Unmasking the Zombie Hunter | Full Episode + Post Mortem | Forensic Files

[Music] when you think of the Phoenix Desert you definitely aren't thinking of a
[Music] waterfront the canal system goes right through the center of Phoenix the more people that were moving to the
area the more that the trails along there were being used for walking running biking there are not many crimes that
are like this one you had women riding bicycles along the canal on a typical Phoenix evening
ambushed stabbed multiple times police are looking for whoever killed 22-year-old Angela braso Angela braso
dismembered decapitated police are looking at the scene and thinking what on Earth
happened and who did this 10 months later a 17-year-old Junior at arcade tadia High School
Melanie bernes this is the high school that Steven Spielberg attended Melanie Bernice's mother goes
out to dinner and Melanie decides to go on a bike ride and the following morning a woman
is riding her bike right here there was just a big puddle it looked different as
I rode through it and all of a sudden I'm like that is blood so she called the police the
police a a blood trail and they see Melanie Bernice's body at the bottom of the canal my time in my life froze at that
very moment the day we found out I made a promise to myself I just never stopped talking
about her these murders became widely known as the Phoenix Canal murders my name is Clark schwarzkoff and I was
assigned to the C case unit investigating the canal murders I think there was over 600
Persons of Interest I said okay give me the list in this mound of information of all
these people and all these possible suspects I believed our killer was listed eventually detective schwarzkoff
found his prime suspect on that list and discovered that the alleged Canal killer
had a second identity a man who dressed up like a comic book superhero and Cruis
The Valley in a decorated car dripping with fake blood the public knew this man as the zombie
hunter what was his life as the zombie hunter like what did he do he would go to like parades and festivals and and
show off this car and kind of be a part of the excitement if you will your assignment was to find this
guy and you have found him yeah he is accused of being a killer but here he is posing with police officers before they
discovered what he' [Music] done it was almost like a slap in the face like I'm here but you don't know it
it was like he was hiding in playing sight [Music] [Music] it's one of those cases that you just
don't forget you can't unsee what happened to those girls you just can't long before the Man known as
the zombie hunter became the prime suspect in the canal murders Clark Schwarz cof was a detective with the
Phoenix Police Department's cold Cas Squad his mission was simple but pointed find the killer responsible for those
vicious murders of two young women from the early 1990s to this day I'm still not exactly
sure about what happened on those bike paths the case began on November 8th 1992 Angela braso a tech worker who had
recently moved to Phoenix was taking advantage of beautiful weather to get in a little exercise says
Brianna Whitney the True Crime reporter for the CBS affiliate kph in Phoenix each night she would go out for
her evening bike ride just at Golden hour at Sunset the best time to be riding out here Angela was only hours
away from turning 22 years old and like a lot of locals she liked to bike on the
paths that ran alongside the city's distinctive canals says schwarzkoff a 48 Hours
consultant are there places that are sort of natural Ambush sites if somebody wants to attack someone yeah they are
there's a lot of tunnels they go underneath the interstate that November evening in 1992
Angela left her apartment around 7 pm. her boyfriend Joe later told police he said he stayed home to bake Angela
birthday cake and didn't expect her to be gone long hours go by and Joe grows concerned
Angela hasn't come home and that's not like her Joe told police he took his bike out three times that night
frantically searching for Angela on the canal paths he spoke to her friends even
her mother back in Pennsylvania finally he reported Angela missing to police the next morning
Searchers Came Upon a horrific scene Angela bro's torso was found in a field next to the trail that she had been
riding her bike on Angela had been stabbed to death some 10 days after Angela's headless body was discovered a man
fishing along this section of the canal spotted her head stuck on a grate and from what we have heard from
Witnesses the head was in amazingly good condition especially considering this was days after the murder I'm Morgan low
and I'll take you Morgan low an investigative reporter who also works at kph and is a consultant for 48 hours has
been working on the canal killer case for more than a decade we've heard that the head looked
like it had been preserved like it was a momento for the killer Angela's purple mountain bike was also
missing there were no solid leads and the case went quiet until September of 1993 some 10 months after Angela's
murder when the mother of 17-year-old Melanie bernus returned from a dinner date to find her daughter had broken her
curfew and was not home she then noticed that Melanie's bicycle was missing Melanie decides to go on a bike ride by
around 10:30 when Melanie did not return her mother started calling her friends is Melanie there well my mom took the
phone call said that Melanie's mom was frantic and like nervous Rachel Shep maker was one of
Melanie's close friends in high school so initially when you hear that her mother's looking for her you're not
thinking something terrible has happened to your friend definitely not I thought
she was with a friend and just forgot to communicate with her mom where she was early the next morning Charlotte
pole a local resident happened to be riding along the canal with her young daughter in a bicycle seat just as they
came out of one of those tunnels that ran under the interstate she spotted a puddle there was just a big puddle of of
something ended up riding right through it and having it Splash over me Charlotte says something about the
puddle bothered her so a few minutes later she doubled back that's when she made that horrible realization I could
tell that it was a puddle of red that it was a puddle of blood and all of a sudden as I'm looking at it I noticed
