The Murder of Roberta “Bobbie” Miller (New Hampshire)

When 54-year old Bobbie Miller and her dog were found dead in their Gilford, New Hampshire home one November afternoon in 2010, it didn’t take long for the public to point the finger at her former husband.

The circumstances might be convincing, but over a decade later, no one has been arrested for Bobbie’s murder. Her family waits alongside so many others for closure in her unsolved homicide.

About Roberta “Bobbie” Miller

Roberta Dionne Miller, or Bobbie to everyone who knew and loved her, was born and raised in the Manchester suburb of Bedford, New Hampshire. She was one of six children – five girls and a boy. Bobbie’s brother Ken Dionne told me that growing up in a house of girls meant the rules were pretty strict, but Bobbie knew how to fly under the radar.

“If he said be home by 10 o’clock at night, that meant be home by five minutes of 10, but not five past 10. Bobbie was real good about that. She was always home on time and as a result, scored some brownie points with my father,” Ken continued, “But what my parents didn’t know is that after they went to bed, Bobbie would then sneak out the window and go back out and we all got a big chuckle out of this because the window she would sneak out was the bathroom window that was right next to my parents room and I don’t know how she did it. She never got caught and my parents never knew it until years later, we were having a family gathering and we were talking about some of the stuff we did, and one of us said something about Bobbie sneaking out the window and my parents were quite surprised to find that their little angel was doing something like that!”

She was a creative soul and an adventurous spirit. When Bobbie wasn’t hiking with her rescue dog, a yellow lab named Sport, she was creating beautiful works of stained glass art. She was also a loving mother to her son Jonathan and daughter Jennifer. Although they were all grown up and out of the house, Bobbie would do anything for those kids.

Bobbie had spent much of her life as a stay at home mom while her husband Gary Miller started up a few successful car dealerships in New Hampshire and Maine. She supported Gary through the ups and downs of owning a business, and even worked at the dealerships alongside him on occasion. They were a team.

However, around their 25th anniversary, Gary and Bobbie’s marriage began to crumble. They filed for divorce in 2007. It would be a tumultuous multi-year process, but the final divorce decree in August of 2010 was like a reset button for Bobbie.

Ken explained, “They had been divorced for a couple of months, and she seemed to be moving on pretty well. She had moved out of the house that they had lived in, the house was for sale, but she had bought a new home in Gilford and was settling in, seemed to be very happy there, and was ready to move on with the next chapter of her life.”

Separating from Gary unraveled the only life she’d known. Now, she was single again at 54-years old, but Bobbie was finding her footing.

She’d lived in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire with Gary and the kids for nearly as long as they’d been married, but soon after the divorce was finalized, Bobbie bought herself a house in Gilford about 35 minutes away. It was a modest single story ranch style home with a garage that faced the Pheasant Ridge Country Club on a quiet, rural road.

In the early fall of 2010, she started taking classes at Granite State College in pursuit of her business degree. And she was slowly turning her new house into a true home with plans to convert the garage into a studio for her stained glass projects.

Bea Lewis reports for the Concord Monitor that Bobbie’s daughter Jennifer talked to her mother sometime over the weekend of October 30, 2010. During that phone call, Bobbie was all abuzz over another house project – she wanted to build flower boxes to hang on the front of the house under the living room window. She thought it would brighten the whole place up.

On Sunday that weekend, Bobbie talked to her mother, Madeleine, on the phone and said she was heading to the store to get everything she needed for the window box project that afternoon. According to reporting by Todd Feathers for the Union Leader, Bobbie was last seen that day buying building supplies at a nearby hardware store.

But Bobbie would never get the chance to finish her project. That same night, the home where she was building her new life would soon become the scene of Bobbie’s death.

On the afternoon of Monday, November 1, 2010, a 9-1-1 call requested help at 123 Country Club Road in Gilford. Police responded to the address by 4:30 p.m. and soon the whole road was shut down. Inside the house, they found Bobbie’s lifeless body on the kitchen floor. Investigators quickly realized they were dealing with a homicide. Bobbie’s dog, Sport, was found dead at the house, too, also a victim of apparent gunshot wounds.

Bobbie Miller’s story continues on Dark Downeast. Press play to hear the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.