OK, this story has got a lot of moving parts so try to keep up with me, here. A Bay City, Michigan married couple — 30-year-old Martin Miller and his wife, 24-year-old Daniela Miller — invited a second man, 20-year-old Michael Chaney, to move in with them because he was homeless. The living arrangement soon turned into a romantic one, and within a week the three had engaged in a threesome. That’s not awkward at all!
Following the threesome — and remember, this all happened within the space of a week — Chaney continued having sex with Daniela Miller without her husband’s knowledge, who noticed that his wife started to become distant from him. What transpired next will be hereafter known as the Great Hamburgering Brawl of 2014.
MLive has all the sordid details:
Earlier in the evening of Sept. 12, Chaney was cooking hamburger meat while the Millers were in a bathroom, they said. Chaney brought a spoonful of meat into the bathroom to have them taste-test it, but Martin Miller threw the meat into the tub in which his wife bathed, both Chaney and Daniela Miller told police.
OK, that seems like a totally inappropriate situation to have someone sample ground meat, but I guess once bodily fluids have been exchanged all around, what’s a little burger in the bathroom.
Anyway, it sounds like he probably took the hint.
Chaney brought a second spoonful of meat, and Martin Miller again tossed it into the tub water, the witnesses told police. Chaney told Miller to stop wasting food and walked into another room. Martin Miller followed him and threatened to beat him up, Chaney said.
Oh.
Chaney told Miller to go ahead, at which point Miller kicked him in the chest, pushed his wife out of the way and choked Chaney, both Chaney and Daniela Miller told police. Chaney said Miller told him he was going to kill him, then he blacked out. When he awoke, he and Daniela Miller walked to the hospital, they said.
Police went to the Millers’ home and spoke with Martin Miller. He confirmed much of the accounts given by his wife and Chaney, saying he threw the hamburger in the tub as a joke and that Chaney was being an “(expletive)hole.”
So it was all just a big misunderstanding, then! Still, it doesn’t seem to explain why someone was nearly choked to death over a joke gone awry.
Miller told police he asked his wife why she always takes Chaney’s side in a dispute. He also said that Chaney called his bluff when he threatened to beat him up.
“I am a marine,” Miller told police. “When someone challenges me I go into kill mode.”
Miller is now facing up to ten years in prison and a $5,000 fine for assault by strangulation, but what do you expect a guy to do once he’s gone into kill mode? That’s probably even worse than trying to stop peeing, mid-stream. Anyway, I expect the crux of this case to hinge on the old killffluenza defense. Classic.