This episode may contain content of a graphic nature, including descriptions of physical and sexual violence against adults, children, and animals. Listener discretion is advised. Hi everyone, I'm Talia and I'm Tanya, and together we are Crimes and Consequences, a true crime podcast. Welcome everybody to this week's episode of Crimes and Consequences. I am Talia and this is my lovely co host, Tanya. Tanya Together. We are two attorneys that love true crime and we like
to talk about it and we do. We talk about it all the time, and we're going to share some stories with you guys today. This one is known as the Zombie Killer or the Canal Murders, Okay, and it starts out in nineteen ninety two. But before I get into it, I want to ask everybody to hit the subscribe or like button anything, tell your friends yes and watch us, listen to us whatever you're doing. And thank
you to True Crime Daily for hosting us. Yes, thank you. So this story starts out in nineteen y two in Phoenix, Arizona, and this is a really crazy story and it's really gruesome. So you know, there are in nineteen ninety two, two young women with really bright futures, and their lives were cut short. These murders, as I said, would be known as the Phoenix Canal murders, or the zombie killer murders or the zombie Hunter murder because of the murderer's nickname. At the time of the murders.
After they occurred, there were six hundred possible people that the police thoughts, yes, yeah, got and it would take two decades to solve these cases. Wow, but if you think about it, many killers out there. Just killed twice in two decks. Yeah, oh in two decades. Yeah, there's some more out there, and we'll get to that. It would be almost thirty years before the killer was brought to justice, and that was through DNA. Oh is going to get you. So let me start out
with the first victim. Her name was Angela Brussel, and she disappeared on November eighth of nineteen ninety two. She was only twenty two years old and she worked as a tech worker. I don't know exactly what she did. She'd recently moved to Phoenix. Every evening, Angela would go out for a bike ride and she had like a circuit that she went around and it was about an hour, and her boyfriend Joe would go with her most of the
time, but on this particular evening, Joe didn't go. You know why Why because the next day was her birthday and he was baking her a birthday can oh man, So she went by herself. She left her apartment. Oh, I gotta put my glasses. It was about seven o'clock. Her boyfriend Joe's making this birthday cake, and again he expects her home in about an hour, but then she doesn't come back. So he goes out on his bike and he's looking for her. He did three different searches for her,
couldn't find her, so eventually he called the police. The next morning, her headless torso oh no, was found in a field next to a trail where she often rode her bike. This is really gruesome. Her or so had been caught open actually this way, and she was almost severed. She'd been stabbed in the back, dismembered, her head was cut off, and she'd been sexually assaulted after death. Oh no, this is bad. This is bad. Yeah man. It kind of comes with the territory of
our podcast, it does, it does. But oh after her death, they searched for her head, but they couldn't find it, and her bike was also missing too. About eleven days later, her head was found stuck in the canal on a grate. Okay, yeah, and it was about two miles away from where her body was found. H Are you ready for this? Oh no, it's okay. Investigators believe that her head had been kept in a refrigerator what or a freezer possibly before, based on the decompensation
of it. Geez, really, what the fuck? I know, like, what the what the hell? Yeah, what the hell? What the And investigators believed that she was pushed off her bike and brought into the trail where that all took place. So they think she was killed there, I like, on the trail, on the trail, killed and dismembered on the trail. Yes, wow, Yes, that's pretty what's pretty bold? Like, yes, you know, I mean, I understand you're out in the
wilderness or whatever I mean, but seriously, it's not really that. I mean, this is in Phoenix, Yeah, so it's not that. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. But her case went cold, damn. But then on September twenty one of nineteen ninety three, Melanie burned us went missing. She was only seventeen years old and she was a junior in high school. The night she went missing, her mom her name was Marlene. She wasn't home, so Melanie decided to go for a bike ride.
