Steve Milner: Retired Oregon veterinarian allegedly murders husband of woman he romanced years ago after brazenly stalking them
HILLSBORO, OREGON: A retired veterinarian was arrested and charged with murder after a man he stalked for years was found dead in a parking garage. Steve Milner, 55, was taken into custody on Tuesday, January 31, in connection with the murder of Kenneth Fandrich, 56, who was found dead on Friday, January 27, in the Intel campus in Hillsboro where the alleged victim worked.
A coroner ruled his death to be the result of “blunt force trauma to his neck," according to Fandrich's wife of 30 years, Tanya. Milner is being held in the Washington County Jail on charges of second-degree murder, stalking, and violating a stalking order. The Hillsboro Police Department revealed how an autopsy concluded Fandrich was murdered and that “the cause of death remains under investigation.”
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'I thought Steve Milner was just being an a**hole'
“Milner was interjecting himself into our lives before this stalking order—before we had anybody listening to us. We rarely ever went anywhere alone. We always tried to stay together,” Tanya Fandrich told Willamette Week on Wednesday, February 1. She said she alerted the authorities after her husband stopped returning calls on Friday night and used 'Find My iPhone' to help officers locate Fandrich. He was eventually found dead in his car, with his phone beside him on the passenger seat. “I never thought this would happen. Never. I thought he [Milner] was just being an a**hole,” Tanya added.
Steve Milner was not 'receptive' to previous warnings
Kenneth Fandrich previously had told the police that Milner and his wife had had an affair while she was employed at Milner’s Oregon City veterinary hospital years earlier. This allegedly happened after Milner bailed her out of jail after she was arrested over a domestic dispute with Fandrich a couple of years ago. However, she said she hadn't been in contact with Milner since. Last year, Fandrich filed a civil lawsuit accusing Milner of extensive stalking. He alleged Milner planted a GPS device on his car — something that police told him was "not against the law” after the Clackamas County bomb squad was called to remove it. In March, Fandrich alerted the authorities after Milner began following him to work in his car. The perp was pulled over by a Hillsboro police officer, who warned him he would be locked up if he continued the harassment. The officer later said Milner did not seem "receptive" to the warning. However, he was neither arrested nor cited.
Fandrich reportedly feared for his life, telling a police officer he believed Milner would “cut me up into little pieces because he is a surgeon." He applied for a stalking order a couple of weeks later. Milner was arrested for violating that order last year after Fandrich presented surveillance images showing Milner attaching another GPS device to his truck. The civil case was reportedly pending a response from Milner's defense team, which had asked for additional time considering the "significant issues” in the case. “If the court had not granted Mr. Milner’s requests to delay this action, my client might have been able to secure civil justice,” Attorney Michael Fuller, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Fandrich, told Willamette Week. “Now that is impossible," he added.