00:00:09
n [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
00:00:44
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man with a reminder that
00:00:49
it's probably just all in your head here is the captain yeah just like the cranberry song zombie it's good to be
00:00:56
seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend [Music]
00:01:03
we are still sipping on some cool and refreshing dose eies this is a beautiful golden pilsner style beer with a nuanced
00:01:11
blend of malts spices and Earth Tones flavorful yet light and smooth ABV 4.2% garage grade 3 and 3/4 bottle caps
00:01:21
out of five and let's give some cheers and praise to our smooth friends first up a shout out to Johnny Oliver and bomb
00:01:31
Alabama and a big we like your jib goes out to Travis from maml Arkansas and last but certainly not least we have
00:01:38
Abby and vincen Indiana everybody we just mentioned they helped us out with this week's beer fund for the beer run
00:01:45
by going to our website True Crime garage.com and clicking on the Pint glass and for that we thank you yeah BW
00:01:54
you in beer run go to our website check out the swag and while you're there sign
00:01:59
up on the mailing list and also go to the YouTubes And subscribe there cuz I'm releasing all the old episodes of off
00:02:06
the Record and you're going to love them and that's enough of the business all right everybody gathered around grab a
00:02:11
chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] cry on sept mber 21st 1993 now remember everyone that is less
00:02:35
than one year one year after the Angela braso murder this is when the body of Melanie bernes age 17 was found in the
00:02:45
Arizona Canal this is approximately just 100 yards from where Angela bro's head had been found Melanie bernes rode her
00:02:55
bike to the approximate area of where her body was eventually found Melanie lived not too far from this location she
00:03:04
lived with her mother now when she didn't come home that night we get an angry mother situation she assumed that
00:03:12
her typically really good and really responsible teenage daughter was just out with some friends maybe up to no
00:03:21
good breaking curfew horsing around but after a couple of hours and this poor mother she started calling all of her
00:03:27
daughter's friends trying to track her down she eventually reports her missing it turns out that in all likelihood poor
00:03:36
Melanie bernus in all likelihood was just out on a bike ride just went out to get some exercise on a rather great
00:03:45
evening night and never comes home the following morning a woman riding her bike with a baby on board was horrified
00:03:52
when she rode her bike through a puddle of blood then upon further Discovery she
00:03:57
located more blood unfortunately and this included some drag marks someone had successfully moved something rather
00:04:05
heavy and bloody from that location right there near the canal off of the bike path and walking paths police were
00:04:14
called and reported some of the findings to the media saying that the 17-year-old
00:04:20
Melanie bernes rode her bike from her home near 40th Street in Osborne Road to the bloody puddle in drag marks her body
00:04:29
was recovered from the Arizona Canal alongside the bicycle path we were talking about two cases prior to the
00:04:39
burnus homicide the local media was looking for a connection police said they would not rule it out but did not
00:04:46
see a connection that between the vicari and braso case but when police compared
00:04:53
The bernus Killing to the November 92 braso murder the comparisons were far more similar both women had been stabbed
00:05:03
in the upper torso both victims were young women killed while out on a evening bicycle ride both victims
00:05:12
bicycles were taken neither has been recovered both slangs occurred in the same geographic
00:05:20
area a quite precise area we should we should really underline that point noted authorities intensified their search for
00:05:29
or similar cases right now this is one where prior they're saying we don't see a connection to the case 120 miles away
00:05:40
the Vari case to the braso murder this one they are outright saying these similarities are far too similar to to
00:05:49
ignore yeah they're basically telling the community we we think this is connected and we think this is a serial
00:05:55
killer yeah they they weren't outright saying that at this moment but what they were doing behind the scenes and this is
00:06:02
how you know that they they firmly believe that they're connected they're calling other agencies and other
00:06:08
jurisdictions to see if they have cases that would mirror these two right so they intensifi their search for similar
00:06:14
cases elsewhere they didn't find any that were strikingly similar they were hoping they really hoped here that it
00:06:22
with these two cases being less than a year apart and a large part of this that comes into play is the location of where
00:06:30
the bodies are found and where the attacks must have happened they were really hoping that somebody would come
00:06:35
forward with some form of information having seen something heard something or anything because the bodies in each of
00:06:42
these cases had been left in very visible locations one was a park near a busy street in a large apartment complex
