After graduating from IU in 1950, Gene Miller held several different newspaper jobs, until he landed a job working for the Miami Herald in 1957. For the next 48 years, the Evansville native worked as a reporter and editor at the Herald , winning two Pulitzer Prizes along the way. The first prize in 1967 was for investigative reporting that cleared two people convicted in separate murder cases. The second prize, awarded in 1976, was based on Miller's eight-year examination of a 1963 murder case that resulted in two men sentenced to death row.
Over 130 stories, most by Miller, documented police beatings and evidence of a confession by a third man never charged in the murder. Both men convicted of the murder were freed in 1975. In 1977, Miller earned an honorary degree from IU. Miller even wrote his own obituary, which was published in the Miami Herald the day of his death in June 2005.
