Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Beyond the Apocalypse - Bryan Patrick Miller's Horrific Crime Spree

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Beyond the Apocalypse - Bryan Patrick Miller's Horrific Crime Spree · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. I'm fascinated by the
0:21
Speaker 1: fact that there are so many people nowadays seemingly obsessed
0:28
Speaker 1: with the idea of the apocalypse. It baffles the mind.
0:35
Speaker 1: It really It goes to an old idea about where
0:38
Speaker 1: your treasure is stored up, that thing that you've invested
0:42
Speaker 1: time in. I guess in your mind, those moments that
0:46
Speaker 1: you sit around and you contemplate these things, and it's
0:49
Speaker 1: it's everywhere you got in video games, and you even
0:52
Speaker 1: have people that do what's referred to as cosplay and
0:56
Speaker 1: they are obsessed with it as a matter of fact,
0:57
Speaker 1: by extension that they will so embroidery their life, knit
1:03
Speaker 1: themselves together, if you will, with this idea of this
1:07
Speaker 1: persona that they create where you don't know where fact
1:11
Speaker 1: and fiction are separated. Today, we're gonna talk about a
1:17
Speaker 1: fella that self identified as somebody named the Zombie Hunter.
1:24
Speaker 1: He even wrote around in an old unmarked police car
1:28
Speaker 1: with that written on it, and it had been painted
1:33
Speaker 1: with bloodstains. We're gonna be talking about the recent conviction
1:39
Speaker 1: and sentencing of Brian Patrick Miller. I'm Josephcott Morgan, and
1:47
Speaker 1: this is Body Bags Dave mac I spent a lot
1:54
Speaker 1: of time doing let's see, how can I put this
1:57
Speaker 1: scratch in my head? You sit back sometimes you just
2:00
Speaker 1: think what in the world is happening? And when this
2:03
Speaker 1: news kind of dropped about the recent conviction and sentencing
2:08
Speaker 1: of Brian Patrick Miller, I wanted to have a conversation
2:12
Speaker 1: with you about it today because I'm not going to
2:14
Speaker 1: say it beats everything I've ever seen, but it's kind
2:17
Speaker 1: of a very, very sad and tragic commentary.
2:21
Speaker 2: I think the popularity of the zombie has been big
2:27
Speaker 2: for the last I don't know, fifteen years or so,
2:29
Speaker 2: We've had TV shows, movies about zombies, the zombie apocalypse.
2:34
Speaker 2: If you look it up, you know, just do a
2:36
Speaker 2: quick Google search and you're going to see not only
2:39
Speaker 2: is there an entertainment factor of the whole zombie thing,
2:41
Speaker 2: but there's also a real is Waco nut job a
2:46
Speaker 2: term a scientific term for what we're dealing with?
2:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, you think about that, and it kind of it
2:53
Speaker 1: goes to and I tried to tell my students that
2:56
Speaker 1: I teach at Jacksonville State and say, look, be very
2:59
Speaker 1: careful you use the term crazy right, because it kind
3:04
Speaker 1: of diminishes responsibility, I think in one degree, and then
3:10
Speaker 1: it doesn't really go to the heart of the issue
3:12
Speaker 1: because when you sit back, and particularly in this case
3:17
Speaker 1: with Miller, you kind of see how debased his worldview
3:22
Speaker 1: was and what terror and horror he kind of wrought
3:27
Speaker 1: people that were actually victims, these young ladies that were victims.
3:33
Speaker 1: You can see this as a death investigator out you know,
3:36
Speaker 1: in forensics, when you go out to deal with family members.
3:38
Speaker 1: One of the things is it's one of those markers
3:41
Speaker 1: in life where you have everything that happened before and
3:45
Speaker 1: everything that happened afterwards, and these families are scarred forever
3:50
Speaker 1: and ever and ever by this guy's egocentric indulgence.
3:56
Speaker 2: Brian Patrick Miller, I think it bears going into and
3:59
Speaker 2: realized that while we have two murders, that's what he's
4:02
Speaker 2: accused of here and going to court and all that.
4:05
Speaker 2: But right at the very beginning, you mentioned how he
4:07
Speaker 2: would drive around in this zombie hunter mobile, you know,
4:11
Speaker 2: a car that looked like a police car. It had
4:13
Speaker 2: lights in black and white, and it had blood spatters
4:16
Speaker 2: on it, well not real blood, but fake blood, and
4:19
Speaker 2: it was his whole persona. And actually he found himself
4:22
Speaker 2: in this character somehow and became part of the steam
4:27
Speaker 2: punk movement. Are you familiar with this at all? Steampunk?
4:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, at least peripherally. Yeah.
4:32
Speaker 2: Steampunk. It's a sub genre of science fiction that kind
4:39
Speaker 2: of think about Big Bang theory for a minute of
4:41
Speaker 2: the TV show and you have this show about these
4:43
Speaker 2: guys that are all about comic books and superheroes and
4:46
Speaker 2: the movies and all that. Steampunk takes. It's kind of
4:49
Speaker 2: from that same island, but it hops on a different
4:52
Speaker 2: boat and paddles a different direction. It takes this fantasy
4:56
Speaker 2: world and it begins incorporating cosplay, costume plays and things
5:02
Speaker 2: like that, where they dress up in outfits that set
5:06
Speaker 2: them apart. If you can imagine a term retro futuristic.
