Bryan Patrick Miller sentenced to death – A 50-year-old man in Arizona known as the “Zombie Killer” has been sentenced to die for kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and killing two young women in the early nineties, one of whom he even decapitated. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Suzanne Cohen on Wednesday ordered Bryan Patrick Miller to be executed by the state for the horrific slayings of 22-year-old Angela Brosso and 17-year-old Melanie Bernas, authorities announced.
Angela Brosso, Bryan Patrick Miller, and Melanie Bernas (Phoenix Police Dept.)Bryan Patrick Miller sentenced to death
Judge Cohen handed down two death sentences — one for each count of first-degree murder — as well as an additional 24 years in prison for two counts each of kidnapping and attempted sexual assault in connection with the attacks.
Prior to announcing Miller’s sentence, Cohen described the “heinousness and depravity” of the killings as “beyond the pale,” the Arizona Republic reported.
“The defendant did not just murder them. He brutalized them. And he evaded capture for over 20 years,” she reportedly said as she handed down her ruling. “There is no question that what the defendant did deserves the death penalty.”
According to a press release from the Maricopa County District Attorney’s Office, Brosso on Nov. 8, 1992, went out for a bike ride along a canal in Phoenix but never returned home. As local authorities were about to launch a search for the missing teen, her decapitated body — which was nearly severed in half at the torso — was discovered in the area near 25th Avenue and Cactus Road. Her head — which was not in the same location as the body — was not located for another 11 days, when it was found in the Arizona Canal. She was sexually assaulted post-mortem, the Arizona Republic reported.
Bernas, a student at Arcadia High School, was murdered in September 1993. She was also on a bike read near the canal when Miller attacked, sexually assaulted, and killed her with a knife. Her body was found floating in the Arizona Canal near an interstate overpass, about 1.5 miles from where Brosso’s body was discovered.
In a statement following Wednesday’s hearing, County Attorney Rachel Mitchell described what happened to Brosso and Bernas as “horrific crimes,” but said she hoped that the sentence handed down would “bring a measure of peace to the families of these two young women.”