00:06:51
and the other the canal along a freeway near a popular shopping mall for a while
00:06:58
Herman remember the reporter we were talking about in part one William Herman Mr Herman paging Mr Herman he said that
00:07:06
the lack of an arrest unnerved the people of Phoenix especially the people that lived in this area nearby he said
00:07:16
quote no no women went out walking alone exercise along the canal dropped off people jogged in pairs then let's go to
00:07:28
March 13th 1994 from the Arizona Republic newspaper they had this to say the slayings of bicyclist Angela braso
00:07:37
and Melanie bernes were so Savage that police knew that publicly linking them could terrify the valley well the Valley
00:07:46
can now be terrified police are nearly certain the same murderer claimed the lives of both women 10 months apart in
00:07:56
the same area of the Northwest Valley a Phoenix police spokesman said timeconsuming lab test of crime scene
00:08:06
evidence recently were completed and they indicate the same male individual had contact with both victims at the
00:08:14
time of each homicide meaning that law enforcement has DNA in this case and then this announcement by Phoenix police
00:08:22
that the killer May strike again police warned Canal killer May strike again Phoenix PD would not say EX L what
00:08:30
evidence was analyzed at the crime lab and why the comparative analysis took almost 6 months but they acknowledged
00:08:38
that such analysis of semen blood hair fingernails and skin is about the only kind of evidence test that take so long
00:08:48
the tests were done by the crime lab of the Arizona Department of Public Safety despite the crime lab results police had
00:08:58
no Suspects to announce adding that they don't know if the killer lives in the valley and that they continue to need
00:09:06
the Public's help because the same person almost certainly killed both women and remains at large police hope
00:09:13
the public will take precautions and offering the following advice females should find someone to
00:09:20
join them when walking jogging or bicycling people out exercising should choose well lit
00:09:27
areas public areas tell a friend where you are going and who you are going with when you go out for
00:09:34
exercise this person is out there they say care needs to be taken yeah our first victim is found decapitated now
00:09:43
our second victim we don't have any dismemberment of the body do we the details of the second victim are not
00:09:54
abundant let's say but what we do know what's interesting about the similar I is the first one that they point out
00:10:01
with the the stabbing to the the Torso and in fact I believe this was almost in an identical spot on both victim's
00:10:12
bodies but yeah you're right there doesn't appear to be the same level of dismemberment or attempts remember the
00:10:21
attempted skinning and even the statement of the the killer may have attempted to cut the victim in half we
00:10:28
don't have those stat ments with the bernus victim but with bro it it seems like or the evidence points to the
00:10:37
dismemberment and the mutilation of the body took place at the crime scene yeah she wasn't removed and then dismembered
00:10:46
at somebody's house correct so it it becomes a thing again like you were saying both victims are found in the
00:10:54
wide open so is it just a a simple thing where the the got spooked and they had to well I think you're right with that
00:11:03
thought because seeing what we saw in the braso case yeah I I can't believe that all of
00:11:11
a sudden and we have the police so let's forget about any debate here we have the
00:11:15
police telling us the same guy did the braso and bernus case M I don't I don't think that this guy in 10 months time
00:11:22
decided oh all the stuff that I was into 10 months ago my experience with the braso murder I just decided I don't want
00:11:29
to do all these things anymore no he went out there and killed another person and attacked another person because he
00:11:36
probably wanted to do all of those same things or or similar things and I think you're right if those if that that stuff
00:11:44
didn't occur here with the bernus case then that means something likely interrupted him or or something happened
00:11:52
that caused him to not do that yeah when first looking into this case my thought
00:11:57
was he would try to do what he did with the first victim is take some kind of souvenir with him just like he did with
00:12:07
the first case which could be the bike in both cases we have the bike that's missing the bike from my understanding
00:12:13
in both cases has never been located never been found the interesting thing to me was years later when these cases
00:12:22
became popular on Arizona message boards on the internet it was interesting to go
00:12:28
back read some of those thoughts that people were were suggesting and even particulars that people were citing on
00:12:37
there because there were there were so much discussion about the bicycles people coming forward saying hey I
00:12:43
spotted this person or this person that I know by name I believe is in possession of one of these bikes and so
00:12:50
there was a lot of thought about these bicycles and I'm not saying that this happened I have we have no clue I I mean
00:12:56
