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Thread: Bryan Patrick Miller - Arizona Death Row

  1. #21
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    Victim describes 1989 ‘Zombie Hunter’ stabbing attack during trial

    By Morgan Lowe and Brianna Whitley
    3TV/CBS 5 News

    PHOENIX -- Celeste Bentley sat at the witness stand and told the story of what happened to her in the parking lot of the Paradise Valley mall 33 years ago. In doing so, she helped prosecutors build a case that Bryan Patrick Miller, known by Phoenix sci-fi fans as the Zombie Hunter, had a pattern of attacking young women.

    “I noticed there was somebody walking behind me,” said Bentley in the courtroom as Miller sat, looking down at his notes, just 30 feet away at the defendant’s table in courtroom 5B of the Maricopa County Superior Court.

    Miller is on trial for the 1992 murder of Angela Brosso and the 1993 murder of Melanie Bernas. The two killings become known as the Phoenix Canal Murders. But three years before they took place, Miller was arrested and convicted of attacking Bentley.

    Bentley had taken the city bus to the mall, where she worked. It was 8 a.m., and Bentley said she had noticed that Miller followed her as she exited the bus. “All of a sudden, someone hit me in the back,” said Bentley, who did not immediately realize she had been stabbed. She said Miller ran past her after he had struck her.

    “When I reached back, I grabbed my back and then pulled my hand in front of me, because it was wet. And I looked and I saw the blood. And I had known that he had stabbed me,” she said. “I just started screaming and running towards my work.”

    Bentley’s coworkers called police. However, before she was taken away in an ambulance, police had already caught Miller, and she had identified him as her attacker. Miller eventually served one year in a juvenile detention facility for the attack.

    Miller was not arrested for the Bernas and Brosso murders until 2015, when detectives matched his DNA to ones left at the crime scenes. The trial is set to resume in late October after a two-week break.

    https://www.azfamily.com/2022/10/12/...-during-trial/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  2. #22
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    Accused canal killer's friend said he recognized turquoise bodysuit found on murdered teen

    By Lane Sainty
    Arizona Republic

    When the body of high school student Melanie Bernas was found in the Arizona Canal on Sept. 22, 1993, she was dressed in a turquoise bodysuit.

    Prosecutors believe the teenager's killer dressed her in it after murdering her. Bernas's mother didn't think her daughter owned anything like it.

    But when Randy McGlade saw a picture of the bodysuit in The Arizona Republic a few months later, in 1994, the Phoenix man recognized it right away, he told the court Thursday.

    At the time, McGlade testified, he lived in central Phoenix with a friend he had met through work, a man named Bryan Miller.

    He had seen the bodysuit among Miller’s belongings, McGlade said.

    Miller is accused of murdering and attempting to sexually assault Bernas and another young woman, Angela Brosso, who was found beheaded in November 1992. Both women are believed to have been cycling along Phoenix canals in the evening hours when they were attacked.

    The two murders, 10 months apart, were linked by forensic evidence, but police struggled to find a suspect. The case went cold for two decades before a DNA breakthrough led to Miller’s arrest in 2015.

    His bench trial in the Maricopa County Superior Court resumed Thursday after a scheduled two-week break. Miller has pleaded not guilty on the basis of insanity. The state is seeking the death penalty.

    'Weren't you out there that night?'

    McGlade told the court he still regarded Miller as a great friend. They met in late 1992 and become roommates in the summer of 1993.

    Miller initially came across as shy and socially awkward, McGlade said. He took a while to open up, but the pair eventually grew close. Miller was even welcomed at McGlade family gatherings and holidays.

    McGlade estimated he saw the bodysuit among Miller’s things in about August 1993, the month before Bernas was killed.

    He said he mentioned the murder to Miller after seeing it on the news.

    “I was kind of, more like, joking, saying 'Weren’t you out there that night?'” McGlade said. “His response was that he was riding on the east side of town that night.”

    Bernas’s body was found in the canal near the Metrocenter mall, by Interstate 17 and Dunlap Avenue.

    When he saw the picture of the bodysuit in the paper, McGlade said, it made him think back to the night she was killed. He remembered Miller had gone out that evening, but couldn’t recall the precise timing or what Miller was wearing, only that nothing seemed unusual.

    Earlier in the trial, testimony revealed that Phoenix Police received a tip in 1994 naming Miller in relation to the turquoise bodysuit. It wasn't suggested to McGlade that he had called in the tip, and earlier in the trial, during a discussion on the admissibility of DNA evidence, prosecutors said it had not come from someone with direct knowledge of the connection, but rather a third person who had heard about it.

    McGlade said he and Miller regularly rode together, sometimes along the Arizona Canal, and had ridden as far west as Metrocenter a few times.

    He had seen Miller carry a hunting knife in one of the bags he took out cycling, he said, and once joked with Miller: “Don’t stab anyone while you’re out.”

    Later on the day he made that comment, McGlade said, he found the hunting knife in his car.

