Pod Insights True Crime All The Time Bryan Patrick Miller About this episode In the early ‘90s, two young women were stabbed to death on a bike trail in Phoenix, Arizona. The Phoenix Canal Murders remained unsolved until 2014, when the police identified Bryan Patrick Miller, a local celebrity known for his “Zombie Hunter” persona, as a suspect.
Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Bryan Patrick Miller. His crimes began as a juvenile and escalated through the years. It seemed as though everywhere he lived, women disappeared. The police believe he is responsible for a large number of sexual assaults and murders.
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1:47 Speaker 00 Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 436 of the True Crime All the Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson, and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?
1:58 Speaker 01 Hey, I'm doing good. How about you?
1:59 Speaker 00 Doing great.
2:00 Speaker 01 Good.
2:00 Speaker 00 Talked about it on Patreon, but my wife and I had a great time this past weekend in Chicago.
2:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:06 Speaker 00 For our 29th anniversary. So that was fun.
2:10 Speaker 01 Cool.
2:11 Speaker 00 But I was happy to get home.
2:14 Speaker 01 Yo, it's always nice to get back home.
2:16 Speaker 00 It is. I like going places. I like doing things. But at a certain point, and everybody knows that point in the trip, you're like, okay, I'm ready to go home.
2:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:27 Speaker 00 I miss my home. I miss my dogs.
2:29 Speaker 01 Time to go.
2:30 Speaker 00 Yep. So we were happy. We were both happy to get home.
2:33 Speaker 01 Good.
2:34 Speaker 00 Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Daryl the girl.
2:37 Speaker 01 Daryl and her other girl, Daryl?
2:41 Speaker 00 Other sister, Daryl?
2:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:43 Speaker 00 Yep. Elizabeth Katz.
2:45 Speaker 01 There's the cats.
2:46 Speaker 00 Emily Doran.
2:47 Speaker 01 Hey, Doran.
2:48 Speaker 00 Trista Campbell jumped out to our highest level.
2:50 Speaker 01 Oh, thanks, Trista.
2:51 Speaker 00 Sharon McCall.
2:52 Speaker 01 Hey, Sharon.
2:53 Speaker 00 Ann Anderson.
2:54 Speaker 01 Well, hi, Ann.
2:55 Speaker 00 Alexandra Jewer.
2:57 Speaker 01 Good old Alexandra.
2:58 Speaker 00 Angie Villa.
3:00 Speaker 01 Villa?
3:01 Speaker 00 Mm hmm. Yeah. And last but not least, Marissa Franco jumped out at a higher than our highest level.
3:07 Speaker 01 Well, hey, how's James doing?
3:08 Speaker 00 Yeah, James Franco.
3:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:10 Speaker 00 I just watched a movie the other night with him as a bad guy.
3:13 Speaker 01 Really?
3:13 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's a Statham, Jason Statham movie called Homefront. Have you seen that one?
3:18 Speaker 01 I haven't seen it yet.
3:18 Speaker 00 It's a good one.
3:19 Speaker 01 Is it?
3:19 Speaker 00 Yeah, you should check it out.
3:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:21 Speaker 00 And then if we go back into the vault.
3:25 Speaker 00 This week, we selected Kelly Skinner.
3:27 Speaker 01 Hey, thanks, Kelly.
3:29 Speaker 00 Yeah, we appreciate the new Patreon support and the continued support. We also had a great PayPal donation from Erica Del Rio.
3:38 Speaker 01 Del Rio. I like that.
3:40 Speaker 00 Yeah. So thank you, Erica.
3:42 Speaker 01 Thanks.
3:43 Speaker 00 So Gibbs, we have an episode out right now on True Crime All Time Unsolved, where we're talking about 14 year old Jeremy Bright, who disappeared in August 1986 while attending a fair in Oregon.
3:56 Speaker 01 I hate those type of cases because it makes me think back in the day when I would take my kids to the county fairs, festivals and all that stuff. I was always so paranoid that maybe if I take my eyes off for a second and they wander off and they would.
4:10 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:11 Speaker 01 And then I'd be like, shit, where are they?
4:13 Speaker 00 Kids wander off. There's no doubt about it.
4:15 Speaker 01 Then I'd have to go find them, make sure like, you know.
4:18 Speaker 00 And, and you know, some of the county fairs or state fairs, they're, they're huge.
4:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, it wouldn't take, I mean, I hate to say it, for a kid to get lost, it wouldn't take a lot.
4:30 Speaker 00 No, no, it's, it's a scary thought. I'm with you on that. All right, buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime All The Time?
4:37 Speaker 01 I am ready.
4:38 Speaker 00 In the early 1990s, two young women were stabbed to death on a bike trail in Phoenix, Arizona. What became known as the Phoenix Canal Murders remained unsolved until 2014, when the police identified a suspect who turned out to be a local celebrity known as the Zombie Hunter.
5:03 Speaker 01 Zombie Hunter.
5:04 Speaker 00 You ever hunt zombies?
5:06 Speaker 01 You know, I have not hunted any zombies as of yet.
5:10 Speaker 00 On your bucket list?
5:12 Speaker 01 I do have the appropriate zombie warfare material.
5:18 Speaker 00 Okay, so you're prepared to hunt zombies?
5:21 Speaker 01 I am, I'm ready for it.
5:23 Speaker 00 You just haven't done it.
5:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, I can hunt zombies and also those mushroom head looking things in that one series, Are We There Yet? Are We Whatever That?
5:35 Speaker 00 Are We There Yet? It was like a comedy with Ice Cube or something.
5:39 Speaker 01 Or Last of Us.
5:41 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah, those are two very similar titles. Are We There Yet? The Last of Us.
5:48 Speaker 01 But I'm prepared for either direction.
5:49 Speaker 00 That's good, that's good to know. Angela Brasso, a tech worker who recently moved to Phoenix, went out for a bike ride on the evening of November 8th, 1992. It was the night before her 22nd birthday. So I did want to ask you, have you ever been to Phoenix?
6:07 Speaker 01 I have.
6:08 Speaker 00 It's a really nice place.
6:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, I loved it when I was out there.
6:10 Speaker 00 It can get super hot.
6:12 Speaker 01 Well, that's part of being out in Phoenix.
6:14 Speaker 00 Yeah, I know a lot of people retire out there.
6:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:18 Speaker 00 It's kind of like the Florida, the West.
6:21 Speaker 01 It's just a little drier.
6:23 Speaker 00 Southwest.
6:24 Speaker 01 That's what they always say.
6:25 Speaker 00 A little drier.
6:26 Speaker 01 It's not so humid out here, it's dry. And I went out there and I said.
6:28 Speaker 00 It's just hot. She left around 7:00 PM. Angela's boyfriend Joe stayed behind to bake her cake and expected her home within an hour. When Angela didn't come back, Joe got on his bike and rode around looking for her. He went out three times that night and couldn't find Angela. Joe called Angela's friends and even her mother in Pennsylvania before eventually reporting her missing. So Joe sounds like a pretty good boyfriend, you know, he's baking a cake. But obviously Gibbs, he gets very worried about her. You know, when you say, I'm going out for a bike ride, I'll be home in an hour.
