REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK:

I had my doubts when Daily Pilot City Editor Paul Anderson gave me the phone number of a Korean War veteran who had a dusty box of medals and military papers bearing the name Burt Miller in fading ink.

“Find the guy,” Anderson said.

I showed up at the apartment of James Russell Brown with a photographer in tow, and we began to dig through the fragile newspaper clippings and old military documents. Brown was at a loss for how to find Burt Miller, or whoever left the box in an empty apartment at the complex where he lived.

“If he was still alive, he’d still have this stuff. His whole life is in there,” Brown said.

A few Vietnam-era service medals, a high school diploma from Arkansas and some Naval ship yearbooks told only bits and pieces of the story.

I looked through voter registration databases and called Burt Millers in Oregon and Colorado, but came up empty-handed.

There seemed to be no record of Miller’s life after the early 1970s. The box contained no clues to indicate Burt Miller had children or a wife who might have inherited the belonging. The Department of Defense told me they could only forward a letter to a service member’s last known address when they left the military.

I wrote a story in The Daily Pilot in November with all the information I had on Miller, hoping someone who knew Miller or his family would see it.

I got an e-mail from Costa Mesa resident David Stiller after he read the story. Stiller felt an immediate connection with Burt Miller — both men had served in the Navy. He also has a knack for finding information.

Stiller worked more than 20 years as an insurance investigator for a major company in Southern California, investigating claims ranging from fatal shootings to dog bites.

Now retired, Stiller helped find almost 60 missing alumni or their widows for his 50th Naval Academy class reunion.

“It’s not what you know, but knowing how to find out,” Stiller told me.

Stiller located a former high school classmate of Miller’s in Hot Springs, Ark. By chance, the classmate ran into another man who served in the Navy with Miller in California. The man told the classmate Miller had married a girl from their home town who graduated from high school a year after him.

Stiller then discovered that Miller’s first wife, Mona Faye Miller, had died in 1979 — another dead end. By using an old obituary, Stiller and Miller’s old classmate were able to locate the woman’s half-brother. Another relative still had an old address book with a listing for Miller’s daughter in Costa Mesa, but the two hadn’t talked in years. The address for Marsha Miller was from the same apartment complex where her father’s mementos were discovered.

The trail ran cold after that.

Using voter registration records, I was able to locate a more recent address for Marsha Miller in Orange. I let Stiller have the first shot at contacting her, because of all the hard work he had done to find her.

Stiller sent Marsha Miller a letter, which she received Monday.

“And what a letter it was,” she said. “I called him immediately after I read it.”

Marsha Miller’s memories of her father were precious to her, but memories, even the best ones, sometimes get pushed in a corner and covered with dust. She didn’t even know the box had been missing for a year and a half until she opened Stiller’s letter.

I watched Marsha Miller talk about her father’s smile, quick wit and love of hunting and fishing Thursday.

“He was a wonderful man,” she told me.

Now that Marsha Miller has her father’s belongings back, I hope she’s able to dust off those memories more often.

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at brianna.bailey@latimes.com.