    Defense hinges on mental health issues

    McGlade agreed with defense attorney Richard Parker that Miller had an issue with knives because they brought back “painful memories” of being threatened by his mother as a child. Among the taunts was a threat to cut off Miller’s penis.

    Miller's insanity defense rests on twin diagnoses of complex dissociative disorders and autism spectrum disorder at the time of the murders.

    Miller was severely abused as a child by his mother and began to dissociate as a coping mechanism, his attorney Denise Dees said in her opening statement. He has "no access," she added, to what happened the evenings Bernas and Brosso were killed.

    On Thursday, the court was shown a home video shot by McGlade showing Miller on a whale-watching tour in Washington state, interacting with his then-wife and young daughter as they were buffeted by the wind on a boat.

    When he brought up the trip with Miller some time later, McGlade said, his friend had no recollection of it whatsoever. Even after watching the video, Miller told McGlade he still couldn't remember it.

    On other occasions, McGlade said, he has had conversations with Miller when it "seems like he's not there." He was aware Miller could get very anxious and that he had experienced suicidal thoughts in periods of high emotion or distress in the past.

    Later in their friendship, McGlade observed Miller accumulating large amounts of stuff, such as boxes of Hot Wheels cars and other collectibles, which was difficult to watch, he said. Police described Miller's home as a "hoarder house" when they searched it in 2015.

    McGlade said the Miller he knew could be emotionally immature, but was not confrontational or aggressive. He was at heart a peaceful guy, a people pleaser who did his best as a father, albeit with little means.

    “Do you say that still to this day Bryan’s a great friend?” Parker asked.

    “Yes,” McGlade replied.

    “And that he has a great heart?”

    “Yes.”

    https://www.yahoo.com/now/accused-ca...001646147.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  3. #23
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    ‘Zombie Hunter’ trial reveals Miller’s voice for the first time in interrogation video

    By Brianna Whitney
    3TV/CBS 5 News

    PHOENIX — For the first time, we’re hearing the voice of the man known as the “Zombie Hunter.” Bryan Patrick Miller is on trial for the “Phoenix Canal Murders” of two women in the 1990s. In court Thursday, they played hours of his interrogation tape from 2015 after he was arrested for the crimes.

    What stands out here is Miller’s flat-out denial of killing these girls during this interrogation, yet his defense team has already conceded that he committed these crimes; he was just insane at the time. The video is something the judge will likely take into major consideration when it comes to deciding a verdict.

    “How can you explain to me that your DNA is there?” the officer asked in the recording. “I can’t. I can’t remember everything I did back then, but I know I didn’t kill anyone,” Miller replied.

    Decades later, officials matched his DNA to DNA at both crime scenes, and evidence of sexual assault with both girls. “I’ve never killed anyone. You know, when I was a teenager, I stabbed that woman. That haunted me for years,” Miller said.

    He’s referring to an incident when he stabbed a woman near the Paradise Valley mall years before Angela Brosso and Melanie Bernas were killed. He told the officer in this video he blacked out when he did that. The officer asks about that possibility with Angela and Melanie. “Is it possible you could have blacked out and could have done something like that to somebody and not recalled?” the officer asked. “No, because I knew I had done something when that happened. And I used to remember her name,” Miller replied.

    Miller refers to not knowing Angela or Melanie’s names. The officer said knowing their names doesn’t matter, but Miller leans further into that. “I think the hard part for me to believe is that my semen was with someone, well two people, that are dead,” he said.

    “That’s pretty strong evidence. That places you with these women. And you can’t explain that?” the officer asked. “I don’t even recall. I don’t know their names,” he said.

    The officer says Miller’s ex-wife told them sex involving bondage would get out of hand and that Miller’s mom provided them with a “sexual diary” Miller wrote, both of which show a tendency toward violence, but Miller says it was all consensual. He does talk about his “Zombie Hunter” character that many saw around town. “I wore a gas mask and had a nerf gun, and I think I wore a trench coat. If you’ve been cyberstalking me, you’ve seen the costume,” said Miller.

    The officer kept bringing the conversation back to his DNA at the crime scenes, though, and asked Miller if he understood what DNA was. “DNA can be in semen, blood, saliva, it makes up our – you know – it’s our ID, it tells our body what hair color we have, what eye color we have,” he said.

    “I don’t know what happened,” Miller said later in the tape. “You have to know what happened because your semen was there. The only person that does know is you,” the officers said.

    At one point Thursday, the defense attorney tried to call for a mistrial because some of the interrogation video that was supposed to be redacted was not. But since there is no jury and it’s only a judge who decides Miller’s fate, she said that was declined and this trial will continue. It is a death penalty case.

    https://www.azfamily.com/2022/11/04/...ogation-video/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  4. #24
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    Defendant in 'canal killings' assaulted a girl in anger toward his mother, retired pastor says

    By Lane Sainty
    Arizona Republic

    Bryan Miller, charged with murdering two young women found in or near Phoenix canals in the early 1990s, was imprisoned as a teenager for stabbing a third young woman at Paradise Valley Mall.

    After his release, he told a Mennonite pastor that he attacked the young woman because he thought she was his mother, according to testimony in Maricopa County Superior Court Thursday.