7:09 Speaker 00 And it gets past that point and people will become worried. And this is 1992, right? There's no find my friend or find locate my iPhone app thing, whatever. You know, I'm trying to come up with the names of these.
7:28 Speaker 01 Whatever it would be called.
7:29 Speaker 00 Yeah, there's none of that. Now, there were cell phones in 1992, but I don't know how many people had them.
7:37 Speaker 01 Right.
7:38 Speaker 00 I know for a fact I didn't have a cellphone in 1992.
7:41 Speaker 01 I mean, I had mine because of the work I was in.
7:44 Speaker 00 Mm hmm. That you can't talk about?
7:46 Speaker 01 Yes.
7:47 Speaker 00 That you're sworn to secrecy?
7:49 Speaker 01 Forever.
7:50 Speaker 00 On November 9th, officers found Angela's body in the field next to her apartment. Angela had been stabbed in the back, sexually assaulted and decapitated. It appeared that the killer tried to cut her torso in half per NBC.
8:07 Speaker 01 Wow.
8:07 Speaker 00 Now, we talk about a lot of vicious murders, brutal. But you think about decapitation and trying to cut someone's torso in half. I mean, that is really grisly stuff.
8:22 Speaker 01 Sick individual all the way around, but like extra to go to that extent.
8:27 Speaker 00 Well, because you think about you've murdered someone.
8:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:30 Speaker 00 You've, you've committed the ultimate sin and you've done the worst thing that you could do. Now, what are you thinking? Why are you going to cut someone's head off? Are you going to try to make it harder to identify that person? Well, if so, you're probably not leaving the body next to that person's apartment.
8:51 Speaker 01 And then to try to cut that torso.
8:53 Speaker 00 In half.
8:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:55 Speaker 00 Angela was found wearing only her socks and tennis shoes. Her bloody clothing was scattered at the scene. Angela's bike and her head were gone.
9:07 Speaker 01 So the, the guy drive off on her bike with her head? You know, that's what, that's what you're thinking if you're at the scene, right?
9:14 Speaker 00 Well, that's what I'm thinking now, but it's also pretty strange to visualize.
9:21 Speaker 01 It is.
9:22 Speaker 00 A guy riding a bike down the street with a head. Retired detective, Robert Wamsley. Later testified about finding Angela's body is quoted by AZ family. He said, I thought it was a mannequin. It was very white. I was inching my way up to see the head, to see her eyes. Then I could determine if it was a mannequin, somebody playing a sick joke, or if it was a body and I found the head missing. And you hear that so often from people that, oh, you know, I thought it was a mannequin at first.
9:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think that would be natural, right? I mean, why would you just assume automatically it's going to be a real body?
10:02 Speaker 00 Yeah, I get that, but here's a detective thinking, I didn't even think that this was a body. I thought this was a mannequin. 11 days later, Angela's head was found in the Arizona canal, almost two miles away from her body. Due to the lack of decomposition. Investigators believe the killer kept her head in a refrigerator before dumping it.
10:26 Speaker 01 You know, I don't like certain things in my refrigerator, period, let alone, uh, body parts.
10:32 Speaker 00 But I'm really struggling with, with the, the why of all of this.
10:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:37 Speaker 00 You know, the killer sexually assaults the victim, murders the victim, and then, you know, decapitates her, tries to cut up, you know, the rest of her body, possibly refrigerates the head, and then two days later dumps it in a body of water.
10:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, you know, we've had other cases where we had the killer keep the head, keep the feet, you know, for certain reasons. And then maybe eventually they dispose of them. But I remember them holding on to them or this individual only had it for a few days and said, all right, I better get rid of it and tossed it into the, you know, the canal.
11:18 Speaker 00 And again, was that to? Try to throw the authorities off track. You, you wouldn't think it would be too hard for them to figure out who this person was. It'd be different if, if she was found 30 miles away from where she lived, or 50, or you know, something like that. 10 months later, on September 21st, 1993, 17-year-old Melanie Bernas went out for a bike ride. While her mother was out at dinner, biking was one of Melanie's favorite pastimes, as well as spending time with her friends. That evening, Melanie rode along the Arizona Canal to a restaurant near the mall where her friend was working. They planned to meet up for a nighttime
12:00 Speaker 00 ride. When her friend Jessica finished work, Melanie rode off, and that was the last time Jessica saw her. Melanie wasn't home when her mother returned from dinner. On the morning of September 22nd, Phoenix resident Charlotte Puddle was out biking with her daughter. When she rode through a puddle, she told 48 Hours, "I could tell that it was a puddle of red. It was a puddle of blood."
12:26 Speaker 01 What a sight.
12:28 Speaker 00 Charlotte then noticed drag marks that went towards a tree in the canal. She went home to call the police. Officers found Melanie's body in the canal. She had been stabbed in the back and sexually assaulted. According to Dateline, letters were carved into Melanie's body. She was dressed in a teal bodysuit, and one of her friends said Melanie didn't own a teal bodysuit, leading police to believe the killer took off her clothes and redressed her in the bodysuit. Melanie's bike was also missing. Okay. I mean, in both of these murders, number one, they're tragic. You know, two young women lost their lives.
13:12 Speaker 00 But there were some very strange facets to both of them. In this one, there's a theory that the killer undressed and then redressed Melanie in something different, something that he would have had to have brought with him.
13:30 Speaker 01 And why did he want her in that?
13:32 Speaker 00 And why carve letters? Why do these things, which presumably are postmortem? Why do them in both instances? The same DNA profile was found at both crime scenes, meaning the same individual killed Melanie Bernus and Angela Brassa. Additionally, Melanie and Angela were stabbed in the same spot on their backs. The precision of the wounds caused investigators to look into the possibility that the killer was a surgeon or special forces operative.
14:06 Speaker 01 I'm guessing because they knew exactly in the back where to stab somebody to kill them.
14:13 Speaker 00 And or incapacitate them?
14:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
14:16 Speaker 00 Very, very quickly, like with one blow.
14:19 Speaker 01 Right.
14:20 Speaker 00 But there was no match for the DNA in any databases. And the Phoenix Canal murders case eventually went cold. In 1994, the police received a tip suggesting a man named Brian Patrick Miller might have had a distinctive teal bodysuit, similar to the one Melanie was found in. According to 48 Hours, it seems like investigators didn't pursue this lead at the time.
14:46 Speaker 01 It seems like that would have been one you would want to pursue, though.
14:49 Speaker 00 Well, you would think.
14:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
14:51 Speaker 00 I don't know that teal is the most common color of bodysuits, and especially with men.
15:01 Speaker 01 Exactly.
15:03 Speaker 00 So why would this guy have a teal bodysuit?