that there are some drag marks that went along over here toward that tree towards
that tree yes and then went around the tree and was drugged back you could see the drag marks right here to the canal
Charlotte went home and called police later that night the local news reported that a woman's body had been found in
the Canal close to where Angela bro's head had been located they found the body in a
teal bodysuit I was told by um some other friends that Melanie did not own that it
can't be her Rachel went to sleep convinced the body in the canal was not Melanie but the next day I'm at school
my friends just come up to me crying and saying it was [Music] Melanie detective strongly suspected
Melanie had been targeted and stabbed in the back by the same person who had killed
Angela police believe that somehow the killer got her off of her bike whether he knocked her off of her bike or
whether he asked her a question Clark says the evidence indicates the killer approached the women from behind
both the KN WS were the exact same position investigators say the killer dragged Melanie's body off the canal
path removed her clothes and dressed her in that teal bodysuit similar to this one obtained by
police along with the stabbing and the dismemberment there was another component to these murders wasn't there
yeah both women were sexually assaulted and that meant investigators had a crucial piece of evidence
DNA when the DNA from melany scene was finally tested later it matched to Angela scene so we knew for sure that we
were dealing with the same perpetrator investigators noted that the initial stab wounds to the backs of each woman
were fatal and so precise that detectives suspected the killer might be a surgeon the details about what
happened were the kinds of things that kept parents from letting their kids out when the sun went down
[Music] the murders of Angela braso and Melanie bernus in the early 1990s created fear
in Phoenix that lasted for a generation you know there's some guy out there and you don't know where he
is they watched the news and read the newspaper every day hoping that police would make an arrest and it just kept
going on and nothing and nothing and nothing investigators had collected matching male DNA from both the
victims but more than two decades passed and the canal murder cases went cold then science finally caught up with the
calendar it's in 2014 Phoenix police detectives are at a DNA conference and a forensic genealogist from California is
also also at the conference coling Fitzpatrick founder of identif finders International was there to meet with law
enforcement and she goes up to these detectives and says hey I can take Y chromosomes and create these DNA
profiles and try to match with genealogy to help solve criminal cases Fitzpatrick's company had developed
software that could mine public genealogy databases searching for matches to Crime Scene DNA the
detectives heard her out and then several weeks later they sent me the y d profile from the crime scene for the
Phoenix Canal murders Fitzpatrick's company started crunching the data hoping to provide Phoenix detectives
with a name we entered the numbers from the forensic profile into our software and
that's where I came up with six matches to the name Miller while the genetic genealogy search produced the name
Miller it is is also one of the most common last names detective schwarzkoff started digging you check your files and
what do you find I think there were a total of six Millers that were on what I called my master list and I went down
through the list got to Brian Patrick Miller but who was Brian Patrick Miller records show he was 42 years old with a
Phoenix address that name was just one of more than 600 Persons of Interest Who had lived in those case files for
years police at the time seemingly never pursued Miller we discovered his file downstairs police learned Brian Miller
had a record dating Back to Before the canal murders in May of 1989 when he was just 16 years old Miller crossed paths
with Celeste Bentley I was 24 and I was going to work I had just noticed a young boy on the
bus Celeste says she and the boy got off at the same stop moments later she felt
something in her back he had ran by me I thought he had just hit me I just yelled
at him I was like why'd you do that you know and then I reached back and touched
my back and realized that it was blood I had been stabbed with a single knife wound to her upper back Celeste screamed
and managed to make it to the store where she worked a coworker called for help a about 30 minutes later when
Celeste was in the back of an ambulance the police came and said they found him and they wanted to bring him to the
ambulance to show him to me Celeste identified her as salent Brian Miller was charged with aggravated assault they
said that if he had held the blade the other way he would have gone straight through my ribs and I could have died
Miller pleaded guilty and was sentenced to juvenile detention until he turned 18
it was a far cry from where Miller's life had [Music] begun he was living in Hawaii for a
while as a kid with his mom and his dad but his dad died early on in a motorcycle
accident years later Miller and his mother Ellen moved to Phoenix so for most of his life and early years it was
Brian Miller and his mom while Miller was in juvie his mother made a disturbing Discovery Brian Miller's mom
was looking through his stuff and she found a note that he wrote the pages detailed a Sinister plan kidnap the girl
tie her up in the truck and cut her clothes off this note spelled out how he wanted to find abduct rape murder and
dismember a young woman and Brian's mom was so disturbed by this piece of paper that she took it
to Phoenix police it was Miller's 18th birthday and he had just been released as an adult Chief fed out told police at
the time that she was really scared for her safety and that she was not going to
allow him to come home so after his release Miller ended up at this Phoenix halfway house when schwarzkoff read that
note in 2014 he was struck by something there was a lot of things in there that were close or similar to what
happened specifically to Angela including a description of decapitating a victim and preserving the
head Phoenix police wanted to locate Miller luckily he was very easy to find [Music]
