Only just got round to doing the presser.
TRANSCRIPTION OF PRESS CONFERENCE
6TH MARCH
CHIEF - Today, we wanted to hold a press conference concerning the investigation that initiated as a missing person, involving Nathan Millard. First, I want to start by asking our community to lift the family of Nathan Millard up in prayer and that we're sorry for their loss and we understand the emotions and the trauma that this tragedy has presented to the family. We wanted to provide this update because we understand the public's interest in these investigations and the desire to want information, immediately. We want to remind the public that these investigations take time and it's a process.
The Baton Rouge Police Department first received a missing person report on February, 23rd., 2023, concerning Mr. Millard. This investigation was assigned to our Special Victims Unit Missing Persons Division, who immediately began an investigation. Mr. Millard's body was discovered on Monday, March 6th., 2023 in the 2900 block of Scenic Highway. On today, the EBR Coroner's Office released a preliminary report, that states as follows:
"
On March, 7, 2023, an autopsy was conducted on the remains of Nathan Millard, 42 yrs. old. The preliminary results are as follows: no evidence of internal or external trauma noted. The final autopsy results, pending further studies, including toxicology testing. The cause of death and manner of death are pending completion of the final autopsy report. If you have any questions concerning the autopsy, please contact the EBR Parish Coroner's Office at 225-389-3047."
I want to reassure the public that our detectives and our police officers have worked diligently to trace Mr. Millard's whereabouts and to interview all persons who were in contact with him, as well as witnesses, as well as gathering all video evidence that was available. I'm going to ask our VCU Commander, Captain Kevin Hines, to provide the public with a timeline, as well as information concerning our investigative efforts. I want to say this before Captain Hines comes up - We dedicated many resources and we still are investigating this ongoing investigation. Our training Academy, our Special Victims Unit, our Homicide Division, our Street Crime Unit, there's been many searches that have been completed throughout this investigation. So, we have been working behind the scenes, around the clock, since this investigation began. Now, I'm going to ask Captain Hines to provide the timeline and information concerning out investigative efforts.
CAPTAIN - Good afternoon. I just want to go over a couple of things that were discovered during the course of our investigation. There are going to be some details that I'm going to leave out, for the fact that we are still investigating how Mr. Millard ended up where he did, and what happened between the time he was last seen and the time that his remains were located.
So, the report was made on the 23rd., early that morning, about Mr. Millard being missing. Our detectives immediately began to investigate, they were able to determine that at about 10:30 p.m., the night prior, Mr. Millard left an establishment downtown. We were able to track his movements by using the surveillance equipment available at local businesses in the area. We discovered that he went to the Greyhound Bus Station on Florida Blvd. approximately an hour after he left the downtown establishment. At the bus station he was actually offered help by a security guard at that location, which he declined. The security guard offered to call him a ride, offered to get him an Uber, to call the police for him. He didn't appear to be in distress, she just felt as though he was out of place. He declined that offer and he left there under his own accord. He was seen throughout the next several hours. We were able to track him to several different businesses in the Baton Rouge area and he was last seen... the last location that we were able to put him at was about 4:30 on Wednesday morning.
We are talking to anyone who has had contact with him, that we can find. We are currently asking that if anybody did have any contact with him during that time, or after, that they reach out to the Baton Rouge Police Department, they can call Crime Stoppers 225-344-STOP (7867) and give the information to us that they are aware of what Mr. Millard's activities were, or where he was, or who he was with, around that time. We're interested to talk to anybody who may have had any sort of interaction with him, whatsoever, during that time.
What I can say, is that at no point in time, on any of the information that we received or the videos that we've seen, does Mr. Millard appear to have been in any sort of distress. He appeared to be at those locations under his own power and it didn't appear that there was anything taking place criminally. At this time, we don't have any indication that there was any foul play involved. We are looking into how he ended up where he was, like I said before, but as of right now, we're just asking for anybody that may have had contact with Mr. Millard, since the night of the 22nd., to contact the Police Department and let us know.
CHIEF - I want to say this, because I know there's a lot of information out there. This is still an ongoing investigation and we do know that there has been information that has been released or that has been obtained, or reported by the media. We're not going to comment on any unofficial information. Any information that was not released by the Police Department, unofficially. Like I said, this is an ongoing investigation and we don't want to release any information that is going to compromise the integrity of that investigation.