I have no idea for all I know the killer just simply rolled the bike down into the to the canal and it was never found
00:13:03
well we are the dumbest boys in the whole school or the killer hopped on the bicycle and rode it home and kept it
00:13:08
forever who knows but we've reviewed a couple of cases where we have a victim who was attacked or abducted off of a
00:13:16
bicycle the bicycle was simply left where the attack or the abduction took place and by happen stance somebody else
00:13:24
just grabbed the bike and decided to take it or decided to hop on it and Rite it to wherever they were going and leave
00:13:32
it there yeah which caused all kinds of ways to muck up an investigation I believe it was the I believe there was a
00:13:39
Pennsylvania case that we that we covered that there was something like that it might have been the alphabet
00:13:44
murders and I want to say that happened as well in the Oakland County child killings case with one of those victims
00:13:52
well these douchebags is they they steal the bike they rip the seat off they sit
00:13:56
on the post and they called out pleasure ride the following day after these news
00:14:03
reports from in 1994 right so we have we have our two victims that we now learn that 100%
00:14:13
per the Phoenix Police Department are connected braso and bernus we learned that in 94 the murders take place in '92
00:14:21
93 and then in '94 we learned that they're absolutely connected the following day we learned this from
00:14:28
police state to local media the statement says though test tie the Phoenix women's murders together police
00:14:35
deny any connection to the 1992 dismemberment slaying of Tulsa victim Diana Vari they're saying there is no
00:14:44
indication that the Phoenix cases are related to the 92 dismemberment slaying of Diana Vari and detectives are no
00:14:51
longer investigating that as a possibility so no connection at all now what what we
00:14:58
don't know and what they they do not tell the media and they obviously would not tell the media this is around the
00:15:05
same time in '94 the police are really honing in on a suspect in the vicari case so we don't know this for certain
00:15:16
but it would stand to reason that potentially that person they had that that individual's DNA he was actually
00:15:26
serving time in Utah at this time right and that they may have had his DNA and compared it to the DNA that they found
00:15:34
or the physical evidence remember they're not telling us at this time what what they tested but but they obviously
00:15:40
got DNA from whatever they tested that they compared it to that DNA and it didn't match up with the braso or bernus
00:15:48
case yeah but again a scarier story you have now two serial killers that are doing something that's pretty abnormal
00:15:55
for killers in general is dismemberment of the body well and if if you're okay with it I'd
00:16:01
like to wrap up this Vari case a little bit we we should continue on with it since we brought it up but we are here
00:16:08
to investigate the Phoenix Canal killer and we now have in our timeline a definitive statement from police that
00:16:16
that's almost 100% they're not saying 100% but they're saying we're no longer investigating that as a possibility so
00:16:22
something must have moved them off of it I'm here to tell you that behind the scenes they had a good suspect for that
00:16:28
in fact they had such a good suspect for the varkari case that they charged an individual he was convicted of the
00:16:37
murder and then it eventually was exonerated or the conviction was overturned because I reviewed some of
00:16:46
that that trial and I don't even I don't even feel very comfortable saying the individual's name because the trial was
00:16:53
really kind of sucked um sucked but they they let a lot of things slide at that trial that made him look very guilty I'm
00:17:01
not saying that he's not guilty there are things to suggest that he is responsible and they had the right guy
00:17:07
they just didn't go about it the right way at trial the judge let some things slip that should not have occurred so
00:17:14
anyway that guy he's he's no longer serving time for the vicari murder so so our official statement to wrap up that
00:17:23
case is that trial sucked butt and there's some slippage back to the braso and burnus homicide cases in the
00:17:31
continued hunt for the Phoenix Canal killer we mentioned Robert wrestler earlier on the Phoenix PD did submit the
00:17:38
case File to the FBI this was in November or December of 1992 so early on in the
00:17:46
investigation they sent this information everything they had to the FBI to write
00:17:51
up an official profile of the killer the [ __ ] FBI now I I've not seen that actual profile that was produced
00:17:58
but but we do know that they were I point this out that they are were actively seeking
00:18:06
outside help on these cases they understood right away when they found bro's body before even getting victim
00:18:14
number two right we need to get some experts in here on this this is not your typical homicide this is not something
00:18:22
that we are used to dealing with and working on but what would be interesting to me is we have a pro profile from the
00:18:29
FBI in '92 so we only have one victim but then to get a second profile in 93 once we have two victims if the profile
00:18:39