    "He was very, very angry about his mother. How she had treated him," Menno Yoder, the pastor, testified.

    "He thought he saw his mother and he attacked her but it was not his mother. And so he was incarcerated because of that."

    The state is seeking the death penalty against Miller for the murder and attempted sexual assault of Angela Brosso in November 1992 and Melanie Bernas in September 1992.

    The deaths of Brosso, who was 21 when she died, and Bernas, who was 17, went unsolved for decades before a DNA breakthrough led to Miller's arrest in 2015.

    The single father, 50, has pleaded not guilty for reasons of insanity. His attorneys say his twin diagnoses — complex dissociative disorders caused by trauma inflicted by his abusive mother, and autism spectrum disorder — mean he did not understand his actions at the time of the murders.

    The trial started Oct. 3 and is expected to continue into 2023.

    Miller joined a church after assault conviction

    In May 1989, when Miller was 16, he stabbed a 24-year-old woman after they both disembarked a bus at Paradise Valley Mall. Authorities said he had never met her before that day.

    He was convicted of aggravated assault and imprisoned at the Adobe Mountain juvenile correctional facility.

    That was where he met Yoder, who at the time was working with incarcerated youth in his capacity as the pastor of Paradise Valley Mennonite Church.

    Miller became involved with the church over the next couple of years, Yoder said, and was baptized in May 1992, six months before Brosso was murdered.

    The retired pastor said when he first met Miller in custody, the teenager was “very soft and quiet and always in the background."

    When he was released around age 18, his mother would not take him in and he had nowhere to go, Yoder said.

    Miller initially lived with a church member, and then moved into an apartment rent-free as part of a program for recently-released youth. In exchange, he was required to work in either a paid or volunteer job, and also received life advice and counseling from church members.

    Yoder described the young Miller as lacking life skills when it came to hygiene, cleaning, employment and money.

    "He did not know how to do hardly anything," he said.

    At one point, Yoder said, he and four others swooped on Miller's apartment while he was away on a field trip and cleaned it up for him after a complaint from the owner. "It was a mess," he said, describing a foul smell, piles of clothes everywhere, and deteriorating food and wrappers.

    'He had a hard time forgiving' his mother

    Miller was "very hurt" when he got back and was told what had happened, Yoder said. "He felt that he was not good enough again."

    He said he didn't know for sure if Miller was incapable of looking after himself or simply chose not to, but from what he saw, it appeared Miller had never been taught several basic life skills.

    Yoder, who was testifying remotely from his home state of Indiana, said he knew no details about how Brosso and Bernas were killed. He and his wife left Phoenix in May 1993, in between the two killings.

    He agreed that forgiveness was a cornerstone of his faith. He had counseled Miller in the early 1990s about forgiving his mother, he said.

    "He had a hard time forgiving her," he said, "but he came to the point where he did forgive his mother, once he learned how to forgive."

    "Regardless of what anyone has done, your church would forgive them. Correct?" asked prosecutor Vince Imbordino.

    "Yes, absolutely," Yoder replied.

    "And that includes this defendant?"

    "Yes."

    https://www.azcentral.com/story/news...r/69709680007/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #25
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    Potential key testimony in trial for alleged ‘canal killer’

    By Luzdelia Cabellero
    ABC 15 News

    PHOENIX — Potential key testimony in the Phoenix canal murders trial. This comes 30 years after two young women were brutally murdered near a canal in Sunnyslope back in the 1990s.

    50-year-old Bryan Patrick Miller, on a bench trial for their deaths, returned to court on January 9.

    In the uncertainty of it all, one thing is certain: it's been three decades since the notorious Phoenix canal murders, and still no accountability.

    Miller has been charged with murdering 22-year-old Angela Brosso in 1992 and 17-year-old Melanie Bernas in 1993.

    Both were near the Arizona canal when they were attacked.

    Their bodies were mutilated and left out in the open.

    Authorities said DNA evidence collected in the aftermath of both crimes showed the attacks were linked to the same suspect.

    Miller was arrested for the murders in 2015 but denied any involvement, although he acknowledged living in the vicinity of the killings at the time and said he rode his bike on paths in the area, according to Phoenix police.

    Miller was also imprisoned as a teen for stabbing a third young woman at Paradise Valley Mall.

    "What did he tell you about the stabbing from when he was younger? Can you please review that answer and see if it brings something to recollection," asked the state.

    "He told me the woman looked like his mother and he wanted to see what it felt like…but he did his time," answered a trauma expert who did a forensic evaluation on Miller.

    Monday the prosecution asked the tough questions, trying to foil the defense's argument -- that Miller is not responsible for his actions based on his disorders.

    "On this test, report of symptoms, there's no indication the defendant has dissociation, right?" asked the state.

    "Which test are we talking about?" responded the trauma expert.

    "The trauma symptom inventory two," answered the state.

    "TSI2. No He was not elevated on that," said the trauma expert.

    The defense, though, fired right back.