5:10
Speaker 2: They take this stuff from science fiction and they fuse
5:16
Speaker 2: it together with nineteenth century outfits, machinery, industrial steam power.
5:22
Speaker 2: That's where the steampunk thing comes from. Brian Patrick Miller
5:25
Speaker 2: he was very involved in the steampunk group in Phoenix
5:30
Speaker 2: for at least four years. And we know this because
5:33
Speaker 2: one of the guys who knew him as part of
5:35
Speaker 2: this group talks about him and talked about the kind
5:38
Speaker 2: of individual he was and what he liked to dress up,
5:40
Speaker 2: and he really took the dress up thing. That's where
5:43
Speaker 2: the zombie Hunter came out of. It was part of
5:45
Speaker 2: his just dress up time. Pretend.
5:48
Speaker 1: No, anytime you have somebody I think that is developmentally stunted,
5:52
Speaker 1: perhaps it's an opportunity, certainly to put on a mask
5:56
Speaker 1: and you inhabit this environment and come something totally different.
6:02
Speaker 1: You know, maybe your perception in life is that you
6:06
Speaker 1: don't have everything that's coming to you, or I want
6:09
Speaker 1: to leave the old life behind and just for a moment,
6:11
Speaker 1: I can inhabit this space and become something else. And
6:15
Speaker 1: one of the more disturbing things I saw about this
6:17
Speaker 1: you mentioned the car, and the car is a former
6:20
Speaker 1: police vehicle. It's a sedan, a FOURD or sedan as
6:23
Speaker 1: you can imagine, and things fitted with lights Dave. And
6:27
Speaker 1: then it's got emblazoned on the trunk in particular. And
6:30
Speaker 1: the reason I say it's emblazoned on the trunk, I've
6:34
Speaker 1: actually seen pictures of him at a couple of these
6:36
Speaker 1: conventions in Arizona in Phoenix where he's standing there and
6:40
Speaker 1: he's in his full regalia with the leather jacket on.
6:45
Speaker 1: He's got a gas mask on with old helmet looks
6:49
Speaker 1: like maybe a French World War One helmet, and he's
6:53
Speaker 1: holding this kind of odd, oddly configured weapon. You know,
6:57
Speaker 1: it's got multiple barrels that look like it would row
7:00
Speaker 1: or something like this, and he's standing there very ominous.
7:03
Speaker 1: But here's another piece to this. He was so embolden.
7:07
Speaker 1: There are multiple images on the Internet of him standing
7:10
Speaker 1: having his picture taken with uniform police officers that are
7:15
Speaker 1: providing security for this event. I know a lot of
7:18
Speaker 1: people have pictures made with cops. That's part of the
7:21
Speaker 1: attraction of it. You know, you go down our families
7:23
Speaker 1: had pictures made with New Orleans Police Apartment equestrian officers,
7:28
Speaker 1: you know, where they're beautiful animals there and you're standing
7:30
Speaker 1: next to them, you know, and those guys are smiling,
7:32
Speaker 1: and we're smiling. That doesn't necessarily mean that you're guilty
7:35
Speaker 1: of anything, but I think that in retrospect, when you
7:39
Speaker 1: begin to look at what this behavior is that he
7:43
Speaker 1: engaged in, you begin to see a boldness about it.
7:48
Speaker 1: And maybe that boldness was I don't know, facilitated or
7:54
Speaker 1: egged on by this cloak that he kind of threw
8:00
Speaker 1: around his shoulders where you couldn't really see what lie underneath.
8:24
Speaker 1: Many years back, I was in attendance at the American
8:29
Speaker 1: Academy of Forensic Science meeting in a large city, which
8:33
Speaker 1: is where it happens. If you've never been, it's pretty amazing.
8:37
Speaker 1: You have forensic scientists from all disciplines that are there,
8:40
Speaker 1: and you get together and you present papers and those
8:43
Speaker 1: sorts of things, and you can kind of walk in
8:45
Speaker 1: and out of these rooms and you can listen to
8:48
Speaker 1: what each one of these experts have to say about
8:51
Speaker 1: things they find of interest. I walked into a room
8:55
Speaker 1: one day at the conference, and it was the odentology room,
8:58
Speaker 1: which is people that handle teeth, you know, whether it's
9:01
Speaker 1: getting bodies identified or if it was back in the
9:05
Speaker 1: day relative to bite marks. And I walked in and
9:09
Speaker 1: there was a forensic odentologist from Mount West that was
9:12
Speaker 1: speaking about arguably one of the most gruesome things that
9:16
Speaker 1: I'd ever seen. I saw the images from this, and
9:19
Speaker 1: it was images of a jogger out in Colorado, a
9:24
Speaker 1: young lady that parked a car in a parking lot
9:27
Speaker 1: and she did her warm ups, her leg stretches. She
9:33
Speaker 1: hops on the local running trail and proceeds to jog
9:37
Speaker 1: and this trail kind of wound its way through this
9:40
Speaker 1: little park area. And what she didn't know was that
9:44
Speaker 1: sitting up on a rock above this area that she
9:48
Speaker 1: was about to jog past was mountain lion, and that
9:51
Speaker 1: mountain lion grabbed hold of her and did things that
9:54
Speaker 1: I can't even begin to describe on the show. And
9:57
Speaker 1: probably to add another layer of horror to this, there
10:02
Speaker 1: were two men that left about five minutes after she did,
10:05
Speaker 1: and when they got to that spot on that trail there,
10:10
Speaker 1: her lifeless body was clinched in the teeth of this
10:13
Speaker 1: mountain line and he was ripping under shred riding from
10:16
Speaker 1: these guys. Can you imagine the horror of that? In
10:18
Speaker 1: my estimation, Miller was kind of like that mountain Line
10:23
Speaker 1: because he victimized young ladies that were out riding their bikes.