would change at all yeah I I would be very confident in saying that that phone call happened after the you know we have
00:18:48
a second victim guys what does that tell you here's the information now police were still you know working the case and
00:18:55
I point that out with the 92 FBI involvement to to point out exactly how much effort they were putting into those
00:19:02
cases but unfortunately the the bernus case the second homicide here went as cold as the first one you know for over
00:19:09
a year we know that from the the information that came out in 94 and then five years go by 10 years go by and then
00:19:16
20 and of course police are still working the cases during that time one of the many actions taken and I love
00:19:22
this approach because it would prove to be even more helpful to the case than some of the other tactics was a meeting
00:19:31
with the vok society so the vidok society is out of Philadelphia and they Pride themselves as as being a u sort of
00:19:43
a collective of Sherlock Holmes's if you will and these very seasoned experts through all different fields of
00:19:51
detective work inspectors and and forensics work they meet the third Thursday of each month and they review
00:20:00
cases that are that are presented to them by law enforcement from uh different jurisdictions throughout the
00:20:08
entire country now they do kind of handpick like you know you submit your case and they look through them and they
00:20:14
go okay we'll we'll we'll take a look at this one we'll take a look at that one they took a look at this case now we
00:20:21
don't have that full report that they came up with that it's never been made public but what the one thing that stood
00:20:27
out and the one thing that was made public was the vok society told Phoenix Police Department we are extremely
00:20:37
confident that your killer is in your case File his name is is in your case File
00:20:49
[Music] [Music] all right we are back cheers mates cheers to you Colonel we have two
00:21:12
homicides I believe 10 months apart we now have law enforcement saying we believe that they're connected and we
00:21:19
believe that we have evidence to connect them but the cases still go cold the case went cold for for many years it we
00:21:28
get that information from the vok society saying that we believe that the the killer's name is already in your
00:21:34
case File that can be helpful would prove to be helpful however we should point out that that case File contained
00:21:42
approximately 600 Persons of Interest yeah when the new lead detective takes over the case he's taking over over 600
00:21:51
suspects so my question to you would be if you're going to take over a cold case
00:21:56
knowing that there's 600 Suspects where do you even start you know I don't know if they were already
00:22:03
prioritizing certain persons as suspects compared to Persons of Interest right you would have to believe that if you
00:22:11
trust the previous investigator's work that if you wanted to try to create some kind of shortcut because the case is drw
00:22:19
on for so long that you would want to look at who was prioritized and start there the other place that would make a
00:22:27
lot of sense is to just unfortunately start at square one and look at it you know just erase your memory and emotions
00:22:36
and start at square one and see where the file and the evidence takes you you always want to invest uh sorry interview
00:22:46
persons again that are in that file that 600 names could be Persons of Interest not because they're suspects they're
00:22:53
Persons of Interest you're interested in talking to them again you're interested
00:22:57
in interviewing them again and seeing if they say the same thing or if their memory has changed so you always want to
00:23:04
go about it that way and there's there's several different ways to go about it this you're right though this is going
00:23:09
to be overwhelming to anybody that has to uh take a look at this case now this is a little happen stance here Colleen F
00:23:18
Fitzpatrick some people may be familiar with that name she's does excellent she's almost world-renowned for her work
00:23:25
in genealogy Detective work okay so she happens to have some interaction with Phoenix PD or the lead
00:23:37
detective on this case at some point on our timeline and she says to them if you got DNA in these
00:23:47
two cases if you give it to me it's going to take some time but I can give you a surname and so they decide all
00:23:56
right well let's give this a shot let's see let's see if she can make this magic
00:24:00
happen I do want to point out too Colleen Fitzpatrick has helped us out at the porch light project in particular
00:24:06
with the Barbie blatnik case so she's done very good work for many years in this realm and here's where she does
00:24:15
some even more good work she comes back to the detectives of course it's going to take considerable amount of time but
00:24:21
she comes back to the detectives and she says the person that you're looking for
00:24:25
has the last name of Miller okay well now we got something yeah because maybe this turd stain is on our list but
00:24:33
we have 600 Persons of Interest and the last name Miller is a rather common one yeah but again out of the 600 people I
00:24:41
mean how many Millers do you have 5 10 well five or 10 is a lot easier to had 12 or 14 in that file at the time when