    "In your meeting with Bryan, do you get the indication, or did he talk to you about feeling like there was more than one person inside of him?" the prosecution asked the trauma expert.

    "He does not," responded the trauma expert.

    "In fact, how does he talk about his cohesive self?" asked the prosecution.

    "He feels like there are different TVs playing in his head. And that's one way of having dissociative self-states," answered the trauma expert.

    The defense is trying to show Miller should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.

    The state is trying to do everything in its power to refute that, seeking the death penalty.

    Miller is due back in court on January 10, 2023, at 1:30 p.m.

    https://www.abc15.com/news/crime/pot...d-canal-killer
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  6. #26
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    'Canal killer' trial: Defendant was tortured, 'treated like a dog' by his mother, expert testifies

    By Lane Sainty
    Arizona Republic

    Bryan Miller, accused of killing two young women as they rode along Phoenix canals 30 years ago, was the victim of "sadistic" childhood abuse inflicted by his mother, an expert witness testified in court Monday.

    The degradations he suffered included being treated like a dog, deprived of food, and subjected to "toy torture", where his mom would buy toys for him and deliberately place them out of reach, forensic psychologist Dr. Mark Cunningham said.

    Miller also feared his mother would kill him, Cunningham said, and knew she kept one gun in her purse and another under her pillow.

    "(He knew) that she has the capability to take his life in an instant," he said.

    Miller's childhood with his mother, Ellen, who died in 2010, has loomed large in his double murder trial in Maricopa County Superior Court, where the state is seeking the death penalty.

    He has pleaded not guilty for reasons of insanity to murdering and attempting to sexually assault Angela Brosso in November 1992 and Melanie Bernas in September 1993.

    Both young women died from a forceful stab wound to the back and were mutilated after death. Brosso was decapitated on the eve of her 22nd birthday, her body found the next day and her head some distance away 11 days later. Bernas, who was 17 when she was murdered, had letters and a cross carved into her chest when her body was found in the Arizona Canal.

    Both women are believed to have been cycling along Phoenix canals when they were murdered. The case became known as the "canal killings" and dominated local headlines, but ran cold and went unsolved for decades. In 2015, Miller was arrested following a DNA breakthrough in the case.

    Now 50, Miller is relying on several diagnoses — including autism spectrum disorder and dissociative disorder — that his attorneys say he did not understand his actions at the time of the murders.

    Testimony: Defendant's mother instilled fear with abuse

    Cunningham, a defense witness, testified at length on Monday about Miller's childhood trauma and concluded his experiences were severe enough to lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, complex PTSD and dissociative disorders.

    "There is more than enough trauma and deprivation to drive these disorders," Cunningham said.

    Sadistic abuse can be distinguished from other kinds of deprivation and trauma because the parent is enjoying it, Cunningham said. “The parent is trying to maximize the psychological distress the child experiences."

    Cunningham said a number of people had observed Miller's mother treating her son "the way you would expect someone to treat a pet".

    A neighbor from his early childhood in Hawaii said Miller was "like an unwanted dog" Ellen had to take care of, and that he did not sit on the couch, but rather on the floor by his mother's leg.

    The neighbor said Miller was "tentative and afraid" to sit on the couch at the her house, which suggested he was not permitted to do that at home, Cunningham said.

    Being treated like a dog was relevant to PTSD because "it's shaming and humiliating," he testified. "And shame and humiliation are factors that increase the intensity of a trauma.”

    Miller also reported that Ellen was abusive to dogs, Cunningham said, punching them in the ribs and on one instance, running over a dog with her car, which would have been traumatizing for him as a young boy.

    "Children identify with animals," Cunningham said. "They're in similar vulnerable positions, a child and a family dog, in terms of being at the mercy and dependent on the adults in that household."

    Childhood traumas left Miller with PTSD

    The expert psychologist said Miller also experienced "food torment" from Ellen, in which she would either enjoy food in front of him while refusing to allow him any, or force him to eat things that were unpalatable or noxious.

    In one incident, Cunningham said, “Bryan had not rinsed the pan well enough after washing it and so then was made to eat macaroni that had been cooked in the pan that tasted soapy.”

    He also offered examples of "toy torture," saying Ellen had purchased colored markers for her son but then locked them away so he couldn't use them.

    When Miller was around 14, his mother bought him a Lego kit but when he asked to play with it, she told him "not right now", Cunningham said. “She finally gave it to him about five years later when he was 19.”

    If Miller ever complained or argued about the withholding of toys she would yell and beat him with a belt, Cunningham said. If he cried, Ellen would tell him: "I'll give you something to cry about."

    “This is not a hollow threat," Cunningham said. "She does physically abuse him."

    He added that the retort was effectively punishment for an understandable emotional response. "Not something that you want to discourage in a child. You’re trying to produce a human being who can emote properly and express that.”

    Miller met the criteria for PTSD, Cunningham said, among them that he had a severely negative self-image. “He described that in the mid-1990s it felt unusual for anyone to think highly of him or enjoy him."

    Miller, a divorced father, had also reported feeling as though he didn't deserve to live, that he had disappointed his family and that he was a "loser" for not having a spouse.

