Woman Works to Help Locate Her Boyfriend’s Killer

It was a mixture of anger and grief that motivated Holly Holbrook to visit her late boyfriend’s family business Saturday, where she handed out police sketches of the suspect who gunned down and robbed the father of her child.

“I love him and I’m going to show him that everything he did for me is not for nothing,” Holbrook said of Armando Miller, who was murdered Friday outside a Tustin bank after he withdrew between $14,000 and $20,000 for his family’s check-cashing business.

Holbrook was driving around the business’s neighborhood Saturday, handing out the sketches, in a small sports car that Miller had bought for her. “I’m going to pay him back by helping out as much as I can,” she said.

Until Friday morning, Miller, Holbrook, and their 2-month-old daughter, Danica, had a promising future, the 21-year-old woman said.

Miller, 26, was an ambitious businessman who helped support her by managing his family’s check-cashing business and was in the process of building a dry-cleaning business to help secure their financial stability. He was even considering getting into the carwash business, she said.

Now Holbrook, who says the shock of her boyfriend’s death is still settling in, is determined to do everything possible to help find his killer.

Unable to hold back the tears as she talked about Miller, Holbrook wiped the drops away with her free hand and clutched the sketches in the other.

“He knew exactly what he wanted in life,” said Holbrook, who lived in the same condominium complex that Miller managed. “He told me the cleaners was going to be our bread and butter.”

Miller, who had been helping the family business since the age of 15, was ambitious and focused on business ventures, said friends who also gathered at the family business Saturday.

“His mind was like Mr. Entrepreneur,” said Holbrook’s roommate, who asked that her name be withheld. “He wanted to make their future nice.”

Not only was Miller business-minded, he had a big heart, friends said. Steve Peterson, one of Miller’s best friends who attended elementary school, high school and church with him, said Miller once sold his car and gave the money to his younger brother. Coping with his buddy’s death is difficult, Peterson said.

“It’s a very emotional time for us,” he said. “He was the kind of guy you wanted to be around. We loved him.”

Friends added that Miller liked to ski and surf, although he did not get a chance to indulge in many extracurricular activities because of work.

Holbrook said she plans to pass out as many flyers as possible in the hope that someone will recognize the suspect.

“We think he might be from around here,” she said, but declined to elaborate.

The male assailant believed responsible for shooting Miller is described as white, in his 40s or 50s, wearing a dark, Navy-style watch cap and an olive drab, military-type fatigue overcoat.

Holbrook said it is important that people be alert for the suspect.

“They did it this time and got away with it,” she said, “and now maybe they’re going to do it to someone else.”

For Holbrook, underneath the sorrow is a touch of resentment for the killer, who has deprived her daughter of a father who loved her very much.

“It’s not fair,” she said. “She doesn’t have a daddy now. It’s just not fair.”