00:00:06
[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Phoenix,
Arizona, November 1992, the body of a 22-year-old female
college student discovered
00:00:19
near the city's canal. Angela was found with so
many different stab wounds and decapitated.
00:00:29
And at that point, nobody
knew where her head was. NANCY GRACE: 10 months
later, another mutilated body
00:00:36
found by the same
canal, but this time, it's a 17-year-old teen girl. The canal became a ghost town.
00:00:47
It was such an evil,
despicable murder. I think the entire
city really became in fear and especially women.
00:01:00
This is the story of
two sadistic murderers that terrorize the
Phoenix community.
00:01:06
That's until the powers of
investigative genetic genealogy and passionate cold
case detectives
00:01:14
combine to try and
catch a killer. I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives."
00:01:22
[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Phoenix,
Arizona, 1992. It's supposed to be a
year of new beginnings
00:01:51
for Angela Brosso. Angela and her
boyfriend just moved from Pennsylvania to Phoenix
and planning a new future
00:02:00
in this desert city. Angela was a very sharp,
very outgoing person. She was doing very
well in her work.
00:02:11
So she was very bright,
very well liked, and an overall good person. NANCY GRACE: November
8, 1992, the day
00:02:20
before Angela's
birthday, she decides to go for one of her usual bike
rides along the city's canal.
00:02:28
The night that Angela
went for her bike ride, she left around dusk and she
was turning 22 the next day.
00:02:35
And her boyfriend
stayed back to basically bake her a birthday cake. So she was going to be back,
they had a regular routine
00:02:43
on a Sunday night. They had planned to
come back and watch one of their favorite
TV shows together,
00:02:48
but when Angela
didn't show up hours after she was supposed to,
Joe called 911 and filed
00:02:54
a missing persons report. And that was completely
unlike Angela. She was very prompt.
00:02:59
She was very reliable. So Joe knew that something
was wrong at that point. NANCY GRACE: The following
day, a terrible discovery
00:03:06
is made beside the canal. So the next day, Angela's
body was found relatively just
00:03:14
South of Cactus and
the I-17 freeway, which runs north and south. And she was found on
a berm displayed naked
00:03:22
except for shoes and
socks, and had been just basically horrifically
stabbed, and she
00:03:27
was also missing her head. I remember it like
it was yesterday. From where she was stabbed
to where she was able to run,
00:03:35
her clothing was cut
at different points as she's being dragged. What was missing was her bike,
which everyone knew that she
00:03:44
was on, and that's what she was
doing that night was riding, and her Walkman that
she used to listen to.
00:03:49
So those were all gone,
but everything else was pretty much at the crime scene. NANCY GRACE: Homicide
detectives focus
00:03:56
on Angela Brosso's injuries. They look for forensic clues
to find out how Angela died.
00:04:04
The perpetrator came
up either with his right or left hand, pulled
her close, and then
00:04:11
drove a very sharp knife
into her back left side and up into her aorta. So she lived probably about
30 to 35 seconds, probably
00:04:21
just enough to start to
run away from the incident. And there was a pool of blood.
00:04:28
From that pool, there
was a considerable amount of drag marks, her blood,
smears on the pavement,
00:04:34
until there was a tree. And then it looked like the
killer either took a break or took some time there, and
then he proceeded to drag her
00:04:42
up a berm a
considerable distance, and then that's where it
appeared that he basically
00:04:47
cut off her head and carved
and did various things, stabbed her. It was a blitz style attack.
00:04:54
Phoenix detectives
have Angela's torso, but they're missing
a crucial body part.
00:05:00
But then, 10 days
later, police get a call about a suspicious object
seen floating in the canal.
00:05:10
So Angela's head was removed
from the scene by the killer, and he apparently threw her
head back into the canal.
00:05:18
About 10 days later,
the individual who found that was a kind
of a transient, really
00:05:24
liked alcohol, but
he had a nickname called the Fisher King. And so he's the one who told
an employee at a business, hey,
00:05:30
there's a head
floating in the canal. And that employee made
the call to the police.
00:05:35
So he took off, so
he was immediately considered a suspect
because in police work, that's odd behavior and
it needs to be checked out.