    Cunningham's testimony was drawn from numerous interviews with Miller, his relatives, friends, neighbors and acquaintances, and documentary evidence.

    His evidence continues Tuesday.

    https://news.yahoo.com/canal-killer-...003250383.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  7. #27
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    'Canal killings': Expert's autism diagnosis questioned by state under cross-examination

    By Lane Sainty
    Arizona Republic

    The man on trial for the so-called Phoenix "canal killings" was able to understand sarcasm, carry on a conversation with anyone and make good eye contact, according to accounts by adults who knew him when he was a teenager, an expert witness has said under cross-examination.

    Dr. Mark Cunningham spent eight days in the double murder trial laying out his theory that Bryan Miller, charged with killing two young women in Phoenix in the early 1990s, fits the bill for a finding of not guilty for reasons of insanity.

    The forensic psychologist said Miller was in the grip of a dissociative "trauma state" at the time of the murders, and so affected by his autism spectrum disorder and general immaturity that he did not understand that what he was doing was wrong.

    His conclusions, methods and expertise came under attack in an often testy, three-day-long cross-examination by state prosecutor Juli Warzynski.

    One person Cunningham cited as he laid out his belief that Miller is autistic was Leslie Swanson, a speech and language pathologist who taught Miller in a class for emotionally handicapped and intellectually disabled students at Goldwater High School when he was around 14 or 15.

    Cunningham testified that Swanson said Miller had "a difficult time putting things together" and would fundamentally misperceive what people said to him, thinking a simple greeting was intended as an insult.

    This week, Warzynski asked Cunningham about other comments made by Swanson in which she reported Miller was able to hold a conversation and looked her in the eye.

    "He understood sarcasm and he could read between the lines. He knew things had more than one meaning," Swanson said about Miller in a pre-trial interview with prosecutors. Cunningham agreed he did not include this line in his testimony.

    He also agreed Miller's former stepfather had described the then-teenager as able to "carry on a conversation with anyone," and that a treatment plan from Miller's stay in a juvenile facility made no mention of an autism diagnosis.

    When questioned again by the defense, Cunningham said high-functioning autism didn't mean a person could never have a conversation or look anybody in the eye.

    "But instead, the quality of relationships that you can develop is deficient as compared to non-autistic, what we would call neurotypical normal people in the community," he said.

    Diagnoses are central to defense

    The state is seeking the death penalty in its case against Miller, who is charged with murdering and attempting to sexually assault Angela Brosso in November 1992 and Melanie Bernas in September 1993.

    Brosso was 21 when she was murdered and beheaded, her body found near the apartment she shared with her boyfriend near Cactus Road and Interstate 17. Bernas, 17 and a high school student, was killed in September 1993. Both are believed to have been riding along Phoenix canals when they were attacked.

    The two murders were linked through forensic evidence and became known as the "canal killings." The case went cold for two decades before new DNA analysis in 2015 led to Miller's arrest.

    Miller's twin diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder and dissociative disorder are central to his insanity defense. His attorneys must prove he had mental disorders that left him unable to comprehend his actions at the time of the murders, now 30 years ago.

    Cunningham said to his knowledge Miller had not been formally tested for autism and that he did not believe there was a "gold standard" test for diagnosing autism in adults.

    He had also referenced Miller's poor personal hygiene in his late teens and early adulthood as evidence of his autism.

    Warzynski took him to a statement from a man who described Miller back then as cycling a lot in the Phoenix summer and not always having a chance to shower, as well as not having any air conditioning in his unit.

    The state took aim at the credibility of a woman who knew Miller as a child in Hawaii, and whose observations played a significant role in Cunningham's testimony about Miller having autism and various other disorders.

    Cunningham said he was aware the woman had claimed in a statement that she had flown to Alaska in a bid to kill her son's wife after the wife had stabbed her son in the back.

    He had taken that into account when judging her credibility, Cunningham said.

    State asks about experts "opinions"

    Despite "compelling" DNA evidence, Miller denies killing Brosso and Bernas and says he has no memory of doing so, Cunningham said.

    He testified earlier in the trial that if Miller had slipped into a dissociative trauma state — a walled-off part of his consciousness that he unknowingly created to deal with childhood abuse from his mother — it was possible his "normal state" would have no memory of what happened.

    In 1989, when he was 16, Miller stabbed a woman at Paradise Valley Mall. The trial has included evidence that he recalls this incident and said it felt like somebody else was moving the mouse on a computer.

    Under cross-examination by Warzynski, Cunningham agreed that when detained by police shortly after, Miller denied stabbing the woman or knowing anything about the knife used.

    He also agreed Miller had been wearing red sweatpants and a blue jacket when he stabbed the young woman, and black shorts and a black t-shirt when he was apprehended by police.

    He said it was correct that Miller had told police the stabbing gave him "chills up his spine," and that when an officer asked if he stabbed her to see what it felt like, Miller had replied: "Yes, I guess that’s why I did it.”

