April 17, 2018
Fergus Dunphy knew something was strange when his sociable friend stopped texting him back after heading to George Street — the famous bar strip in St. John's — five years ago.
The second red flag was parked on the street outside Dunphy's home in the middle of St. John's — Josh Miller's beloved new Dodge Charger.
He hadn't come back to claim it.
In the early morning hours of Feb. 9, 2013, Miller made it to the east end of the city. Investigators say they are certain of it.
Where the 20-year-old university student went after getting out of a cab on Blue Puttee Drive has left everyone scratching their heads.
"Josh Miller was a person who had plans for a future," said Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Insp. Tom Warren, who investigated the case.
"He had applications into other positions outside of the two places he was employed."
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Miller was a university student with dreams of becoming a police officer.
He was a hard worker and held two jobs. One at a hardware store, the other as a bouncer.
Warren doesn't believe Miller committed suicide.
Nor does he believe Miller simply left his friends, family and two jobs behind.
It's a true mystery.
February 2013 was a frigid time in St. John's.
Temperatures at times dropped below -20 C, and snow covered the ground.
On Feb. 8, 2013, Miller was at Dunphy's house on Margaret's Place — a regular party house for the university friends.
Having gone out the night before, Dunphy said Miller wanted to go out again to relive the fun night.
"I realized I wasn’t going to go out and said I was going to take it easy tonight," Dunphy said.
"[Josh] usually crashed here a lot of the time, so I just told him to keep in touch, let me know if you need me to pick you up or anything like that."
With that, Miller set out for George Street.
He and Dunphy texted back and forth as usual until around midnight. Then, the conversation stopped.
Fight on George Street
Dunphy stayed up until about 2 a.m., he remembers.
Wondering if he'd need a ride back, Dunphy called Miller's cell phone.
There was no answer.
What Dunphy didn't know was around the same time, other friends of Miller had just put him in a taxi.
According to police, Miller's night had to end early when a fight broke out inside a club, then spilled onto the street.
"Josh was brought to the cab with friends who he was socializing with. He was placed in the cab and the cab dropped him off in the Stavanger Drive area," Warren said.
A City Wide Taxi driver reported he dropped Miller off in the area of Blue Puttee Drive, in the city's east end near Stavanger Drive, where police say he was meeting a friend.
Wearing just a t-shirt and jeans, Miller arrived at the home before anyone else, Warren said.
He never made it inside.
Police confirm the driver said Miller skipped out on his cab fare.
That part just doesn't make sense to Fergus Dunphy, and is one question of many that's been dogging him for the last five years.
"Why would he jump out of the cab and run away with no jacket? At this point, maybe he realizes, OK, I can't pay for the cab, but why not turn around?" Dunphy said during an interview with CBC News.
And why would Miller not return to Dunphy's home on Margaret's Place? After all, it was just a five minute cab ride away from George Street.
Why would an aspiring police officer break the law, Dunphy wondered.
It didn't add up.
"He gets in a cab and goes somewhere where I’ve never heard of him speak of anyone. I’ve known the guy for a couple years and somehow, I've never heard of anyone out there."
The next morning, Miller missed his shift at RONA, just a short distance away from where he was dropped off.
Meanwhile, Dunphy was wondering why Miller hadn't come back to get his vehicle.
"He loved his car. He had bought a Charger. He was on top of the world at this point," he said.
"He was working towards a lot of goals and getting a vehicle for him was one of his biggest deals."
By Sunday, Miller was reported missing.
In the days and weeks after Miller's curious disappearance, helicopters searched the air while officers on horseback and friends scoured the ground.
People in the neighbourhood were asked to look in sheds and under back decks.
Maybe, people thought, he took shelter from the cold.
'You just don't just go missing in small-town St. John's without any trace of you,' - Fergus Dunphy
Soon theories about what could have happened to Miller spread on social media, at kitchen tables and at parties.
How can a young, healthy 20-year-old man with dreams of the future just vanish?
Warren can shut down some of the speculation.
"The person who he was involved with in the altercation has been interviewed … interviewed at the time he disappeared and has been subsequently interviewed by my investigative team since," Warren said.
"We are satisfied there is no correlation between the altercation and Josh going missing."
As for the City Wide Taxi driver who drove him from George Street, he's been questioned, too.
"The cab driver — I actually interviewed him myself — so I'm satisfied where he dropped him off. I'm satisfied he wasn't involved," Warren said.
Where was he last seen?
Josh Miller's disappearance doesn't have one last seen location, but three — depending on whose version of events you believe.
During the course of the investigation, the RNC received hundreds upon hundreds of tips about the case.
One tip placed Miller at the Avalon Mall the day after he went missing.
Another tip came from his former girlfriend's roommate, who reported seeing Miller outside the home in the Cumberland Crescent area, which is close to the mall.
"There was also an area off Mount Scio Road — in addition to the tips we received — that Josh visited frequently with his girlfriend and often by himself," Warren said.
"So we also focused on that area when we conducted the search pertaining to the two tips we received."
As Miller's name faded from the headlines, the numbers of tips police received started to dwindle.
That is until two years ago, when a man came forward with information from the evening he was driving home from work.
Warren said the witness believes he saw a man fitting Miller's description walking over a snowbank and into a wooded area near RCAF Road, about two kilometres from where he was dropped off.
Searchers took to the entire area between the airport and the road, but his remains were not found.
So, could Miller have been in all three places that night?
It's always possible, Warren says, but not very likely.
"Then the question becomes, to go from Stavanger to Torbay Road — that's walking distance and you can cover that area very, very quickly," Warren said.
"To go from Torbay Road to Cumberland Crescent, you'd need some type of transportation."
Warren said his team has no information that Miller got a second cab or was picked up by a passerby.
Cell phone left in back of taxi
The RNC is left with just one piece of evidence in the disappearance of Josh Miller, but it hasn't brought them any closer to finding him.
When Miller got out of the cab, he left his cellphone on the backseat.
The white iPhone now lives in a brown paper evidence bag at RNC headquarters.
Police have been unable to uncover any data outside of incoming and outgoing phone calls.
One of those calls was from Dunphy, which led police to contact him in the days following Miller's disappearance.
Warren has investigated many of the missing person cases in St. John's, and in all of them, the same thing crosses his mind.
"For the sake of the family, you do think about it even when you're outside of work," he said.
"What can we do? Is there anything else we can do from a policing organization? Is there any other investigative technique we can obtain?"
'No doubt that someone killed him'
Fergus Dunphy has grown up since the days he partied alongside his best friend.
On this day, he wears a neat shirt tucked into dress pants and reflects on a strong and meaningful friendship, and the grim idea of what may have happened to him.
"In my mind, there's no doubt that someone killed him. There is no doubt," Dunphy said.
"You just don't just go missing in small-town St. John's without any trace of you, without someone being involved."
The question of who would want to do something to Miller is even more puzzling than the disappearance itself, Dunphy said.
"That’s why this is so odd because everything Josh did, he did it benevolently, he was just always genuinely happy to help, genuinely happy to be around other people."
Dunphy has heard stories, he says, of people who die during bad weather, whose bodies are found when the snow melts.
But the fact that no evidence has been found during exhaustive searches points to foul play, he said.
Although, police say they have no evidence that happened either.
"How do I reconcile it? I mean, how do you?"
"The good news was that up until then, he did have a great life."
CBC's special series Last Seen takes a deeper look at missing persons cases in Newfoundland and Labrador.