Wow, okay, and she never made it back. Marlene gets home, she calls police eventually because she notices that, okay, Melanie's bike's gone, Melanie's not back. First, she calls friends. She called her friend, Rachel is her best friend, and Rachel's like, oh, she's probably at other friends' houses and just didn't tell you. But Marlene calls all over and no one has any idea where Melanie is. So then Marlene calls police. But the next morning, a woman named Charlotte Puddle was riding her bike
with her toddler like on the back. Oh yeah, And she thought she saw like it was a puddle by the canal and she didn't think anything bad. And she puddles through it the puddle and realizes it's blood. Oh no, it's blood. And then she noticed dragmar on the ground that went into the canal, and she called the police. Smart woman, I'm not going to go investigate. I am calling the police. When police arrived on the scene, they found this is so strange. They found Melanie's body floating in
the canal, dressed in this teal body suit. It looks like a one piece with a zipper. Was it like a full bodysuit like a scuba No, it was like a swimsuit. Okay, like a swimsuit, okay, with a zipper. And she was not that is tinkle for a bike ride. And oh, I'm sure, yeah, you're right. Yeah, so they believe the killer had to undressed her, redressed her with this body suit. Oh that's fucking weird too. Yeah, it's like a yeah, this
is like one piece. She'd been fatally stabbed in the back, dragged over the asphalt, caught across the neck, and sexually assaulted. Letters had been carved in her chest. What Yeah, did they spell anything? No? No, I couldn't figure out. I couldn't find out what the letters were. But there was also a cross carved in her The hell, man, people are fucked up. I'm just sorry. I'm god, this story is a mess already. I'm thinking that she had to have like he had to
have done that all around that area. Yeah, because she's dragged and there's a puddle of blood and put on a one piece. You brought it with him. I mean, that's so weird, the strangest thing. Yeah, really, this is just bizarre. I told you this is this is earlier. This is a strange story. That night on the news, it was reported that a woman's body was found in the canal and they mentioned the bodysuit Rachel. Melanie's friend was like, that can't be Melanie because she didn't wear
that body suit. But the next day it was determined, yes, this is Melanie. They were able to pull DNA from both Angela and Melanie because they'd been sexually assaulted, and they were able to realize that that the DNA matched one suspect, so they knew that both women had been murdered by the same man. And they actually thought for a little bit they might be looking for a surgeon. Oh really based on the cuts of the body. Oh
wow. But the cases went cold. In nineteen ninety four, there was a tip that was actually called in regarding someone who said that they had a friend named Brian Patrick Miller who had a similar teal body suit at one point in his belongings, but the police didn't follow up on this tip. I don't know why a man would have that. Yeah, I don't either, But Okay, so years go by, decades go by, it's nineteen years that go by, and eventually a cold case unit gets formed and they're looking
into the Canal murders again. And they started with that list of six hundred people, damn. And they tried to go through the backgrounds all of that, but I mean, there's people, and it was it was going too slow, and they didn't really they didn't get anywhere. But then they caught a break. In twenty fourteen, there was this forensic genealogist named Colleen Fitzpatrick and she went to a conference that law enforcement we're having talking about this technique
for you know, genetic DNA and how you could help with cases. Her company was called Identifiers International, and they had developed this software that could mine public genealogy databases and look for matches for DNA. The police sent her the DNA evidence and her company came up with a surname, oh Miller, Oh oh. And there was this officer in the cold case. His name was Officer swartz Off. He was He found six people on the list that had
the last name Miller out of six hundred. Oh, they write it down right, Brian Patrick Miller popped up as one of those six And let me just tell you he's a fucking weirdo. Yeah. He should have popped up a long time ago on their list. He was forty two years old and he had this record he was a Jew. He had a record from being a Jew a juvenile from before the murders, when he was around in his teens, like fourteen to sixteen. I'm not really sure how old he was.
