The Zombie Hunter Murders: Phoenix's Most Haunting Cold Case Finally Solved

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He was the guy everyone knew in Phoenix, the eccentric local with the custom car covered

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in fake blood, the elaborate homemade costume, the prop gun impressive enough to land in

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an airport exhibit.

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He called himself the zombie hunter.

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He went to festivals, he posed for photos with cops, and for 22 years nobody looked twice.

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This is the story of Brian Patrick Miller and the Phoenix Canal murders.

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Here's a quality to the evenings in Phoenix in the early 1990s that people who live there

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still describe the same way.

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The heat breaks just enough around sunset to make going outside feel like an actual reward,

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and the canal paths that run through the valley become something genuinely beautiful at

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golden hour.

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Miles of paved trail through the desert, and when the light drops low, it does things to

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the landscape that photographers travel from all over the place to try to capture.

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These were out there, joggers, cyclists.

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People doing ordinary things people do in places they have decided are safe.

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Phoenix in the early 1990s was a city moving fast, new apartment complexes rising alongside

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every strip mall, the desert getting paved over at a pace that felt almost breathless.

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The canal paths were where people exhaled.

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Angela Brasso was 21 years old, recently arrived from Pennsylvania and building a life in

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Phoenix's burgeoning tech scene alongside her boyfriend Joe, not me by the way.

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And on the evening of November 8th 1992, she had a simple plan.

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Joe was back at their apartment near 25th Avenue in Cactus Road, baking her a birthday cake

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because tomorrow she was turning 22.

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Angela was headed out for a solo ride on the canal path, something she did often without

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a second thought.

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She went out to golden hour and never came back.

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Joe searched three separate times at night, riding the same paths, calling her friends and family.

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By morning, Angela's body had been found in a field adjacent to their apartment complex.

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She had been stabbed in the back and sexually assaulted.

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She had been decapitated.

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Her head was not at the scene.

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Her purple mountain bike was also gone.

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Eleven days later, a fisherman found her head on a grate in the Arizona canal two miles

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away.

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Her forensic analysis of the decomposition suggested the killer had kept her head before discarding

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it, which is a detail that tells you almost everything about who you're dealing with here.

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Ten months passed, the fear settled into something the community absorbed and tried to move

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through because people have to keep living.

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Then on September 21st, 1993, a 17-year-old Arcadia High School junior named Melanie

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Bernice, went for an evening bike ride while her mother was out to dinner.

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A woman found blood and drag marks near a canal tunnel the following morning and police

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recovered Melanie's body floating in the water.

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Stabbed from behind and sexually assaulted, identical in method to Angela.

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The additional detail here was the one that stayed with investigators for years.

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Melanie was dressed in a teal body suit that was not hers.

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Her own clothing and her bicycle were gone.

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The killer changed her clothes after she died, arranged the scene to match something existing

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entirely inside his own interior world and whatever that world looked like, it had been

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running for a long time before he ever acted on it.

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In 1999, DNA from both scenes matched to a single contributor, a serial predator confirmed.

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The name?

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They don't know.

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The profile sat unmatched in every available database and the case moved into a waiting

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period that would stretch another 15 years.

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To understand what eventually broke this case open, you have to go back to where Brian

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Patrick Miller actually started because his beginning is the story.

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Miller was born in October 1972 and grew up in a Glendale suburb that looked entirely

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ordinary from the outside.

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His mother, Ellen Miller, worked as a detention officer and ran her household with a version

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of that authority that forensic psychologists later described as "Grevis Psychological

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Terrorization."

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She deprived Brian of food for extended periods, isolated him from other children, beat the

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family pets in front of him, and made specific, repeated threats with knives and scissors targeting

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his genitals.

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This was the environment where his understanding of power and what people do to each other

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was formed.

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By 1989, he was 16 years old and something had moved from impulse to intention.

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At the Paradise Valley Mall, he walked up to a 24-year-old woman named Celeste Bentley,

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waiting for a bus and stabbed her in the back without provocation.

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She survived.

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He went to juvenile detention for a year.

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While he was there, his mother cleaned his room and found a notebook.

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Inside was an entry he had titled "The Plan."

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He was a methodical, sequential description of what he intended to do some day to young

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women.

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Locate her, abduct her, assault her, kill her, and dismember her remains.

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He was 16 when he wrote it.

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He was released, returned to Phoenix, and three years later, Angela Brasso went out for

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her birthday Eve bike ride.

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Brian Patrick Miller moved to Washington State in the late 1990s.

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Mary to woman named Amy, and in 2000 they had a daughter named Sarah.

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In 2002, he attacked a neighbor named Melissa Ruiz Ramirez, who had accepted a ride from

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him, stabbing her at his workplace.

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At trial, he claimed self-defense, saying that she tried to rob him.

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He outweighed her by 90 pounds and had zero injuries.

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The jury acquitted him in December 2002, and because there was no conviction, his DNA

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was never entered into any database.

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That acquittal cost the investigation more than a decade, and obviously cost Melissa justice

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in that case.

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After his divorce, he returned to Phoenix, settled near ninth street to Mountain View, and

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began raising his daughter as a single father.

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This is the part of the story that requires a genuine moment to absorb.

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He became the "Zombie Hunter."

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Miller customized to a decommissioned Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor with neon

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lights, fake blood running down the sides, and the life-size zombie mannequin caged in

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the back seat.

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He built a prop, gattling gun, so detailed that it ended up in an exhibit at Phoenix Sky Harbor

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International Airport.

