SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- A onetime federal auditor, apparently upset at being fired, killed his former boss with a shotgun blast, then was killed himself in a shootout with police.
According to Sunnyvale police Commander Alex Michaelis, Eddie Scott Miller, 50, laid in ambush for George Carter, 54, branch manager of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, early Monday.
When Carter entered his office, he was felled by shotgun blasts. Three unidentified officers rushed to the scene and called on Miller to drop his shotgun.
Instead, according to Michaelis, a gunbattle broke out in the courtyard of an office complex.
'The suspect fired 13 times and the officers about a dozen rounds,' Michaelis said.
When the firing stopped, the officers entered the office and found Miller 'sitting beside the victim's body' dressed in a three-piece suit and holding a 12-gauge shotgun.
Miller had worked for Carter's audit agency in Sunnyvale and Oakland for about two years. He was fired in May 1984 for misconduct after writing threatening letters to supervisors for their failure to promote him.
Miller later was convicted of extortion for sending the letters through the mail. A court psychiatrist ruled Miller was not dangerous and Miller sued the government but his suit was thrown out two weeks later.
The agency was described as a civilian watchdog branch of the Defense Department charged with auditing defense contracts.
Miller, according to court documents, had long charged his supervisors at the audit agency refused to promote him because he was black. Miller was placed on three years probation for the extortion conviction.
According to Michael Ward, a spokesman for the audit agency's San Francisco headquarters, Miller was a bachelor who lived in Oakland. He was from Missouri and apparently had no family in the Bay Area.
Carter, who lived in nearby Saratoga, leaves a wife and three children.