10:28
Speaker 2: Well, we are talking about today, Brian Patrick Miller, the
10:31
Speaker 2: Zombie Hunters. He named himself that he has two victims
10:35
Speaker 2: that we're dealing with. Two victims, two beautiful young women.
10:40
Speaker 2: Angela Brasso was twenty one when she went missing, actually
10:45
Speaker 2: the day before her twenty second birthday, and Melanie Burness seventeen.
10:50
Speaker 2: She was in high school their similarities. They both rode bicycles.
10:55
Speaker 2: Whether you're doing it for health, enjoyment, oftentimes the tour together,
10:59
Speaker 2: or you're competing for something. I mean, this is something
11:01
Speaker 2: a lot of people do in terms of staying healthy
11:04
Speaker 2: and enjoying. I love riding a bike. It's a fun
11:06
Speaker 2: thing to do. But in this case, both the women
11:10
Speaker 2: were by themselves at the time they came in contact
11:14
Speaker 2: with Miller. Now Brian Patrick Miller called himself the zombie Hunter,
11:18
Speaker 2: was into steampunk, created this whole persona. But you know
11:21
Speaker 2: what that came after the murders that he's accused of.
11:25
Speaker 2: Now we're talking about thirty years ago. We're talking about
11:29
Speaker 2: in the early nineties, and police were able to collect
11:33
Speaker 2: evidence that even though they didn't really have a suspect,
11:37
Speaker 2: they had a broad net. But what they collected at
11:41
Speaker 2: the scene of the crime led to finding this guy.
11:45
Speaker 2: Angela Brosso left her home. She was living with her boyfriend,
11:48
Speaker 2: twenty one years old, living in Phoenix. She goes for
11:50
Speaker 2: a bike ride around seven o'clock on a Sunday evening.
11:53
Speaker 2: She doesn't return four and a half. Few hours later,
11:56
Speaker 2: it's like eleven thirty at night. She was going to
11:57
Speaker 2: be back hours ago, her boy friend calls police. Now
12:01
Speaker 2: you know, the first thing they're going to do is
12:03
Speaker 2: assume the boyfriend did something. That's just normal police procedure
12:08
Speaker 2: to look at the person they're closest to and starting
12:11
Speaker 2: with him. But it didn't last long because the next morning,
12:14
Speaker 2: her naked, decapitated body was found near the bike trail.
12:21
Speaker 2: Now remember here, decapitated means her head had been removed
12:29
Speaker 2: from her body. And by the way, I read this
12:32
Speaker 2: line from the police report the first time because I
12:36
Speaker 2: thought they made a mistake. It said her abdomen and
12:39
Speaker 2: chest were cut open, she was decapitated, and her head
12:43
Speaker 2: was missing.
12:44
Speaker 1: I got to tell you, I read the same thing,
12:46
Speaker 1: and you know what it made me think of immediately,
12:49
Speaker 1: it made me think of the Black Dahlia, because that's
12:52
Speaker 1: what had occurred in that case that made it so
12:54
Speaker 1: very infamous. First off, they didn't know who she was,
12:58
Speaker 1: but you find a body. I know this term is
13:01
Speaker 1: normally associated with church, but her body was so desecrated,
13:05
Speaker 1: and I thought about this just for a moment, and
13:07
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, if you see something like this, is the
13:11
Speaker 1: killer living out some kind of fantasy in their mind.
13:14
Speaker 1: This something that they're kind of acting out and the
13:17
Speaker 1: Black Dahlias in true crime. It's up there in kind
13:21
Speaker 1: of the pantheon because they still don't know who did it,
13:24
Speaker 1: but people have always been aware of it. They've always
13:27
Speaker 1: been aware of it. And when I heard this, I
13:28
Speaker 1: was thinking, Hm, I wonder if that's where his mind
13:31
Speaker 1: was at the time.
13:32
Speaker 2: What would it take for somebody in this particular case.
13:35
Speaker 2: You've got a healthy, twenty one year old young woman
13:38
Speaker 2: on a bike and she is attacked while riding the
13:42
Speaker 2: bike by the way. Her bike was missing. That was
13:46
Speaker 2: one of the sides of this is that her bike
13:47
Speaker 2: was missing, and so was her head. Her body was
13:51
Speaker 2: found without its head. Now, they found her body the
13:54
Speaker 2: next day, so we know that she left for the
13:56
Speaker 2: bike ride around seven o'clock the night before, and when
13:59
Speaker 2: they find her body the next day, she has been abused.