in December 2014 Phoenix police continued digging into potential suspect Brian Miller who they discovered was
actually a local celebrity everybody at the time in the Phoenix area knew Brian Patrick Miller as this character called
the zombie hunter zombie hunter like a comic book character yeah like a comic book character like a good guy fighting
the bad guys Miller's Alter Ego was a costume figure who participated in parades and festivals around town
thousands of zombies taking over the streets of Downtown Phoenix he wore this long trench coat with these goggles and
helmet and had this large Gatling gun and if you're going to hunt zombies you need a way to get
around he bought an old police car and tricked it out wrote The Zombie Hunter on it and it had a full-size zombie
mannequin in the back and blood on the side friend Eric Braverman says Miller's zombie hunter Persona attracted a big
fan base including law enforcement officers who lined up to pose with him collected pictures of himself with the
cops like trophies they're all smiling big with him leaning on the car Eric says Miller's superhero
character was the opposite of what Brian was like when he wasn't in costume he seemed like a harmless marshmallow that
was immersed in this goofy lifestyle he's just that unassuming guy but could Miller be the canal
killer the only way to find out was to get his DNA investigators began to surveil Miller who worked at an Amazon
Ware housee every day when he got there Miller parked the zombie Mobile in the same spot he would come out for his
15-minute break blast his music really loud lunchtime came out to the car same thing blast this god- awful music
Schwarz cough came up with an elaborate plan to get his DNA I went up and introduced myself to mil in his car why
did you introduce yourself I introduce myself as a security consultant schwarzkoff told Miller that thieves had
been stealing goods from a warehouse across the way I said would you be interested in working for me as a
security officer watching the building while you're outside did his eyes light up yeah cuz it was a good paying job I
said look I I'll pay you 20 bucks an hour on January 2nd 2015 Schwarz cof met Miller at this Chili restaurant to fill
out a job application the Cold Case unit was behind the scenes ready to bag anything that had Miller's
DNA on it such as utensils or a glass they set a table for me and Mr Miller away from everybody else in a part of
the restaurant where nobody else is at Miller arrived with a surprised guest his 15-year-old daughter Sarah Miller
was a divorced single dad he was very gentle and caring about his daughter he often brought his daughter where he
would be going the trio sat down and ordered hamburgers when the food arrived he swallows his hamburger in like five
bites won't take a drink of his water and I'm sitting there going you sure you want something else to drink cuz you
just got water no no I'm good I'm good I'm good Schwarz started to worry this operation would be a
bust what does he finally do that makes this mission accomplished we finally took a drink from the water glass that's
when I knew that okay now we've least got his DNA despite knowing about Miller's juvenile record as their meal
ended the veteran detective's gut told him Miller was not their man seeing him with his daughter I just don't see this
guy as being the monster in 1992 and 93 that would do this to these women Miller gave schwarzkoff a quick
tour of his Zombie Hunter mobile and the two parted ways with a detective saying
he'd be in touch the Cold Case unit sent Miller's water glass off to the crime lab 11 days later we got a call from the
lab and we're sitting there and like what is this all about and in this meeting these Phoenix detectives say as
a joke H they must have solved the canal murders but detective schwarzkoff says it was no joke when the head of the lab
arrived she leans down to me she goes it's him and I go what she goes Brian Miller it's
him well the blood rushed from my head I kind of sat back and I went you've got to be kidding Brian Miller's DNA from
that water glass matched the DNA recovered from Angela braso and Melanie bernes more than 20 years
before Miller was arrested within hours during a police interview shortly after Miller was told why he'd been taken into
into custody in connection with the canal murders we have DNA that links you to those two
ladies see how that's possible he just kind of went through it in his Dopey kind of I don't know what you're kind of
talking about would help you get it off your chest you did something like that I
didn't kill anyone you didn't kill anybody no investigators got a search warrant for Miller's house the home he
shared with his teenage daughter and just about everything thing he'd ever collected in his life I can remember
like it was yesterday walking up to the front door and everybody going you can't
get in that way it's full of crap Brian Miller's house was like it came from the show hoarders there was a
little path where you could get to a bathroom in the kitchen and where the TV was and that's it everything else is
just stacked to the roof with garbage did you look around and go this is madness not only man it's like go this
is a nightmare Schwarz and his investigators would have to sift through all of it looking for other possible
evidence detective schwarzkoff also focused on a new source someone Miller himself had ominously singled out in his
interview it's the one person on face of the earth I could probably honestly say
I hate Miller's ex-wife Amy who would end up revealing gruesome details from Miller's violent past he had told her
about the murder of a young girl who' come to his door [Music] accidentally what do you think motivated
Brian Miller to dress up as the zombie hunter see more of the case on Facebook at 48 hours
in January 2015 more than 21 years after the canal murders Brian Miller was charged with first-degree murder in both
Angela braso and Melanie Bernice's deaths Melanie's friend Rachel Shep maker says she felt a wave of relief a
very joyous moment of oh my gosh this is what we've been waiting for for decades
upon decades detective schwarzkoff wanted to talk to the one person who probably knew
Miller best his ex-wife Amy they had been married for eight years there was a divorce Amy told schwarzkoff that she