He stabbed a woman named Celeste Bentley. Wow, when they got off the bus at the same stop. He just stabbed her. He just stabbed her. Celeste Uh had thought she got hit in the back and then realized there was blood. She was at this bus stop and when she got off, it was right next to her work, so she stumbled into her work and had them call an ambulance. This is her account of what happened. Well, when he had ran by me, I think thought he just hit
me. But then I reached back to my I reached back to my back and pulled my hand up and I saw there was blood. Luckily, the police because she stumbled right into work and they'd called you know, nine one one right away they were able to get Brian. I don't know what he was doing. He was hanging out whatever, And while Celeste was in the ambulance, they brought Brian to her and she said, yeah, this is
the guy that attacked me. And he was charged with aggravated assault. He pled guilty and he was sentenced to the juvenile home until he was eighteen. So while he was in the juvie, his mom found some disturbing things in his room. Oh boy, there was pages that detailed the plan he had and it was a plan to abduct, rape, dismember young women. On it, he talked about kidnapping a girl, tire up in a truck,
cutting off her clothes. And his mother was so upset. She's like, when he gets out of the juvenile home, Uh, he's not coming back here right. No. No, she was worried for her safety and basically everybody's safety. I mean, he wasn't welcomed at her house. So instead when he got out, he went to a halfway house and then he ended up living in another house. So please are you have the cold case team and they're investigating the background on Brian and they find this note I mean ding
ding ding, yeah, because it was in his juvenile by right. They're like, hmm, yeah, this is hmm it seems to match. Yeah, right, And they noticed the similarities, you know, between Angela and Melanie, and they tracked on Brian Miller. But it wasn't hard to find Brian no, no, because he was the zombie Hunter I know. He was a local celebrity who used a old police car dotty kind of spray painted or put blood on that said zombie Hunter on the back and actually had a
zombie in the back seat. It was a dummy, not a real zombie weed And he just he wore this costume all the time. He had this persona had a long trench coat, a helmet, goggles, and a gas mask and a fake gatling gun. Okay, kind of looked like a zooka to me. He would go to comic like comic con, like comic events and things like that, and they had pictures of him with police officers.
People would get their pictures taken with Brian. Yeah. They just thought he was like the local, the local kook I guess, right, Like, Okay, he was. He was cosplaying cos playing. Yeah, but he that was probably his real persona like he wanted to be a zombie hounter. Yeah, there's no zombies except there. I mean maybe I mean walking dad zombies. I don't know. I've seen some people that look like zombies.
At the time, when police are investigating his background, they see that he works at Amazon Fulfillment Center and they decide to trailom because they want to get his DNA to see if it Yeah, that's right, to see if it matches, right, Yeah, but they couldn't while they're they just had a hard time. So officer Schwartz off he came up with a plan to get
Brian's DNA. He noticed that Brian would always take breaks outside, so he approached him and he told Brian that he worked for security, a security company, and some thieves had been stealing goods from a warehouse across from the Amazon warehouse, and the officer asked him to look at the building while he was outside on his brakes, to like keep an eye, and he agreed. So the officer's kind of trying to be his front. Yeah, okay.
Then the officer asked him if on January second, twenty fifteen, if he would meet up with him at Chili's to discuss what. Oh really Brian had seen hmm, and just meet at Chili's Like what tell me, Brian? What? Yeah? So what have you noticed when you take your breaks outside? Yeah? He did that. That would have set off my suspicion, right, Like, why do you want to meet me at Chili's? Like, but I mean, this is twenty fifteen and the first time I'm telling
you about is nineteen ninety two. That's true, That's true. So they're seated away from everyone else, and the staff is told to make sure that nothing gets contaminated, and the cold case unit, of course, is behind the scenes, ready to bag everything. Brian touches, touches, and there was no exception. The offstar was surprised because he didn't really leave after meeting with Brian, that he could possibly have done it. Brian, it's kind
of interesting. They did end up getting his DNA from a cop, but Officer Schwartzkoff was convinced that there's just there's no way Brian could have done it. No, he believed he was innocent because Brian had a fifteen year old daughter, he was divorced, and I'll get into that, and he brought his daughter with him, and he was so nice and so sweet to his daughter, and just the way he acted at lunch. The officer's like, no, this cannot be somebody that like he viscerated. Yeah, right,
