While their friend Eric N. Miller lay dead on the floor of Room 16 of the Alexandria Motel on Richmond Highway, Dana E. Moro and Kristin Kozak smoked more crack, according to Kozak's testimony in Fairfax County General District Court on Wednesday, Oct. 12.
"He was on the floor … he was deceased at that point," Kozak said. "We didn't know what to do."
Five days later on Monday, Oct. 17, a Fairfax County Circuit Court grand jury indicted Moro for the murder of Eric Miller, 45, a husband and father of two from Alexandria.
Moro, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and credit card theft, is scheduled to face trial later in the year.
<b>MILLER, KOZAK AND MORO</b> spent a week using drugs "day and night," testified Kozak, who answered questions from prosecuting attorney Ian Rodway and Moro's defense attorney William Edwards.
"It's hard to place events in time order, but I do remember flashes," she said.
On the afternoon of Aug. 29, Miller and Moro had an argument over whether Moro should leave the Alexandria Motel where the three were staying, Kozak testified. "Eric [Miller] wanted him to leave," said Kozak. She did not.
"I was pushed to the ground. At that point, Dana got very angry and got a [metal] pipe and struck Eric," she said. "It happened so fast."
After they smoked more crack, Moro and Kozak took Miller's ATM debit card which they used to buy cleaning supplies and a sleeping bag to haul Miller's body away. Later, they bought gasoline, Kozak testified, which they used in an attempt to burn Miller's rental car.
Miller's body was found on Aug. 31 in the trunk of a burned car a few blocks from First and K streets in Washington, D.C., according to Fairfax County Police.
"There was a vehicle that had been engulfed in flames that had been extinguished," testified D.C. police detective Bryan Kasul. "Inside the trunk of that vehicle was human remains that had been badly burned."
A D.C. medical examiner who performed Miller's autopsy ruled that Miller died from blunt force trauma, according to police.
<b>KOZAK INITIATED</b> contact with police days after the murder, she testified. Detectives found blood spatter throughout Room 16 of the Alexandria Motel, according to court documents. "Numerous items of evidence were seized from the motel room to include several bloody items which corroborated [the witness’s] version of events," according to the documents.
Moro was arrested on Sept. 7. Kozak was not charged in the crimes.
Miller's bank account statements reveal that transactions were made at several locations throughout the Washington area after his death. "The video surveillance from these institutions indicates that a white male wearing a baseball cap used the victim's bank cards," according to court documents.