was just 19 when she met Miller in 1996 they married less than a year later and moved to Everett
Washington Amy had a shocking Revelation for the detective she told Schwarz Miller had revealed a gruesome secret to
her that he had killed a young girl in Phoenix years earlier before he'd ever met Amy Schwarz says Amy never reported
it to police before for a number of reasons she didn't know if it was true she was afraid of Miller and she said
she wanted to be a good wife you support your man no matter what detective schwarzkoff says Amy told him
what Miller had said that a young girl had come to his door that he had grabbed this young
female pulled her in killed her immediately Amy said Miller told her he dismembered the girl and disposed of her
remains in trash left on the curb although Amy claimed Miller never told her the child's name investigators
Ed the information Amy provided to piece together who Miller may have been talking
about 13-year-old Brandy Meyers was a little girl collecting money for a school book ofon in her North Phoenix
neighborhood going door too I was a tomboy and she was a girly girl bry's sister Kristen Dennis so she
would try to learn how to climb trees or jump fences because she wanted to play with me she was my best friend it was
May 26th 1992 6 months prior to the murder of Andre Le braso Miller was living in the
halfway house following his time in juvenile detention for the aggravated assault of Celeste
Bentley this is one block from our school his home and then three blocks is our house so every single day we walked
right by here Kristen says Brandy left home alone that evening never to return she was last seen two doors down from
Brian's walking in the direction of his house despite an extensive search bry's body was never found schwarzkoff says
even though Amy couldn't provide a name the clues in her account add up to just one conclusion I believe that person is
in fact Brandy Myers her sister believes that as well Brandy went to the landfill like some thing of no
importance even with Amy's account investigators did not have enough evidence to charge Miller in bry's
disappearance so the fact that she was disposed of there's just nothing physical nothing forensically to grab on
to 48 Hours contacted Miller who said he had no involvement in bry's disappearance and never confessed to Amy
that he had killed a young girl but there is another case in Miller's past in 2002 a woman named Melissa Ruiz
Ramirez is walking down the street in Everett at night somebody pulls over it was Brian Miller Melissa would later
tell police she'd seen him before talking to a friend of hers Melissa said she got in Miller's car and told him she
needed to make a call and he drove her to his workplace so she could use the phone
she tells police she's on the phone and from out of the clear blue Brian Miller comes running out with a 12in serrated
kitchen knife and stabs her in the back they fight over the weapon Melissa said she escaped and
contacted police they picked up Miller shortly after he didn't deny stabbing Melissa but claimed it was
self-defense he said he was at work when Melissa walked in off the street and asked to make a
call he said she goes to use a phone and then all of a sudden now they clear blue
she tries to rob him with a knife Miller was arrested and charged with first-degree assault with a deadly
weapon he was jailed from May 2002 until his December trial the jury just didn't buy Melissa's
story it was a he said she said and they acquitted him of the charge Amy Says a chilling change followed
Miller's return home she said it began with the letters she'd received from her jailed husband
while he awaited trial they first started out as professing his innocence and then it
would turn into sexual deviance like here's what I'm going to do when I get out to you Amy told Schwarz coff that
Miller followed up his words with action she said he came back with an unbel unable ugly dark sexual deviant side
that she'd never seen before there were times where there was sex between him where he held a knife to
her throat Amy told schwarzkoff that Miller claimed something happened to him as a
child something that would become the Cornerstone of his defense for murdering Angela braso and Melanie
bernes his unique defense call her first witness his mother had created a [Music]
monster at the start of Brian Miller's trial for the murders of Angela braso and Melanie bernes in October
2022 his attorneys opened with a start in defense they admitted their client was the canal killer they had to concede
right off the bat that he is the actual killer but that he was not guilty by reason of insanity his defense attorneys
say Miller was tortured by his mother Ellen as a child and that led to his violent sexual behavior she died in
2010 if you imagine the making of a monster this is kind of the household that Story begins in Miller told
investigators after his arrest that the beatings began when he was just 5 years old she was a detention officer
discipline in their house was mental as well as physical she used her security belt so it was like a law
enforcement belt and usually I hit got hit by the buckles the defense opted for a bench trial which meant there would be
no jury his lawyers told judge Suzanne Cohen that Miller's mother also exposed her young son to violent sexual
content he was exposed to her interests in pornography and extremely violent films Miller's lawyers said his mother's
abuse caused Miller to develop severe mental health problems he feels like there are different TVs playing in his
head psychologist Bethany bran testified that Miller developed a condition known
as dissociative Amnesia an inability to remember some traumatic events Morgan low summed up the defense argument there
were two Brians there's the one you see over there at the defense table who's a fairly normal person who has friends who
had a job who was a dad who was a a husband and then there's the Killer there's bad Brian and Miller claimed his
attorneys had no memory none of the two murders he was charged with prosecutors undermine the defense claim that Miller
has no memory of the killings they point out that he does remember details related to other
stabbings remember Miller admitted stabbing celest Bentley when he was 16 years old and in 2002 he had also
