Melanie Bernas and Angela Brosso.Photo:Phoenix Police Department (2)
Phoenix Police Department (2)
A Phoenix man known as the “Zombie Hunter” was sentenced to death Wednesday for the murders of two women who were attacked while biking along a canal in the ’90s.
“The defendant did not just murder them,” Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Suzanne Cohen said in sentencing 50-year-old Miller, according toCBS News. “He brutalized them. And he evaded capture for over 20 years. "
Amanda Martin, the capital unit attorney supervisor with the Maricopa County public defender’s office, said the team defending Miller was disappointed with the judge’s death ruling.
“They are very disappointed but plan to continue their fight to save Bryan’s life,” she tells PEOPLE.
Angela Brosso was attacked on Nov. 8, 1992, while biking along a Phoenix canal. Her decapitated remains were found in a field the following day on what would have been her 22nd birthday. Her head was discovered in the Arizona Canal more than a week later, theArizona Republicreported.
“The defendant stole my angel from the Earth,” Brosso’s mother Linda said in a Phoenix courtroom, CBS News reports. “Angela was my one and only. I will never be able to plan her wedding. I will never have grandchildren. With his actions on that night, he murdered my angel, he ripped my heart, and I will never, ever be the same.”
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Less than a year later, on September 21, 1993, high school junior Melanie Bernas’ mutilated body was discovered in the Arizona Canal about a mile and a half away from where Brosso was found. According to the Republic, Bernas was sexually assaulted and her killer carved a cross into her chest.
“Words cannot begin to explain the level of excruciating pain we experience every single day since her murder,” Bernas’ older sister Jill Canetta said, CBS News reports. “We live without her smile, her hugs, her companionship. We live without her love.”
Bryan Patrick Miller.Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office via AP
Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office via AP
He was found guilty in April of this year.
source: people.com