00:05:43
So he was interviewed
and looked at. They canvassed her
apartment complex, and it was a very large
apartment complex.
00:05:50
They canvassed the
canal, the bike area, tried to talk to anybody
and everybody that would
00:05:56
maybe seen anything that night. There was definitely suspicion
cast on Angela's boyfriend Joe.
00:06:02
And when you're looking at
a homicide investigation, it's pretty routine
for investigators
00:06:09
to look at the people
closest to the victim. And oftentimes, it is
the spouse or the lover
00:06:16
or somebody like that. So Joe definitely was
looked at at the time. But he was eventually ruled
out because he was at home.
00:06:25
They were able to prove
that, and it wasn't him. NANCY GRACE: When the
missing head's recovered,
00:06:30
Angela Brosso's body
is sent for autopsy. They were able to find DNA
left behind at the crime scene
00:06:39
on some of Angela's
undergarments. And eventually, it was tested
that she was sexually assaulted
00:06:45
and that there was DNA
of somebody on her body. The problem was, at
the time in 1992,
00:06:52
they didn't have a match
of whose DNA that was. The discovery of
Angela's body is probably
00:06:59
one of the most gruesome
aspects of this entire case, and there was mass
panic and fear that
00:07:05
set in with this community. Because she had
gone out on a bike ride at a very normal
time in the evening.
00:07:11
There were other
people out, yet nobody had really seen
what had happened and nobody knew how
she ended up dead.
00:07:17
So you can imagine the Phoenix
community is still paralyzed in fear at the fact that they
had no idea who killed Angela
00:07:25
Brosso, that killer was
still on the loose, and then, boom, another murder. The Phoenix community,
already terrorized
00:07:35
by the brutal murder
of Angela Brosso, but then just 10 months later,
the body of another young woman
00:07:42
discovered by the canal. Is there a sadistic serial
killer on the loose? We find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:07:52
[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: November 1992,
22-year-old Angela Brosso, last seen alive going for a bike
ride along the Arizona canal
00:08:10
in Phoenix. The next day, her decapitated
body discovered by the canal. Now 10 months later, the
body of another young woman
00:08:21
discovered by the same canal. Her mother got home
that night, when she left, Melanie was at home.
00:08:28
Her mother figured out
that Melanie apparently went for a bike ride. Her bike was was missing.
00:08:32
Her mother called the police. She's 17, so there's a
little bit different response
00:08:37
on a juvenile than there is at
an adult on a missing person. Officers looked. Unfortunately, we
had no idea where
00:08:43
she would have ridden her bike. And then the next day, there
were reports of a bicyclist
00:08:49
riding through blood. And then there was, I believe,
a jogger that found her actually floating in the canal.
00:08:56
She was attacked in the
area of I-17 and Dunlop. There were a part of her
shirt that had been cut,
00:09:05
part of her listening device
to her Walkman and headphones. Her bike was also missing,
and so was the Walkman.
00:09:14
Her panties were found a little
bit away from the scene, kind of over towards I-17 freeway.
00:09:20
And when Melanie was
removed from the water, she was dressed in a
body suit that obviously
00:09:27
was far too small for her body. That told me that this person
put some time in to this crime.
00:09:35
He fantasized about how it
was he wanted her to be. Melanie was killed in
the exact same manner
00:09:42
that Angela was, a
stab to the lower left rib cage in the back. So the two kills were identical.
00:09:50
So the investigators
knew that they had a probable
serial murderer that was stalking the canal banks.
00:09:58
NANCY GRACE: There
are clear similarities in the way these two
young women were murdered.
00:10:04
There is also one very
crucial difference. He did not take
Melanie's head. There were superficial
wounds to her neck
00:10:12
where maybe he started
or thought about it. There wasn't the rage that he
had with Angela, in this case.
00:10:18
But he really, honestly was
more interested in trying to push the police
toward somebody else,
00:10:28
and particularly a gang here,
a local gang in Phoenix. And there was a gang
on the West side,
00:10:34
a very violent gang called
the West Side City Crips. The killer carved a
cross into Melanie's chest,
00:10:42
and then carved the letters WSC. Which, at the time,
stood for a local gang. So then detectives are
looking at this thinking,
00:10:52
was this a gang killing and are
they leaving their signature or their mark on Melanie?
