Acquaintance: Decapitated man was homeless
The brief time Clifford Miller spent in Albuquerque was marred by hardship.
He had been hired by a company to do day-labor work, but that dried up about a month ago, and he was left without a place to stay. He couldn’t afford the $140 bus ticket to return to his hometown of McAlester, Okla.
His phone had been stolen. He was ripped off twice, a friend told the Journal on Wednesday.
Then, early Saturday, a security guard found his naked body, decapitated and missing its genitals, behind the Wal-Mart on Wyoming near Menaul NE.
Miller’s head was not at the scene and still has not been found, said officer Fred Duran, a spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department.
Carlos Atencio said he met 42-year-old Miller the day after he lost his job.
“I was going into Starbucks, and he was walking down the street with a large bag of clothing on his back,” Atencio said. “He didn’t have money, so he was staying at the West Side shelter. I bought him a sandwich and a coffee, and we started talking.”
Atencio said he let Miller keep his bag at his apartment Downtown, and the two continued to get together to drink coffee or beer.
Last week, Miller asked if he could spend the night on the floor of his apartment after he missed the bus, but Atencio couldn’t let him stay.
Now he worries he was one of the last to see him alive.
“Maybe he was out in the cold and tried to hitchhike a ride with somebody,” Atencio said. “I know that there are people out there that are just sociopathic killers, and maybe there are people out there that kill homeless people.”
At least a half-dozen homeless people have been killed around the city in recent years — the most high-profile of which was the bludgeoning of two Native American men in 2014. Three young men were sentenced for their murders.
Duran said detectives think Miller was specifically targeted and the public is not in danger. But he said police don’t have much to go on in the investigation.
“We’re not finding other people that have been murdered in town with no head or body parts,” Duran said. “This is an isolated crime. We haven’t had any other crimes like this.”
No information on suspects has been released.
Atencio said he has no idea why this happened to Miller, and he never saw him use drugs or be involved in criminal activity.
“He was happy-go-lucky,” Atencio said. “Just a good guy that was down on his luck, wanting to get back to his daughter.”