14:04
Speaker 2: They say she was sexually assaulted either before, during, or
14:07
Speaker 2: after she was dead. But for her to be found
14:11
Speaker 2: near that bike trail, would the person who commits this
14:15
Speaker 2: crime be able to do all that damage right there? Quickly?
14:19
Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure out how this could happen. Did
14:20
Speaker 2: he take her someplace else, did damage and bring her back?
14:25
Speaker 2: How did this happen and how could it happen that
14:27
Speaker 2: people didn't see it? Nobody saw this.
14:29
Speaker 1: The watchwork for this is privacy, provhecy, and then I
14:34
Speaker 1: think probably close second is preparedness. This is not something
14:39
Speaker 1: that someone would go into without having planned extensively, because
14:44
Speaker 1: when you're talking about desecrating, and I want to continue
14:48
Speaker 1: to use that word in our conversation, when you talk
14:51
Speaker 1: about descreating remains where you're literally removing the head of
14:56
Speaker 1: a fellow human being and then desecrating the remain the body.
15:00
Speaker 1: One of the assessments that was done on her, and
15:03
Speaker 1: this kind of rings rings in my ears, is the
15:07
Speaker 1: fact that her body was almost completely transacted, which means
15:12
Speaker 1: you have an incision, if you will, that runs from
15:16
Speaker 1: east to west across the axis of the body. And
15:20
Speaker 1: that's not something that you would undertake and not have
15:25
Speaker 1: the ability to hide what you were doing. You know,
15:27
Speaker 1: first off, if you're going to much like the story
15:31
Speaker 1: about the Mountain Lion, if you're going to snatch a
15:34
Speaker 1: young woman who's obviously healthy, she's healthy enough to ride
15:36
Speaker 1: a bike right off of a bike and avoid any
15:41
Speaker 1: kind of detection, then you're going to have to have
15:46
Speaker 1: privacy in order to facilitate this, and not just privacy day,
15:49
Speaker 1: but just to the point of attack. The killer would
15:52
Speaker 1: have to have very intimate knowledge of the location. What's
15:55
Speaker 1: going to be the choke point here where you're going
15:58
Speaker 1: to lay in wait to ambush her as she riding
16:00
Speaker 1: this bike and you're going to knock her off of
16:03
Speaker 1: it and then get the upper hand on her. And
16:07
Speaker 1: to my way of thinking, an individual that would do
16:10
Speaker 1: this would have to be prepared not just with what
16:14
Speaker 1: you're going to do with the body, with the desecration part,
16:17
Speaker 1: but we're talking about sexual assault. And here's the key.
16:20
Speaker 1: With the sexual assault, you've got sample that has been
16:24
Speaker 1: left behind. So do you kill the individual first? And
16:30
Speaker 1: I think that that's probably what happened in this particular case.
16:33
Speaker 1: Essentially a stabbing, that's how it starts. You incapacitate them
16:38
Speaker 1: to the point where they are now deceased. Now you
16:40
Speaker 1: can do anything that you want to with the body.
16:43
Speaker 1: We know that Miller is the perpetrator, so he's already
16:46
Speaker 1: living in this fantastical world, right, and so he has
16:51
Speaker 1: the facility about him to continue out this fantasy. You
16:56
Speaker 1: drag this poor girl's body off to a locate where
17:00
Speaker 1: you can facilitate this and have your way sexually with
17:05
Speaker 1: the body. So now we've entered into the space of necrophilia,
17:08
Speaker 1: now sex with the dead, and you're leaving a biological
17:12
Speaker 1: sample behind which, to your credit, you picked up on
17:16
Speaker 1: just a few moments ago day where you talked about
17:18
Speaker 1: the police held onto this for years. I mean years,
17:23
Speaker 1: thirty You're talking about a thirty year gap here. This
17:25
Speaker 1: can be very fragile evidence. But they were able, and
17:28
Speaker 1: I think they were so resolute in their investigation where
17:32
Speaker 1: they knew how important this would be if they could
17:34
Speaker 1: collect anything off of her. But you know, it's within
17:38
Speaker 1: a month after he does this horrible act that he
17:42
Speaker 1: goes after Melanie Burnos.
17:45
Speaker 2: Actually, the reality of the timeline is that when they
17:49
Speaker 2: found Brosso's body, her head was not there. They found
17:53
Speaker 2: her head a week and a half later, eleven days later,
17:56
Speaker 2: and I was wondering if the zombie hunter held onto
18:00
Speaker 2: her head as a trophy or something in his freezer
18:04
Speaker 2: and then put it out for them to find, or
18:07
Speaker 2: if he actually they just over didn't find it at
18:10
Speaker 2: first because it was found a little ways away from
18:13
Speaker 2: where her body was discovered.
18:15
Speaker 1: And this is important, you know, most of the time
18:17
Speaker 1: when I think of Phoenix, Phoenix in particular because it's
18:20
Speaker 1: so bloody hot. I love Phoenix. I love Arizona. I
18:23
Speaker 1: was there in the army at for Watchuka many many
18:26
Speaker 1: moons ago when dinosaurs were on the Earth, and I
18:28
Speaker 1: love Arizona. It is an absolutely beautiful place. But I
18:32
Speaker 1: don't normally associate water with that area. But this Arizona
18:37
Speaker 1: Canal actually did contain water, so you begin to think
18:42
Speaker 1: was water moving swiftly, you know through this area. Was
18:45
Speaker 1: there some kind of release, you know, current release, you know,
18:47
Speaker 1: if they're using it as a drain or something like that,
18:50
Speaker 1: and it had migrated the head away from the body.