    Cunningham testified extensively about Miller's relationship with his mother Ellen.

    She had failed to observe normal sexual boundaries around her son, Cunningham said, exposing him to sexual and violent material and involving him in her sexuality by putting softcore porn on the TV and watching it in a T-shirt and panties.

    The combined effect of her abuse had led to Miller fusing eroticism with violence at a young age, developing a disturbed sexuality, he testified. He said he had not included any peer-reviewed studies or literature in his presentation to the court to support the fusion theory.

    He said Miller had denied to him having violent fantasies or erotic fantasies about his mother.

    Cunningham's testimony continues on Thursday.

    https://www.azcentral.com/story/news...l/69907353007/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  8. #28
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    'Canal killings' trial: Accused was sane, expert says, and 'carefully executed' deaths

    By Lane Sainty
    Arizona Republic

    The man accused of killing two young women as they cycled along Phoenix canals 30 years ago was sane at the time of the murders, a court-appointed expert testified.

    Forensic psychologist Dr Leslie Dana-Kirby said Tuesday that in her opinion Bryan Miller had several mental disorders in the early 1990s, but none that left him incapable of understanding that murder was wrong.

    Miller is accused of murdering 21-year-old Angela Brosso in November 1992 and high school student Melanie Bernas in September 1993. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

    He has pleaded not guilty for reasons of insanity, and says he has no memory of killing either woman.

    His attorneys argue Miller was acting under a dissociative “trauma state” created by childhood abuse, as well as being unable to comprehend his actions due to his autism and general immaturity.

    In her testimony, Dana-Kirby said the murders of Brosso and Bernas were sexually motivated and in her view not committed by somebody in a dissociative state.

    "I think they were planned and they were carefully executed," she said.

    "He evaded detection and arrest for a long time.”

    A cold case in the deaths of two women

    Miller was arrested in 2015, more than two decades after Brosso and Bernas were killed.

    Brosso never returned home after heading out for a bike ride on the eve of her 22nd birthday. She was mutilated and beheaded after death, her body found close to the apartment she shared with her boyfriend the day after she went missing and her head located in the Arizona Canal 11 days later.

    Nine months later, Bernas was found dead in the same canal. The high school student was last seen by her mom the night before. She had a similar fatal stab wound on her back to that inflicted on Brosso, as well as shallow cuts to her throat and on her chest.

    The murders were linked by forensic evidence in 1994, but with no suspect, the case grew cold. Twenty years later, fresh DNA analysis led police to Miller, now 50.

    He faces charges of murder, kidnapping and attempted sexual assault in relation to each woman.

    Expert doubts claims of amnesia

    Dana-Kirby said in her view it was "exceedingly unlikely" Miller was suffering from dissociative amnesia that prevented him from remembering the murders.

    "It could be argued that he is so distraught by his actions during these crimes that he has now suppressed all memory for them," she said.

    "The reason why I don’t think that is likely is one, the time frame. The question comes in, when? When did he suppress the memory? Did he forget the first one and then commit the second one, and then forget that one too?"

    Based on her professional experience, Dana-Kirby said, trauma survivors do not typically forget traumatic experiences in their totality.

    "They may forget bits and pieces," she said. "It may have a fuzzy or dreamlike quality to it. But it’s atypical to forget everything.”

    "If he did forget these incidences because he was so horrified by them," she added, "it still suggests he appreciated the wrongfulness of them.”

    She said in her view, Miller denied remembering the murders not to avoid a conviction, but to maintain plausible deniability.

    She pointed to a police interview in January 2015, conducted soon after Miller's arrest, in which he had continued talking after police left him by himself in the room.

    "I think what he said to the camera during the interrogation, after he was left alone, it’s pretty telling to me," Dana-Kirby said.

    “What struck me most was some of the things he wanted to say. And I will say, because it is true, that one of the very first things he said was, ‘I didn’t hurt anybody.’”

    He went on to issue a message to his daughter, she said, saying something along the lines of: “Please don’t believe what they tell you about this.”

    And to his best friend: “You know I could not have committed these crimes.”

    One more than one occasion, Dana-Kirby said, Miller told the camera "I'm a good person. I'm a decent human being."

    “And that’s why I think he doesn’t want to acknowledge these crimes," she said.

    A tendency to 'play the victim'

    Dana-Kirby described Miller as having a tendency to play the victim.

    "I could just see it again and again, he has a tendency to minimize, rationalize, justify, excuse his own culpability in anything," she said.

    She said the murders were "very consistent" with a document that has been referred to throughout the trial as "The Plan."

    The court has heard evidence Miller wrote the document as a teenager and that his mother took it to Phoenix police after discovering it in 1990.

    It outlined in detail a plot to "kidnap, rape, torture, terrify, kill, eat and save some body parts" of a teenage girl, Dana-Kirby said.

    "It was extremely graphic and very violent."

    Expert sees 'adult antisocial behavior'

    Miller's insanity defense is centered on diagnoses of dissociative disorder and autism spectrum disorder.

    Various experts have diagnosed him with several other disorders including depression, anxiety, PTSD and complex PTSD, and hoarding disorder.

