Melvindale home slowly gives up child-porn secrets

Melvindale — A father and son are behind bars on child porn charges, but their gray raised ranch with hidden rooms, secret passageways and dozens of surveillance cameras continues to cough up fresh horrors.

Federal agents describe the home on Harman Street in Melvindale as a child-porn production studio with drugs, guns and underwear-clad stuffed animals, a house of secrets where young naked girls were filmed and assaulted.

Its former owner, Charles Miller, was charged two years ago, and in March a separate federal child-porn investigation netted the man who inherited the home: Miller's son, Arthur.

Federal court records illustrate the extreme lengths to which some suspects will go to hide evidence from investigators. Here, investigators searched the home three times to retrieve evidence, or after learning they missed a hiding spot.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Andrew Arena, executive director of the Detroit Crime Commission and former special agent in charge of the FBI's office in Detroit. "This is Addams Family-type stuff."

Charles Miller, 59, a heavily tattooed, morbidly obese man with electrical science and engineering degrees, is the head of the family and a quadruple-threat troublemaker involved in drugs, illegal guns, rape and kiddie porn, according to prosecutors.

His case dates to Oct. 2, 2013. That's when Lincoln Park Police raided the felon's home in Melvindale after an informant allegedly bought prescription drugs at the house and spotted several handguns. Miller is not allowed to possess guns because of an earlier conviction, according to FBI Special Agent Karl Haws.

During the raid, investigators found four weapons, including an assault rifle, inside the four-bedroom, 1,700-square-foot home.

Investigators were drawn to a mirror hanging in the first-floor hallway. Near the mirror was what appeared to be a regular electrical outlet.

This outlet had a hinge. Police swung open the outlet and found a hidden button.

Investigators pushed the button, which opened a neighboring closet door. The closet held two wires that, when connected, opened a panel hidden behind a mirror.

Inside, investigators found the assault rifle, a shotgun, two stun guns and ammunition, according to court records.

The search continued.

Officers entered Miller's first-floor office, a cluttered space with a desk and a shelf lined with medical encyclopedias, science books and a copy of "Everything You Need to Know About Diseases."

Officers found a false wall in one corner of the room. They pushed the wall and entered a hidden room under the stairs.

Inside the room, investigators found a surveillance hub featuring computer equipment and monitors.

The monitors were connected to dozens of hidden cameras.

In the room under the stairs, investigators found a handgun, pills and a Nikon camera that held photos of two nude girls engaging in sexually explicit activities, according to court records.

In all, investigators found almost 2,000 images and videos of child pornography, prosecutors said. Most of the material was produced by Charles Miller, including surveillance footage of two girls showering inside the home, according to a court filing.

Two months later, in December 2013, the U.S. Attorney's Office indicted Miller on six drug, child-porn and firearm charges. He's been held behind bars ever since.

A neighbor along Harman Street, which is filled with mostly identical rental bungalows, recalled parades of visitors to Miller's home and assumed they were drug customers. Charles Miller installed a video camera in a tree to spy on neighboring homes and rigged a motion alarm to chirp if anyone approached his house, the neighbor said.

Everybody knew Miller was "kind of creepy," according to the neighbor, who did not want to be identified because she feared retaliation.

Miller's lawyer, Penny Beardslee, declined comment.

After Miller was arrested, he signed over the home to his son Arthur Miller, 31, of Romulus.

Charles Miller's arrest in December 2013 wasn't the end of the horror show.

Investigators talked to a former tenant, who told them about another secret spot in the first-floor hidden closet.

At the base of the closet, there's a latch, the tenant said. If investigators lifted the latch, they would see a secret bunker in the home's foundation, the tenant said.

Investigators got another warrant to search the bunker in January 2014. It's unclear what agents found, if anything, when they returned to the home.

In November 2014, Arthur Miller told Lincoln Park Police he found a thumb drive hidden inside the home. On the thumb drive, Arthur Miller said he discovered pornographic images of a third young girl, according to the FBI.

Charles Miller pleaded guilty to child-porn production and possession in January and faces up to 50 years in prison when sentenced in July. But first, he will stand trial May 26 in Wayne County Circuit Court on criminal sexual conduct charges involving the two girls whose photos were found on the Nikon camera.

While pleading guilty in federal court, a handcuffed and shackled Miller, who has grown a long, bushy goatee while incarcerated, quibbled with U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland about the number of photos investigators found.

"I don't know how many," Miller said. "Multiple dozens."

"I would call that a lot," Cleland said.

On March 25, following a lead, federal agents and Lincoln Park Police raided Arthur Miller's home in Romulus.

Investigators found an electronic storage device in his computer bag containing pornographic images of the third girl, FBI Special Agent Raymond Nichols said.

Arthur Miller said he was keeping the child porn as an "insurance policy" if his father's criminal cases "went south," a federal agent wrote in a court filing.

Arthur Miller said he planned to tell investigators he found the device in his dad's house, according to court records.

Instead, Arthur Miller was charged with receiving and possessing child pornography. He is being held without bond. His lawyer, Michael McCarthy, declined comment.

The home that triggered multiple raids and arrests is for sale for $77,000, but has languished on the market since February.

"Come check out this unique home that includes a false wall and pop out mirror that will make you feel like you just came out of a mystery novel," the listing reads.

rsnell@detroitnews.com

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