18:53
Speaker 1: And sometimes this will happen. Things kind of move along
18:56
Speaker 1: and you're not necessarily going to find it. But you know,
18:58
Speaker 1: that's very interesting. You are you holding on? You know,
19:02
Speaker 1: if you're thinking about the methodology here. If he is
19:05
Speaker 1: a trophy hunter, is he hanging onto the head in
19:08
Speaker 1: order to continue out this fantasy and then maybe he
19:11
Speaker 1: just gets tired of it and then disposes of it.
19:13
Speaker 2: And that's what I was wondering, because you mentioned how
19:15
Speaker 2: hot it is in Phoenix. I looked up the average
19:18
Speaker 2: temperature for this time of year in Phoenix, and the
19:21
Speaker 2: temperature ranges from a high of like between seventy and
19:25
Speaker 2: eighty degrees lows in the load to mid sixties. So
19:30
Speaker 2: it's very moderate attempts in November in Phoenix. But again
19:33
Speaker 2: that dry also lacking humidity. Phoenix doesn't have much humidity,
19:37
Speaker 2: so we've got that now. We mentioned the second victim,
19:42
Speaker 2: Melanie Burness. Melanie was seventeen years old high school student
19:47
Speaker 2: and what's a bike rider on top of the other
19:50
Speaker 2: things that she did. She was found eleven months later.
19:54
Speaker 2: She was actually killed in September of nineteen ninety three.
19:57
Speaker 2: So we have the first victim, Melanie Abrasso, being killed
20:03
Speaker 2: in September, I mean November rather of ninety two, ten
20:06
Speaker 2: months later. Second victim, Melanie Burnas is killed out on
20:11
Speaker 2: that same canal bike trail when it happened, and she
20:14
Speaker 2: was the actual paperwork says she was murdered with a knife.
20:18
Speaker 2: Police say that she was stabbed in the back and
20:22
Speaker 2: pulled off the bike. Now her bike also was missing.
20:25
Speaker 2: She was attacked, sexually assaulted and murdered with a knife.
20:28
Speaker 2: They found her body floating in the Arizona Canal near
20:32
Speaker 2: an interstate overpass about a mile and a half from
20:35
Speaker 2: where they found Angela's Angela Brossos remains ten months earlier. Now,
20:40
Speaker 2: in this case, she was not decapitated, but her bike
20:43
Speaker 2: was missing. So if he took the time to decapitate
20:47
Speaker 2: his first victim, do you think he either learned that
20:50
Speaker 2: that was a really difficult thing to do and to
20:52
Speaker 2: not do it again, or he was interrupted in the process.
20:56
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that what you've got is you've got
20:58
Speaker 1: a there is you and they talk about this with
21:01
Speaker 1: Cereal perpetrators. You've got kind of a learning curve that
21:04
Speaker 1: goes on in a comfort level. They decide what they're
21:06
Speaker 1: going to do. And there were so many stab wounds
21:09
Speaker 1: on her body that they couldn't count them. And I've
21:12
Speaker 1: had this happen before as an investigator, where you have
21:17
Speaker 1: multiple wounds where they will be communicating wounds, which means
21:21
Speaker 1: that one wound attaches or connects to another and you
21:25
Speaker 1: can't really make heads or tails off it. You're fighting
21:27
Speaker 1: against the idea that this is so horrific, and there
21:31
Speaker 1: might be some level of decomposition that's going on where
21:33
Speaker 1: it's hard to kind of separate one from another. But
21:38
Speaker 1: when you look at this precious seventeen year old girl,
21:42
Speaker 1: something different happened with her because when her remains were
21:48
Speaker 1: actually found, and I don't know how many people really
21:52
Speaker 1: know about this, a knife had been used to carve
21:55
Speaker 1: across into her chest. And not only had that occurred,
22:01
Speaker 1: but the initials WSC were carved into our body as well,
22:07
Speaker 1: and the police were never able to determine what WSC
22:13
Speaker 1: stood for. And I think that when you find something
22:15
Speaker 1: like that at a scene, you're so compelled to go
22:18
Speaker 1: down that path. What kind of pattern can I recognize here?
22:22
Speaker 1: And it goes beyond just our physical assessment as to
22:25
Speaker 1: what kind of tool was used or how long did
22:28
Speaker 1: it take, how deep were the wounds, which is certainly
22:30
Speaker 1: something where they've done post mortem or anti mortem, you know,
22:33
Speaker 1: like in an individual being tortured, But it also goes
22:37
Speaker 1: to kind of forensically breaking down things like handwriting, for instance,
22:43
Speaker 1: and are there any commonalities in that location. Who's on
22:47
Speaker 1: my witness list here that might have a commonality with
22:49
Speaker 1: the letters WSC because that's a very specific marker. You
22:54
Speaker 1: scratch your head over it, so and it's very easy
22:57
Speaker 1: to get caught up in that. But sometimes it turns
23:00
Speaker 1: up to be a red herring. The sheer horror that
23:22
Speaker 1: kind of inhabits the minds of those that may have
23:26
Speaker 1: lived in close proximity to the Arizona Canal Man, there's
23:31
Speaker 1: no more peace to be found. And with Miller, this
23:36
Speaker 1: case remained unresolved for decades. Dave.