00:10:57
But later on, investigators
believe that the WSC was carved just to throw detectives
off and that it
00:11:04
didn't really have anything
to do with who killed her. NANCY GRACE: Investigators look
for every possible connection
00:11:10
between the two murders. During my investigation
in looking at this, I believe that the girls
were on their bicycles
00:11:18
with their hands engaged
on the handlebars. So they weren't
able to defensively fight themselves
off because they're
00:11:23
holding themselves upright. So any person that
came from behind, either left or right hand, would
be able to get close enough
00:11:30
to them to drive that knife. And so to me, the logical
person would be somebody with military type training.
00:11:39
In the 1990s,
DNA technology is still in its very early stages. For investigators
in Phoenix, there's
00:11:46
enough forensic science to
help move the case forward, but not enough to solve it.
00:11:53
There were a lot
of items recovered from both of the scenes. In cases like this, some of
the primary and most important
00:12:03
types of evidence to collect are
going to be sexual assault kits obtained from the victims
during their autopsies,
00:12:10
and those were probably
two of the most important items in these
cases, one from each victim.
00:12:17
In addition, both
their clothing. The clothing from each of
the girls was submitted,
00:12:23
either items of clothing that
they still had on their person or that had been removed
were submitted for analysis.
00:12:31
In addition, I know
from both of the scenes, different items from the scene
were collected, for example,
00:12:39
rocks, blood stains, gravel. Other items that may have been
around, like bottles and cans
00:12:47
were collected and
submitted for analysis. Once Angela's case happened,
which was the first case,
00:12:54
the laboratory analyzed
evidence in the case and developed original
testing results.
00:13:01
And at that time, the
detectives were actively submitting standards or
known samples for comparison
00:13:09
to that case, and then when
Melanie's case happened, the investigators must have
realized the similarities
00:13:18
between the cases. Young girls, both riding
their bikes along the canal, and in generally the same area.
00:13:26
But after Melanie's case
would have been submitted and that evidence analyzed,
they would have determined
00:13:33
at that point that they had
the same profile developed from both of the girls
cases, and that at that time
00:13:42
they were forensically linked. The two murders ended up being
widely known as the Phoenix
00:13:48
canal murders, and
I think the fact that it had that kind of name
made it that much more infamous
00:13:54
and people remembered it. So while it didn't
leave people's minds, the case grew cold
because there just
00:14:00
wasn't any leads to go off of. But that only left more
fear in the community because at that point, they
had no idea who it belonged to,
00:14:09
and now you've had a
killer that's struck twice. Two horrible murders,
one serial killer,
00:14:17
and a case that's going cold. Can revolutionary
forensic science identify a ruthless killer?
00:14:26
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] Phoenix, Arizona, 2011. The murders of
22-year-old Angela
00:14:44
Brosso and 17-year-old
Melanie Bernas in the 1990s remained cold. The killings are forensically
linked by DNA evidence
00:14:54
left behind by the killer. Now a new cold case team
thinks new forensic science can help them crack both cases.
00:15:05
There was a group that we
had flown back to Philadelphia, and it was the Vidocq Society,
and it's a group of scholars
00:15:11
basically people from
various disciplines that have a specialty in
either DNA or blood spatter.
00:15:18
So one of the things
that particular profiler that helped us, he said,
he's in your files.
00:15:23
95% chance that he is
somewhere in your files. So we just kept at the
files, but they were again,
00:15:29
massive, and we kind of
thought at some point, we're going to be long
gone or in a nursing home
00:15:35
before we find this person. But then that's when
the forensic genealogist kind of entered into the
picture and just blew our minds.
00:15:47
I went to the police
department and gave my presentation on using Y-DNA. So there was about maybe
8 to 10 detectives,
00:15:55
and they were very, very good. They listened. You could tell they were, you
know, forward thinking people.
00:16:02
So OK, on the way
out, I talked to the, I think, it was the
supervisor or the captain,
00:16:08
and he said, well, there's this
case we may be sending you. And I said, OK. You know, that's fine.
