How an undercover sting at a Phoenix Chili’s restaurant led to the capture of Bryan Patrick Miller, the canal killer

Cold Case detective, Clark Schwartzkopf, worked a double murder affair in the early 1990s and organized himself to meet a person of interest in a restaurant in Chile in Phoenix, Arizona. The idea was to obtain the DNA of the possible suspect so that the medical-legal investigators could determine if he corresponded to the male DNA found on the bodies of the two female victims, Angela Brosso and Melanie Bernas.

These unresolved murders had become known as the murders of the canal because the two women were attacked when taking bicycle walks along the distinctive canals of the city.

It was January 2, 2015, and Schwartzkopf met a guy named Bryan Patrick Miller. The detective had learned that Miller was somehow a local celebrity. He liked to attend popular zombie walks and other Phoenix festivals disguised as a character known as Hunter Zombie, And the fans and the police posed with him.

When he was of character, Miller wore a homemade suit with glasses and a threatening mask and wore a false Gatling pistol. He also led and deceived an old police car from Crown Victoria, splashed with false blood and put the name Zombie Hunter on the back. He also often put a macabre model on the rear seat behind the bars.

The day they met for dinner, Miller had led his distinctive car to that of the Chile. It certainly attracted the attention of Schwartkopf, but the detective still did not believe that Bryan Miller was the killer of the channel. One of the reasons for which he was a potential suspect was that a genetic genealogist had equaled the name Miller to the DNA of the crime scene.

But Schwartzkopf remained skeptical about the fact that this 42 -year -old divorced father raising a teenage girl alone and working in an Amazon warehouse could be the killer.

Schwartzkopf told “48 hours”, the correspondent Peter Van Sant, whom he essentially wanted to cross this miller on his list. “I was really more likely to get his DNA,” said Schwartzkopf, “erase it and the opinion because my conversation with him was the last person I thought was responsible for this. He was in sweet ways.”

Van Sant reports on the case in “Unmasking the zombie hunter”.

The detective doubts were reinforced by observing the way Bryan Miller treated his teenage daughter whom he had brought for the meal at Chile. “He had a good connection with his daughter.”

Van Sant asked: “Was he physically imposing? He looked like a guy who could dominate people?”

The canal killer had set an ambush in Brosso and Bernas when they were each on night bicycle walks. In one way or another, the killer had arrested them, then stabbed and assaulted them sexually. The murders were particularly vicious and Brosso had been beheaded.

“He’s a bigger guy, but he’s softer,” said the detective. “Big enough for where he could certainly master women, but not someone you are really afraid of in the street.”

Schwartzkopf had arranged to sit in a calm section of Chile. The infiltrated detectives looked at the workers withdraw silverware and dishwasher plates, then detectives placed them on the table to ensure that they would not be contaminated, said Schwartzkopf “48 hours”.

Miller ordered a hamburger and a glass of water. “He swallows his hamburger, in the bites like five bites, said Schwartzkopf.” Will not have a glass of water. And I’m sitting there, “Are you sure you … I don’t want … something else drink?” You just took water. “No, no, I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.” “”

But then, in the relief of Schwartkopf, Miller finally took a sip of water: “It was then that I knew it, OK, now we have at least its DNA.”

As soon as Miller came out, infiltrated detectives have secured the glass that Miller had used. Miller then gave Schwartzkopf a quick visit to his zombie hunter car before departure.

Eleven days later, the detective received a visit from the head of the forensic laboratory. Schwartzkopf told Van Sant what had happened. “She leans towards me,” she said: “It’s him. “I’m going to ‘what?’ She says: “Bryan Miller, it’s him.” … Well, the blood rushed to my head.

Miller was arrested immediately and denied having killed someone. The case took almost eight years at be judgedbut Miller was sentenced to kill Brosso and Bernas and Received the death penalty in June 2023.

Under the Arizona law, Miller will receive an automatic call.