00:24:50
she came back with that information somewhere like 12 or 14 yeah but still a lot less to sift through than 600
00:24:57
absolutely start and but you're also factoring in that the vok society was correct that the name would be in their
00:25:04
file I mean there's a chance that that Miller is not in your file right now armed with all this information right
00:25:11
the the the the thoughts from the vok society and the information provided to him by Colleen Fitzpatrick the lead
00:25:20
detectives does exactly what you're suggesting their captain and prioritizes all of those Millers in his file which
00:25:27
as said was either 12 or 14 persons he starts looking at each one of them and I believe that he he singled out one
00:25:35
individual and said this is the guy that we should talk to first because really who gives a fly about talking to these
00:25:42
individuals at this time right like you really just want to collect their DNA yeah and let's colle let's start
00:25:50
checking Millers off of our list until we arrive at the right one so if you're presenting this to the Brass you're
00:25:58
probably saying look we got to find get creative on ways that we can get these individuals
00:26:03
DNA or we could just approach them and ask them to give it to us but that doesn't seem like a great idea seeing
00:26:09
how whoever did this got away with murder for decades you know what I'm going to do I'm going to invoke the John
00:26:16
Cougar melon Camp way of getting DNA you know how that is I I don't know sucking
00:26:22
on an old chili dog behind the behind the Tasty Freeze yeah present them with a chili dog and ask
00:26:30
them if they would mind sucking on a chili dog and so what they do is they they're going to set up a sting
00:26:37
operation the person that ends up at the top of their Miller list is a individual
00:26:42
by the name of Brian Patrick Miller and a lot of that has to do based off of his
00:26:46
background he had a very violent juvenile crime where he stabbed a woman outside of a shopping mall yeah which he
00:26:55
did time for as a juvenile and this is weird too when he is so when he's locked up right he he's a juvenile he gets
00:27:03
locked up for the stabbing which which really I reviewed that thing that's attempted murder 100% his intent was to
00:27:09
kill that woman he just was young and dumb and didn't know what he was doing thank God while he's locked up in juvie
00:27:16
his mom goes to the police and says look at all this scary [ __ ] that I found in
00:27:20
my son's room it's like journals and Diaries of him like talking about how he fantasizes about killing women and how
00:27:27
he wants to kidnap a woman one in particular piece of [ __ ] was released to the public says that you know this this
00:27:34
is the plan this is the plan this is how you do it you abduct you abduct the woman attack her tie her up put her in
00:27:40
the truck cut her up and he and he even put like in his notes like make don't forget to videotape it yeah I think this
00:27:47
is what therapists call a sick [ __ ] so there's a very disturbed individual to say the least and so she presents this
00:27:55
information to police now this is back when he's a juvenile right he's he's locked up and we know he's certainly
00:28:01
capable because he attacked this woman outside of the shopping mall well a couple years later he attacked another
00:28:07
one but he I I believe he got uh quitted of that one so the police at this time decide everybody decides because Mom
00:28:17
says look when he turns 18 he's getting out he I can't have him come live with me I'm I'm scared to death of my son
00:28:25
after especially after finding all this stuff he is then sent to a halfway house
00:28:31
rather than being returned to his mother's house when he turns 18 years old and you're exactly right Captain he
00:28:39
he had lived in the state of Washington for a period of time he was charged with
00:28:45
assault up there where he I I believe he stabbed a woman he pic he picked up a a
00:28:51
hitchhiker or offered somebody a ride and then attacked her in his vehicle she charges and eventually those charges
00:29:01
were dropped I believe it was from the prosecutor standpoint because of La lack of evidence it turned into a he said she
00:29:10
said and the the victim didn't present as credible and the list goes on and on and on so he slipped through the cracks
00:29:17
and got lucky in that situation well Brian Miller is a sick bag of [ __ ] but he was smart in that case because he
00:29:28
claims self-defense he learn I think he learned something by being locked up hey if if I
00:29:34
can't live out my fantasies if I can't commit the crime that I'm initially setting out to commit then I'll just
00:29:42
turn it into like you said he said she said scenario and they didn't have enough to prosecute so he gets lucky in
00:29:51
that situation now when we get to the point in our timeline where the detective has prioritized setting up a
00:29:59
sting on this Brian Patrick Miller he's he's been divorced and he's now living back
00:30:05
in the greater Phoenix Arizona area and so the way that this plays out is the detective sets up a meeting with Miller
00:30:16
at a Chile's restaurant he is presenting himself as a head of security for a neighboring business to where near where