00:16:13
I'll look forward to
hearing from you and I left. And then maybe a
few weeks later,
00:16:18
they said here's the
Y profile on the case. I put it in my software. We had developed some software
to do a lot of comparisons
00:16:27
very quickly because it's
kind of computational heavy. You come up with a list of
what we call DNA cousins,
00:16:34
or people that share DNA
with your unknown person, let's say it's Mr. X. And so you
have a list of people that are
00:16:41
related to your buddy
there, but you don't know who these people are. So you immediately
try and find out,
00:16:48
and then you start
building their trees out. Now because they are
related to Mr. X,
00:16:55
they all have to be related
to each other somehow. And so as you build the
trees, they start to connect
00:17:02
and connect and connect. And in a perfect
case, you'll come up with two separate trees,
and that will be one for mom
00:17:10
and one for dad. And so you find one
person in one tree married a person in the other
tree, and one of their children
00:17:18
will be who you're looking
for because that person is related to both parents and
all the matches in both trees.
00:17:26
And that's like a
unique combination. And I came up with six
matches to the name Miller.
00:17:35
Now, the name Miller could
not be more common in this area, but was there a Miller in
Phoenix PD's case file?
00:17:44
There were a few. So Colleen Fitzpatrick
gives Phoenix PD this name. Hey, it's a match to Miller.
00:17:51
Check your case file for that. And not only did they have a
few Millers in the case file,
00:17:56
but they had also been working
with this organization called the Vidocq Society that was made
up of all these experts in law
00:18:02
enforcement and forensics. And they had told Phoenix
PD from a criminal profiling
00:18:08
standpoint that it was
likely that the killer was already in their files. So when they got the
name Miller and went back
00:18:16
to look at who there
was, they started kind of a process of elimination. And it turns out, Bryan Patrick
Miller was already in the file
00:18:24
as a possible
person of interest. NANCY GRACE: Detectives
dig deep into Bryan Patrick Miller's case file.
00:18:32
They uncover disturbing
facts from his teen years. In 1989, he attacked a
woman at a Phoenix mall.
00:18:41
Miller was 16 years old and
he followed her off of a bus into a parking lot. She was going to a store,
and he just ran up behind her
00:18:48
and stabbed her. He was later caught
and questioned. There was a police report made.
00:18:53
He ended up getting about
a year or so of detention into a detention
system for juveniles,
00:18:59
which is Adobe Mountain. He was there until
his 18th birthday. There was one real interesting
thing that we did find later,
00:19:06
and that was a letter
that he'd written. It was a letter about a
fantasy killing that he had.
00:19:12
He went through a mirage
of detail in this letter, talking about a
person who he made up
00:19:21
and what he would
do to this person. A female, young,
how she dressed, what she would do,
what kind of luggage
00:19:28
she should bring
on this venture, this fantasy adventure
with this particular woman.
00:19:33
How he would treat her, what
he would do to her sexually, deviantly. And this is all when he's
17 sitting inside of a cell.
00:19:44
He came up with this fantasy. It was like, wow. So we call an
emergency team meeting,
00:19:52
everybody was just kind of--
we didn't know what to say, but we knew we had to get on it.
00:19:57
Again, we didn't have
the surveillance teams to really do their
thing, the experts,
00:20:01
but I have phenomenal
detectives. They went to work. They did the surveillance. They watched Bryan.
00:20:07
We studied him. He had so much out
there on social media. He drove a zombie
hunter mobile that
00:20:12
was a converted police car. My detectives went out
there and watched him. Did he throw a cigarette butt?
00:20:18
No. He was a very law abiding
citizen when it came to trash. He wouldn't litter, and
so that drove us nuts
00:20:24
for some type of discarded DNA. And that's when
Detective Schwarzkopf, I remember I was sitting
there with my wife.
00:20:31
I think we'd put the baby down. He called me and
said, hey, Troy. He's like, I'd like to
do this particular ruse.
00:20:36
You know, enough's enough. We've been following this guy. Let's just pull this ruse.
00:20:42
And I said, let's run with it. And that's where we ended up
doing the restaurant ruse.
