared Miller dead. CBI agents did, however, develop an age-progressed image.
This month's effort yielded no new evidence in the disappearance which once gripped Colorado. And yet, Idaho Springs police pledged "our search for answers will continue."

Miller disappeared on Aug. 16, 1983, and a decade later - on April 19, 1993 - local and state authorities - along with personnel from forensics firm NecroSearch International - identified and excavated a patch of land in Clear Creek County to no avail.

In recent days. investigators returned to the site. "Using updated technology along with maps and information from the 1993 search, the team identified several areas of interest," Idaho Springs police said. "The team excavated an area measuring more than 40 feet from north to south and more than 34 feet from east to west." Members of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation sifted through soil removed from the excavation, however, "unfortunately, we did not locate Beth," police said. There was a glimmer of hope in 1997. Police in Columbus, Ohio, identified potential evidence in the possession of an Ohio man who attended high school in Clear Creek County. It was a Colorado newspaper with a story about the Miller case and a topographical map marked with three “X's,” according to the Columbus Dispatch and Rocky Mountain News.

Nothing came of it.

The News said the Ohio man, a suspect in an unrelated case, lived on Fall River Road west of Idaho Springs when Miller vanished. Quoting sources, the News also said the man knew Miller and her family.

If you have information, contact the Idaho Spring Police Department (303) 567-4291.

Childhood and age-progressed photos of Beth Miller distributed by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and Idaho Sperings Police Department.

[Photo: Idaho Springs Police, CBI]