somebody. But eleven days later, DNA came back and it was a match. Wow. He matched both of the profiles found on Angela and Melanie's bodies from nineteen ninety two. And he was arrested and he was a asked. Brian was asked, how did you you need to get there? And he said, I don't see how that's possible. Yeah, I have no idea, no idea, no idea. Okay, yeah, he did not planted it. I guess right. He denied everything and he didn't said he didn't
do it. There's no way it wasn't me. Police executed a search warrant for Brian's house and they found out something interesting about Ryan. He's a hoarder. Oh no, they couldn't even get like basically into his house. It was so stuffed with what do you do in that situation when you're the police. I know they have a search warrant and they have a search warrent. They're looking for god, you have to look through all if you're looking like what I mean, I've seen or something right, like oh, I know
I've seen I've seen it on TV. Like oh no, like where could what you're looking for possibly be? Well, they found like I don't know if it was books, but it was material and satanism, cannibalism, necrophilia, there's books about that. I don't know if it was books, it was something. Okay, somehow they found material, thank you material. I mean they never found any bites or anything. But again, this is from
nineteen eighty two and this is twenty fifteen. Brian was interrogated and he mentioned you had an ex wife and she said, he said that it's the one person on earth on the face of the earth I probably hate oh And the police were like, ding ding ding, we need to talk to Yeah, we need to see what I can't wait to see what she has to say. Right, So, let me tell you a little bit about Amy. Amy married Brian when she was nineteen, and they were married for a total
of eight years. They moved to Everett, Washington for a bit. Let me just see that she said some very bad things about Brian. I'm sure she's got some scoop. Yes, Brian had told her. Okay, so listen to this. Brian told her a story one time about a young girl
he'd killed in Phoenix. He said she came to his door and when he opened it, he grabbed her, pulled her into the house, and then slid her throat, dismembered her, and put her remains in the trash, and then left her remains on the curb and the garbage came and picked her up. Amy's like, that's a weird story. Oh, she didn't do anything right, Like what, I'm sure you don't think the person that you know, Okay, number one, this is a weird fucking story to tell
somebody. But you know, I mean I wouldn't if my husband told me a story like that, I'd be like, what are you putting me on? Or okay, well I would dive in a little deeper and then like did you really do this? I wouldn't just be like, okay, yeah, I have stories too. No, I don't know if I'd move on, but no, no, I don't know what I would do. We not judging her. No, she didn't report it. She was afraid of him, well, because he was violent. Yeah, I would be afraid
too. Amy said that Brian never told her who the girl's name was, but they did use this information and they were able to match up who they believe the girl was. And it's very sad. Wow, they believe it was Brandy Myers. She was thirteen when she went missing. She'd been going door to door collecting money for a school bookathon. Oh. She went missing on May twenty six, nineteen ninety two, and at that point, Brian lived one black from her school. She left home and the early evening never
returned and she was last seen walking in the direction of Brian's house. Hmmm, yeah, coincidence, I don't think so. According to her sister, Christy Dennis, they only lived three blocks away from his house and they would walk past his house every day and she was never found, right, she was never found. That's so heartbreaking, and I don't think it's just coincidence. I don't think it's even though that's all the evidence you've told me.
I mean, I mean, yeah, so please believe that Brian told him the truth about Randy Myers, but her body was never found and they never had enough evidence too. Became victim in two thousand and two, Brian was in trouble again for attacking another woman. Her name was Melissa Ramirez. She was walking down on the street at night when Brian pulled over to give her a ride, and she got into the car with him because she recognized him.
He had been talking to one of her friends before. When she got in the car, she told him she needed to make a call, so he said, hey, my work is right here. You can use my work phone. So they go inside. She says that while she's on the phone, he left her alone, and then he just came running with a twelve in serrated kitchen knife and stabbed her in the back. And I don't know where he worked at the time. Yeah, they fought for the weapon
and Melissa managed to escape and call the police. Okay, so she's called the police. The police pick up Brian. He denies at first like stabbing her, but then he says, no, it was self defense. He was at work mining his own business, and Melissa came in and tried to rob him, really with a knife. Okay, sure, she's gonna walk into a workplace and I don't know. I don't know again where he worked.