00:20:49
I'm looking at where his car
is, where he sits every day. Same spot. And there's this
huge warehouse that
00:20:58
sits behind where he
works, and he would be facing it all the time. And this warehouse has
these huge garage doors.
00:21:08
So I'm thinking to myself, what
can I do to try to get some way to get this put together?
00:21:14
So I come up with
this in my mind, and I put this thing together. I say, OK-- and as I'm doing
this, I get on the radio,
00:21:22
and I tell everybody, OK,
I'm going to go talk to him. I said, this is a waste of time.
00:21:26
So I went up, knocked
on his window, and he rolled his window down. Obviously, I'm a stranger,
and I told him, I said,
00:21:33
I'm a security consultant. Me and my team have been
hired to watch this warehouse
00:21:38
because we believe that there's
employee theft going on, that somebody is taking property
out the back of this warehouse.
00:21:45
I said, have you ever
seen anything like that? And he gets out of his
car, and it's really cold.
00:21:49
It's spitting rain. And he goes, no. He goes, I've seen some
delivery trucks come up there.
00:21:54
And I said, OK. I said, you've
never seen anybody like big trucks come up? And I go, we see you
out here all the time
00:22:00
because we've been
watching this parking lot, and we see you come out for your
breaks and you sit in your car.
00:22:04
And he goes, yeah. Yeah, I do all that here. I said, OK. I said, would you be
interested in watching
00:22:11
this warehouse for us while
you're on your breaks? He goes, well, maybe. I go, I'll pay you.
00:22:18
I said, you can become
a security person. You can work for my
security company. I said, I'll pay
you 20 bucks an hour
00:22:24
just to report and watch it. I said, you can tell me
if you ever see anything or what goes on.
00:22:29
He goes, great. So first, I said I got to do
a background check on you, and I said, we got to meet, have
you to fill out an application.
00:22:36
So we'll do that, and
I'll get a hold of you. This was right after
Christmas, right
00:22:40
before New Year's of 2015. He says, great. Gave me his phone number. So after the first of the year,
I call him up and say, hey,
00:22:48
listen, are you still
interested in the job? Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I said, OK.
00:22:51
Well, let's meet at a restaurant
and you and I can sit down, we'll do the application,
and we'll get you hired.
00:22:57
We met at a Chili's
in Metro Center. He brought his daughter,
which kind of shocked me.
00:23:03
So we went in, we sat down. He with his daughter,
and I just started asking him some personal questions.
00:23:08
Like, hey, how long have
you been in the valley? You know, your daughter her,
what's the relationship?
00:23:13
So we just sat back and forth
just kind of chewing the fat, and the meal came.
We ordered meals.
00:23:18
He ordered a hamburger. I ordered a hamburger. And he started to eat, then he
obviously drank from his glass,
00:23:25
which is all I needed. So we just conversed
about different things, and he said something that was
really odd, that kind of just
00:23:32
struck me as odd. He talked about his father,
who was in the military, and he died at an early age.
00:23:38
And I go, were you ever
interested in the military? And he goes, well, I was. He goes, but I had some anger
issues when I was younger.
00:23:45
I'm like, really? And I didn't go any further. Didn't ask him any
further, but just it
00:23:49
was something odd
that a normal person wouldn't say in an interview,
having anger issues.
00:23:54
And then after I
knew that we probably would get his DNA from the
glass that he drank out of,
00:24:00
we said goodbye. He was really into
Steampunk, which I had no idea what that was, so
he explained Steampunk to me.
00:24:06
And how he likes these types
of comicon types of fantasy type, role playing things.
00:24:12
And I said, oh,
that's interesting. I said, I've never done any of
that, but that's interesting.
00:24:16
So we bid adieu. Detectives, who were inside
of the restaurant securing the area, and the owner who
had waited on our table,
00:24:25
she kept everybody
out of the area, and they were able to
gather up the dishes that he and his daughter
used, and we were
00:24:32
able to take custody of those. Will the elaborate plan
to collect a DNA sample from Bryan Patrick Miller work?
00:24:43
We find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Phoenix,
Arizona, 2015.