23:41
Speaker 2: When you sent me this story to look at, my
23:45
Speaker 2: first thought was, you're going to tell me that two
23:48
Speaker 2: women die under very similar circumstances and police are able
23:52
Speaker 2: to very early tell that the same attacker was involved
23:56
Speaker 2: in both, But they don't have a suspect, they don't
23:59
Speaker 2: have a us back. You know that the person did both.
24:02
Speaker 2: You've got a general geography geographically speaking, they're a mile
24:06
Speaker 2: and a half from one another in the same area.
24:08
Speaker 2: And it just was shocking. And that's why I pointed
24:10
Speaker 2: out that the detectives, those people on scene that collected evidence,
24:15
Speaker 2: they really did their job. But now again it sat
24:19
Speaker 2: there for decades unsolved, with people wondering did the guy
24:23
Speaker 2: move on? Is he in jail or is he out
24:27
Speaker 2: there waiting and just getting away with stuff or not
24:29
Speaker 2: hearing about it. But we now know that when Brian
24:32
Speaker 2: Patrick Miller was sixteen years old, this is may of
24:35
Speaker 2: eighty nine, couple of years before the first murder took place,
24:38
Speaker 2: he stabbed a twenty four year old woman. They were
24:41
Speaker 2: riding a bus together, didn't know one another, had never
24:44
Speaker 2: met before. They get at the Paradise Valley Mall they're
24:47
Speaker 2: in Phoenix, and he stabs her in the back. He's charged,
24:52
Speaker 2: but he's a juvenile. He was convicted of aggravated assault
24:55
Speaker 2: and he was imprisoned at Adobe Mountain Juvenile Correctional Facility.
25:00
Speaker 2: While he was there, he became involved with a pastor
25:04
Speaker 2: who worked with the Paradise Valley Mennonite Church, and they
25:07
Speaker 2: had a prison ministry, loving on young people who had
25:10
Speaker 2: committed Hainu's crimes, trying to show them that there's more
25:14
Speaker 2: to life than what you've done. Anyway, Miller becomes involved
25:17
Speaker 2: with the church and becomes deeply involved with the church.
25:21
Speaker 2: After he is released from this juvenile facility, because at eighteen,
25:26
Speaker 2: he's no longer a juvenile. To go to release him
25:28
Speaker 2: in Joe, his mother rejects him. His mother will not
25:30
Speaker 2: take him. She no, you're not coming back. They had
25:33
Speaker 2: a bad relationship before, but she won't even take him back,
25:37
Speaker 2: and so the church they took him in and he
25:40
Speaker 2: lived with a number of different members in the church.
25:42
Speaker 2: So think about this. We're talking about this young person
25:46
Speaker 2: going to juvenile for stabbing a woman he didn't know.
25:49
Speaker 2: He gets out, his mother says she can't be with me.
25:52
Speaker 2: He kind of gets fostered out. Now he's supposedly an adult.
25:55
Speaker 2: In May of nineteen ninety two, he's baptized in the church,
25:58
Speaker 2: baptized in the church, and then what one hundred and
26:02
Speaker 2: twenty days later he kills a woman.
26:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, give me that dated chain.
26:08
Speaker 2: He actually was baptized in May of ninety two and
26:14
Speaker 2: then commits his first well, the first murder we know about, okay,
26:17
Speaker 2: happens in September of nineteen ninety and that's where pe
26:22
Speaker 2: do think that maybe the cross came into play. I
26:25
Speaker 2: don't know. I'm just throwing it out there, but we
26:28
Speaker 2: don't know. The only things we know are the things
26:31
Speaker 2: that we have heard about. I have a real deep
26:34
Speaker 2: feeling that there's a lot more that we need to
26:37
Speaker 2: find out about Brian Patrick Miller. But just starting with
26:40
Speaker 2: these two, I have questions about the deaths of both
26:43
Speaker 2: the women that he actually went to Courtover and how
26:46
Speaker 2: a how come they couldn't solve this sooner? And b
26:50
Speaker 2: how did they after years? Cases called Joe? How do
26:55
Speaker 2: they solve a case? They have all the evidence collected
26:58
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety two and ninety three. It's not like
27:00
Speaker 2: there's any more new evidence popping up at the crime scene.
27:03
Speaker 2: What was the difference between then and twenty fifteen when
27:07
Speaker 2: they were able to make an arrest.
27:08
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's a matter, and as frustrating as this is,
27:12
Speaker 1: you have to wait for the technology to catch up.
