CRIME: The Dean & the Professor

• Share

On a lonely lane winding amid stands of pecan trees and through fields of greening winter oats near Baton Rouge, a road construction gang one morning last week discovered the body of a woman: beside her 1960 Renault Dauphine lay Dr. Margaret Rosamond McMillan, 38, bludgeoned to death. The crime shook the campuses of Louisiana State University, both in Baton Rouge and at the New Orleans branch, where "Rosie" McMillan was an assistant professor of biology. The events that followed shook L.S.U. even harder.

A quiet, buxom spinster who shared her New Orleans house with a pair of cats, Biologist McMillan liked to play the guitar and sing folk music, often drove to Baton Rouge, where she was doing basic research on algae. Of all those who expressed grief at her death, no one seemed more upset than Dr. George H. Mickey, 49, topflight scientist, dean of L.S.U.'s graduate school and head of the zoology department. "All of us at L.S.U. are profoundly shocked by the tragic event," said Mickey, "and are particularly anxious that the case be cleared as soon as possible." Four days later, George Mickey was arrested—and charged with the murder of Dr. Rosie McMillan.

The charge seemed incredible. Married and the father of two children, lanky, Texas-born George Mickey was formerly chief biologist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and he is internationally known for his studies on the genetic effects of radiation. He had known Biologist McMillan for years; as a professor at Northwestern University, he had directed the preparation of her doctor's thesis, later helped her secure her L.S.U. appointment. Indeed, Mickey was generally recognized as Rosie McMillan's closest friend.

Investigating her death, police naturally went to Rosie McMillan's friends for information—and one of the first they sought out was George Mickey. As the investigation continued, a web of evidence drew tighter around the dean; smears of human blood that matched her type were found on his Chevrolet, his picture was found in her purse, what an investigator described as "indiscreet" letters were found in her home. Questioned, Mickey said that during the hours when Rosie McMillan was killed, he had been in a coffee shop with an official from the U.S. Department of Education, had later seen the man off on a plane. But in checking the alibi, police said they found that no such official existed, that there had been no airline flight from Baton Rouge at the time Mickey claimed, and that the entire story was "without foundation."

Despite the evidence against him, few at L.S.U. could bring themselves to believe that popular, respected George Mickey had killed his friend Rosie McMillan. Mickey himself continued to deny the charges, and from his Baton Rouge jailers come only reports of his weeping at night.