Northern California woman killed by black bear had complained for months that the animal was stalking her house

A 71-year-old woman became the first person in California history to be killed by a black bear last fall. After an investigation and interviews with people who know her, we now know that the bear had been in the area for some time and had been stalking the woman’s home.

As the Chronicle reports, wildlife experts are baffled by the case of Patrice Miller. The 71-year-old woman lived alone in a rental home in the small Sierra Nevada town of Downieville. When sheriffs went to Miller’s home in November to check on the welfare of the animals – an apparently gruesome sight with bloody bear paw prints and the woman’s mutilated, partially eaten body dragged through the house – they believed the woman had died first and then been mauled by an opportunistic bear that had broken in.

However, a later autopsy released just this month found that the bear killed Miller in her bedroom. Investigators believe the bear entered the house through a kitchen window.

“It appeared the bear had probably been there for several days, feeding on the remains,” Sierra County Sheriff Mike Fisher told KCRA.

The bear then plundered everything it could find in the house and left behind a pile of bear droppings before it disappeared.

“We are entering uncharted territory,” Captain Patrick Foy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s law enforcement division told the Chronicle about the unprecedented nature of this case.

Miller knew the bear in the months before it killed her. She reportedly nicknamed it “Big Bastard” and allegedly once had to hit the bear with her hand to keep it out of her house.

“Every time I saw her, there was something mentioned about the bear trying to get into the house,” Miller’s friend Cassie Koch told the Chronicle. “At first she thought, ‘Oh, that pesky bear.’ But then she seemed to be afraid of it.”

Koch was the one who requested the welfare check after not hearing from Miller.

This terrifying story led to a standoff between the sheriff’s office and the Department of Fish and Wildlife over the euthanasia of the bear, which was later captured on another homeowner’s property. Ultimately, the bear believed to have killed Miller was euthanized, KCRA reports.

This happened before the autopsy had even revealed that the bear had bitten the woman to death. However, DNA analysis later confirmed that it was indeed the bear that had killed Miller.

Downieville has apparently become a bear hub in recent years, just one of several places where black bears have become habituated to humans and now forage for food in garbage cans and cars. And as the Chronicle notes, Miller’s house was a favorite target, with a vegetable garden out front and garbage that wasn’t always carefully contained in a bear box or other device.

Sonya Meline, owner of the Carriage House Inn in Downieville, tells KCRA she’s used to bears being around and taking advantage of unsuspecting tourists. “No matter how many times we tell guests, ‘Don’t leave food in your cars. Lock your car doors at night,’ visitors don’t always listen to us,” Meline says. “They leave a snack bar or something like that out and the bears find it.”

Meline also says she noticed a particular bear aggressively going door-to-door in the city last year. “It wasn’t a normal bear,” Meline said.

As KCRA reports, this bear may have been a different one than the one euthanized, as another bear broke into homes and a school after the first bear was euthanized in November. The second bear was also euthanized, and Fisher said reports of bear activity in the area dropped sharply after the second bear’s death.

“I don’t want every black bear that enters my community to be euthanized,” Sheriff Fisher tells KCRA. “My primary concern is the public safety of my citizens and the visitors who come to our communities.”

Previously: Woman from Northern California dies in bear attack

Photo: Max Seeling