Decatur man pleads guilty to one count of robbery

DECATUR - A 21-year-old Decatur man who was identified through DNA from a hat and by the woman he robbed pleaded guilty on Thursday in Macon County Circuit Court to one count of robbery.

Mikeo M. Miller was sentenced to six years in prison by Associate Judge Scott Diamond.

That sentence will run concurrently with two, three-year prison terms he received in November on guilty pleas to obstruction of justice for giving police a false name during a traffic stop and for violating probation in a prior case.

Assistant State's Attorney David Spence said charges of attempted murder, aggravated discharge of a firearm and felon in possession of a weapon were dropped against Miller in a another case after the victim refused to testify against him.

In the robbery case, Deborah S. Crawford, 24, told police she was walking at 11:58 a.m. Dec. 27, 2005, in the south alley of the 1300 block of East North Street when a man she did not know approached her from behind. She said the man struck her in the head numerous times with a black revolver, took $10 from her pants pocket and fled.

During the attack, Crawford was able to pull a stocking cap off the man's head. The cap was sent to the Illinois State Police Crime Laboratory in Springfield for DNA analysis. With the lab's backlog of cases, the analysis took months to complete.

"When the DNA comes back, there is a mixture from several people, but only one can be profiled and that turns out to be Mikeo Miller," Spence said.

Police did not have a suspect's name before the DNA result, so they had no idea whose picture to include in a photo array to show Crawford in an effort to identify her attacker, Spence said.

When the identification was made, authorities found Crawford had been sentenced to state prison for one year for battering her husband, he said.

Spence said he could not get a court order returning Crawford from the Lincoln Correctional Center simply to view a live lineup that included Miller. He did have her returned to testify during the March jury setting and, while in Decatur, she viewed a live lineup and identified Miller as her assailant.

Once Miller learned Crawford's personal identification had been added to the DNA evidence, he sought a plea agreement from prosecutors, Spence said.