Phoenix Canal Killer /// Part 2 /// 776 | Forensic Files

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

Phoenix Canal Killer /// Part 2 /// 776 Part 2 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

Dismemberment killings are rare. We hear of them as these types of stories, make the news and headlines that get clicks. This is partially because of the rare nature of these types of crimes. Even amongst those who kill, many simply do not posses the ability to carry out such a horrific act. In Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, those communities experienced three such murders in just a twelve month timeframe. After the first, the Tucson police Captain told the local news “I think the person who did it, will probably do it again.”

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Brief Summary

The episode details the murders of Melanie Bernes and Angela Braso, leading to the arrest of Brian Patrick Miller as the Phoenix Canal Killer.

Key points

The Discovery of Melanie Bernes. The body of 17-year-old Melanie Bernes is found in the Arizona Canal, raising alarm.
Police Link Two Murders. Authorities connect the murders of Angela Braso and Melanie Bernes, suspecting a serial killer.
Vok Society's Insight. Experts from the Vok Society believe the killer's name is already in the case file.
Colleen Fitzpatrick's Breakthrough. Colleen Fitzpatrick identifies a suspect with the last name Miller, narrowing down the search.
The Sting Operation. Detectives set up a sting operation to collect DNA from Brian Patrick Miller.
Miller's Disturbing Past. Brian Patrick Miller has a violent history, including a juvenile stabbing conviction.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

No women went out walking alone.

Quote from reporter William Herman about safety concerns.

7:16WatchJul 24, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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