15:06 Speaker 01 I think you'd want to know.
15:07 Speaker 00 The Canal murders case was reopened in 2011. Phoenix detective Clark Schwarzkopf had to work through a list of more than 600 persons of interest. So obviously, they had worked this case, right? For a number of years, but 600 persons of interest, that's a lot of people to go through.
15:27 Speaker 01 That really is a lot.
15:28 Speaker 00 In late 2014, investigators spoke to forensic genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick at a conference. Her company Identfinders International developed software that could utilize public genealogy databases to find matches to crime scene DNA. The Phoenix Police sent her the DNA from the crime scene. And I think we've talked about Colleen Fitzpatrick before. She is highly intelligent. Morph and I had her on an episode of Criminology many years back, and I was blown away by her knowledge.
16:06 Speaker 01 I think she would probably be somebody that I could finally have a real conversation with.
16:11 Speaker 00 On, on the same intellectual level?
16:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
16:14 Speaker 00 Yeah, probably.
16:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
16:16 Speaker 00 So they have the DNA, her company does, and they found the last name Miller. There were six individuals on the person of interest list with this last name. One of them was 42-year-old Brian Patrick Miller, who had a juvenile conviction for stabbing a woman. By 2014, Miller was a divorced father, raising his teen daughter. He worked at an Amazon warehouse.
16:42 Speaker 01 I think all the red flags should be going off. This is the guy that somebody said had a till bodysuit. This guy had a conviction when he was younger for stabbing a woman.
16:51 Speaker 00 Yeah, and we know both victims were stabbed in the back. Yeah, I get what you're saying. According to 48 Hours, Brian spent a few years in Hawaii with his parents. His father died in a motorcycle accident. Several years later, Brian and his mom moved to Phoenix. Growing up, Brian had violent outbursts in school and had difficulty relating to other children. And I know you experienced some of the, the same things. Violent outbursts as a, as a youngster in school. You just had trouble relating to the other children because like you said, they were not on your intellectual level. You couldn't find anyone to have a deep conversation with.
17:32 Speaker 01 There was a difference.
17:34 Speaker 00 At just 16 years old, Brian committed a serious violent crime. In May 1989, a woman named Celeste Bentley got off at the same bus stop as Brian. Celeste told 48 Hours, "Well, when he had ran by me, I thought he had just hit me. But then I reached back to my back and I pulled my hand up and I saw the blow." Celeste managed to get to her workplace and her coworker called for help. 30 minutes later, when she was still in the ambulance, the police informed her they found the suspect and wanted to show him to her. Celeste identified him as her attacker. Brian pled guilty to aggravated assault and was sentenced to juvenile detention until he turned 18.
18:18 Speaker 01 Why would he do something like that?
18:20 Speaker 00 Well, you know, the why, right, is a question that we ask a lot. Why do these people do what they do?
18:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:28 Speaker 00 Why do people kill? But I understand where you're, where you're going. Why would you just run by somebody at a bus stop and stab them in the back and keep running? Just for kicks? To find out what it feels like? The rush? I don't know.
18:45 Speaker 01 Yeah. You just, like you said, trying to gauge how it feels.
18:49 Speaker 00 While Brian was in juvie, his mother Ellen found a disturbing note in his room. The note was titled "Plan," videotaped, and detailed a plot to kidnap, rape, murder, and dismember a woman.
19:04 Speaker 01 Now, anybody finding this would be disturbed by it, but your mom, the mom finding this? It couldn't have been a good moment for her.
19:15 Speaker 00 No, because, you know, as a mom, you're like, this is my little boy. This is not the person I raised. What, who did I raise here?
19:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, you'd be so upset just over rape. And then you see murder and then dismember? What the heck?
19:30 Speaker 00 Ellen gave the note to the police and refused to let Brian move back in with her. He moved into a halfway house after he was released. So obviously, she kind of abandoned him. She was that worried.
19:45 Speaker 01 Think you should be somewhat worried, especially if he's living in the same house with you.
19:50 Speaker 00 Brian got married in 1997. He and his wife Amy moved to Everett, Washington and had a daughter. Brian stabbed another woman on May 23rd, 2002. That night, he picked up Melissa Ruiz Ramirez, who was walking down the street. Melissa recognized Brian because she had seen him talking to one of her friends. She got in his car and said she needed to make a call. Brian drove her to his workplace to use the phone. Out of nowhere, Brian ran at her with a knife and stabbed her in the back. They struggled over the weapon. Melissa was able to escape and call the police.
20:30 Speaker 01 I'm just trying to imagine how this all went down if you were Melissa. You know, I mean, you're thinking, okay, I'm going to use this phone. Next thing you know, you look up and this guy's running at you with a knife.
20:41 Speaker 00 And stabbing you in the back and also not a stranger, right? Somebody that you know, at least on some level. Brian was arrested and claimed he stabbed Melissa in self-defense. He said she walked in off the street and asked to make a call and then tried to rob him at knife point. Okay, he's got a story. And in December 2002, a jury acquitted Brian, a first degree assault with a deadly weapon.
21:09 Speaker 01 So clearly they bought his story.
21:12 Speaker 00 Or at the very least, they were conflicted. Brian's criminal history stood out to Detective Clark Schwarzkopf. Schwarzkopf noticed that Brian's note detailing his plot to murder a woman had similarities to the Angela Brasso case. In the note, Brian described how he wanted to decapitate a woman and preserve the head.
21:34 Speaker 01 Well, it sounds like very similar to what had happened.
21:39 Speaker 00 Well, and we talked about, you know, what was the reason to remove the head? And what would be the reason to put it in the refrigerator? If that's what happened, the way police suspected, well, we might be learning what? Detective Schwarzkopf looked into Brian's social media and discovered his online persona as the zombie hunter.
22:02 Speaker 00 Brian dressed in a costume, wore a mask and carried a fake gun. He drove around in an old police cruiser with Zombie Hunter written on the back. The car was decorated with fake blood and he often put a mannequin in the backseat.
22:20 Speaker 00 Well, it's hard not to laugh at that, right? We're talking about very serious stuff here. And then all of a sudden we've got this guy dressing up like a, like a junior Gibby and, and driving around town in a, you know, a police model car with Zombie Hunter and fake blood on it. Now, I know you often put a mannequin in your car, but it's only so that you can use the lane on the highway that's reserved for more than one person.
22:50 Speaker 01 Well, it's important to use that commuter lane, you know?
22:53 Speaker 00 But it was said that, you know, this guy participated in what were called Zombie Walks and other events in Phoenix. And he was kind of like a local celebrity. Fans and even police officers like to take photos with him. Okay.
23:09 Speaker 01 See, you just gotta get a old police car and call yourself Fergie the Zombie Killer and you'll be very famous locally.
23:21 Speaker 00 I, I think I'm good.
23:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
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25:51 Speaker 00 Although he was a public figure, friends said Brian could be shy and awkward. His friend Eric Braverman told AZ Family, "He was just like a totally regular guy. I never had a conversation with him that led me to think anything other than he's just a goofy guy." Braverman said about Brian's zombie hunter persona, "He liked the adulation it brought and the attention without having to say anything." And for someone who's kind of shy and awkward, that might be very appealing.
26:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think it probably would have been.
26:25 Speaker 00 You don't have to talk, which might not be the easiest thing for you to do, right, to other people, but you have people wanting to take pictures with you just because you're wearing this mask and you know, you're calling yourself the zombie hunter.
26:43 Speaker 01 Got some cool getup you're wearing. Yeah.
26:46 Speaker 00 Braverman said that Brian was always polite, but there was something different about him. He said he just had like a distance to him where if you were talking to him, looking him in the eye, he was just like he was somewhere else. There was something with women. You didn't see him using the car to go, hey ladies, take a picture of me. He's doing that with the police. So there was something with ladies that he didn't like or that he was not comfortable with.
27:14 Speaker 01 That's interesting.
27:15 Speaker 00 Yeah, that, you know, his friend would say that. In December 2014, Detective Schwarzkopf began surveilling Brian. He knew he needed to obtain his DNA to compare to the sample on file. During one of Brian's breaks at the Amazon warehouse, Schwarzkopf approached his car and offered him a job. He told Brian that he had been hired as a security consultant for a nearby store and offered him a position as a security officer. They scheduled a meeting to fill out a job application and met at a Chili's restaurant on January 2nd, 2015.
27:54 Speaker 01 Wait, I'm just trying to picture this. Was he like, hey, I know you're the zombie hunter and if you can hunt zombies, I'm pretty sure you can be a, you know, a security consultant over here for me. So let's get together and talk about this. Cause I need a zombie hunter on my team.
28:11 Speaker 00 Yeah, I don't know how the conversation went, but it does seem strange that if you're on break. From your job, somebody just comes up and offers you another job?
28:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, it doesn't really happen, does it?
28:24 Speaker 00 Not to, it's never happened to me. Brian drove his zombie hunter car to the restaurant and brought his daughter with him. Despite his criminal history, Schwarzkopf was not fully convinced Brian was the killer, especially when he saw how Brian interacted with his daughter in a loving manner. Still, he was a potential suspect. Because of the genetic genealogy results, Schwarzkopf figured Brian would be eliminated and then he would move on to a new suspect on the list. And I get that, right? You've got this guy, he's the zombie hunter, he's known locally. Would you think this guy's gonna be a killer? Then you see him interacting with his daughter.
29:08 Speaker 00 Okay, you're not, it's not screaming out cold-blooded killer, right?
29:13 Speaker 01 No.
29:14 Speaker 00 But we know some people are like that.
29:16 Speaker 01 Sure.
29:17 Speaker 00 As soon as Brian left the restaurant, undercover detectives collected his water glass. On January 13th, 2015, investigators learned Brian's DNA matched the DNA from the Canal murders. Brian was arrested that day and charged with two counts of first degree murder. He denied killing anyone. And when he was told that his DNA was at the crime scene, he responded, I don't see how that's possible. What are you gonna say, Gibbs? Well, okay, you got me.
29:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, the jig is up.
29:50 Speaker 00 Yeah, no, deny, deny, deny.
29:53 Speaker 01 Of course.
29:54 Speaker 00 Even in the face of overwhelming evidence, people just, you know, continue to deny.
30:00 Speaker 01 I mean, the problem was he, he met somebody at a restaurant and used their glass and service ware, probably, you know, I, I always bring my own glass and service ware wherever I go.
30:10 Speaker 00 Yeah, I always think it's strange when you have that, that collapsible cup that you pop up and you ask the waitress or whoever the server to pour the Coke in that. You have your K-Bar spork that you, you know, pull out of your pocket. It's a strange scene.
30:28 Speaker 01 But it's moments like this, it shows you it pays off.
30:31 Speaker 00 It does, it does, especially for someone like you. Investigators obtained a warrant for Brian's home. They were surprised to find that the house was full of garbage, to the point that it was difficult to walk anywhere. There was only a narrow path to get to the bathroom, kitchen and TV. Okay, that does not sound like, you know, the way that that I want to live. It sounds like an episode of Hoarders.
30:56 Speaker 01 That's exactly what it sounds like.
30:58 Speaker 00 Neither the murder weapon nor the missing bicycles were found. And that doesn't surprise me at all. I mean, you know, we are talking about decades later. Now, okay, this guy is a hoarder. There's a chance that he would keep some of that stuff. But after the arrest, Detective Schwartzkopf wanted to talk to Brian's ex-wife Amy. Amy said she was only 19. When she met Brian in 1996, they got married less than a year later and moved to Everett, Washington. They were separated by 2005. During their marriage, Brian confessed to attacking two girls, one in Phoenix and one in Everett.
31:40 Speaker 00 He told Amy that he stabbed a teen girl with an intellectual disability. It happened after he was released from juvie while he was living in an apartment operated by a Mennonite outreach program north of central Phoenix. According to Brian, the girl knocked on his door, trying to sell Girl Scout cookies or something similar. He grabbed her, pulled her inside and cut her throat.
32:07 Speaker 01 Wow, this is a reason why you should not go to door to door.
32:11 Speaker 00 No, especially by yourself. It should never happen. He said that he put her body in the bathtub. He intended to preserve the body with cold water, but he accidentally ran hot water, which sped up decomposition. Brian dismembered the body and put the remains in a trash can, which he left in his apartment until trash day. When neighbors complained about the smell, Brian told them it was rotten meat.
32:39 Speaker 01 So that's that, honey. You know, I just wanted to clear the air and let you know what I did. You know, uh, so what's for dinner? What we eating?
32:46 Speaker 00 I'm shocked. I, I get it. You know, you don't want to start out the relationship with anything hidden, but I didn't know that would apply to something like this.
32:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's a, that's a lot to take in right there.
33:01 Speaker 00 And what do you do if you're on the other end receiving this information?
33:07 Speaker 01 I think you should run first.
33:11 Speaker 00 Well, obviously she didn't. I mean, they were together for nine years. Now, Amy said she never reported Brian because she wasn't sure he was telling the truth. She thought he might be trying to intimidate her. She was also afraid of him and wanted to be a good wife.
33:27 Speaker 01 Well, she's in a tough situation because one, she's not sure if he's really being honest. It maybe inside she maybe felt maybe he was being honest, but you don't want to believe it. I don't think you would ever want to believe somebody you're in love with could do something like that.
33:43 Speaker 00 But she also said she was afraid of him.
33:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:46 Speaker 00 And that could have played a big part in as well. They were still married in 2002 when Brian spent months in jail for stabbing Melissa Ruiz Ramirez. Brian sent Amy multiple letters. At first the letters professed his innocence, but then they became sexually deviant. With Brian describing what he was going to do to her when he got back. Amy told Detective Clark Schwartzkopf that Brian displayed a sexually violent side of himself that she had never seen before. And there were instances where he held a knife to her throat during sex. Because who wouldn't find that arousing?
