Arizona serial killer ‘Zombie Hunter’ sentenced to die via lethal injection

Article content

The ‘Zombie Hunter’ has been sentenced to die in excruciating agony strapped to a gurney for the horrific murders of two young women in the 1990s.

Article content

Time finally caught up to Bryan Patrick Miller – aka the self-described ‘Zombie Hunter.’ And he will pay for his crimes with his life.

Article content

An Arizona judge sentenced the 50-year-old to death for the brutal sex slayings of Angela Brosso, 22, and Melanie Bernas, 17, in Phoenix.

“The defendant did not just murder them. He brutalized them. And he evaded capture for over 20 years,” Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Suzanne Cohen said in condemning Miller to death.

“There is no question that what the defendant did deserves the death penalty.”

The attacks took place along a canal system in Phoenix in the early 1990s and mystified detectives for decades. The two women had been biking when the Zombie Hunter struck.

The victims were also raped, possibly post-mortem, detectives testified.

Article content

Article content

According to cops, Brosso had recently moved to Phoenix when she was attacked, stabbed multiple times and beheaded in November 1992. Friends said she was on a pre-birthday jaunt on her recently tuned purple mountain bike.

She had also been nearly cut in half at the waist the attack was so savage, a forensics expert said. There were too many stab wounds to count.

Brosso’s body was discovered the next morning. Her head was located 11 days after in a canal grate more than a mile and a half away from the crime scene.

Ten months later the killer struck again.

Passersby on their morning stroll were shocked to discover a female floating in the canal. She had been stabbed multiple times.

Melanie Barnes was supposed to be home sick from school. Instead she went for a bike ride in September 1993 along the canal and in a cruel twist of fate encountered the evil Miller.

Article content

Barnes had been stabbed deeply in the back with the fatal blow severing her aorta and piercing her lung. And in a macabre twist, the killer carved a cross into the teen’s chest alongside the mysterious initials “WSC.”

Their meaning was never made clear.

After Barnes body was discovered, the city of Phoenix was living in terror, fearful that a new serial killer was preying upon its young women.

Then the murders stopped and the perplexing case went ice cold for 22 long years.

In January 2015, the modern detective’s Rx — DNA — managed to link semen found at both crime scenes to Miller.

It was Miller himself who coined his chilling name “Zombie Hunter.” The name came from the converted police car parked in his driveway. He had splattered the old cruiser with fake blood.

Article content

Kids in his neighbourhood loved it and even his Facebook account was named “Arizona Zombie Hunter.”

But time and detectives were closing in on the killer. According to cops, investigators used a bogus job interview to lure Miller into their web.

They got his DNA from a cola can he sipped from during the bogus interview. Tests revealed Miller was the killer.

RECOMMENDED VIDEO

Miller’s bench trial kicked off last October and the judge convicted him in April of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping and two counts of attempted sexual assault. On Wednesday, she sentenced him to die.

His legal team had argued that Miller endured a brutal, violent childhood and that alone warranted a life sentence instead of death. They also argued that the killer was not guilty by reason of insanity.

None of that will matter on Arizona’s death row as the clock runs down on the Zombie Hunter’s life.

bhunter@postmedia.com

@HunterTOSun

Article content