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Newsom rejects controversial parole for San Francisco high school student killer

By Andrew Chamings

A convicted killer who murdered a San Francisco high school student in 2004 will not be paroled after Gov. Gavin Newsom overturned the controversial decision by a California parole board last week. 

On Sept. 27, 2004, the body of Lincoln High School senior Maxina Danner, 17, was found wrapped in a blanket in McLaren Park, near the intersection of Visitacion Avenue and Mansell Street. Police said Danner had been killed by strangulation, and her body was likely moved from a different location and dumped in the park in the southeast corner of San Francisco. The case made headline news and shocked fellow students and staff at the school, who said Danner was a kind, well-liked student who averaged A grades and was a varsity softball player.

The investigation, which included retrieving Danner’s cellphone records, pointed to Royce Miller, then 21, as a suspect. Miller had known Danner for about a month and worked at a group home for girls in Haight-Ashbury, not far from Danner’s home in Corona Heights. Authorities believed that Danner snuck out of her home on the night of Sept. 26 to see Miller. 

At first, Miller denied having any involvement in the case, but later told a detective he found the body in his garage on Jamestown Avenue in the Bayview. Miller was found guilty of second-degree murder for strangling Danner before dumping her body; he was sentenced to 15 years to life and incarcerated at San Quentin. 

Miller denied responsibly for his actions until 2013, said a statement from Newsom’s office to SFGATE. He later admitted that he was under the influence of cocaine at the time of the killing. 

“I think the powder cocaine amplified my anger. I was already in a violent state of mind and willing to produce violent results, I think it was my ideology, never let somebody punk you out or look like a bitch,” Miller said in a quote cited in Newsom’s parole release review. “If somebody does something to you, make an example, street mentality.”

Last year at a parole hearing, an assistant San Francisco district attorney spoke out in favor of Miller and recommended his parole, a decision that Danner’s family said “blindsided” them, NBC Bay Area (KNTV) reported.

“The reaction was one of complete and utter shock,” Jeremy Weltman, Danner’s brother-in-law, told the outlet. The family said they had not been consulted about the recommendation for parole, which San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins later said was a mistake. Jenkins also said in a statement that the prosecutor who recommended parole no longer works in her office.

Newsom overturned the parole board’s decision on Friday. 

“I have considered the evidence in the record that is relevant to whether Mr. Miller is currently dangerous,” Newsom said in a statement. “When considered as a whole, I find the evidence shows that he currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison at this time.” 

Miller’s next parole hearing is tentatively set for April 2025, jail records show.