Here's what I want to reassure the public - We have so many events downtown, in our city of Baton Rouge, just last weekend, the weekend prior to that, and so many more. Our downtown district, all the redevelopment that's going on down there, not just for events, we see the residential portion of our downtown development district is growing, as well as businesses. It is a safe place, it's a safe place to live, it's a safe place to participate in the events and we are proud of the work that's going on downtown. Our business leaders downtown invested in the camera programmes downtown, so that not only you feel safe but that when something does happen, that we have another tool in the chest that can help us in our investigative efforts and that's what happened in this case. Not just those cameras that we have, but also cameras that are provided by businesses in the area as well. And, I'm going to ask out to say a few words.
(
Downtown Development District Director, Whitney Hoffman, offers condolences to family, thanks BRPD and reiterates how safe downtown is)
CHIEF - We'll take questions at this time. Before that, I want to make sure that the public know that this is still an ongoing investigation. I'm going to continue saying that this is an ongoing investigation, but I also want to thank our partners who have helped us. I want to thank the United Cajun Navy, who came out and helped us hand out some goods to our homeless population, at the same time, helping us search for the whereabouts of Mr. Millard and I also want to thank Texas Equusearch for also assisting us in those efforts, but I also want to thank all of our residents who took the time to pick up the phone and provide information. Those who called CrimeStoppers, thank you. Those who, right now, are a little hesitant to pick up the phone and call us, to just help us with a little more information and fill some of those gaps in our investigative efforts, we look forward to hearing your call as well. We know what happens in this community when people in the community step up, when they're not scared, they're not afraid, when they get involved and they help us and we look forward to those phone calls as well. So, I'll take questions at this time.
REPORTER - Does it appear his body was dumped at the location that he was found?, and if so, What are you doing to find the person or persons who dumped his body there?
CAPTAIN - So, it does appear that he was left there but that's not where, most likely, not where he died. We are... I don't want to go into the details or our investigative efforts, but efforts are underway to locate and to talk to whoever may have put him there. And look, we'll ask, whoever put him there, if something happened and there was a moment of panic, come forward, we just want to know what happened to him, our goal is to find out what happened to him.
REPORTER - Do you believe drugs were involved?
CAPTAIN - I don't want to comment on that right now. I don't believe... I think I'm going to leave that for the Coroner's office. I know they're going to do a full toxicology and those will be released later, but I'm not going to... I don't want to comment on that right now, for the benefit of the family.
REPORTER - You said the last location.. you guys, I guess, got him on camera at 4:30 - Can you say where that was?
CAPTAIN - I don't want to say where that was, right now, because that is still part of our investigation, our attempt to locate the individuals that may have been with him at that time. We don't want to give... we would rather the people, that we talk to, give us that information to verify it, as opposed to us putting it out and now it's out in public record.
REPORTER - Do you all have any idea... or do you think you have a good idea of who those individuals are that may...?
CAPTAIN - Once again, I don't want to comment one way or the other on that, but efforts are still underway.
REPORTER - It was reported that his body was wrapped up in a rug. The rug is still sitting there and a lot of people want to know why it wasn't collected?
CAPTAIN - Ok, so whenever we go to a crime scene, our detectives and our crime scene investigators, they confer with each other on what needs to be taken and what doesn't. They didn't deem it necessary for them to take the entire rug and I'll just leave that at that. I know there's a lot of speculation, there's a lot of information going on about what we may have found out there, what we may not have and, once again, that's part of the investigation so I don't want to put that information out, but everything that needed to be collected was collected from that scene.
REPORTER - Can you just clarify once again the no internal or external injuries from the Coroner's office what exactly they found?
CAPTAIN - I don't really know how to clear that up any. All I can tell you is that from their report, there were no signs of internal or external trauma, which to us, that kind of leads into the whole foul play thing. There doesn't appear to be any foul play, at this point. I know that he was placed there, obviously, by another individual. We would like to know who and why but just from the autopsy results, that were given by the Coroner's office, at this time, there doesn't appear to be any signs of foul play. Such as in.. just to elaborate a little bit, that would be things such as: gun shots, blunt force trauma, things that we would be looking for as investigators when investigating a death and there were no signs of that.
REPORTER - Do you guys have any evidence as to how he got from downtown to that vacant lot?
CAPTAIN - No ma'am, we do not, not at this time.
Thank you.