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He joined the local steampunk and cosplay community, attended conventions and festivals

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every single weekend in full costume, and became a recognizable fixture across the city.

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He posed for photos with actual Phoenix police officers on a regular basis.

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The man at the center of their most enduring unsolved double murder smiling beside the

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people who had been looking for him for years.

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The persona was so complete and so consistent that the community around him genuinely could

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not see through it.

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In 2014, the Phoenix Police Department brought in forensic genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick,

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who compared wide DNA from crime scenes against public genealogy databases using a technique

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that was still relatively new at the time.

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What came back was a surname, Miller.

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Cold case detective Clark Swartzkov cross-reference that against the existing files and found that

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Brian Patrick Miller had appeared in peripheral leads as far back as 1994 without ever being

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meaningfully pursued.

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The profile aligned, a man with the documented history of unprovoked stabbings who had lived

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near both canal locations during both murders.

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To make an arrest, they needed fresh DNA.

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On January 2, 2015, Swartzkov met Miller for lunch at Chili's and Phoenix posing as a detective

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revisiting old neighborhood leads.

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Miller arrived in the zombie hunter car with his teenage daughter.

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Undercover detectives were already seated inside.

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The glasses and silverware pre-handled with sterile gloves.

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Throughout the meal, Miller was careful, barely touching his water glass until Swartzkov

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prompted him enough times that he finally took a few sips from it.

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Technicians secured the glass the moment he left.

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On January 13, 2015, the results came back as a perfect match to the DNA from both Angela

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Brasso and Melanie Bernis.

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Miller was arrested at his home later that day.

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Confronted with the evidence, he was composed.

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He said, quote, "I don't see how that's possible."

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His bench trial began October 2022.

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He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

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With his defense built around disassociative amnesia, arguing the abuse he suffered had fractured

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his personality so completely that he retained no memory of either murder.

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The prosecution counter that Miller was a sexual sadist whose intent had been documented in

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his own handwriting since adolescence, and that the 1989 notebook was a blueprint, not

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a symptom.

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His ex-wife Amy testified about letters in which he described enjoying cutting her about

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the nature of their relationship, and about a moment during their marriage when he mentioned

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attacking another girl.

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She had believed at the time that he was saying something dark to disturb her.

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She had put it out of her mind.

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On June 7, 2023, judge Suzanne Cohen sentenced Brian Patrick Miller to death for the murders

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of Angela Brasso and Melanie Bernis.

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Miller's mother spoke about the grandchildren she will never know.

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Melanie's sister Jill described 30 years of grief with no floor.

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Brandy Myers was 13 when she vanished on May 26, 1992, going door to door for a school

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fundraiser, three blocks from Miller's home.

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Amy Miller told investigators that Brian had confessed to her that Brandy knocked on his

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door that day, and that he had killed her in disposed of her remains.

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No physical evidence has ever been recovered, and prosecutors have so far declined to pursue

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charges.

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Shannon Amuck was 16 when she died in 1992, and had been in the same juvenile detention

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facility as Miller when he was a teenager.

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Both of those cases remain open.

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The canals are still there.

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People still ride along the McGoldin hour, and somewhere in Phoenix's memory is the image

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of a man in an elaborate homemade costume rolling through weekend festivals in a fake cop

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car waving at strangers, posing for photos with the officers hunting him.

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He called himself the zombie hunter, and he was very good at it.

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Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, Bingeable True Crime Stories.

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My name is Joe.

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Hi.

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Nice to meet you.

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Here's an email, subject, first episode nerves.

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Hey Joe, do you remember what it felt like recording your very first episode?

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I imagine that it had to be a weird moment hitting record, and not knowing if anyone would

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ever hear it.

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Just curious if it felt different back then compared to now.

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Mike in Toledo, Ohio.

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And Mike, it's interesting.

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I've told a couple people this story, but back when I started this podcast, it was during

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the pandemic times.

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But in the before times, I'd considered starting a podcast, and I was like, I don't really

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have time for that.

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But then the pandemic hits.

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Everyone has a lot more time on their hands, so I did.

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But I had no idea how difficult it was to start a podcast, and then it becomes successful.

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Very easy to start a podcast, getting people to actually hear it, really kind of tough,

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and then getting people beyond your friends and your family to listen to your podcast

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nearly impossible.

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So the fact that this podcast is so incredibly successful compared to so many out there is

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a blessing to me, and I don't take it for granted.

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I don't take you for granted for listening to this podcast.

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And I've never been nervous about doing this because I'm one of those people that doesn't

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really care that much about what people think.

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So if I feel confident about something then, and you don't like it, that's cool with me.

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Everything isn't for everyone.

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So I never was nervous, but the podcast itself, the vibe of it has definitely changed from

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the beginning to now.

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Back then it was more newsy sounding, more serious and tone, not that it's not serious

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now, but it's a little more Lucy Goosey.

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I'm sure you can tell just by the fact that I said Lucy Goosey.

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I'm still respectful to the victims and the case itself, but it's still much more casual

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than it was back then.

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Hey, if you're a brand new listener to this podcast, welcome in.

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Make sure you hit subscribe right now, go to 10minuteMurder.com, catch up on all the things

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there is to know about the podcast.

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Follow 10 Minute Murder on all the social media places to do that and check out my brand new

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podcast.

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It's called True Crime Blueprint.

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If you like this one, I think you're going to love True Crime Blueprint, so listen to that

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wherever you listen to this podcast.

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And that's going to do it.

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That's your episode for today.

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Thank you again for listening to 10 Minute Murder.

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See you next time.