34:26 Speaker 00 I mean, if you're on the receiving end of that, having a knife held to your throat during sexy time.
34:33 Speaker 01 Well, I mean, if it is a K bar.
34:35 Speaker 00 This, that is a sexy knife, but. This is obviously, in the case of Brian Miller, all for him.
34:45 Speaker 01 Oh, for sure.
34:46 Speaker 00 I mean, that, that couldn't have been a good experience for her at all. But to him, I'm sure it was sexually arousing. Because, you know, violence and sex, to some people, go together.
35:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm sure it got him off.
35:02 Speaker 00 Or go hand in hand. But I'm thinking, Gibbs, by now, she's maybe thinking that what he told her is probably more likely true than not, right about killing a woman.
35:15 Speaker 01 Well, how could she feel anything else at this point?
35:18 Speaker 00 Investigators felt confident that there were other unsolved cases that could be linked to Brian Miller. Phoenix Sergeant Trent Crump told AZ Family, "To think that someone who was killed in that fashion, that there weren't other crimes related to this, is unlikely." In September 2015, the police submitted first degree murder charges against Brian Miller for the presumed death of 13-year-old Brandy Myers. Authorities believed Brian killed Brandy, based on the details of his confession shared by Amy. Brandy went missing on May 26, 1992. She was out collecting pledges for a school reading project and needed six more dollars.
36:03 Speaker 00 She was last seen at 7:00 PM at Smitty's store near Cave Creek in Hatcher Roads, about two doors down from Brian's home, and heading in that direction. Authorities learned that Brian lived just two blocks away from Brandy. Now, she wasn't a Girl Scout. She was seeking donations for a fundraiser. Brandy was developmentally delayed. She was 13, but mentally was closer to age nine or 10. This also lined up with details from Brian's confession.
36:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, sure does.
36:36 Speaker 00 So there's two things I want to talk about here. The first is, you know, what this Sergeant Crump said. And to think that a person like this hasn't committed other crimes is unlikely. And I think that's true. We, we talk about it quite a lot. In my mind, the people that we talk about, many of them, especially serial predators, probably have a lot more victims than we ever know about. The second is, you remember when we were young, it was not that uncommon for young kids to go door to door. It seemed like every year, the school had multiple fundraiser things.
37:19 Speaker 00 You were supposed to sell candy, chocolates. Now, obviously, if you were a Girl Scout or a Boy Scout, you were supposed to go door to door selling things. And often back then, I think a lot of parents just let their kids go by themselves.
37:34 Speaker 01 For sure, yeah. I mean, I know my parents did. Well, you better get out there before the other kids hit those houses. Okay, you want to come with me? No, they just sent you out.
37:45 Speaker 00 Yeah.
37:45 Speaker 01 And get the names.
37:46 Speaker 00 And I'm sure some kids do go out today by themselves, but more often than not, when a, a child comes to the front door at my house, their parent or even both parents are standing back a ways.
38:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
38:01 Speaker 00 But they're with them the whole time they're out.
38:04 Speaker 01 And then you have the parents that say, you know what? I'm not even going to send you. I'm going to take it to the office. I'll get my coworkers to do it and then you don't have to worry about it.
38:12 Speaker 00 That's what I used to do.
38:13 Speaker 01 You did.
38:14 Speaker 00 As a manager, there was a little extra pressure, right? When your manager gives you the, the thing, you're like, oh shit, I gotta buy something.
38:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, what's her face just went in there and bought something, said, I gotta buy something because if I don't, she's going to look better than me.
38:29 Speaker 00 Well, it was tied to your raises. So, you know.
38:32 Speaker 01 Kind of felt like it. Sure wasn't performance driven.
38:36 Speaker 00 The people from the midnight outreach program recalled that the odor coming from Brian's apartment was so bad, they cleaned it while he was gone. They didn't examine the trash they threw in the dumpster, and it wasn't clear what was causing the odor. A forensic search of the apartment in 2015 yielded few clues. There was blood in the bathroom, but it didn't match Brian or anyone else connected to the case. And I think it's hard, right, to search an apartment so many years later because how many people have lived in that apartment since?
39:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, and if you did find something, how could you really use it during a trial?
39:19 Speaker 00 Yeah, it would be much easier to poke holes in it.
39:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:23 Speaker 00 Authorities also think Brian might be connected to another 1992 case. The day after Brandy went missing, the decomposed remains of a slightly older girl were found in the desert of northeast Phoenix. It wasn't until 2011 that those remains were identified as 16-year-old runaway Shannon Amick. Shannon was in the foster care system. The police received 40 reports of her running away. These reports stopped in late 1991, and no one reported her missing when she ran away for the last time.
40:01 Speaker 01 Very chronic runaway.
40:03 Speaker 00 Yeah, which I do think, you know, does that make it tougher for police, right? They've received 40 reports, but when she actually does go missing, missing, no one reports her missing. Authorities have not ruled out Brian's involvement in Shannon's death. Authorities brought Brandy Meyer's case to prosecutors in late 2015, but the county attorney declined to press charges due to a lack of evidence. Kristen Dennis Brandy's sister said in an interview with AZ Family, "Her case is considered solved, but not resolved. We know who killed her. We know every detail. We know why we
40:46 Speaker 00 didn't get her body back. We know the color of the trash bag." I do think it would be hard to prosecute a case, you know, 23 some odd years later. Not impossible, but obviously harder.
41:03 Speaker 01 Challenging for sure.
41:04 Speaker 00 Yeah. Brian told 48 Hours, "He had no involvement in Brandy's disappearance and never confessed to his wife that he killed a young girl." Based on his confession, Brian was linked to a third attack shortly after his arrest. On October 9th, 2000, 14-year-old Victoria Mickelson was stabbed while walking on a popular bike path in Everett before school. Victoria was taking a new route because a girl at her normal stop was bullying her. She left her house after 6:00 a.m. and saw a few joggers, so she wasn't concerned. When she saw a man enter the trail from the woods, she did think he was creepy and he was disheveled, as if he'd been sleeping outside. Victoria
41:49 Speaker 00 noticed that when she sped up, the man increased his pace. She looked back at him about 10 times, and each time, he was closer to her. This lasted for about five minutes until she turned around again. Victoria told the Arizona Republic, "I turned around to the right and he wasn't there. And I turned around to the left and he put his arm around my neck." The man stabbed her in the neck and stomach. Fueled by adrenaline, Victoria felt no pain and was able to break free and kick the knife out of the man's hands. They both went for the knife, but Victoria got it first. She held it tight and curled
42:31 Speaker 00 up in the fetal position. After a brief struggle, the man said he wouldn't hurt her if she gave the knife back. Victoria complied.
42:39 Speaker 01 That would be tough to do.
42:41 Speaker 00 Give the knife back?
42:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
42:43 Speaker 00 Yeah, it would be because you're putting a lot of trust in this person. But also, how much of a badass is this 14 year old girl? I mean, this man attacks her with a knife, grabs her from behind, and she does a Jean Claude Van Damme and kicks the knife out of his hands.
43:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
43:05 Speaker 00 And then is able to get to it before he can get to it.
43:09 Speaker 01 Very impressed.
43:10 Speaker 00 Victoria recalled, "I couldn't process anything. I just kept thinking, I wanted to get to my best friend's house and tell her, and be able to get to school today. If I miss school today, I'm screwed." The man stabbed her two more times in the back and strangled her until she lost consciousness. She remembers watching him walk away.
43:31 Speaker 01 This is why you don't give the knife back.
43:33 Speaker 00 Victoria was saved by a bystander who she believes interrupted the attack. In total, she was stabbed 17 times. One wound was an eighth of an inch from her aorta, and doctors had to remove over a foot of her intestine.
43:49 Speaker 01 Oh, wow.
43:51 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, very horrific. It's a wonder she survived. But, you know, I go back to what she said, that she couldn't process anything. In her mind, she was thinking about getting to school.
44:03 Speaker 01 Absolutely.
44:04 Speaker 00 And she even said it, "If I miss school today, I'm screwed."
44:08 Speaker 01 So I gotta do whatever I can to get there.
44:10 Speaker 00 But meanwhile, she's in a fight for her life. But she's thinking about school. And again, how would we all react? How would we all think in kind of that type of situation? And nobody really knows until they're in it, especially if you're 14 years old.
44:29 Speaker 01 Well, she reacted and did what she had to do.
44:33 Speaker 00 Victoria's case went unresolved for years. After Brian was arrested, the Phoenix Police contacted her and told her they believed Brian was the man who attacked her. Brian Miller lived in the same apartment complex as Victoria, less than half a mile from the side of the attack. He was never interviewed or suspected, and the statute of limitations had expired for him to face charges in this case. Still, Victoria feels certain Brian is the man who attacked her. And you know, the other thing that's jumping out at me is, you know, attacking someone who
45:12 Speaker 00 lives in the same complex that you do. I'm not trying to tell people how to attack people and get away with it, but that does not seem like the smartest thing to do. Now, they'd never even interviewed him.
45:27 Speaker 01 No, they did not.
45:28 Speaker 00 Or suspected him at all, but, and I wonder how much of that had to do with his juvenile record maybe not being available?
45:37 Speaker 01 Probably.
45:38 Speaker 00 Being sealed or, or you know, or whatever. Brian's trial started on October 3rd, 2022. It wasn't until early 2022 that he was found competent to stand trial. He waived his right to a jury trial and left his fate up to a judge. The defense conceded that Brian committed the Canal murders, but argued he was not guilty by reason of insanity. Okay, so they're coming right out and saying, we're not disputing the fact that, you know, he killed these two females. What we're saying is, he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity. His attorneys noted
46:18 Speaker 00 that Brian was diagnosed with autism and dissociative disorders. He was abused by his mother, Ellen, who died in 2010, which contributed to his violent behavior.
46:30 Speaker 01 Maybe they have a good defense there.
46:32 Speaker 00 Well, at least, you know, they're gonna mount something. After he was arrested, Brian told the police that Ellen started physically abusing him when he was just five.
46:44 Speaker 00 Ellen was a detention officer and used her security belt to beat him. Brian claimed that Ellen also exposed him to violent pornography and violent movies as a child.
46:57 Speaker 01 That was mom's eye here to defend herself.
46:59 Speaker 00 Well, and that's what I was thinking, right? She died in 2010. He can pretty much say whatever he wants and there's no way for her at least to argue it. Psychologist Dr. Bethany Brand testified that Brian developed dissociative amnesia and could not remember certain traumatic events. Because of this diagnosis, he had no memory of the murders. Dr. Brand testified that Brian described his mind in an unusual way. Per Azy family, she said, he feels like different TVs are playing in his head.
47:40 Speaker 00 The state asked Dr. Brand if it was her opinion that someone with dissociative amnesia could commit murder. She answered yes and explained, there could be a part of them, a self state that has very violent revengeful feelings, fantasies and wishes, and another part that doesn't know about that. And so in that case, it could contribute, but in other cases, there's plenty of dissociative amnesic patients out there that don't commit murders. Dr. Brand also said Brian never confessed to the murders. She said, I think the most important thing is he doesn't remember these murders. To not remember doing something so egregious as murders, that's incredibly dysfunctional.
48:26 Speaker 00 So Gibbs, I, you know, to me, the not guilty by reason of insanity defense is a, a real tricky one that to my knowledge is not successful very often. I think more often than not it fails, but you know, here you have a psychologist testifying that, you know, he has no memories of the murders. And what's that based on? Him saying that he doesn't remember the murders?
48:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:57 Speaker 00 How do you know? I get it. You're a trained psychologist, but you're not a mind reader.
49:04 Speaker 01 And maybe he's a master manipulator.
49:07 Speaker 00 As many criminals are. Also, do you think he has a really big incentive to say something or say a number of things that are in his favor? Now, I'm not saying he didn't go through trauma. I don't know. What I am saying is that, to me, a lot of this stuff is very tricky, especially when it comes to an insanity defense.
49:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, and if he didn't go through all that, this is going to be his biggest performance that it'll ever have to play out.
49:40 Speaker 00 Dr. Mark Cunningham, a forensic psychologist, testified that Miller's autism disorder likely compounded the impact of his mother's psychological abuse. Ellen deprived Brian of food, isolated him from friends, beat him, and abused his pets. Dr. Cunningham testified, as quoted by 12 News, "His mother told him, 'There were strangers out there who would kidnap him, rape him, and kill him.'" The threat to genitally mutilate a child while holding a knife or scissors is among the most grievous psychological terrorisms that can be directed to a child or any other human being.
50:21 Speaker 01 That would be very horrifying.
50:23 Speaker 00 But is it true? Right? That's the big question. If that really happened to him, that would be horrifying.
50:29 Speaker 01 And like we said earlier, Ellen's not here to deny or to agree to what he's saying.
50:35 Speaker 00 Dr. Cunningham said that this abuse damaged Brian's ability to relate to others in the world. His zombie hunter persona was a coping mechanism to avoid personal interaction. The prosecution argued that Brian's autism diagnosis was invalid and disputed his disassociative amnesia defense. Prosecutors pointed out that Brian remembered details of other stabbings, such as the 1989 stabbing and the 2002 stabbing. Prosecutors also called on his ex-wife, Amy, to testify. She testified that she never asked Brian to stop when he was violent during sex because,
51:16 Speaker 00 as she said, "I was avoiding any confrontation with him at all at that point and wanted to be as compliant as possible so that I would say, 'Will he love me enough not to kill me?'"
51:29 Speaker 01 I'm sure she felt nervous having a knife up against her neck, thinking, "I'm going to tell him to stop it right now, knowing that he could maybe take it too far."