27:15
Speaker 1: And this can be applied in a lot of It's
27:17
Speaker 1: not just limited to DNA. There are a lot of
27:20
Speaker 1: other areas where in science where we've had to allow
27:24
Speaker 1: technology to get us to the point where we can
27:26
Speaker 1: explore new things and try to understand. You might suspect
27:30
Speaker 1: that there is something there. You've got these two young women,
27:33
Speaker 1: as you say, that are connected geographically, so you know
27:38
Speaker 1: you're fitting into a particular geographic profile. And then you've
27:41
Speaker 1: got methodology that you have to look at. You've got
27:43
Speaker 1: somebody that has a real interest in edged weapons here
27:49
Speaker 1: that go to you know, we talked about the first
27:51
Speaker 1: victim where it seemed kind of frenzied, and I'm not
27:54
Speaker 1: talking about the young lady that he stabbed on the bus.
27:58
Speaker 1: But I am talking about the frenzied attack that you
28:02
Speaker 1: have with the first victim, and then you move on
28:05
Speaker 1: to the next victim, where the individual is taking their time,
28:09
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, taking their time to the
28:11
Speaker 1: point where they're using an edged weapon to carve an
28:14
Speaker 1: image of a cross as you mentioned, and also initials
28:18
Speaker 1: into the body. You're on a completely different wavelength at
28:22
Speaker 1: that point in time, and so you have all of
28:25
Speaker 1: that connection. Here's my thing. If you've got somebody that
28:29
Speaker 1: would be so bold in order to perpetrate these kinds
28:32
Speaker 1: of crimes, and you look back in time and see
28:35
Speaker 1: his attack on this woman on the bus, you think
28:38
Speaker 1: other victims out there. I think any right thinking person
28:41
Speaker 1: would have to ask that question, is there anybody else
28:45
Speaker 1: out there that they have not connected to him yet?
28:50
Speaker 1: So the crux of this is the fact it was
28:53
Speaker 1: actually forensic genealogy that got this case solved, and in particular,
28:57
Speaker 1: I think probably historically, when we look at the history
29:01
Speaker 1: of forensic science and where we are right now have
29:04
Speaker 1: to wait for technology to catch up. Probably one of
29:06
Speaker 1: the giants in this field, Colleen Fitzpatrick, she lent a
29:10
Speaker 1: hand in this case because the police, they know intuitively,
29:15
Speaker 1: you know that you got something here, just can't seem
29:19
Speaker 1: to put the pieces back. And it just so happened
29:23
Speaker 1: that Colleen Fitzpatrick, who is in fact a forensic scientist
29:27
Speaker 1: that involves herself in forensic genealogy, that works with She's
29:33
Speaker 1: actually got a background in physics of all things, which
29:37
Speaker 1: is completely different than forensic genealogy, but it requires kind
29:42
Speaker 1: of a methodical approach to things. She was able to
29:47
Speaker 1: narrow the suspect field down based upon that evidence that
29:51
Speaker 1: they had collected all those many years ago.
29:54
Speaker 2: Dave, when I was looking at this, there was an
29:57
Speaker 2: interesting moment that took place because it was a very
30:01
Speaker 2: cold case and the detectives ended up going to a conference.
30:07
Speaker 2: It's at this exact same conference Colleen Fitzpatrick and they
30:13
Speaker 2: connected and said can we send you some infook? Can
30:16
Speaker 2: we send you this? We've got some DNA? Can you help?
30:19
Speaker 2: And Jesus that I'll try, And that's I mean happenstance, Dude.
30:21
Speaker 2: They were at the conference. A was in Phoenix, So
30:24
Speaker 2: if this conference had taken place anywhere other than Phoenix,
30:27
Speaker 2: they wouldn't have been there.
30:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, and life is that way, and sometimes it happens
30:31
Speaker 1: that way. And it just so happened that the lives
30:33
Speaker 1: of these investigators that had to sing hanging on their
30:37
Speaker 1: on their books for a long time, that had remained
30:40
Speaker 1: it wasn't cold to them. You know, people just kind
30:43
Speaker 1: of randomly throw out that term cold case. Many times.
30:46
Speaker 2: I apologize that was really wrong for me to say,
30:48
Speaker 2: because they were working it.
30:49
Speaker 1: No, I think a lot of people do. It is cold,
30:52
Speaker 1: maybe tepid, but it's still in your mind as an investigator,
30:57
Speaker 1: it's there. You're thinking about it, and it's it's very hard,
31:00
Speaker 1: I think, in the memory of an organization like a
31:04
Speaker 1: police department to forget cases like this where you've got
31:08
Speaker 1: a decapitation, you've got bodies that have had let's face
31:12
Speaker 1: at words, images that are carved into them, and you
31:16
Speaker 1: don't want to forget that because it kind of stands out.
31:19
Speaker 1: And just as I spoke just a moment ago, for
31:22
Speaker 1: people involved in a case like this, you're thinking, look,
31:26
Speaker 1: this is happening here geographically, we have a profile, but
31:29
Speaker 1: has this extended out any further? Is this occurring anywhere?
31:33
Speaker 1: And many people in the populace believe that, Well, if
31:37
Speaker 1: I have captured DNA at a scene, automatically, it's going
31:41
Speaker 1: to be solved. Well, here's the problem the rub as
31:44
Speaker 1: they say, it's like a latent print. You can grab
31:48
Speaker 1: as many latent prints at a scene that you want,
31:51
Speaker 1: but if you don't have anything to compare it to,
31:54
Speaker 1: it ain't worth a gunpowder to blow it to hell.