testified about the stabbing of Melissa Ruiz Ramirez in Washington to show Miller's deviant side
prosecutors called the only person in the world Miller said he despised his ex-wife Amy the judge did not allow
cameras to record her face under questioning by prosecutor Elizabeth reamer Amy testified that
later in their marriage Miller grew increasingly viol ENT during sex did you ever say anything to him
about wanting it to stop because it was scary no why not I was avoiding any confrontation
with him at all at that point and wanted to be as compliant as possible so that I
would stay will he love me enough not to kill me did he ask permission prior to using
needles on you no did he ask permission prior to tying you up no what percentage
of your sex life after he got out of jail in Washington included bondage the pins or
other uh things that were not the normal sex you'd been having early in your marriage probably at least
95% the trial continued and after 6 months and 36 Witnesses the judge delivered her verdict as to count one
first-degree murder Angela braso as follows guilty as to count to First Dee murder
victim Melanie bernes as follows guilty how did Brian Miller react to the guilty verdict he didn't react he didn't
give any real emotion but Angela's mother who addressed the court remotely was emotional the defendant broke my
heart took all hope and light from me and my family the whole in my heart is so big
and empty Melanie's older sister Jill also spoke remotely about how painful it was
that Melanie's life ended violently at the age of 17 for 30 years now we've had to live
without Melanie because the defendant murdered her words cannot even begin to describe the level of excruciating pain
we experienced with the news of her horrific death Miller who didn't take the stand during
his trial was allowed to give a statement before he was sentenced I not looking for sympathy today this time is
for the family and the friends of the victims I cannot imagine what pain they have endured for all these
years I know I am different I thought it had to do with what my mother did to me
defense counsel RJ Parker urged judge Cohen to show Mercy before she delivered her judgment on Miller's sentence life
in prison or death you do not have to kill Brian in order to see Justice Done judge Cohen agreed with the centerpiece
of the defense case the defendant's abuse as a child was proven but 8 months after the trial
began Miller's abuse at the hands of his mother did not dissuade judge Cohen from
handing down the ultimate sentence there is no question that what the defendant did deserves the death
penalty Mr Miller anything you wish to say to the court I just thanks for listening to
everything that was said and giving us at least the opportunity to try and convince you
otherwise Justice was carried out in this case Det itive schwarzkoff hopes family
and friends of Angela and Melanie might finally find some [Music] peace people like Rachel ship maker just
knowing that Justice was served it doesn't make anything easier how do you want your good friend
be remembered she's the All-American good kid I want her family to know that we haven't forgotten
her she's changed us all for the better she was a gift [Music] [Music] a knock at the door by a clown an evil
clown the evil clowns you see in the movies well it came to life who comes calling with balloons flowers and a gun
I heard bang I saw her fall this was an assassination who isn't afraid of a killer clown 48 hours Saturday on CDs
and screening on Paramount Plus [Music] welcome to 48 Hours postmortem I'm CBS News correspondent and Marie green and
today we are talking about an episode that truly sent shivers down my spine unmasking the zombie hunter so joining
me now are 48 Hours correspondent Peter vanent and producer Paula Rosa who reported on and produced this episode
welcome gentlemen hi thanks for having us hey and Marie happy Halloween it's a perfect episode for
Halloween it says it in the name right the zomie hunter but before we get into the episode Let's Play a clip from the
show there are not many crimes that are like this one you had women riding bicycles along the canal on a typical
Phoenix evening ambushed stabbed multiple times Brianna Whitney the True Crime reporter
for the CBS affiliate kph in Phoenix says the first victim was 21-year-old Angela braso whose body was found in
November 1992 police are looking at this scene and thinking what on Earth happened and
who did this 10 months later the body of 17-year-old Melanie bernus was found in
one of the city's canals investig ators found the same DNA at both scenes says detective Clark schwarzkoff I think
there was over 600 Persons of Interest after some 20 years investigators zeroed in on 42-year-old Brian Patrick Miller a
divorced father raising his teenage daughter as schwarzkoff soon learned Miller had a unique Alter Ego everybody
in the Phoenix area knew Brian Patrick Miller as this char character called the zombie hunter schwarzkoff secured
Miller's DNA days later the head of the forensic lab had some news she leans down to me she goes it's him and I go
what she goes Brian Miller it's him um Peter what stood out to you about this case that made you want to do it uh
well first the zombie killer I I looked it up you know a zombie is relentlessly aggressive reanimated human corpse right
so you have that component uh which I found fascinating and then for me personally I lived in Phoenix for four
years I worked in local news there this was just before these Canal murders I left but my home was about 3 miles from
where these murders occurred I used to jog along the Arizona canal and back then it was a hub of people on the canal
when we went and shot this it's amazing there's no one on there anymore that's how how Lifestyles were changed in this
I also have this NeverEnding curiosity about why do people kill it's one of the reasons why I do this job it's one of
the reasons why I love to try to talk to the accused to get inside their head and
look at the head of this man was in this costume like a comic book character instead of going off and hiding under a
rock somewhere this alleged killer uh was was out in the public posing with photograph s with police officers for
goodness sakes going to these sci-fi conventions and he sounds like such a psychologically complicated person where