00:30:26
Brian Miller is working believe he was working at at an Amazon warehouse at the time and so he presents him with this
00:30:33
security job that's going to pay you know good money and it's it's a cushy job so Miller shows up for this what is
00:30:42
to be a job interview at the Chile's restaurant the whole purpose of this meeting is simply to get his DNA get him
00:30:49
to leave abandoned DNA at that table so they he buys them lunch eventually Brian
00:30:58
Miller takes a you know drinks from a glass of water leaves the meeting the detective knows he's got a good shot at
00:31:06
getting Miller's DNA yeah should have made him suck on that chili dog behind the Tasty Freeze it's going to take
00:31:12
several months but eventually it comes back the tests come back off of that DNA that they pulled off of Miller's water
00:31:19
glass from the Chili's restaurant and turns out that DNA matches the DNA that they had at both murder scenes got him
00:31:28
yeah and you know what was crazy though the detective said his initial reaction after meeting Brian Patrick Miller
00:31:36
because Miller showed up to the job interview with his teenage daughter and he said he saw the interaction between
00:31:43
Miller and the daughter and he thought yeah I yeah I reviewed his background but I still just didn't think that he
00:31:49
was capable of of the two murders that I was investigating after seeing that interaction between Miller and his
00:31:57
daughter and he thought he said that his initial reaction was it's going to be a
00:32:03
different Miller in our case File turns out that like again it was about 6 months later on a mild Tuesday night in
00:32:10
January of 2015 the cases started in '92 in January of 2015 police swarmed a warehouse in Southwest Phoenix to pick
00:32:21
up an employee named Brian Patrick Miller and around that same time miles away other off officers are pulling up
00:32:29
in front of a rental house in Sunny Slope just off of the Arizona Canal they knock on the door and there they are met
00:32:39
with Miller's teenage daughter and they begin searching his house there is a statement in in from the search that
00:32:47
said late in the evening officers emerged from a rusty old shed behind the house carrying out an old bicycle
00:32:53
there's never any mention if that was one of the bikes that they had been looking for for all of this time yeah
00:32:59
because detectives thought maybe he was taking the bike as a souvenir anybody familiar with this case will tell you is
00:33:07
the zombie hunter angle this dude was known near the time of his his capture not during the time of the murders but
00:33:17
during the time of his capture as the zombie hunter and he would attend things like these conventions and parades and
00:33:25
things and he had this vehicle that was decked out if you want to picture like a
00:33:29
an old cop car meets the Ghostbusters vehicle like somewhere in between there and he would dress up in this this I
00:33:38
thought it was a rather cool looking outfit um looks like something out of a video game where he wears this mask and
00:33:44
has like this pretend Gatling gun and he has this Alter Ego this character that he portrays as the zombie hunter and he
00:33:54
was kind of kind of known for it locally anyway yeah and he had a Facebook page Arizona Zombie Hunter he kind of reminds
00:34:04
me of something you would see at of True Detective season 1 what's crazy here Captain remember we talked about earlier
00:34:12
when the police were we wouldn't learn this until years later but they seem to have been searching quietly behind the
00:34:20
scenes far and wide for other cases that mired the braso and bernus murder so after the arrest they decide you know
00:34:29
what he was married you know we want to interview some people that knew this guy really
00:34:34
well we want to know what he was up to because he killed these two women and then successfully remained undetected to
00:34:43
police for over 20 years right 92 93 and then he's not he's not locked up for these he's not putting handcuffs until
00:34:51
2015 and I want to be clear here not putting handcuffs until 2015 we'll get to the other stuff later
00:34:58
but one of the people that they wanted to talk to was his ex-wife remember he moved to uh Washington with his
00:35:06
ex-wife and they had a child together and while in Washington that's when he is accused of picking up The Hitchhiker
00:35:14
the attack that happened on The Hitchhiker so after he get attacks this hitchhiker and there's no doubt in my
00:35:20
mind that he absolutely attacked this hitchhiker right he just got lucky he gets locked up for several months while
00:35:26
he's waiting to go to trial for that and then that thing gets dropped out and kind of tossed out of court and they
00:35:31
send old Brian Patrick Miller home well his wife says that once he gets home he was like a changed man like he he
00:35:40
sexually he got very strange very weird got really into Chilly Dogs at the Tasty
00:35:45
Freeze talking about using knives during intercourse and all kinds of weird stuff
00:35:50
and at some point he says to her that he had killed a a young woman or girl who had knocked on his door his ex-wife who
00:36:00
eventually divorces him leaves him she leaves him because of the way that he changed she said and that she was afraid
