Gregory M. Milner pushed a key into the front door of the apartment around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and tried to open it. The key didn’t fit. From inside, the women heard a soft clang.
“Open the door,” Milner said, according to Gainesville Police. “I know you’re in there.”
One of the women called 911. Milner, who lives a floor below, had more keys. Somehow, he got one that worked, but the deadbolt was locked.
Minutes later, GPD officer Christopher King arrived, and Milner was arrested on four counts of stalking. Milner, 29, is being held at the Alachua County Jail in lieu of a $400,000 bond.
Stephanie Coronado, a psychology senior, lives at The Estates with three other girls. They didn’t use to lock the deadbolt. They covered the handle in tape to remind them.
“We basically had a rule: Don’t use it,” said Stephanie Coronado, a psychology senior. “We were afraid one of us would get stuck outside. Then, we met Greg.”
Before Milner showed up at their doorstep Wednesday, Coronado and Gianessa Nieto, an exploratory freshman, were preparing to go to The Estates gym. When they first heard scratching in the keyhole, they assumed a roommate was coming home.
“It was only a matter of seconds,” Coronado said. “We were about to leave. That’s scary as hell.”
Coronado first met Milner in mid-January. While she was in the apartment complex’s computer lab, Milner struck up a conversation with her. He talked for about an hour about a thesis he was writing about massage therapy, she said.
Soon after, Milner met Nieto and the other two roommates: Jillian Koenig, a business freshman, and Alisha Badger, a Santa Fe student.
While the women were exercising together in their apartment in January, Milner knocked on the door and asked if they were in a band. He lingered at the door, Coronado said, but he eventually left.
From then on, Milner appeared almost everywhere.
“Any time we’re at the pool, any time we’re at the gym, he shows up immediately,” Nieto said. “We don’t know where he comes from.”
He knocked on the door again in early February and told them their parents were downstairs, waiting to greet them. One of the women called The Estates front office, and management asked Milner to never contact the victims again, according to police.
That didn’t work, Nieto said. Milner kept showing up when they walked outside, and his actions culminated Wednesday. The women were frightened thinking about how Milner found a key.
They are also angry at The Estates management. Milner was on probation for a stalking charge in January 2008, according to the Florida Department of Corrections. An employee told the women the complex does not do background checks on its residents, Badger said.
Nieto said an Estates manager offered to let the women move to another apartment within the complex. That’s not good enough, they said. They want out — out of The Estates and out of their leases.
A woman at The Estates call center said Thursday night it was too late for the Alligator to get a comment concerning the women’s situation. Koenig was especially worried. In January, she signed a lease for next year.
Contact Tyler Jett at tjett@alligator.org.
