commentary by Patrick H. Moore
We laugh and we cry simultaneously when we think about some of the off-the-hook crime that comes down in Florida and gulp California – injecting Fix-A-Flat into some poor hapless soul’s derriere is probably not a good idea no matter where you live. You feel compassion for the victim and – depending on your ability and tolerance for forgiveness — you may feel some reluctant pity for the perpetrator, the bogus doctor who probably wasn’t trying to hurt anyone but was just trying to make a quick buck.
That is one order of crime – the opportunistic scam to line the pockets. It takes a million forms and usually doesn’t result in loss of life or limb.
There is another order of crime, however, and that is the opportunistic and radical manipulation of the victim, often sexual in nature, designed solely for the personal pleasure of the perpetrator with absolute disregard for the rights, feelings and needs of the victim.
This is the order of crime that makes crime fans gnash their teeth in rage while conjuring up the direst of fates for the perpetrators.
Am I in a rare vengeful mood? Possibly. If ever there was a case that will make virtually everyone see red, this is the case. And don’t think we’re capping on Florida again, or our new whipping boy, California.
Hell, no! It turns out that we have a new player in the Awful Un-American Crime Hall of Fame. North Ogden, Utah is the locale and its diabolical offspring Eric Millerberg, 38, is the foul excuse for a human being that has just just been convicted in near record time for child abuse homicide.
McKenzie Romero of the Deseret News writes:
It came down to two stories, a husband’s and a wife’s, in a trial over the death of 16-year-old Alexis Rasmussen.
Jurors believed the wife.
Alexis Rasmussen looking wholesome
Following three days of testimony — half the time the trial was expected to take — the jury deliberated for less than 90 minutes Friday night before finding Eric Millerberg, 38, guilty of child abuse homicide in the teenager’s death following a night of drugs, sex and alcohol when she was supposedly baby-sitting at the Millerbergs’ North Ogden home on Sept. 10, 2011.
In addition to the child abuse homicide conviction, Millerberg was also found guilty of obstruction of justice, unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and abuse or desecration of a human body.
As you might imagine, a man capable of the above abominations was completely capable of sitting stone-faced as the forewoman of the five-man, three-woman jury delivered the verdict. The Rasmussen family, however, could not contain their grief and broke into sobs after the reading of each count.
When it was all over, 2nd District Judge Scott M. Hadley thanked the jury for their prompt decision and complimented them for their willingness to continue working into the evening.
“You can see it in your faces, the hard work you’ve done,” Hadley said. “It’s hard work and it’s never pleasant, frankly, to judge another human being.”
Dea Millerberg
This is a case where a wife’s testimony and the prosecution’s promise of immunity was necessary to lay out the execrable Millerberg. According to court records, Dea Millerberg, who is 40, filed for divorce in 2012 and is awaiting trial on charges of desecration of a dead body. The careful reader will note, however, that Dea appears to be getting “one sweetheart of a deal” given that the evidence shows that she is just about as guilty as Eric Millerberg.
Alexis Rasmussen started babysitting for the killer couple’s two daughters in the spring of 2011. She quickly became way too intimate with this irresponsible duo. First they started drinking and smoking weed together. Then the teen, who clearly needed help, not illicit substances, requested harder drugs such as meth and heroin. The next step was to start paying her in meth.
But that was hardly the final step. In July of 2011, Alexis reportedly announced to the Millerbergs that she wanted to become sexually intimate with them.
In her testimony, the brazen Dea soft-peddled the moment they all stepped over the line.
“Eric and I started kissing and having sex. Then Alexis jumped in.”
The end of Alexis’ journey to nowhere came on September 10, 2011. In theory, the couple was supposed to go birthday shopping for their daughter. That was why they needed Alexis to babysit.
This was one shopping trip that never got off the ground. When Alexis arrived, Eric Millerberg immediately began pumping her full of meth and heroin, injecting her in the neck and the arm.
According to Dea Millerberg, when Alexis was “as high as she had ever been,” Dea and her husband performed oral sex on each other. This time around Alexis was much too wrecked to take part in a threesome.
The Millerbergs realized belatedly that Eric has miscalculated badly. Alexis was cold and disoriented and began “freaking out”. Then she took a warm bath in the couple’s master bedroom.
45 minutes later she was still cold. Dea wrapped her in a blanket and told her to lie down.
Then the couple left for a smoke (What the hell? They left her there.) They came back 30 minutes later. She was – as they say – not responding. (Keep in mind that while all this is going on the Millerberg’s kids are presumably there at the house taking it all in.)
Alexis Rasmussen looking less wholesome
“She wasn’t breathing. She had mucousy stuff coming out of the right side of her mouth,” said Dea. A licensed nurse, Dea tried to resuscitate Alexis and failed.
“It really was a panic. The idea of it was, we will lose our kids and go to jail, and there was nothing we could do to bring her back,” she told the court.
At this time, Eric Millerberg, who was/is a white supremacist and a member of the Silent Aryan Warriors was on parole for burglary and firearm charges.
The Millerbergs transferred Alexis’s unresponsive body to a foot locker which they placed in the trunk of their car.
When they dumped Alexis in an isolated area of Morgan County, Utah, they reportedly put her purse in one dumpster with the box holding her body, and put the carpet from the car in another dumpster. The body was found five weeks later.
Utah law defines child abuse as inflicting injuries that impair a child’s health, which includes preparing and administering narcotics. Alexis’s, Brenna Cain, testified that she and Alexis often secretly got drugs, alcohol and sex from the Millerbergs, and when Alexis disappeared, they were the first people she approached.
It was Eric “Peanut” Smith, an inmate who met Eric Millerberg behind bars, and who is thought to have been a member of his racist gang, who eventually led police to Alexis’ body 38 days after she was reported missing. Millerberg had asked for Smith’s help moving the body deeper into the trees, hoping snow would cover it before any hunters stumbled upon it. Smith, however, couldn’t take it and went to the authorities.
Detective Mike Tribe stated that Rasmussen’s corpse was found kneeling face down, covered in brush in a rural area of Morgan County. Her neon toe nail polish, ankle bracelets and jawline helped to identify her.
* * * * *
So that is how Eric Millerberg, 38, of North Ogden, Utah, a foul excuse for a human being, while colluding with his rat of a wife, Dea Millerberg, helped Utah ooze into the Awful Un-American Crime Hall of Fame.