31:56
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing with DNA sample. If you
31:59
Speaker 1: don't have anything to compare it to. He got a problem.
32:03
Speaker 1: And there's two separate categories of DNA. You have what's
32:07
Speaker 1: referred to as a forensic DNA database, which means you've
32:12
Speaker 1: got cases that are open out there. We've got a
32:15
Speaker 1: DNA sample, we don't have a profile. And you have
32:17
Speaker 1: known you have known offenders that have tie backs and
32:22
Speaker 1: they've gotten samples on individuals say that are sex offenders
32:25
Speaker 1: where they've taken samples, they've married those up to items
32:28
Speaker 1: that they've collected, it seems, and they know those individuals.
32:32
Speaker 1: The problem is is that with these two cases in Phoenix,
32:35
Speaker 1: you know, they didn't have anybody compare it to. And
32:37
Speaker 1: so that's where Colleen Fitzpatrick comes in. You know, this
32:41
Speaker 1: person that's trained as a physicist, which is amazing to me,
32:44
Speaker 1: but she has a true passion for forensic genealogy. She's
32:49
Speaker 1: able to narrow the scope now and that's you know,
32:53
Speaker 1: all roads lead back to Miller in this case, Dave.
32:57
Speaker 2: And that was the part that really got me when
33:00
Speaker 2: we were looking at this Joe and again mentioning the
33:04
Speaker 2: fact that it had been so many years and she
33:06
Speaker 2: is able to from October of twenty fourteen to December
33:10
Speaker 2: two months time, emailing back and forth. This information finally
33:14
Speaker 2: came out during court proceedings, but their emails indicating that
33:19
Speaker 2: police were providing information and she was providing it back
33:21
Speaker 2: and forth as they communicated, and she was able to
33:24
Speaker 2: narrow it down. And it wasn't just a matter of
33:27
Speaker 2: getting the last name, it was getting the geographical location
33:30
Speaker 2: and everything else. And the police wisely pointed out, well,
33:34
Speaker 2: he was a part of our large group of potential suspects,
33:38
Speaker 2: but we didn't have a way to narrow him down
33:40
Speaker 2: because you don't have his DNA. You've only got the
33:43
Speaker 2: DNA of person who committed the crimes. You don't have
33:46
Speaker 2: anybody compared it to. That's where she comes in, and
33:49
Speaker 2: she did, and it was just it's still as remarkable
33:51
Speaker 2: to me what she was capable of doing, Joe. There
33:54
Speaker 2: are other indicators that maybe Miller never stopped stabbing women,
34:01
Speaker 2: never stopped surprising them. We've got evidence that, you know,
34:05
Speaker 2: he did a number of things prior to the you know,
34:08
Speaker 2: as we mentioned, we had the sixteen when he's sixteen,
34:11
Speaker 2: stabbing a woman getting off a bus. He did leave
34:13
Speaker 2: Arizona for a while and went to Washington State, and
34:16
Speaker 2: we've got some cases there. I don't think this is
34:19
Speaker 2: the end of the story for Brian Patrick Miller.
34:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's terrifying on many many levels. But let me
34:26
Speaker 1: throw a little beam of sunlight in here. Now, they've
34:28
Speaker 1: got an evidence trail, and if there are other cases
34:31
Speaker 1: that are out there, you can bet your bottom dollar
34:34
Speaker 1: that they're going to look at him to see if
34:36
Speaker 1: he's connected to anything that has happened in that corridor
34:40
Speaker 1: on the West coast. Perhaps maybe he's connected to other things.
34:44
Speaker 1: And look, there are cases out there, Dave, he could
34:49
Speaker 1: and you can say this about anything, you know, anybody
34:51
Speaker 1: could be connected to it. But he maybe it fits
34:54
Speaker 1: some kind of pattern relative to sharp force injuries, geographic
34:58
Speaker 1: familiarity type al when it comes to the victims, they
35:02
Speaker 1: look a particular way if they like riding bikes, for instance,
35:06
Speaker 1: or if they're in a defenseless position where the area
35:10
Speaker 1: has been scouted out. Sometimes with these cases you're not
35:14
Speaker 1: going to have a sufficient DNA sample. Maybe there could
35:18
Speaker 1: be cases where women have been attacked and cut up
35:22
Speaker 1: where the fantasy didn't involve completion of the sexual act.
35:27
Speaker 1: Where you have an individual that's engaging in just a
35:30
Speaker 1: straight up necrophilic event where he's having an intercourse with
35:33
Speaker 1: the deceased. Maybe he's gotten a little bit wiser at
35:37
Speaker 1: this point in time. Remember how we talked about the
35:39
Speaker 1: first victim. Here, this young lady was about to turn
35:42
Speaker 1: twenty two years old, and you have the frenzied attack.
35:46
Speaker 1: There is a learning curve, and you can see with
35:48
Speaker 1: this precious seventeen year old how it changed over that
35:52
Speaker 1: period of time. And I think that that's very telling.
35:56
Speaker 1: You never know, maybe he'll be attached to some cases
36:00
Speaker 1: that might be out there. I do know this, Brian
36:04
Speaker 1: Patrick Miller has been convicted and he's now been sentenced
36:09
Speaker 1: to death in Arizona. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this
36:18
Speaker 1: is body Bags