William Miller (criminal) William Miller (criminal) William "Billy the Killer" Miller (1906 – April 16, 1931) was an American bank robber and Depression-era outlaw. In his brief criminal career, he committed numerous bank heists in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Oklahoma, and teamed up with George Birdwell and Pretty Boy Floyd during the early 1930s. Miller was born in Ironton, Ohio in 1906. He first earned his nickname "Billy the Killer" when, on September 18, 1925, the 19-year-old Miller killed his brother Joseph in a fight over a woman. Tried in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, he was acquitted of murder on the grounds that he
Pretty Boy Floyd of four law enforcement officers. Though J. Edgar Hoover used the incident as ammunition to further empower the FBI to pursue Floyd, historians are divided as to whether or not he was involved. Another more likely suspect was gang member Sol Weismann, who resembled Floyd. Floyd adamantly denied his involvement in this fiasco (apparently a botched attempt to free bank robber Frank Nash, who was in police custody). The gunfight was an attack by Vernon Miller and accomplices on lawmen escorting robber Frank "Jelly" Nash to a car parked at the Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri. Two Kansas City,