After four years of wondering, Yolan Renee Miller is confirmed deceased, according to the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office. The confirmation came when her DNA matched the partial remains discovered “in the Secret Mountain area,” according to the Oct. 25 announcement of the discovery of the remains — although how she died and most other details are unresolved.
The positive identification was made on March 9, and CCSO notified Miller’s aunt Kay Royball later that day. Royball said she felt a wave of relief finally getting that phone call.
“There’s a high likelihood we’ll never know how she was killed,” Royball said. “We’re being realistic about it, but just the fact that her remains have been found is giving us a little bit of peace. … I would be up in the middle of the night thinking of awful scenarios … and this ended it. She’s not being mistreated, she’s not [experiencing] any of those bad things that I was thinking.”
With Miller’s remains found outside of Sedona city limits in Coconino County on Oct. 17, the investigation is under the jurisdiction of the CCSO out of Flagstaff; the Sedona Police Department is no longer involved.
On Sunday, June 24, 2022, Miller’s vehicle was found on the Hancock ranch near the Honaki Heritage Site on Forest Service Road 525 in Yavapai County, and was parked there sometime around June 19. According to her family, she was heading toward Jerome and the family believes that health issues would have prevented her from hiking.
“I don’t know that area at all, all I know is that it was on the top of the mountain,” Royball said about where her remains were found. “I was assuming she was on the side of the mountain … because of where her car was found” and Yolan’s physical condition.
Royball said the CCSO detective Cody Watson, who is handling the case, told her the area is so vast that a volunteer search would likely never have come upon Miller’s remains.
“It’s not some place we would have just come upon her by searching,” Royball said. “He said there was no hiking trails, it was not a camping area, and the road to get up there was very, very rough.”
“I don’t know the correct terminology, so just bear with me, but the fact that now it’s considered a suspicious death, because it’s an unattended death,” Royball said. “Now they have the judicial power to dig for more information to find out who she possibly could have been with that last day that she was seen, and so that’s giving us a little bit of hope.”
Royball said Miller was identified quickly because the family had registered her with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, and provided a DNA sample with a cheek swab from Miller’s mother.
When asked if CCSO is treating the death as suspicious death, criminal investigation or homicide; an estimated date of her death, whether it aligns with her disappearance and if other physical evidence recovered with the remains that could explain how she came to be in that location, Watson wrote “No comment” to all of the questions.
CCSO is asking anyone with information about Miller to come forward.
Miller, 38, was autistic and stood 5 foot 7 inches tall, weighed about 250 pounds and had brown hair and blue eyes. On the day she disappeared, she wore a bright teal top, possibly with a floral pattern, and grey shorts and grey sneakers. She drove a dark grey 2015 Ford Escape with temporary Arizona plate 885073B.
People who have information about Miller can contact CCSO Detective Cody Watson at cowatson@coconino.az.gov or 928-226-5036, or CCSO at 928-774-4523.
The family will hold services for Miller in the fall, Royball said.
In her self-description, Miller wrote that she was “one of the most interesting people you will meet! I am shy, yet somewhat outgoing. It is me ….”
