A Phoenix guy known as the “Zombie Hunter” was sentenced to death Wednesday for the murders of 2 ladies who were assaulted while biking along a canal in the ’90s.
Bryan Patrick Miller was condemned by a judge in April on 2 counts of first-degree murder, kidnapping and attempted sexual assault in the harsh stabbing attacks of 21-year-old Angela Brosso in 1992 and 17-year-old Melanie Bernas in 1993.
” The accused did not simply murder them,” Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Suzanne Cohen stated in sentencing 50-year-old Miller, according to CBS News. “He brutalized them. And he averted capture for over 20 years. ”
Amanda Martin, the capital system attorney manager with the Maricopa County public protector’s office, stated the group protecting Miller was dissatisfied with the judge’s death judgment.
” They are extremely disappointed but plan to continue their fight to save Bryan’s life,” she tells PEOPLE.
Angela Brosso was attacked on Nov. 8, 1992, while cycling along a Phoenix canal. Her decapitated remains were discovered in a field the following day on what would have been her 22nd birthday. Her head was found in the Arizona Canal more than a week later, the Arizona Republic reported..
” The offender took my angel from the Earth,” Brosso’s mother Linda said in a Phoenix courtroom, CBS News reports. “Angela was my one and only.
Less than a year later, on September 21, 1993, high school junior Melanie Bernas’ mutilated body was found in the Arizona Canal about a mile and a half far from where Brosso was found. According to the Republic, Bernas was sexually attacked and her killer sculpted a cross into her chest.
” Words can not start to describe the level of unbearable pain we experience every day because her murder,” Bernas’ older sibling Jill Canetta stated, CBS News reports. “We live without her smile, her hugs, her companionship. We live without her love.”.
The cases remained cold until 2015 when DNA linked Miller, a single father and staff member, to the slayings, according to the Republic. In March of 2022, Miller waived his right to a jury trial and pleaded innocent by factor of madness, CBS News reported.
He was condemned in April of this year.
” I am not looking for compassion today,” Miller stated during the sentencing phase of his trial in May, KPHO-TV reported. “This time is for the household and the good friends of the victims. I can not envision what discomfort they have actually sustained for all these years.”.
” What happened to Melanie and Angela were horrific criminal activities,” Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell stated after sentencing. “It has actually taken decades of rigorous work by the Phoenix Police Department and the Phoenix Crime Lab to accomplish justice, and I applaud their investigators, officers, and civilian workers. I provide my thanks to the district attorneys and staff of my office who worked relentlessly to bring a procedure of peace to the households of these two young ladies.”.