On May 20, 1981, in Knoxville, Tennessee, 23-year-old Lee Standifer (May 22, 1957 – May 20, 1981), who was two days short of her 24th birthday, was murdered by her boyfriend David Earl Miller (July 16, 1957 – December 6, 2018), who dragged her into the woods and killed her by beating and stabbing.

[4] Prior to her murder, 23-year-old Lee Standifer, who suffered from mild mental disabilities due to diffused brain damage at the time of her birth, was a graduate of Farragut High School and a food processing plant employee of two years who lived at the YWCA in downtown Knoxville.

Standifer first met a man named David Earl Miller at the YWCA, and as they grew closer, the two began to date each other.

There were several stab wounds: one of them had completely penetrated the neck and shattered the jawbone; another five were located on the chest and a sixth to the stomach; a seventh was inflicted on the floor of the mouth.

There were two more stab wounds on the back; one penetrated a rib, while the other struck the left shoulder blade without going deeper than an inch.

Multiple bruises were also found on the upper thighs, and some of the knife wounds were post-mortem injuries, and the body showed signs of being dragged from the house to the tree.

The pathologist also discovered traces of spermatozoa in the victim's vagina, suggesting that Miller had possibly raped Standifer before she died.

[5] Nine days after the murder, on May 29, 1981, Miller was arrested in Columbus, Ohio while he was attempting to pay a bar tab with a counterfeit $10.

Miller's mother continued drinking despite her pregnancy, and she suffered from brain damage in her later life due to exposure to toxic fumes while she worked at a plastics plant.

Miller suffered from several instances of abuse, including regular beatings with boards, being slammed into walls and being dragged around the house by the hair.

[11] Miller was indicted by a Knox County jury on a single murder charge on August 3, 1981, and on October 19, 1981, a competency hearing was scheduled for Miller to determine if he was fit to stand trial, and he was examined by Dr George Gee, a psychiatrist at the Helen Ross McNabb Mental Health Center.

It was concluded in November 1981 that Miller was fit to be tried for the murder of Standifer, and although the defence sought a second medical opinion to dispute Dr Gee's findings, this request was denied.

Although the court upheld the murder conviction of Miller, the judges overturned the death sentence and ordered a re-sentencing trial for Miller based on the fact that his prior arrest for two rape cases (where no indictments were made) was improperly introduced as evidence during his original punishment phase of the trial.

[15][16] After the issuance of his death warrant, Miller and three other death row prisoners – Nicholas Todd Sutton, Terry Lynn King and Stephen Michael West – filed a lawsuit against the state on November 5, 2018, seeking to be executed by firing squad instead of lethal injection, which was the state's primary method of execution, and stated that the current lethal injection protocols in Tennessee could lead to prolonged and torturous deaths in light of the recent botched execution of Billy Ray Irick in Tennessee.

[19] The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently also rejected the lawsuit on November 28, 2018, and the judges ordered that the scheduled executions of the four plaintiffs to move forward.

[31] On December 6, 2018, 61-year-old David Earl Miller was put to death by the electric chair at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.

[38][39] It was noted that in recent years, due to increasing numbers of botched lethal injection executions, there were many criminals on death row across the U.S., including Miller, who chose to die by electrocution or other execution methods, and Miller was among the most high-profile cases of people who elected to be put to death by other methods rather than lethal injection.

Helen described Standifer as a "bubbly, happy character" who loved teasing her sister during Christmas and active in sports during most of her schooling years at Colorado, where she used to live before moving to Tennessee, and even won a gold medal in backstroke during a swimming competition.