51:39 Speaker 00 Well, just think about that statement. "Will he love me enough not to kill me?" That's not something that most significant others need to worry about on a daily basis.
51:53 Speaker 01 Nobody should ever have to worry about that.
51:54 Speaker 00 No, no. It just tells you the state of the relationship. On April 11, 2023, the judge found Brian guilty of two counts of first degree murder, kidnapping, and two counts of attempted sexual assault. During his sentencing phase, Brian spoke in court for the first time, saying, "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 accept the court's decision, and I'm hoping this trial and my convictions have provided some measure of relief for the families. I know this has been
52:33 Speaker 00 a long and painful process for everyone. I wish I could provide answers for the questions you have. I know I'm different. I didn't understand completely why. I thought it might have to do with what my mother did to me. Growing up, I was scared. I was lost. I was confused. I was not allowed to express myself. I want to get help and try to open up the parts of me I know I have shut out. I want to do whatever I can to help my daughter. She means the world to me, and if there's anything I can do to make this part of her life easier, I will do it. I was not a perfect father, but I tried my best, and I'm sorry for the damage this experience
53:15 Speaker 00 has caused her. I miss her." He ended by saying, "I hope everyone can find some measure of peace going forward. And listen, you know, we dissect a lot of times what these killers say, you know, especially after they've been convicted. Now, he's saying a lot of the the right thing.
53:37 Speaker 01 Sure.
53:38 Speaker 00 But you just, you never know. Is this heartfelt? Or is this what he knows he needs to say to play the part?
53:49 Speaker 01 It could be a combination, you know? Um, I think he wants to apologize to his daughter. I don't know if all the other stuff matters, but I think his daughter was important to him.
54:00 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah, I'm sure that part was true, but you know, all of the, all the other stuff, you know, he is talking about his mom again. Was all of that stuff true? Was he really abused? Does he really want to get help? And why does he want to get help now after he's been convicted? Was it because he really didn't know that he murdered these two women?
54:24 Speaker 01 It seems very convenient for him.
54:26 Speaker 00 Yeah, it could be. I don't know. You know, that's the thing. There's no way to know for sure. Now, obviously, the judge did not buy the not guilty by insanity plea. On June 7, 2023, Brian Miller received two death sentences and 24 years for kidnapping and sexual assault. After the trial, 48 hours reached out to Brian, and he denied murdering Angela Brasso and Melanie Bernus. When asked to explain how his DNA was found on both bodies, he wrote, "That's the million-dollar question. If I had a provable answer for that, I wouldn't be in this situation, now would I?
55:09 Speaker 00 It is a question that I would like answered, and everyone is so convinced that I did, so it will go unanswered." And to me, this is a little strange because he's not saying, well, I must have done it. I just don't remember it. He is saying, I didn't do it.
55:26 Speaker 01 Wasn't me.
55:27 Speaker 00 He was asked about life on death row. Brian wrote, it's better than county jail, but it's obvious that isolation has taken its toll on many people here. From what I saw of people in county jail compared to here, the majority of people here are by far, not what I would consider the worst of the worst. It's by far safer than anywhere else in prison, even though they have nothing really to lose anymore. It's far from great is I'm even more isolated from those I care about and also my legal team. The food is still not great and the cells are getting very cold now. The temps are falling.
56:07 Speaker 01 Do we really care?
56:08 Speaker 00 No, if you murdered multiple people, stabbed others, sexually assaulted. No, I don't think anyone cares how good your food is or that you're a little bit chilly.
56:21 Speaker 01 Yeah. Think about those victims that never got to have another taste of food.
56:26 Speaker 00 Or their families who never got to share another meal with them ever again.
56:31 Speaker 01 True.
56:32 Speaker 00 Brian also disagreed with the experts called by his defense, who claimed he had dissociative amnesia, writing, I maintain I did not do the murders. So he's coming out and saying it. It's not that I don't remember doing them. I didn't do them. In 2024, CBS 5 reporter Brianna Whitney reached out to Brian and asked him why he felt his defense team did not properly represent his condition. Brian responded, I will keep this brief and limited. My attorney stated before and during trial that I do not agree with expert opinion
57:11 Speaker 00 and defense counsel's position regarding issues around dissociative amnesia and guilt innocence. As I stated to state experts who asked the same question regarding DNA, I refuse to speculate and make statements accusing another party without sufficient proof. It's the state's job to make statements like that, or so it seems. I got to be honest with you, Gibbs. I didn't really understand what he's trying to say there.
57:37 Speaker 01 I was trying to figure that out myself. I mean, for a statement, he was going to keep limited and brief. He really
57:44 Speaker 00 was long-winded and said very little. In further correspondence with the reporter, Brian discussed the unsolved cases linked to him, including the 2013 death of a young Arizona woman. On June 14, 2013, 19-year-old Adrian Salinas went to a party in Tempe. She left the party in the early hours of June 15, then returned to speak briefly with a roommate. She left again at 4 a.m. A few minutes later, her car was involved in a single-vehicle accident near her residence. A witness said she was driving erratically and hit the curb, which blew out two of her tires. Adrian returned to her apartment, changed clothes and called a cab.
58:29 Speaker 00 Around 5 a.m., she texted her boyfriend that she was coming over in a cab. Minutes after sending the text, her phone was shut off. The cab driver arrived and couldn't find Adrian or get in contact with her. On August 6, 2013, Adrian's body was found in the desert in Apache Junction. Her remains were badly decomposed and her cause of death was not immediately determined. And actually, in the research, I never did find where they reported what her cause of death was. But it almost seems, Gibbs, as though maybe, you know, somebody
59:10 Speaker 00 did something to her that caused her to hit the curb, was lying in wait for her.
59:16 Speaker 01 Kind of set this whole thing in motion.
59:17 Speaker 00 That's, I'm thinking that maybe that's a possibility and then got to her while she was outside waiting for the cab, but before it got there. Brian wrote to reporter Brianna Whitney regarding Brandy Myers. "I am only aware of Myers because it was something that happened in my neighborhood that turned it upside down for a few days. I came home from work one evening to find the maiden road blocked off and a bunch of people milling about. At first, I thought it was a street party and I had not been aware of, but when I went To see what was going on. I saw they were handing out flyers about a missing child. A day or two later, a church member who lived next to me notified me that my landlords allowed
1:00:01 Speaker 00 police access to the property with K nine units in the search. This was done without tenant knowledge or search warrant. The police went door to door, asking people and looking in trash bins. I was at work when they did all this, so the information came from someone else. Later, when I was married to Amy, we were watching the news and there was a missing child case being reported on, and I related the Myers case and how it affected the neighborhood. I had been under the impression that Myers had been found because once the police left the neighborhood, I heard nothing else about her until my arrest. Amy has made statements that have been meant to hurt me and give reason for her to get full custody
1:00:46 Speaker 00 of our daughter. Each time she changes tactics and story to up the ante. As everyone who truly paid attention to trial testimony, Amy was proven to be lying about many things and she got angry when she was caught in her lot. Regarding Adrian Salinas, I had no knowledge of the case and still don't know much about it other than someone suggested I could have been involved because I was at a house party nearby that day. If that person had been paying attention, he would have also noted that I was with people we both knew all night. And there was no time that I was not alone and unaccounted for that day. The person suggesting that has been looking to insert themselves because they have an obsession
1:01:31 Speaker 00 with murder cases and is looking for attention. He also doesn't use his real name, even with people he has known for years and is in possession of an item stolen from me since my arrest. I had no involvement in these or any other cases and have never confessed any crimes that I have not already been punished for. Okay, so you know, he's denying involvement in all these missing persons cases, these murder cases. He is either.
