The state is apologizing for never looking into Valarie Clark Miller’s reports that she was raped by a UHP trooper starting at age 13. Now, five years after her death, her family says that acknowledgment gives them closure.
It’s an unprecedented response from the state to decades of trauma that have been passed down as an unwanted inheritance in the Miller family. But to Valarie’s kids and husband,— it amounts to vindication.
Ryan Miller, Valarie’s son, said he grew up watching his mother withering from sadness and anxiety, to the point that she could barely parent. He said he and his sisters, Anne, Erin, and Brooke, often had to step up to take care of themselves. In 2020, in an effort to find some peace after Valarie’s death, the family hired a private investigator. He discovered through interviews with DPS staff from the time that they had tried to bury Valarie’s report of the repeated rapes. Late last year, the family filed a notice of intent to sue the state with that information and began drafting a lawsuit.
Ryan Miller, Debra Clark Cooper, Brooke Jacobs and Ayden Miller, all family members of Valarie Clark Miller, embrace following a news conference in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022.John added: “This finally brings some closure to myself and my children.” They told her that her friend was in the barn, where there was a litter of kittens. When she got there, the UHP trooper and the family member raped Valarie at knifepoint while the neighbor watched, according to the legal notice provided to The Tribune.Continuing for months and years after that, the trooper allegedly continued to contact Valarie through notes he’d leave for her. He’d instruct her to meet him in remote places where he would assault her.
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