00:24:57
It's been 23 long years since
22-year-old Angela Brosso and 17-year-old
Melanie Bernas murdered
00:25:06
along the Arizona canal. Their cases go cold,
and they stay that way until revolutionary
forensic science
00:25:16
helps investigators identify
a prime suspect, Bryan Patrick Miller. Detectives secretly obtained
a DNA sample from Miller,
00:25:27
and now they wait
for the results. They collected that
sample on a Friday. It was January 2, 2015.
00:25:37
And on Monday morning,
the screening analyst obtained the cup from
our property annex,
00:25:44
and what he did was
swabbed the mouth area and prepared those
samples for DNA. And then the DNA analyst
assigned to the case,
00:25:54
she then proceeded to do the
DNA analysis on those swabs. She generated a profile
to use for comparison
00:26:01
to both of the cases. And on January 13, 2015, both
of the analysts came to my desk
00:26:10
and told me that it was a match. My phone went
off several times. I didn't get it,
but it was Kelley.
00:26:18
It was Kelley Merwin from
the lab, the DNA supervisor. And I was like, Kelley
usually never calls me.
00:26:22
She calls me at my desk. And then the door flung
open to the conference room, and her whole team
was standing there.
00:26:28
And I think we were
shaking our heads, and we were like,
you know, they have a pristine, nice laboratory.
00:26:34
They never come to headquarters,
which was pretty rundown, and so it was just odd.
00:26:40
And we were all just looking,
and she said, I remember-- I'll never forget it. Kelley said, hey,
you got your guy.
00:26:46
It's him. It's Miller. And I think there was that
3 and 1/2 years of just-- I liken it to almost
like fighting a war,
00:26:57
and then they announce,
hey, it's over. You know, it's done. Everything's good. And we hugged.
00:27:04
We had a mini celebration,
and then everything kicked into high gear. The chain of command
was notified.
00:27:10
The next thing you know, we have
SWAT team guys wanting to help and pouring in. And you have just
chiefs and everybody,
00:27:17
because these were two
of the most horrific, heinous murders in the
history of Phoenix,
00:27:22
in the state of Arizona really. It was fast tracked
to, hey, let's get him. Let's get him and let's
go search his house.
00:27:29
NANCY GRACE: Bryan Patrick
Miller arrested and charged with two counts first degree
murder, two counts kidnapping,
00:27:36
and two counts of
attempted sexual assault. The search of his house reveals
a disturbing combination
00:27:44
of hardcore porn,
sadistic drawings, and a collection of knives. I think they spent
days and days and days
00:27:55
going through his house. And we did analyze evidence that
was collected during that time,
00:28:01
during that search warrant. There were different knives
and potential weapons that we analyzed.
00:28:07
I believe we also analyzed
some teeth that had been found. But nothing obtained
from that search warrant
00:28:16
ever led back to either of
the victims in our case. They brought his car
down to the crime lab
00:28:25
to be processed for
evidence, and I remember there was a group of us that
were looking in the vehicle
00:28:34
bay at his zombie hunter car,
and one of the individuals that worked at the lab
said, I pass this car
00:28:44
all the time on the freeway. And it just kind of drove home
that this individual had been
00:28:51
living here this whole time
and people had seen him, and he was out and about. And so that was kind
of an eerie feeling.
00:29:01
After 23 years, investigators
and forensic scientists lead to the arrest of
Bryan Patrick Miller
00:29:11
for the vicious killings of
two beautiful young women, but will a jury convict him?
00:29:19
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] Phoenix, Arizona, 2022. Legal delays due to
the COVID pandemic
00:29:38
slow down justice for
Bryan Patrick Miller. But now, his trial for
the violent murders
00:29:46
of two young women in
the '90s finally begins. The way that this
trial went was lengthy.
00:29:55
Normally, we would see a
high profile capital murder case wrap up in a month or two.
00:30:01
This trial went on
for eight months, and it was a lot of
clinical testimony. The defense wanted to try to
convince the judge that Bryan
00:30:12
Patrick Miller's diagnoses made
it so he could not physically remember the crimes
that were committed
00:30:19
and that the person
that committed those was almost like an
evil twin of Bryan. That he was a
separate associated
00:30:26
person of the Bryan Patrick
Miller that exists today. The prosecution though
had multiple things
00:30:33
on their side to dispel that. For one thing, DNA, right? The DNA-- even the
defense knew that they
00:30:40
could not fight the DNA. They all but conceded. Saying, yeah, he did do this,
but he didn't know he did this.
