| Overview |
Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands, is simply paradise - a place where the wealthy can sail and sun on private beaches and yachts.
For more than 20 years, Josephine and Russell McMillen, and their daughter Lois, fled the cold winters of Connecticut, for their villa on Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands.
"She was well known down there," recalls Lois' father, Russell McMillen. "Ever since she was a child, she's been going there."
At the end of 1999, Russell McMillen fell seriously ill, and Lois planned a longer than usual holiday stay with her parents.
On the evening of Jan. 14, 2000, Lois, 34, told her parents she was going to a local hangout to listen to music. She never came home.
The next morning, they called the police, who later discovered Lois' body on the other side of the island, just a few miles from where she was last seen. Her car was found less than a mile away, at the ferry dock.
Police believed that after a violent struggle, Lois broke away from her attacker and took off across this sea wall, down onto the rocks, leaving behind a trail of personal possessions: a gold necklace, a can of mace, a hairclip, and one shoe. They found her body in the shallow water, shirt and bra pulled up, her breasts exposed. But the medical examiner couldn't say whether her attacker followed her down there and held her under, or whether, dazed, she simply fell, hit her head and drowned.
Crime of any kind is rare on Tortola, and news of this murder shocked the island, especially because the victim seemed not to have an enemy in the world. Correspondent Susan Spencer reports on the search for Lois McMillen's killers. |