you hear these stories of him being a sweet loving father to his daughter friends who thought he was engaging they
never sense danger with this man sometimes he was a bit odd but he had this jeck and hide personality like
Peter said that's what's fascinating about murder it's these two sides and in this case
you know Brian's lawyers said he had two sides that he had a trauma side and he had a normal side he was not the zombie
hunter when he committed the murders of Angela and Melanie back in the early 9s and they were vicious I mean these
aren't these women are women who went out for nighttime bike rides um along this busy Canal path in Phoenix in good
weather and um you know Angela was the first victim and her head was cut off she was beheaded and head was not found
until 10 days later so and she was eviscerated I mean these are horrible horrible crimes and um Melanie you know
she was found stabed to death so um so because of the nature of the crimes the cops always felt that it had to be a
surgeon who did them or someone with special forces training and uh there's a military base in Phoenix and they just
didn't believe it could be Brian Patrick Miller who was around 21 or 22 years old
at the time of these murders and when you meet him he's like a marshmallow people describe him as a marshmallow he
couldn't do one push-up his friend said um he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who could commit these horrible crimes
can we talk about how Melanie was discovered this was a story that um Paul managed to find a Woman by the name of
Charlotte pottle and this was literally as we were finishing up our hour we'd already written in the show and most of
our editing was done but Charlotte pole was worth the the effort back in in 1993
she was riding along the canal when she drove through a a dark puddle she instantly felt like something's not
quite right here that was really bizarre she rode for just a few minutes and decided to double back and realize that
it was a pool of blood and she got off of her bicycle and Charlotte noticed that there were drag marks in the dirt
the first drag marks went off away from the canal to a single tree she said the body had been moved around that little
tree and there was a small pool of blood there the body is then dragged back across the path to the edge of the canal
where it apparently was was thrown in and so Charlotte pole she later called police and she called them on an
emergency tip line that was not supposed to reveal the identity of the caller and
she described her experience and told cops you should go out there and check it out for yourself well sometime later
she gets an unexpected call from a homicide detective and the homicide detective said in a very demanding way
where are you right now and she goes well I'm I'm at my house stay put I'm on my way over to talk to you do not move
so she waits at home she said the detective uh shows up and he immediately accuses her Charlotte pole of being the
Killer and why because her Footprints were on both sides now of these drag marks out at the canal and he says I
know you did this she said I had nothing I just discovered it she thought she was
going to be arrested he leaves and she's convinced any moment she's going to be arrested as the canal killer she said
they never call again and they never showed up and she lived with this fear for months um but Charlotte did the
right thing yeah and um and luckily she wasn't charged that's an incredible story Peter you know you talked about um
the surgical Precision almost her head was pretty well preserved what do police believe happened with you can talk about
that so when this head is discovered according to detective Clark schwarzkoff he believed that that um the killer had
kept the head in a refrigerator it was a head that he may have considered a trophy and in the plan this
handwritten document that Brian Miller had had produced that his mother had discovered and turned over to
authorities one of the items on his list was to decapitate a victim and to keep the head and detective Clark schwarzkoff
believes that's exactly what happened here and that he wanted it discovered um because detective schwarzkoff believes
he wanted to get some Shock value from these murders so Paul how did you get to know him well I started writing him
emails and you know I couldn't reach him during the trial because his lawyers are
in the way and they obviously won't let him speak to a journalist during the trial but after the trial I took a
chance and there even when he's on death row but even on death row inmates have access to email which a lot of people
out there may not know and I didn't know if he'd write back or not and he WR the
first time wrote back he said he didn't like CBS News I said well I've been doing this a long time I have I've
worked at the show for 30 years so I've been doing this a long time and you can Google me and you can check me out and
you know I I I I'm I think I'm an upstanding journalist and I'm not going to lie to you or anything and he started
writing so we went back and forth and I started asking him simple questions at first like what do you miss you know do
you miss being the zombie hunter and he said you asked me simple questions so I'm going to answer you and I and we
just kept going on and on till eventually he started talking about the case more and more and I he said he
didn't commit these murders and I said well Brian that leads to the big question how is it that your DNA was
found on both women and he said that's the million-dollar question if I knew I wouldn't be sitting here would I wow so
let's talk about that because then there's these two murders there was a stabbing earlier but two murders and
then nothing Brian seemed to have cleaned up a little bit in the late 90s he married Amy he got married and she by
the way described as the perfect gentleman on their first date which was at an amusement park uh by the side of
the canal where they found one body and Angela's head so he married her and uh in Phoenix and then they um they moved
to Washington State where his mother lived they had a child and uh you know there's some video of them from the time
on a whale watching trip and they look like any young family you know and so we don't think Brian