00:30:47
The prosecution is saying, no. The DNA was there. He committed these crimes. There was a clear
aftermath of the crimes
00:30:56
to put a bathing
suit or a jumpsuit on a body and decapitate. I mean, that is deliberate.
00:31:03
And to drag these bodies
to the side as well. That shows that you're
trying to cover up a crime.
00:31:10
Therefore, it shows you
know what you're doing and that you know what
you're doing is wrong.
00:31:14
But, they also had some
pretty powerful testimony to show that Bryan was
not insane at the time.
00:31:21
And part of that came
from his ex-wife Amy. We learned that Bryan
was very controlling
00:31:30
and had very violent
tendencies toward Amy herself. She testified that in their
sex life, he was very violent.
00:31:39
He liked to make her bleed
with pins and needles and actually eat the
blood or suck the blood.
00:31:47
And at one point, told Amy that
if he didn't love her so much, he would kill her.
00:31:52
And he also confided in
her about other crimes. When they lived in Washington,
he talked about a woman
00:31:59
that he attacked, a teenager,
who they now believe is Victoria Michaelson. And he also told Amy
about another girl
00:32:08
that he killed, a
young girl who was going door to door in Phoenix. And police believe that was
13-year-old Brandy Myers.
00:32:17
So this was May 26, 1992. It was a day like any other. Brandy was a really sweet girl.
00:32:26
I really felt like I was the
big sister though because Brandy had special needs.
00:32:33
I remember her all the time. She was the kind of person
who would stay inside and play with you
when you were grounded
00:32:42
when she could be outside. And I think naive to this
world, but super, super sweet.
00:32:49
We were going to go collect
money for her book-a-thon. Her and I had went door to
door in our neighborhood
00:32:56
between our school and
our house and knocked and collected pledges. And the prize was
going to the zoo,
00:33:03
and she really, really
wanted to go to this zoo. And then, when it was time for
us to go, a boy that I liked
00:33:11
named Destin came
over, and I didn't want to go with Brandy anymore. I wanted to stay and
play with this boy.
00:33:19
And so I told Brandy,
she was a nerd, and I couldn't be seen with her. And I don't even
know why I said that.
00:33:28
Like, I was only 11. I will always be haunted
by those last words. You know, we were
those kinds of sisters
00:33:38
where we picked on each
other sometimes and fought and whatever. And I watched her
go around the corner
00:33:47
and there was a little
complex on the corner that had like big tree groves. And it was like a cluster
of trees, an opening,
00:33:56
and a cluster of trees. So I watched her go
around the corner and pass through that opening,
and then I never saw her again.
00:34:04
I felt our connection
leave like, that day. I don't know how to explain it,
but I just knew she was gone.
00:34:14
And I always knew
it wasn't just bad, it was horrible and unspeakable
whatever had happened to her.
00:34:25
According to Amy,
this was the only murder that Bryan admitted to,
but Brandy disappeared,
00:34:34
was never seen again. Miller lived within blocks
of where Brandy disappeared. It would have been
very easy for Brandy
00:34:45
to walk up to the complex
where Miller was staying, and based on what he
told his ex-wife Amy,
00:34:55
he grabbed her,
brought her in, killed her immediately, and then
put her in a bathtub to save.
00:35:03
The water was too
warm, and she started to go into a decomposition
state very quickly.
00:35:09
So he had to get
rid of her, so he chopped her up, put
her in garbage bags, and got rid of her.
00:35:16
She's never been found. It sounds plausible. There's a very high probability
that Miller was involved.
00:35:22
Clearly, at that
age, he was already doing those types
of things, and he was planning his next
adventure, you know,
00:35:31
5 and 1/2, 6 months
before Angela's death, it clearly falls into
something that he would do,
00:35:37
so I think there's
probably a lot of credibility for
him being responsible, but there's no evidence.
00:35:45
Bryan had moved
multiple times, the house that he likely killed her in was
occupied by a different family.
