Murder Charges Filed in Patricia Miles Case

A new charge came today for the woman Crittenden County investigators say killed a seven-year old girl. Searchers found the body of Patricia Miles, four days after she disappeared from her home at Gilmore, back in August. Investigators say they spent a lot of time waiting on evidence results from the state crime lab and they say their suspect, Jo Ann Buchanan has never been very cooperative. While Buchanan has been in jail all this time, charged with kidnapping Patricia, the small town of Gilmore has been turned upside down since the day she disappeared. "Patricia was duct taped, her hands were duct taped behind her back, and her feet were duct taped together. She had duct tape over her mouth and nose. She was suffocated," explained Crittenden County Sheriff`s Investigator Thomas Martin. But officials still can not say why she died, because their suspect isn`t talking. "All she said was `God knows what really happened, I`m leaving it up to him,`" Martin said. Jo Ann Buchanan was Patricia`s babysitter and friend of the family. "We had three different eyewitnesses, one of them being one of her own family members that the child was last seen was her," he said. Back in August, rescue teams searched for Patricia in nearby fields where her bicycle and shoes were found. Three months later, the home Patricia once shared with her family now sits empty and Gilmore residents share mixed emotions. "So I`ve been knowing them about 20 years or longer. But I`ve also been knowing the Buchanan family 20-some years or longer," said Mary Delenay, a Gilmore resident. What took so long to file charges, is a question easy to answer. "Because our #1 suspect was in jail. We knew she wasn`t going anywhere, so we took our time to build the best case we possibly could," said Martin. But the reason Patricia was killed no one my ever know. Investigators say they matched fibers from Buchanan`s clothes with fibers on the duct tape that bound Patricia. Jo Ann Buchanan`s attorney says she hasn`t seen the murder charges yet. But he says there are problems with the Sheriff`s Department`s investigation. For example, he says his client was arrested and in jail when the body turned up. He questioned how Buchanan could`ve put it there. Buchanan is expected to make her plea on Monday morning.