Family seeks answers to mom gone 5 years

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If ever a case seemed destined to remain unsolved, it is the disappearance of Rebekah Rachel Miller.

The 33-year-old homeless woman and mother of three was last seen Dumpster-diving in the wee hours of Oct. 15, 2002, behind a shopping center on Oakdale Road in Modesto.

Her boyfriend reported her missing, telling police that her disappearance was "highly unusual and bizarre."

She left behind her bicycle and belongings, including her collection of beads, and police found no signs of a struggle. And she left behind a family fractured, in no small part, because she was bipolar and took greater refuge in methamphetamine than her prescribed medications. Hence, her migration to the streets.

Nearly five years later, Miller's husband, Bryan, wonders what really happened to the woman he fell in love with as a teenager, had three kids with, and with whom he experienced the best and worst love and marriage had to offer. That her body never has been found leaves an array of possibilities, all speculative:

She was the victim of foul play.
Something happened to her -- accidentally, intentionally or medically -- while she was in the trash bin, and she was carted off to her demise at the county landfill.
She chose to disappear, leaving the area altogether.

Because she vanished roughly two months before Laci Peterson's disappearance, Bryan Miller believed the police simply shelved her investigation and ultimately put all of their efforts into solving the Peterson case.

Last week, with the anniversary of Rebekah's disappearance looming, Miller learned that wasn't so. He and daughter Kathryn, 17, met with Modesto police Detective Craig Grogan, who worked both cases.

"I went down there ready to unload on Detective Grogan," Miller said. "If they'd done such a good job on the investigation, how come I'd never met him?"

Instead, Grogan showed him a large binder full of information generated from the investigation. The problem, Grogan said, is that while Laci Peterson's disappearance drew 11,000 tips, Rebekah Miller's disappearance generated only a handful of calls, all of which checked out quickly. For the most part, the tips stopped coming by the time the Peterson case developed.

"I was really surprised how much they had done," Miller said.

"I did about everything I could do," Grogan said. "It's still entered as a missing person's case. There's DNA on file. The case is open."

Grogan and Miller never met because he and Rebekah had been separated for about a year. Her grandmother, Virginia Barnett, was the most stable adult in her life and had been for years. Even though Bryan Miller and Rebekah still were legally married, her grandmother became the family's point of contact with the police.

"I was constantly on my son, telling him, 'You need to go down there and find out what's going on,' " said Linda Lewis, Bryan Miller's mother. "But the grandmother didn't want the kids to know anything."

The police dealt with Barnett until her death six months after Rebekah disappeared. By then, the leads had pretty much dried up, and the Peterson investigation was in full swing.

Bryan Miller and Rebekah met when they attended Frontier High, a now-defunct continuation school in north Modesto, in 1985. She quickly got pregnant, and son Michael was born in 1986. He was raised by Barnett until he was 16.

Looking for a way to support his new family, Bryan Miller joined the Army, and was stationed in Fort Carson, Colo. That's where their second child, Andrew, was born in 1988.