really changed his ways he stabbed a woman up there he said it was self-defense and that case went to trial
and and Brian Patrick Miller was acquitted the jury believed him over the woman wow so the murders of Angela braso
and Melanie bernes went unsolved for decades and like so many of these cases that are only now getting solved the
real Smoking Gun in this one is the DNA evidence that pinned Brian to these murders but police almost didn't get it
let's take a listen to investigator Clark schwarzkoff describing just how they got the crucial
evidence at a Chili's of all places the Cold Case unit was behind the scenes ready to bag anything that had Miller's
DNA on it such as utensils or a glass they set a table for me and Mr Miller away from everybody else in a part of
the restaurant where nobody else is at Miller arrived with a surprise guest his 15-year-old daughter Sarah Miller
was a divorced single dad he was very gentle and caring about his daughter he often brought his daughter where he
would be going the trio sat down and ordered hamburgers when the food arrived he swallows his hamburger in like five
bites won't take a drink of his water and I'm sitting there go you sure you want something else to drink cuz he just
got water no no I'm good I'm good I'm good so good news is he's really hungry bad news is he's not thirsty that's
right and it was it went on and on and by the way the other people that were in that section of the restaurant were
undercover agents I wondered about that watching and the the manager of the Chili's uh a great citizen this woman
said I'll be the waitress so she played the waitress in in this scenario and finally finally he takes a sip from his
water glass and that's when schwarzkoff knew this was mission accomplished as we
said in the story uh that he got the DNA sample so Clark schwarzkoff you know was
a was a seasoned detective right this goes back to to The Duality of Brian Miller he had approached him at his
place of work reposed as a uh security guy he said would you like to work for us keeping an eye on the back part of
the factory here because there's been some theft I'll pay you $20 an hour well anyway he got to talking with him back
and forth right got a sense of the man then they have this lunch together brings in his daughter he seemed like a
loving uh father he seemed normal and despite what what schwarzkoff knew of his past he felt as though this guy this
nerdy softspoken man he couldn't possibly be the canal killer and so he gets the DNA sample and they send it off
but in his mind he goes he it's going to come back it's not going to be a match cuz there's no way based on my
experience that this guy is a killer he's just too nice a guy it's kind of extraordinary but it shows you the power
of His personality wow um so they get all the evidence they need they've got this DNA match and so they get a search
warrant for his house and it's like this guy has never thrown anything out he's basically a hoarder let's listen to a
clip from the show I can remember like it was yesterday walking up to the front door and everybody going you can't get
in that way it's full of crap Brian Miller's house was like it came from the show hoarders there was a
little path where you could get to a bathroom in the kitchen and where the TV was and that's it other else is just
stacked to the roof with garbage did you look around and go this is madness not only Madness I go this is a nightmare
yeah this was a nightmare they have to look through this stuff you know it's a house filled completely filled to the
ceiling with stuff and they looking for the women's bikes from back then he had he had a lot of bikes when they arrested
him but none were Melanie or Angela bikes they're looking for a murder weapon a knife they found a lot of
knives but not the murder weapon but they have but they did find a lot of pornography um some of it violent um
yeah so that was it's just a nightmare so still a lot more to talk about when we get back I want to talk
about Brian's ex-wife and his daughter Brian's juvenile record and of course the trial what will the zombie hunter
with his Larger than Life Persona what will he use as his defense strategy we're going to get into that after the
[Music] [Music] break welcome back uh when I look at this case I cannot help but to think
about the people in Brian's life can you tell me anything more about the ex wife
I was shocked that a man like this had custody of his teenage daughter how did that happen well um at the time I would
say that his ex-wife Amy was had lived a troubled life as far as I've learned she
did not come to the final custody hearing and the judge awarded Brian custody of his daughter um Brian always
treated his daughter Sarah with respect and kindness from what we learned she had an a fairly normal upbringing
although she did live with him in the house which was described as a hoarder house so you know that comes with its
own psychological underpinnings but um other than that living in a hoarder house they seem to have a really good
loving relationship in a way that brings me back to the ex-wife too because you know
he was a good husband until he wasn't according to her she must have told the court about her experience I mean she
was terrified of him one thing about Amy is that and she testified to this is that she felt um intense Duty as a wife
to do whatever her husband wanted her to do she said that at trial um you know it
was her duty to do what he wanted coupled with that is that she was really afraid of him and it's heartbreaking but
at one point in the trial the prosecutor says why didn't you object to all this stuff in the bedroom and she said well I
wanted to do it it because it's my duty as a wife and I wanted to be sure that he loved me enough not to kill me jeez
that's heavy and heartbreaking it is so that sort of sums up where she's coming from you got to feel great sympathy for
her completely um I want to ask about the juvenile record too how much access do investigators have to a juvenile
record typically well these juvenile records usually are kept under seal but these investigators were able to to get
that information about him um he had stabbed a woman in the back and been arrested for that and served time in
juvenile uh detention so Celeste Bentley worked at a mall and she took a public transportation uh to get to her job