    Dana-Kirby said she believed at the time of the murders Miller had persistent depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD, hoarding disorder, a sexual sadism disorder and antisocial personality disorder.

    The latter two, she said, cannot be used to support an insanity defense.

    She said in her view Miller was not impaired by any of these disorders to the extent that he couldn’t understand that what he was doing was wrong.

    Under cross-examination, Dana-Kirby walked back her diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder.

    She agreed the information she had reviewed did not support a diagnosis of conduct disorder in Miller’s youth, a necessary precursor to antisocial personality disorder.

    “By the strictest definition, I don’t think I have enough data points,” she said, adding that she suspected if she had more information — in particular, had she been able to interview Miller’s mother, who died in 2010 — that the criteria for conduct disorder may have been met.

    She said she would instead diagnose Miller with a different condition known as adult antisocial behavior.

    Her testimony continues Thursday.

    https://www.azcentral.com/story/news...e/69932719007/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  9. #29
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    Ex-wife of 'canal killings' defendant testifies that she feared her husband would kill her

    By Lane Sainty
    Arizona Republic

    Bryan Miller, the man accused of murdering two young women as they cycled along Phoenix canals 30 years ago, told his ex-wife if he didn't love her so much, he would like to kill her, she testified Thursday.
    Amy Miller told the Maricopa County Superior Court this week that her relationship with Miller started with a chaste date at a theme park and Sunday mornings at church.

    But their imperfect marriage changed significantly after Miller was charged and eventually acquitted of stabbing a woman in Washington state in 2002, she said. She came to believe if she stayed with him, she would "end up at least seriously injured, if not dead."

    "And I couldn’t leave my daughter that way," she said.

    Amy Miller took the stand late Wednesday and testified through Thursday at her former husband's double murder trial, which has been running since October.

    For their first date in November 1996, she said, they went to Castles N' Coasters by Interstate 17 and Dunlap Avenue, followed by dinner at the Olive Garden.

    State seeks the death penalty in killings

    It wasn't the first time the theme park had been mentioned at the marathon trial. In November 1992, the decapitated head of Angela Brosso was found caught on a metal grate in the Arizona Canal where it flows by Castles N' Coasters.

    Brosso's mutilated body had been found 11 days earlier, by a bike path near the Cactus Road apartment she shared with her boyfriend. She had suffered a fatal stab wound to the back and was subjected to a frenzied knife attack as or after she died.

    In September 1993, the body of 17-year-old Melanie Bernas was found in the Arizona Canal, close to where Brosso's head was located. Like Brosso, she had been killed by a forceful stab wound in her back.

    The seemingly random murders of two young women, who had each been out riding their bikes along Phoenix canals when they were attacked, shocked the city.
    The cases were connected by forensic evidence in 1994, but soon went cold as detectives struggled to land on a suspect. Two decades passed before fresh DNA analysis led them to hone in on one man: Bryan Miller.

    Miller was charged in 2015 with kidnapping, murdering and attempting to sexually assault Brosso and Bernas. The state is seeking the death penalty. Miller, who would have been 20 in November 1992 and is now 50, has pleaded not guilty for reasons of insanity.

    His attorneys say he was in a "trauma state" at the time of the murders — a splintered-off part of Miller's consciousness where he stored dark fantasies provoked by his childhood abuse — and that his autism and general immaturity meant he was functioning at a child's level, unable to grasp that his actions were wrong.

    Miller was 'epitome of a gentleman' on first date


    Amy Miller said religion loomed large in her teenage years. She and her sister were being raised by their grandmother, an ordained minister in the Methodist Church, and attended church two or three times a week, as well as engaging in Bible study and prayer each morning.

    She didn't date during school and was not rebellious, she said. "I very carefully followed all the rules."

    She joined the Air Force after graduating in 1996 — her family couldn't afford college, she said, and she enlisted in the hope of eventually becoming a teacher — but it was a brief stint.

    "Basic training did not go well for me," she said. After about a month, she was back in Phoenix, and a few months after that, she got a call from Bryan Miller, who worked with her aunt.

    Their first date went well. Miller picked her up, opened her door, pulled out her seat. "The epitome of a gentleman," she said. They organized another date, and then another.

    On the third date, Amy said Miller told her he had been to juvenile detention. He was vague on the details, she said, telling her it was "embarrassing" and he didn't like to talk about it, and she was left with the impression it was something minor.

    Miller was incarcerated at 16 for stabbing a woman in the back at Paradise Valley Mall in 1989, an attack highlighted during the trial.

    They got engaged on New Year's Eve of 1996, not two months after their first date. On the same night, they shared a kiss for the first time. They had only ever held hands before.

    “I remember that," Amy said, "because he actually asked permission before he held my hand the first time.”

    After getting married, they moved to Washington


    As their relationship developed, Amy said, they talked less and less about God. Miller would often arrange for them to go to the movies or hang out at a friend's house on Sunday mornings, meaning they couldn't go to church.

