NOV. 15: Eric Miller goes bowling with three of his wife's co-workers from GlaxoSmithKline, including Derril H. Willard Jr. Willard buys a pitcher of beer, and Miller remarks that his beer tastes bad. He becomes sick about an hour later. His wife, Ann, drives him to Rex Healthcare, where he is admitted.

NOV. 21: Eric Miller is transferred to UNC Hospital, where tests show arsenic traces in his body, but there is a delay in getting the information to Miller, his family and doctors treating him.

NOV. 24: Eric Miller returns home. He does not return to his job at UNC.

NOV. 30: He becomes ill again after eating a dinner that his wife prepared and is taken back to Rex Healthcare.

DEC. 1: The Miller family learns for the first time of tests that show high levels of arsenic, and treatment begins. A nurse calls the Raleigh police, and Eric Miller says he has no idea how he came in contact with arsenic.

DEC. 2: At 2:50 a.m., Eric Miller dies. Police search the Miller home for arsenic.

DEC. 4: Police search for arsenic or its derivatives at GlaxoSmithKline's Venture Building, where Ann Miller works as a research scientist. Along with sodium cacodylate, a very hazardous compound that contains arsenic, police seize two expense reports, a fulfillment contract, a lab notebook and a Hewlett Packard computer and keyboard.

DEC. 6: Police search UNC's computer network and take away two disks loaded with Eric Miller's e-mail files and his lab's computer files.

DEC. 19: Police take a laptop computer from Eric Miller's home.

2001

JAN. 21: Police search the home of Ann Miller's co-worker, Derril Willard, and seize two of his computers and some documents. Police indicate Willard had a personal relationship with Ann Miller.

JAN. 22: Derril Willard is found by his wife, Yvette, in the garage of their home, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Police find a handwritten note in which Willard apologizes to his family and declares his innocence.

FEB. 7: A Superior Court judge orders the state medical examiner to seal the autopsy report on Eric Miller once it is complete. The News & Observer challenges the decision in court.

MAY 10: Eric Miller's autopsy report is released and confirms that he was killed by arsenic, and that he received at least two doses of arsenic, including at least one while he was in the hospital. A toxicology report included with the autopsy also says that the same substance seized by police from Miller's wife's laboratory was found in Miller's blood, liver and urine.

MAY 16: A new toxicology report is released by the state medical examiner showing that Eric Miller received at least one substantial dose of arsenic several months before he became ill and died.

JUNE: Raleigh Police Department investigators give prosecutors seven or eight 3-inch-thick binders packed with testimony and evidence summarizing the contents of a five-drawer file cabinet full of information about the Miller case.

2002

FEB. 20: Wake District Attorney Colon Willoughby asks a judge to force Raleigh defense lawyer Richard Gammon to divulge what his deceased client, Willard, might have revealed about the death of Eric Miller. This comes after Willard's widow tells Willoughby that Gammon had advised Derril Willard he could face a charge of attempted murder.

MARCH 7: In an effort to persuade a judge to order Gammon to talk, prosecutors reveal evidence that Willard and Ann Miller had a romantic relationship.

MARCH 14: Gammon, after being ordered by a judge to divulge his conversations with Derril Willard about the death of Eric Miller, appeals the order.

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