she's on this bus and she notices this young man behind her a few rows she turned she noticed he was he was looking
at her and when she got off the bus uh she noticed that the young man got off as well and this was very early in the
morning and she's walking across an empty the parking lot headed toward the department store where she works and um
then all of a sudden he Sprints by and she feels this punch she thought on on her back and it hurt and she called out
to him why'd you do that and uh she put her hand back and discovered it was blood then she runs to uh the department
store there was a single door it was locked she's pounding on it luckily one of her colleagues is there lets her
inside and they call the police but she said the police told her that if he had turned the knife just a little bit one
way it would have gone right through and hit our a order also it could have been
a murder yeah could have been a murder so um the police found him found Brian dressed in different clothing so he had
planned this uh he changed his clothes they brought him over to that brought him over to the Celeste and she
identified him and um he eventually pled and he admitted to the cops that he had
stabbed her um you know there's various stories about why he did one was he said
he just wanted to see what it felt like and it's in chills down his spine there were other reports later that he stabbed
Celeste because she reminded him of his mother the thing about Celeste Bentley uh you know I interviewed her this is a
woman that has lived with this trauma obviously for her entire life it's so impacted her life she was afraid to be
in crowd she's always had her head on a swivel always looking around her and still does yeah um part of his
defense was to talk about his childhood um so looking at his childhood the abuse that he Alle alleges what
proof was provided well it began the fact that when he was 16 years old and he committed that attack it turned out
that he had told social workers back during the juvenile uh detention that he had he told these details of his
mother's abuse um and and so the fact that he had told with such detail and very uh specific about the kinds of
things exposing him to pornography uh exposing him to violent movies beating him he tells this story of being beaten
with a belt um experiencing violence psychological trauma physical trauma and then exposed to these horrible images um
is something that that he he he kept with the rest of his life um so that becomes kind of part of
the defense right let's just listen psychologist Bethany bran testified that Miller developed a
condition known as dissociative Amnesia an inability to remember some traumatic events Morgan low summed up the defense
argument there were two Brian there's the one you see over there at the defense table who's a fairly normal
person who has friends who had a job who was a dad who was a a husband and then there's the killer there's bad Brian and
Miller claimed his attorneys had no memory none of the two murders he was charged with keep in mind the
prosecutors disagreed they believe that that he he seemed to have memory of other traumatic events that he could
recall and say I didn't do that events in which people were stabbed but survived somehow he still remembered
that so I mean does the skeptical part of me uh still wonder about that of course it seemed um it seemed just too
convenient um Brian decided not to take the stand uh during the trial but he gave a statement let's just hear a
little what he had to say I'm not looking for sympathy today this time is for the family and the friends of the
victims I cannot imagine what pain they have endured for all these years I know I am different I thought it
had to do with what my mother did to me these kinds of cases the families involved uh This Man created um you know
torturous lies for so many people caused such profound harm yeah uh the horrors that
he did yeah to lose your child and to lose it under these circumstances where there was mutilation in things a family
never gets over that can't get past it another fascinating uh case another just in incredibly baffling character uh Paul
Peter thank you so much thank you and you're welcome thank you so be sure to join us next Tuesday
for another postmortem watch 48 hours Saturdays at 109 Central on CBS and streaming on Paramount plus and be sure
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Bryan Miller seemed like a real-life comic book character as his persona of the “Zombie Hunter.” But was this man behind two murders that terrorized an Arizona community?

Watch "Unmasking the Zombie Hunter" and then catch up with Correspondent Peter Van Sant and Producer Paul La Rosa on "Post Mortem" as they discuss what actually went into how investigators recovered the smoking gun evidence from a Chili’s, and how Bryan’s defense team’s “dissociative amnesia” argument held up at trial.

0:01: Watch "Unmasking the Zombie Hunter" 41:33 Listen to a post-mortem on the episode

Listen to "Post Mortem" wherever you get your podcasts: https://link.chtbl.com/nLecSbvP?sid=YT

Crime. Social justice. Impact. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

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Brief Summary

The episode details the Phoenix Canal murders and the investigation leading to Brian Patrick Miller, the Zombie Hunter, as the prime suspect.

Key points

Discovery of Melanie's Body. A woman riding her bike discovers a blood trail leading to Melanie's body in the canal.
DNA Breakthrough. In 2014, detectives use DNA genealogy to finally identify the canal killer.
The Phoenix Canal Murders. The brutal killings of Angela Braso and Melanie Bernus shocked Phoenix in the early 90s.
Miller's Gruesome Secret Revealed. Miller's ex-wife Amy reveals he confessed to killing a young girl years before they met.
Miller's Chilling Defense. Miller's defense claims childhood abuse led to his violent behavior, admitting he is the killer.
Trial Verdict Delivered. Brian Miller is found guilty of the murders of Angela Braso and Melanie Bernes.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You can't unsee what happened to those girls.

Detective discussing the lasting impact of the case.

4:46WatchJun 7, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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