On April 17, 2021, I received an email from Jack Miller’s great-granddaughter Karen Hale-Miller. She told me that she loved my article, because it was the first time anyone had tried to tell her great-grandfather’s true story, which was incredibly gratifying to hear. But she also told me that almost everything I thought I knew about what happened to Miller was false. I was right that Miller was a test case stage-managed by the government. But I was wrong about how Miller got involved, because the government lied, with the help of the press.
In a nutshell, Oklahoma law enforcement officers coerced Miller to participate in bank robberies they helped plan. They chaperoned Layton and Miller to Siloam Springs, where they were arrested for violating the NFA. And they murdered Miller in cold blood.
But that’s not all. They also tarnished Miller’s memory, hatefully describing him as a “big, yellow punk.”22 They lied about what he did, painting him as nothing more than a thug, in it for himself. They lied about who he was, ignoring his prominent role in the Cherokee community. And they lied about how they treated him, in order to protect themselves.