After fifteen months of being in the service he was ordered to consult with a psychiatrist, he only went to one session, resulting in a dishonorably discharge. .
Miranda drifted around the south for a few months, spending time in jail in Texas for vagrancy and was arrested in Nashville for driving a stolen car. Because he had taken the stolen vehicle across state lines, Miranda was sentenced to a year and a day in the federal prison system, serving time in Chillicothe, Ohio and later in Lompoc, California. .
Ernest kept a low profile for the next couple of years, moving from one menial job to another, then landed a position as a laborer on the night loading dock for the Phoenix produce company.
Ernest at the age of twenty-three had a girlfriend, Twila Hoffman. Twila was a twenty-nine year old mother with two children, a son and a daughter by her husband but was not divorced. They lived with Ernest in his home for two years.
THE CRIME.
On March 2nd 1963 a Saturday night, Patty McGee, an eighteen year old, was finishing cleaning up at the Paramount Theatre around 11:15 that evening. When the film concluded and the patrons left the theater, Patty did what little bookkeeping she had to do and then, at 11:30 P.M., she also left the theater. She walked to the bus stop at 7th and Monroe Streets and boarded a northbound bus. .
At about 12:10 A.M. Patty got off the bus at 7th and Marlette in northeast Phoenix. As she always did, Patty turned east on Marlette and walked toward her home on Citrus Way where she lived with her mother, sister and brother in law. Suddenly a car pulled out of a driveway in front of her passing so close to her that she had to jump back to keep from being hit. A short way down the block, the car stopped and a young man whom she had never seen before got out and came toward her. Patty was not frightened or apprehensive as the man approached, but when he reached her he grabbed her with one hand and put his other hand over her mouth.