1:02:06 Speaker 00 A fairly prolific serial killer and serial rapist, or he just happens to live right next to a large number of people who either go missing and/or are later found murdered.
1:02:22 Speaker 01 Somebody with some really bad luck?
1:02:24 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:02:25 Speaker 01 Yeah. He's really portraying to people that he didn't do this. It wasn't me.
1:02:29 Speaker 00 Well, what's the alternative? Confess to a bunch of murders to which he's not been convicted? Nah, he's not gonna do that. I mean, he won't even cop to the, the two murders he was convicted.
1:02:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:02:43 Speaker 00 He, he continues to deny those. He's certainly not going to admit to murders, you know, for which he's not been convicted. Brian also wrote about his childhood and said, "The state's claim that he didn't report his mother's abuse was false." He said, "I did speak up. I did tell people what was going on. People knew what was going on. Back then, no one wanted to get involved. People wouldn't believe that a mother would treat their child like that. No one believed an officer with the sheriff's department would treat someone abusively. The school nurse didn't report it when she had me roll up my sleeves, when I was wearing long sleeves during the Arizona summer and could see welts
1:03:23 Speaker 00 and bruising shaped like a belt. My old roommate and my ex-wife thought I was exaggerating until they were around my mother a couple of times. People assume that because I'm so laid back and quiet, that I had a good childhood. I just choose not to treat others as my mother did." Because he was sentenced to death, Brian's case is being automatically appealed. Although it took 22 years, authorities are confident they have solved the Canal murders case and have gotten justice for the families of Angela Brasso and Melanie Bernas.
1:03:58 Speaker 01 I mean, if he was abused by his mom. Tragic, of course.
1:04:02 Speaker 00 Yeah, it would be horrible.
1:04:04 Speaker 01 But it doesn't give him permission to do what he did.
1:04:08 Speaker 00 No, because as we've talked about a lot of times, right? There have been a lot of people who experienced trauma, abuse during their childhood.
1:04:20 Speaker 00 Not all of those individuals grow up to be killers. Now, can it have an influence on people? It seems like it possibly can because a lot of killers do have that in their, their background as, as we've seen in many, many episodes. But I don't know, as we wrap this one up, Gibbs, this disassociative amnesia and, and, you know, all of that, I'm, I'm just not sure about that. And obviously the judge wasn't sure about it either, wasn't buying it. And I think it's so telling that, you know, he later comes out and says, no, it's not that I, I forgot the murders, I didn't do the murders.
1:05:02 Speaker 00 So he's, he's, he doesn't even agree with the psychologists who were trying to give his defense some credibility. But then he has to be able to explain his DNA.
1:05:18 Speaker 01 That's a tough one.
1:05:19 Speaker 00 Yeah. Yeah, I think that's really tough. You know, look at his, his background, his record. Let's not forget about the murder tape.
1:05:30 Speaker 01 Right.
1:05:31 Speaker 00 That essentially kind of laid out what he would later do. You know, stabbing a woman in the back, sexually assaulting her, decapitating her.
1:05:43 Speaker 01 Those were his wishes.
1:05:45 Speaker 00 And it does seem as though, you know, he later carried that stuff out.
1:05:51 Speaker 01 How would you like to be Amy in thinking back about what he told her that day? And, and everything that happened after that? I mean, do you sit there and think, thank goodness I'm out of that relationship and thank goodness I got my daughter away from her father?
1:06:09 Speaker 00 Yeah, I, you know, I'm sure that marriage was not great. You know, from some of the things that she's described, if she's telling the truth and, you know, I'm not sure why she would lie, but you know, having a knife held to your neck during sex does not seem like the recipe for a great relationship. It also seems to me, Gibbs, like a person who really ties sexual gratification and violence together.
1:06:45 Speaker 01 For sure. That was his thing.
1:06:47 Speaker 00 So is it, you know, all that hard to believe that this guy was a serial rapist? He was a serial killer. He derived satisfaction from, from not only the sexual assault, but the, the stabbing and the killing and the mutilation as well. As sick as that is, but that's it for our episode on Brian Patrick Miller. No doubt a very nasty individual. We got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Yeah, let's hear them.
1:07:20 Speaker 02 Hi, Gaby and Mike. It's Josh Ferguson from Austin, Texas. First time caller on the podcast. Also, just the other day, Brad, that the Menendez brothers got their sentence reviewed. So I thought, oh, it's funny that interesting. Um, it's part of watching the podcast a couple of months ago. Probably on tape to catch up with you all around episode 500. So congratulations. Love the podcast. Stay safe and keep your health.
1:07:50 Speaker 00 Did he say his last name was Ferguson? I wasn't really sure. I wasn't either. I, I thought he did, but, but we appreciate the, uh, the kudos. Thank you very much.
1:08:00 Speaker 01 Absolutely.
1:08:02 Speaker 03 Hi, this is Wendy from Southwest Ontario. I took a six and a half drive, hour drive to Quebec yesterday, and I was listening to your episode 400 on Albert Fish. I have a strong stomach. I have no problems listening to a lot of things, but I'm telling you, I must've been gagging in that car for 10 minutes. I almost turned it off, but I pushed my way through it and I listened to the first and second episode. So needless to say, I drove back home today. So I had TCAT with me for 13 hours and I'm sorry, but I am team Gibby. Thank you.
1:08:40 Speaker 01 That's, uh, good stuff to listen to when you're on that 401, going back and forth from Southwest Ontario and all, all the, all the way over to Ottawa.
1:08:52 Speaker 00 With a nice Chianti and some fava beans.
1:08:58 Speaker 01 But yeah, we appreciate the voicemail.
1:09:02 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:09:02 Speaker 01 And Gibby.
1:09:03 Speaker 00 Yeah, that, you know, you had an issue with those episodes. Stomach wise. Those were tough for you as well.
1:09:12 Speaker 00 Yeah, Albert Fish was, uh, he was a rough one.
1:09:16 Speaker 01 He was.
1:09:17 Speaker 00 No doubt about it. All right, buddy, that is it for another episode of True Crime All The Time. So for Mike.
1:09:23 Speaker 01 And Gibby.
1:09:23 Speaker 00 Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.
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