00:36:08
of him and she also said look I never reported what he said to me because a I didn't believe it there's no name
00:36:15
there's no he didn't give a name and she also says I was also I also was afraid of him so much so that I had to divorce
00:36:22
the man The Police become very interested in this statement that they get from the ex-wife of course and then
00:36:27
they start snooping around and they find a case that has some similarities to what he described to his ex-wife and the
00:36:36
the victim's name here is Brandy Meyer who disappeared in May of 1992 Brandy Meers was 13 years old she was last seen
00:36:44
May 26 1992 at a store near Cave Creek in Hatcher roads so we're going to go to some newspaper reports here according to
00:36:56
earlier Arizona Republic reports Myers was last seen at about 7 p.m. this is at the Smitty store near Cave Creek in
00:37:06
Hatcher roads on evenings she had been out collecting pledges for a School reading project at Sunny Slope
00:37:14
Elementary School she was $6 away from her goal she disappears hundreds of Valley volunteers joined Phoenix police
00:37:22
in the search for the missing sixth grader they fanned out they spent weeks they spent months there were thousands
00:37:30
of Flyers that were handed out to Residents displayed in business Windows it was almost like she just poof just
00:37:37
disappeared the town the city essentially went down on went on lockdown for kids in the area for a good
00:37:45
period of time based off of this disappearance what ends up happening is they find out that the last place that
00:37:54
this little girl was last seen is quite near where Brian Patrick Miller was living at the time yeah less than a half
00:38:05
a mile away and one of the details in his story to his ex-wife was that this this girl knocked on my door and she was
00:38:13
alone she just kind of happened upon me and I just I just grabbed her and pulled
00:38:18
her into the house yeah that would line up with what detectives knew about the timeline of that missing girl that she
00:38:26
was out going door to door so he she went door too only $6 left on her goal and then she would have been done but
00:38:33
instead she likely knocked on the door of Brian Patrick Miller and as he told his
00:38:39
ex-wife he opened up the door grabbed her pulled her in I I don't want to get into too much of the details here so
00:38:45
we'll kind of skip ahead with those but according to his statements to his exwife there was some dismemberment and
00:38:53
he simply disposed of her in the trash can he waited until trash collection day placed the remains in the trash right
00:39:02
before pickup they picked it up and she's never been seen or heard from ever again and this guy who it would take
00:39:11
seven years seven years for him to go from being cuffed for two murders to being in court for two murders he likely
00:39:23
committed three murders it's obvious that he committed three murders he also had two other strong attempts at murder
00:39:31
I I'm hesitant to say that he hasn't done one or two more yeah the tough thing about the Meyers case is we don't
00:39:38
have any evidence we don't have her body she was never found and then yes they have a confession so you could argue
00:39:47
maybe they could bring this case to trial maybe but the confession is not a solid confession because there's no name
00:39:56
so it and he said a lot of other things to his ex-wife that were clearly not true right right so that makes he was
00:40:03
telling he was telling the whole world he was a zombie hunter and he never hunted one
00:40:09
zombie and so this case takes forever to get to trial um part of that you know covid was going on during that
00:40:17
seven-year period which certainly put a major speed bump in getting this thing to trial one thing I want to point out
00:40:22
you know one thing that gets lost on the public often in these cases and let's forget about Canada because
00:40:29
Canada's a whole different mess when it comes to truly punishing these horrible people blame Canada the United States is
00:40:36
getting almost as bad in many states in many states your time that you sit in jail and you wait for trial if you sit
00:40:44
in jail and have to wait for trial you get a day and a half some states you get two days I think up in
00:40:53
Canada they are now giving you two and a half days credit for every one day that
00:40:57
you sit in jail waiting for your trial mhm so when you look at something like the deli
00:41:05
case wouldn't it be in the and especially in this case right with uh Brian Patrick Miller who is guilty
00:41:12
Beyond Reasonable Doubt I mean you don't have to you don't have to be a judge or
00:41:17
even elected to that jury to see how guilty this guy is we got the DNA and all this other evidence wouldn't it be
00:41:24
to your client advantage to drag out and delay getting that thing to trial as long as
00:41:31
possible right because your whole goal if you cannot get your client acquitted if you cannot get an innocent verdict in
00:41:42
your case don't you want to get that client out of prison or as short of a sentence as
00:41:49
possible so if you're getting a day and a half or two days credit for every day that your butt sits in jail waiting for
00:41:57
trial that takes 7 years to happen well guess what that seven years just turned into 10 years credit 11 years credit and