There was no obviously nobody else around, there no witnesses. He was charged with first grade assault with a deadly weapon and he was put in jail from May of two thousand and two till his child, which was in December, and he got acquitted because they just the jury didn't believe Melissa Wow and his ex wife Amy said that he acted started acting in more strange while he
was in jail. She would receive letters from him. He's claiming he was innocent, but then he would talk about all these sexual debians and all these horrible sexual things he was going to do to her. She told the police that he opened up to her and said as a child, his mother had been abusive, and she believes that he was trying to what's the word create a sort of defense for the murders he did by starting to blame his mom for making him mentally ill. Okay, it took eight years for after Brian
was arrested for the murders. We're talking about that he actually ended up being charged and not long and the trial the trial start starting. Yeah, it began on October third. I don't know why, I know, because, Okay, if you get arrested and you wait eight years for a trial. That's really that doesn't go along with having a speedy trial. No, I think it was eight years after he was arrested, not I thing about it
for the and then acquitted for that. One of my bad He was charged with first screen murder, to count of kidnapping, to counts of sexual assault in the death of Angela or So and Melanie Burness. The trial is October third, twenty two and it lasted eight months. Damn, that's a very long trial. It's a super long Imagine being on the jury. Oh man, on the jury, which I have jury duty tomorrow. I hope you don't get an eight month trial. The hell would I do? Know,
that's horrible. I mean, it's part of the process. We need people to service jurors. But that's all. That's a really, really, really long time. So they opted for a bench trial, okay, they didn't want a jury, Yeah, and Judge Suzanne Cohen presided over it. Brian's attorney shocked everybody with his opening argument, admitting that his client was the canal murderer. Really now, but he was not guilty because he was insane. Okay, he was insane at the time of the murder. For decades.
Okay, because I have more. There are more unsolved cases that I'm going to go over. He suffered physical, emotional, and psychological abuse by his mother Ellen, as a child, and that led to his violent behavior. His dad had died in a motorcycle accident when he was little, and Brian's mom died in twenty ten, So like she can't defend herself. Yeah, it's an easy way to blame someone when they're no longer here. Yeah.
He claims that she beat them when he was five, and he said, quote, she used her security belt because she worked in law enforcement and I usually got hit with the buckles. Oh. They interviewed neighbors and friends and they did kind of agree that he was like an unwanted guest at the house. Oh that's not good. But this is no defense to me. Yeah, I mean viciously murdering someone, dismembering them, and no sexually assaulting them after their dad. So, a psychologist, her name was Bethany Brand,
testified that Brian developed a condition known as dissociative amnesia. Oh okay, and inability to remember some traumatic events, such as when he murdered. Oh really, he can't remember that? Okay? Sure, he doesn't remember that. He does remember the ones that lived. Yes, okay, he remembers what he did, is you denile? But he can't remember anything about the murders. The prosecutors called his ex wife Amy to the stand, and she testified
about their marriage and how he just got really violent during sex. He would tire up, he would use needles on her without her consent, but she never told anybody or complained because she was afraid of him. And she said about probably ninety five percent of the time they had sex, he was extremely violent with her. And he got custody of their daughter. Yeah, I don't know. Wow, that's crazy. So there was, you know, that eight month trial and there was a verdant the defense had, you know,
asked for leniency they found him guilty. I was gonna say, if you tell me that they found him not guilty, I'm going to we would dorm out of here right now. No, okay, he was fund guilty in his council who is R. J. Parker asked for leniency, but the judges like fuck that. Yeah. Now. In June of two of twenty twenty three, he received two death sentences for the first degree murder of Angela Husso and Melanie Burness. Oh good. He also got twenty four years
for kidnapping and attempted to sexual assaults. And anyway, he's on death row at the Demon Prison Complex in Lawrence, Arizona, and he complained. He says, it's not all that bad. It's better than jail. The people on death row are actually less scary than the people in jail. But he doesn't really like the accommodation. Well, that's unfortunate. I'm so sorry. Your jail cell is not a luxury hotel room. And I can't end this
story without talking about Adrian Salinas. Okay, okay. Adrian Selenas is an unsolved murder case. She was a nineteen year old student who went to Gateway College in Tempe, Arizona, and she disappeared on June fifteenth of twenty thirteen. That night, Adrian and her roommates had this big party. There were like forty people there and it's just an apartment, so I mean it's a big party. During that party, Adrian and her boyfriend, whom she'd been
