Man conned into burying body of murdered woman,19, in garden
A man has revealed how his friend betrayed him by burying the body of a teenager girl in his back yard, claiming he was hiding insurance papers.
In March 1995, James Begley kidnapped 19-year-old Erica Miller before shooting her twice in the head and burying her in a shallow grave hidden at the back of Cheryl Smith and Thomas March's farm in York, Pennsylvania.
The teenager went missing in January 1995 and Erica, who lived with her mother Brenda and her mother’s boyfriend Vince, had told her brother Chuck she had a secret job guarding someone at a safe house weeks before her disappearance.
The murder, which features in a new Crime+Investigation series 'Buried in the Backyard', was discovered when Cheryl grew suspicious after seeing posters of the missing girl plastered around the town and forced her husband to investigate.
They soon discovered the 'unrecognisable' remains of the girl at their home, and the following year year Begley, who had the nickname 'Animal', was found guilty of first-degree murder.
In March 1995, James Begley kidnapped 19-year-old Erica Miller(pictured) before shooting her twice in the head and burying her in a farm in York, Pennsylvania
Begley was found guilty of first degree-murder in 1996, but to this day denies his involvement and has not given the family a motive
Six weeks prior to the discovery of Erica's body, Begley asked his friend Thomas to borrow his shotgun to go hunting.
'I'd known him for six or seven years, said Thomas, 'We'd go hunting together, he wanted to use my shotgun to go squirrel hunting, so I gave it to him.
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Share 33 shares'Gave him the shells that I had, two days passes. Gives back the gun and asked if he could bury the papers and guns.'
Cheryl added: 'We called him animal, if you would have met him you would have thought he had a military background. Good haircut, clean clothes. His stuff was so clean cut, he carried a gun with him all the time.'
Appearing on new Crime+Investigation series 'Buried in the Backyard' Thomas March told how James had conned him into using his farm
Two months later, his wife Cheryl (pictured) and Thomas discover a body on their property after Smith sees a missing persons poster for Erica
When he returned the gun two days later, he asked to bury a box of ‘insurance papers’.
It was around the saame time that Cheryl saw a missing poster for Erica.
'Cheryl kept saying something's wrong, something's wrong', said Thomas, 'When she came home from the grocery store with the flyer of Erica, she had this feeling.
'She had a connection with her and she was calling out to her. She kept saying there's something wrong here, we have to figure it out.'
Begley snatched Erica in March 1995. It remains a mystery how he kidnapped her, but Erica’s brother Chuck (pictured with Erica as a child) believed it was linked to a secret job she had guarding a safe house, which she said she had
Cheryl added: 'I never had anything like this in my life, I just had this feeling this girl was in the backyard'.
The mother-of-two recalled that she was growing more and more 'agitated' after constantly noticing posters of missing Erica and phoned her husband to ask more questions about his friend.
'This girl's picture was just pasted all over the place, and I kept telling my sister there's just something about this girl on this picture. I started really getting agitated with it.'
She went on: 'I said to Thomas, do you remember that box that your friend buried and he said yeah, it's down there by the barn.
Before Erica was snatched in March 1999, she told her brother Chuck she had started a secret job guarding a safe house however to this day it remains a mystery exactly why Begley kidnapped the teenager
'I was like oh my god that's a really weird request and I didn't trust him from the beginning anyway.
‘Right after that happened, I saw that girl in the picture I said I don't care what time you get home tonight. We're going down and we're digging that box up, because I gotta know.'
'I got home from work,’ continued Thomas, 'We walked down around the barn and for a good hour or so we were digging, I put my shoulder in and I brought her arm up.'
Erica's body was found nude, wearing nothing but a pair of socks, covered in mud with her face 'destroyed' by gunshots, with duct tape around what remained of her head.
Thomas said: 'I met the cops at the end of the driveway, I walked the officers back and pointed him down there to look at the hole and oh my god.'
The pair were arrested and given a lie detector test at the station, but were soon released with police realising they'd had nothing to do with the crime.
Erin's mother and brother suspected she was missing when she had not come home for her cigarettes after a night missing
James, a family friend and previous boyfriend of Brenda, was already a suspect.
It was found that Begley had lured Erica from the house on false pretences to March’s house, where he forced Erica into the grave and shot her in the back of the head twice.
Duct tape found in Begley’s car which matched the tape found on Erica's body proved Begley’s involvement.
Begley was found guilty, but to this day he denies his involvement and has not given the family a motive.
In 1996 he was sentenced to death, however the Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated that sentence in 2001 on the grounds of confusing jury instructions.
Judge John C. Uhler sentenced Begley to life when a second penalty phase jury hung.
Crime+Investigation series 'Buried in the Backyard' premieres on Tuesday May 12
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