00:35:54
Things had been redone, so there
was no physical evidence that tied Bryan to Brandy's murder
because her remains were
00:36:03
long gone at that
point, if they were disposed as he said to Amy. House had been redone.
00:36:09
There just wasn't
any DNA evidence and unfortunately,
Brandy was never found. So there was no body either.
00:36:16
But Phoenix Police believed
there was enough circumstantial evidence to seek murder
charges against Bryan Patrick
00:36:23
Miller for Brandy Myers
death, and the Maricopa County Attorney's office
declined to prosecute
00:36:29
because they just felt there
was not enough evidence. Brandy is still listed
as a missing person.
00:36:35
It makes me feel more desperate
to get justice for her because she was just
such a sweet kid.
00:36:42
Like, I gave it my all,
and this is the only fight I've ever lost in my life. If I could talk to Bryan
Miller, I might try.
00:36:50
If I could talk to him and
he would talk to me honestly, I would want to know what she
said if she said anything.
00:36:55
Did she cry out for
my mom or myself? Or just what did
she say if anything? Was there anything
that could have
00:37:05
gave her comfort in the end? The trial of Bryan Patrick
Miller ends in June 2023.
00:37:13
He is found guilty
on all charges. The judge sentences
Miller to death. I don't know if families that
go through what these victims'
00:37:26
families went through can ever
find closure, because I can only imagine that they must
think about their loved
00:37:34
ones every day. But my hope for the case is
that the resolution that's been brought to these cases
with the identification
00:37:45
of the suspect to his arrest and
his conviction and sentencing, that I hope that that
brings some sort of relief
00:37:53
to their family members in
knowing that he's not going to commit another crime like
that again that would subject
00:38:00
another family to what
they've been subjected to over these decades. This case is the perfect
example of how important
00:38:10
the advances in technology
and DNA technology specifically have become. I don't think this case would
have been solved had we not
00:38:19
had these advancements
in DNA, and looking at a method like
genetic genealogy that would have been
looked at before as
00:38:27
something crazy to try
in law enforcement. I think these kinds of
methods and advancements
00:38:35
are completely
changing forensics and criminal cases that
might never have been solved.
00:38:40
And this one could have been
in a long number or a long list of cases that just
never had an answer,
00:38:47
and it was an unexpected
answer at that. But that's exactly why this
technology is so important,
00:38:53
because there are
people out there living in the public
eye with nobody knowing who they truly are.
00:38:59
And if this technology
didn't exist now, those people may never face the
consequences that they deserve.
00:39:08
I do think there
are other victims. I think he absolutely
killed Brandy Myers. We'll never be able to
prove that for sure,
00:39:14
but police believe he
killed Brandy Myers, and I do think that
that's connected.
00:39:21
But I do believe there
are other victims that we don't know about. And that's the thing.
00:39:25
There were other girls that
went missing at that time or that were found
dead and those crimes
00:39:30
are still unsolved. So could Bryan Patrick Miller
be responsible for those too? It's very possible.
00:39:40
There's not a day-- there's really not. There's not a day or a minute
that I don't think about her
00:39:44
and think about what
happened to her, and just think in a selfish
way about how my life would be
00:39:51
so much better if she was here. I know I would
have Auntie Brandy, and I know that my children
would just love her.
00:40:01
And like, my kids
don't know her. You know, my
youngest daughter has a picture of her in her
room, and we talk about her.
00:40:10
And there are times when it's
too much for me and I cry, or and I'll ask my
daughter for a hug.
00:40:16
Can you give Mommy a hug? And then she'll ask me what's
wrong, and I will tell her,
00:40:21
I'm just missing Auntie Brandy. I just miss her. There's nothing about my life
that I think would be the same.
00:40:32
Bryan Patrick Miller, guilty
of two horrible murders, but not a third one. 13-year-old Brandy Myers, which
Miller's ex-wife alleges he
00:40:44
admits to. But still, thanks
to three generations of investigators and
incredible forensic science,
00:40:52
Bryan Patrick Miller will be
living the rest of his days on death row, where he belongs.
00:41:00
I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for joining us here
on "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC]