The family of Clayton Miller says they have been denied a meeting with the provincial justice minister to discuss the late teen’s controversial case.
The 17-year-old’s body was found in a New Waterford, N.S. brook on May 6, 1990.
READ: Family still searching for answers nearly 3 decades after Clayton Miller’s death
Miller’s parents Maureen and Gervase Miller have never believed their son’s death was an accident and have been trying for nearly three decades to get answers to lingering questions they have.
Last month, Nova Scotia’s Serious Incident Response Team (SiRT) announced they would not be reopening the case, saying that “no further investigation is needed” on the file and that new information brought to the public’s attention regarding the case was “not reliable.”
The new information SiRT was referring to came out in July, after the Miller family and their lawyers held a press conference where a videotaped interview with former Cape Breton Search and Rescue co-ordinator Bryan McDonald was played.
In the statement, McDonald said he and his team searched the day before in the same area Miller’s body was found but didn’t locate anything.
The family has said that the new witness account backs up their belief that the teen’s body was moved.
WATCH: SiRT concludes new information ‘not reliable’, no further investigation needed in Clayton Miller death
Maureen Miller says she had been trying to arrange a meeting with Mark Furey, Nova Scotia’s justice minister, for a month and even offered to drive from their home in Cape Breton to Halifax or Furey’s constituency office in Bridgewater to discuss her son’s case and the need for an out-of-province, independent investigation.
Despite repeated attempted to arrange a meeting, Maureen says she was told Friday morning that the minister will not be meeting with her and her husband.
WATCH: New witness account gives family hope in ’90s death of teen Clayton Miller
Global News reached out to the Department of Justice to see why the minister would not meet with the Miller family but were not given a direct answer.
The department said their “thoughts are with the Miller’s as they continue to deal with the tragic loss of their son” and provided the following statement:
“The death of Clayton Miller has been reviewed a number of times over the years. Most recently, the reviews were conducted in 2015 by both the Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Matt Bowes and Ron MacDonald, head of the Serious Incident Response Team. Those reviews represented the most comprehensive and exhaustive examinations done on the case. It was also the first time both forensic and investigative expertise have come together to review this file. Given these circumstances, the file is closed.”
Despite the roadblock, the Millers say they will not stop looking for answers and now plan to reach out to federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to see if the federal government can help facilitate an independent inquiry into Clayton Miller’s death.
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