On September 17, 1954, three inmates of Nevada State Prison in Carson City attempted an escape from the prison.  Two high-risk suspects took Correctional Officer George E. Miller hostage as he backed a milk truck up to the prison kitchen. They forced him to drive the truck out of the prison. Other guards opened fire on the truck as it went through the main gate. The truck was disabled by the gunfire and the three suspects fled on foot. Officer Miller’s body was found in the truck. The suspects were apprehended.

Two of the three convicts who made good their escape from Nevada State Prison about 8:00 a.m., were captured shortly after 11:00 a.m. by Correctional Officer Jack Murray and Mitchell Stacy of Carson, a hunter, less than a mile from the prison.

The pair who made their escape with a third, in “a hail of gunfire” in which correctional officer George E. Miller of Carson City was killed, gave themselves up to Murray near the tip of Rock Hill, a rocky knoll on the Hendershot ranch.

The third was believed to be in the same area, where local police, prison guards and highway patrolmen are beating the bush. A report from the two men captured said that he had been wounded in the escape.

Miller, 59, a resident of Carson for more than 40 years and a guard at the prison for the last year and a half, was shot to death after the trio had forced him into the pickup used in the escape. Tower guards fired on the vehicle as it was leaving the gates of the prison.

His body was found in the truck less than half a mile from the prison on the New Empire ranch road shortly after the break.

According to reports, the three men forced their way into the pickup truck with Miller, took him as a hostage, and forced Miller to drive the truck out the gate.

Roadblocks were immediately set up on all roads leading out of the area by highway patrolmen and local officers. Other western Nevada counties dispatched officers to aid in the search.

Days prior to the escape attempt, Warden Art Bernard had issued a “close watch” on the third inmate, Liebig. He had approached the warden and requested an X-ray at a local hospital. The warden denied his request and replied with “I don’t trust you. If you walk out before your term here is finished, you will be followed by a hail of bullets.”

Warden Bernard said Miller, as well as all other prison staff, had been warned of the escape attempt. He said the officer with 18 months’ experience insisted on driving the prison truck to the inner courtyard despite suggestions that loads should be carried in to help prevent any trouble.

Officer Herman Smoot, a guard in tower four, was the first of the prison staff to note trouble. He said he saw three men jump on the prison-striped pickup truck driven by Miller.

The truck was jammed in low gear and used as a battering ram to crash through the first set of prison gates. Fourteen shots from prison towers followed it as it slithered across the old quarry. While the first two inmates were found within three hours, the leader was found nine hours later with no remorse for the events that had transpired and merely a scratch on his hand.

Officer George Miller was born in Stockton, California but had been a resident of Carson, Nevada for over 40 years. For many years, he operated Miller’s auto repair shop in Carson. He was a long-time member of Warren Engine Co. He was survived by three daughters and his mother. He middle child was a dispatcher for Nevada Highway patrol and had broadcast the first report of the breakout before she knew her father was killed.