    “I have a tendency to do the things other people want me to do. The things that will make them happy," she said. "And that included going along with his plans even if they were on Sunday morning when I’d rather go to church."

    She also felt strongly about no sex before marriage, she said, while Miller felt differently.

    She said he was persistent, and they did end up having sex once before marriage, which resulted in her grandmother kicking her out of the house. Soon after, she and Miller married.

    They struggled financially and often fought about money, she said. In 1998, the couple moved to Washington state after Miller's mother, Ellen, suggested she could get her son a good job there.

    Amy said she was concerned about the move, both because Miller had told her his mother had abused him as a child and because she would be far away from her family with limited means of contacting them.

    But once they arrived and moved in with Ellen, she said, Miller and his mother got on fairly well and seemed to enjoy each other's company, which she hadn't been expecting.

    "Having been told about the abuse he had gone through as a child, it was my opinion logical that they would find it at least difficult or awkward to live together again," she said. "And that did not seem to be the case."

    She got pregnant and their daughter was born. In 2002, Miller was arrested and charged with stabbing a woman. This was when she found out the real reason behind his stint in juvenile detention, Amy said.

    Things changed after Miller's acquittal in attack


    Miller spent about eight months in custody before he was acquitted. After his release, Amy said, two major things changed in their marriage.

    The first was their sex life, as Miller introduced concepts like bondage and knife and needle play, she said. Amy testified that she wasn't keen on doing these things, but she didn't protest, at first due to her religious ideas of what a wife should do and be.

    "I pretty much felt it was my job to do what he wanted me to do in that role as much as any other," she said.

    Later in their marriage, she said, she was too scared to say anything.

    "I was avoiding any confrontation with him at all at that point." she testified. "And I wanted to be as compliant as possible, so I would stay where he loved me enough not to kill me."

    The second change was that their fights escalated, becoming louder and harder to get over, Amy said. She recalled Miller as being more likely to yell, or hit a wall, or slam his fist down on the table.

    After they moved back to Phoenix, in 2003, Amy said Miller told her that he had been the one who attacked a girl with a knife off a trail near their apartment in Washington — a separate incident to the one he was arrested in.

    She said Miller's "difficult temper" and his tendency to become "frightening when angry" were part of why they eventually separated in 2005.

    She recalled one incident in which they were planning to go on a family outing but it erupted into an argument.

    Amy said Miller grabbed their young daughter out of her arms and strapped her into the car as Amy tried to get her back before he locked the doors and started driving away.

    Amy said she was holding on to the back door handle as he drove away. Miller continued to drive and drag her until she couldn't hold on any longer and fell off. He came back with Sarah a short time later, she said, and she told him she was upset at him for putting her in danger like that.

    "What did he say?" the prosecutor asked.

    "That he didn’t think I was stupid enough to hold on to the door handle," Amy said. "And I should have let go."

    Her testimony will continue later in the trial.

    https://sports.yahoo.com/ex-wife-can...ied%20Thursday.
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  10. #30
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    Zombie Hunter’s ex-wife testifies she feared for her safety

    By Morgan Loew
    AZ Family

    PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) — Bryan Patrick Miller’s former wife testified Wednesday in the so-called Zombie Hunter trial that she feared for her safety after leaving Miller in 2006. Miller is charged with the brutal murders of Angela Brosso and Melanie Bernas, which happened in 1992 and 1993, near the Arizona Canal in north central Phoenix. They were referred to as the Phoenix Canal Killings.

    Amy Miller testified for two days in mid-March but was called back to the witness stand this week. Amy, who now goes by the last name Loving, described Miller as sexually sadistic. She testified that he used to stick needles through her skin, on her breasts and vaginal area.

    The following exchange took place as the prosecutor questioned Amy about why she moved in with another man immediately after leaving Miller.

    Prosecutor: Did you feel that it was necessary to have another partner before you left him?

    Amy: Yes.

    Prosecutor: Why?

    Amy: I didn’t believe he would stand up to another male in order to hurt me.

    Prosecutor: Were you worried that he would hurt you if you didn’t have another male to protect you?

    Amy: Yes.

    About midday Wednesday, defense attorney Denise Dees began cross-examining the witness. At one point, she honed in on why Amy never brought up a fear of Bryan during their divorce proceedings or during hearings over the custody of their daughter, Sarah.

    Here is an exchange:

    Dees: So you had a chance to be heard in front of the court about who Sarah should live with, correct?

    Amy: That is correct.

    Dees: And at that time, you didn’t say Bryan is a dangerous man, correct?

    Amy: That is correct.

    Dees: You didn’t tell them, ‘Bryan told me about stabbing a girl in Washington. I think that he could hurt my daughter,’ correct?

    Amy: That is correct.

    Dees: And you never told the judge, ‘I’m scared for my life,’ and therefore, I don’t want my daughter living with him, correct?

    Amy: That is correct.

    The defense is trying to convince the judge that she should find Miller not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecutors are asking for the death penalty. Closing arguments could begin the first week of April.

    https://www.azfamily.com/2023/03/30/...ed-her-safety/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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