00:42:06
so when we say that life doesn't mean life in prison 25 doesn't mean 25 20 doesn't mean 20 20 usually means 16 well
00:42:16
if 20 means 16 and your ass sat in jail for five years it might mean 14 and so that's something we really need to start
00:42:25
talking about here because you have individuals like this that are getting out way too early when they are still
00:42:32
young enough still physically capable enough of committing horrible and violent crimes that they committed when
00:42:38
they were much younger men and we talked about that so much on off the Record recently with trying to deny parole with
00:42:45
with with a horrible rape and murder case that took place in in South Carolina now in this
00:42:53
situation in March of 2022 our defendant here Brian Patrick Miller opted for a bench trial which means that
00:43:02
the case is to be heard by a judge with no jury present by the next month I believe it
00:43:09
was until 2023 okay so in 2023 April judge Suzanne Cohen found Miller guilty on all six charges so the the six counts
00:43:22
were for uh obviously the murders and let's get into the sentence though here here because at 50 he's 52 years of age
00:43:31
today he was born in 1972 he received two death penalty sentences for the first-degree murder of
00:43:39
Angela braso and Melanie bernes Miller also received an additional 24 years for two counts of kidnapping and two counts
00:43:48
of attempted sexual assault related to the same to those same attacks we know he's connected to at least two murders
00:43:58
possibly more and I think that's what law enforcement is probably doing now is looking into cases I think the tough
00:44:06
thing is going to be that there's going to be missing victims that were never found and will become and in those cases
00:44:15
I think it becomes almost impossible to get charges against this you know he's a
00:44:21
sicko that's what he is yeah a sick loser he was living at for a period of time in Everett Washington and I know
00:44:31
that police and detectives were in communication with law enforcement in that general area as well I'm hoping as
00:44:39
said we it's been reported that they looked far and wide for other victims in similar cases but you have to wonder you
00:44:46
know there there's a lot of cases that I look at and I go man on that route somewhere how many times did this guy
00:44:51
travel to and from Phoenix and Everett yeah over over the course of several years you know and and those places he
00:45:01
he lived in Phoenix when he committed the murders he moves to Everett he attempts to kill again and then we know
00:45:06
that eventually after the divorce he moved back to Phoenix so that route must have had to have been traveled
00:45:13
frequently by this zombie hunter whoever the hell he thinks he is but in the end
00:45:20
after the verdict comes down Jill canetta this is Melanie Bern's older sister so she told the court quote September of
00:45:30
this year will Mark the 30-year anniversary of the gruesome murder of our beloved little sister Melanie words
00:45:37
cannot begin to explain the level of excruciating pain we experience every single day since her murder we live
00:45:44
without her smile her hugs her companionship we live without her love Linda braso Angela bro's mother added
00:45:53
the defendant stole my angel from the Earth Angela was my one and only I will never be able to plan her wedding I will
00:46:02
never have grandchildren with his actions on that night he murdered my angel he ripped my heart and I will
00:46:09
never ever be the same what happened to Melanie and Angela were horrific crimes said County attorney Rachel Mitchell it
00:46:20
has taken Decades of rigorous work by the Phoenix Police Department and the Phoenix crime lab to achieve Justice and
00:46:27
I commend their detectives officers and civilian Personnel likewise I give my thanks to the prosecutors and staff of
00:46:35
my office who worked relentlessly to bring a measure of peace to the families of these two young
00:46:43
[Music] women want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage each and
00:46:58
every week thanks for telling a friend thanks for telling your mother Colonel do we have any recommended reading for
00:47:04
the beautiful listeners this week we are recommending murder and Mano Seeking Justice for Stacy Stanton by John rley
00:47:12
and our friends over at the history press Stacy Stanton a beloved resident of Mano was found stabbed to death in
00:47:19
her apartment in February of 1990 the slaying was the most horrendous crime the town had seen in years and a rushed
00:47:28
investigation followed overlooked leads and racial tension led to the conviction
00:47:34
of an innocent man this riveting narrative built on access to the state's investigative files and multiple
00:47:43
interviews with case insiders delves into the truth behind the murder investigative journalist John rley
00:47:50
explores the mistakes made and finally arrives at the L hidden truth of what happened to Stacy check out murder and
00:48:00
Manteo you can find that suggestion and recommendation along with many more great ones on our recommended page on
00:48:08
our website true Crim garage.com and until next week be good be kind and don't litter
00:48:15
[Music] [Applause] [Music]