dating since childhood. His name was Francisco. They got into a fight and he eventually left the party. Adrian went to her room and kind of kept herself. But then she decided. She was texting with Francisco, you know, back and forth because her fighting, and she says, I'm gonna come over to your house and he's like me, right, we're fighting. But she gets in her car and she drives and she's only a couple of blocks away from her apartment when she hits something. And I'm not sure what she
hit. It wasn't another car. There's one car accident and it just there's these pictures where you can see her rims, her rims are all messed up on the right side, and she gets two flat tires. Oh. So she walks back to the apartment, goes through the party, and she's texting Francisco, and eventually she tells him, I'm gonna take a cab and come to your house. Oh she's determined. Yeah, yeah, she's determined to
get like bitch your mount in person. And I don't I don't want to imply that she had drinks, but it does seem like she might have been that it's a party and she crashed a car, and but it either way, it doesn't matter. Yeah, she calls a cab and asks the cab driver to meet her a quarter mile away at this convenience store. I don't know exactly why, but she packs a little bag, goes to the party, and walks towards the convenience store, and you can they have video surveillance
of her at four point fifty two walking towards the convenience store. In the interim, she's texting Francisco over and over again. But I think he was asleep at the time. He had eleven text messages from four to fifteen to I'm sorry, yeah, four fifteen to four fifty three. The cab driver texts her. They say, cab driver, I don't think they had an UBER back then, did they. I don't know it, says cab driver.
I mean that's what the research I saw. Says Hey, I'm here, and she's like, I'm almost here, Like they're texting, and he waits and she doesn't show up. He calls her phone, the cab driver. It's like fourteen minutes later, and her phone is off. M wow, and she never shows up. Oh that's crazy then. And this was in June, right June fifteenth. Her family's looking for her dad, Ricky. He's looking for her. It's all over the news. I mean,
she was a responsible student and she just disappeared. She didn't even have her purse or keys with her. She took a cab. August ninth, there's this man and he owns a lot of property in the desert. His name is Dan Kelly. There was this huge flood, like a rainstorm that caused flooding, and then when the flooding ended, he wanted to check out his property and he's walking through it and it's acres and acres and he sees vultures,
lots of vultures swarming this area and on the ground. And he gets there and he sees a decomposed body and this body is missing its limbs and the head is removed, and it's later determined through DNA that it's Adrian's body, but they couldn't state the cause of death. They couldn't tell if she was intentionally dismembered. But this is what's interesting about it. Zombie hunter Brian.
His Facebook posts showed that he was at a party less than a mile away from Adrian's house that night, and he said that he planned ongoing on an early morning hike. Really, yeah, that seems kind of wincidental wincidental. I don't know, but a lot of people believe that she probably was dismembered and decapitated. Wow, and it really probably him, It was probably him. Yeah, he's never admitted to anything, right, well, I mean besides the trial where he said, they said that he did kill the
two women, but he's never admitted to anything else. Right, He never admitted to Brandy. I mean, he only admitted to something, to things he knew he had to admit to. Right. Oh, anyway, that so her case remains unsolved, but they think he probably was the killer. Yeah, I do too. There, I'm just going to say it. They believe that her body was perhaps somewhat buried in this desert area, and then the flooding unburied it, moved it out towards the open. Oh sad.
It's terrible. Yeah. Yeah, I wonder how many victims. I wonder how many women he actually did kill. I mean, if you think about it, he started when he was like fourteen, fifteen sixteen, So she don't go like your first person, you're going to dismember and you work your way up. Yeah, you work your way up. I think, I mean, I think, I mean I don't know. I've never mean yeah, I mean, I don't know, but I'm assuming that you know that's not something that you do. And he had that list when he was,
yeah, a little free. When he's he's like sixteen, of all these things you wanted to do. So I've been thinking about it a long time. Why wouldn't you have it? Yeah, acted on it more. I'm sure there's more out there. I'm sure there is. He could have went to another state. Who knows, right, who knows? That's very sad. I'm so sorry. So I want to thank everybody for listening to this. Yes, thank you, thank you Jackie for suggesting it. We
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