Killer Wants Henning To Repent ‘I Wish She Would Accept Her Guilt,’ Says Trigger Man In 1981 Killing

The thick file on Gov. Gary Locke’s desk tells the story of Neva Henning, a 63-year-old grandmother serving a life sentence for arranging her husband’s murder.

It details the arguments for and against granting clemency to Henning, who’s scheduled to serve at least five more years for a crime she insists she didn’t commit.

Locke must decide whether to follow the state clemency board recommendation and set Henning free.

But the man who claims he pulled the trigger for Henning said she shouldn’t be released early unless she admits her guilt.

“I oppose her going free if she continues living that lie. I wish she would accept her guilt, the way I have,” Richard Miller said during a recent interview.

Miller, 37, was convicted in 1981 of killing Duane Henning on a winter night in Rosalia, 36 miles south of Spokane.

He originally denied the crime. A year later, serving a life prison sentence at the age of 20, he changed his story and agreed to testify against Henning.

The jury believed that he was lured into a romantic relationship with Henning, a school librarian who told him her husband beat and abused her.

In return for testifying, authorities cut his prison term in half. He was released in 1990 and attended Spokane Community College. He now lives in Airway Heights, where he’s a member of the city’s Planning Commission. Until recently, he talked about running for the City Council.

He admits having mixed feelings about Henning’s clemency request. She has served nearly a dozen years in prison, where she’s regarded as a model prisoner.

If Henning were released and faded from public view, Miller said, people might forget about him, too, and what he calls “the biggest mistake of my life.”

Yet he wants Locke to look hard at the issue he considers most important - her refusal to admit being involved in the crime.

“It was her idea, entirely. I was a young kid, and she knew how to control me,” Miller said. “Why would I have ever done this on my own?”

Locke has three choices: grant clemency, reject it, or make no decision at all, said his general counsel, Everett Billingslea.

Billingslea prepared the file that summarizes the Henning case. He didn’t contact Miller, he said, “because I didn’t know where he was.”

Henning’s request for early release went to the state clemency board in March.

The volunteer board voted 5-0 to support clemency. It was the first time the board voted unanimously for clemency, said chairwoman Anita Peterson, a Bellevue psychologist.

Granting clemency is uncommon. Only 10 cases were approved by Mike Lowry during his four-year term as governor. Most were for ill or dying inmates.

Clemency requests are supposed to be decided on “extraordinary circumstances,” not a prisoner’s guilt or innocence, Peterson said.

But that line can be blurred at times, she said. The board agreed the primary issue in Henning’s case was Richard Miller’s testimony.

“The strong incentive he had to change his story (in prison) made us look again at this case,” Peterson said.

Opposing stories

Miller was convicted by a Whitman County jury in December 1981 of first-degree murder for the death of grain inspector Duane Henning.

From the start, many Rosalia residents were split over whether Neva Henning was involved.

Some believed she played a key role in the shooting. They gossiped she had a love affair with Miller, whom the Hennings had taken into their home a year before the murder.

Others accepted Henning’s story that a masked stranger inside a storage shed shot her husband in the back. Duane Henning, 40, died the next day in a Spokane hospital.

Miller had moved from Lewiston to escape a tortured family life, eventually being invited in by the Hennings, who had provide similar help to troubled teens before.

Miller said the couple became substitute parents, encouraging him to finish high school in Rosalia.

Not long after the murder, deputies arrested Miller at his grandparents home in Lewiston. After he failed polygraph tests, they charged him with the killing.

“I was a terrible liar,” Miller said. “A couple times then, I almost told them the whole story.”

He told jurors during his trial that he was inside the house when Henning was murdered.

Neva Henning paid all his legal bills. She sent letters to him in prison, assuring an appeal would set him free.

An athletic, soft-spoken man, Miller said he turned antisocial behind bars. He gained 50 pounds and spent nearly all his time working at the prison infirmary.

In 1982, he told his mother that Neva Henning had promised him $10,000 from Duane’s insurance policy and a place to live on the farm if he’d kill her husband.

His mother then told Whitman County prosecutors, who offered to cut his sentence if he testified against Henning.

Late in 1982, Neva Henning’s murder trial started in Spokane, moved from Whitman County because of the difficulty of finding unbiased jurors there.

Henning testified calmly, appearing almost icy, according to some observers.

Miller’s testimony was the only evidence against Henning, said her Spokane defense attorney, Jeff Morris.

Whitman County Prosecutor Ron Carpenter - who is now an attorney with the state Supreme Court - agreed the case against Henning was was circumstantial. “But air-tight circumstantial,” he said.

“I’ve never had a sleepless night from this case. She sent a young kid - who was under her influence - out to shoot her husband.”

Morris said Miller couldn’t even load the rifle he said he used in the murder. In front of jurors, Miller tried to load a cartridge, fumbled, then said he couldn’t do it.

After three days of deliberating, the jury convicted Henning of first-degree murder.

Spokane County Superior Court Judge Michael Donohue said later: “Reasonable doubt was out there. There was a lot of surprise in the courtroom.”

Donohue allowed Henning to live in Spokane until her appeals were exhausted.

In 1986, she began serving a sentence of 20 years to life. The earliest she officially can go free is January 2002.

In return for testifying, Miller’s sentence was basically cut in half. He was released from Pine Lodge Work Release Center in 1990.

Freedom, he said, is a relative term.

Two years ago, he worked as secretary at a Spokane Valley Alzheimer’s clinic.

Because state law prevents felons from holding some jobs that put them in contact with seniors, Miller was let go when his employers learned about his background.

“It haunts you the rest of your life, having a record,” he said.

Taking sides

Henning, who is imprisoned at the Women’s Correctional Center in Purdy, still insists she’s innocent.

She declined to be interviewed for this article. Her three daughters, who visit her every six weeks, also wouldn’t comment about Miller or the past.

“We hope the governor will help,” said Sandee Porter, Henning’s oldest daughter and Rosalia’s city clerk. “But we’ve given up being confident a long time ago.”

One of her closest friends, Judy Littleton of Rosalia, said the case shows the “soap-opera mentality” of people who ended up judging Henning’s character.

In both trials, Littleton testified she saw a mysterious car drive near the Henning home the night of the murder.

She’s not surprised some of her neighbors concluded Henning was guilty.

“Neva can be cold and reserved when she needs to be,” Littleton said. “After Duane’s death, she didn’t fall into a heap. She went back to work a short time after.

“People didn’t know that was her way of dealing with it. People judged her harshly.”

The attorney who defended Miller, Sid Wurzburg, says he believes Henning planned the killing. Even so, he thinks Henning should be released.

“Whatever taxpayers are paying to keep her in Purdy, it’s a total waste,” he said.

“Rich pulled the trigger and is out in nine years. Keeping her in prison doesn’t serve justice or prevent others from committing crimes.”

For his part, Miller is trying to get on with his life. He worked as a drug counselor in Spokane for the past two years, but his job was recently eliminated.

“This remorse - about that mistake I made - will follow me all the way to the day I die,” he said.

“But I’ve stopped piling on the guilt and shame that I put myself through … Every day, I focus on what I can find that’s positive. I strive to keep moving forward.”

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