PHOENIX — An Arizona man is sitting on death row after being convicted of killing two women in the early 90s.
Bryan Patrick Miller was sentenced to death in June 2023 for the murders of Angela Brasso and Melanie Burnas.
Phoenix police searched for their killer for more than two decades. Their bodies were pulled from the Arizona Canal just months apart with DNA evidence from the same person.
The case went cold until Phoenix Detective Sgt. Troy Hillman and his unit set out to find the killer.
"I printed the cases out and they were just massive, almost broke the desk," Hillman said. "This isn't your typical domestic violence type murder ... This was somebody evil."
Detectives poured over the files for more than three years, looking for any clues they might have missed before.
“We had so many doubters that said, 'What are you doing? He’s been in the system, the DNA system, forever. He’s dead. You’re wasting your time.'”
>> Hillman is featured in Dateline's episode about the Canal Killer on Friday, Oct. 27 at 8 p.m.
A turning point in the case finally came when a forensic genealogist approached Hillman about cross-matching DNA evidence with a public database of people who've taken ancestry tests.
“We had never heard of it. It was way before the Golden State Killer," Hillman said.
The genealogist successfully matched the DNA evidence with the surname of Miller.
Hillman said this narrowed their search for the killer from more than 800 people to five.
“Sure enough, Bryan Patrick Miller was a file and reading through that file, me personally, the hair stood on the back of my neck. It spoke of a serial killer," Hillman said.
Miller was known in Phoenix as the 'Zombie Hunter'. He often dressed up, drove a decorated car, and took pictures with police officers.
Hillman told 12News he was shocked to learn their suspect was right under their nose the entire time.
“I didn’t expect him to be hiding in plain sight in a fantasy world as a zombie hunter," Hillman said.
To prove the "Zombie Hunter" was the human killer they had been searching for, detectives took Miller to a restaurant under the ruse of a job interview.
“We were pretty sure this was our guy. We just needed the DNA to confirm it," Hillman said.
Detectives collected DNA from the mug Miller drank from and tests confirmed it matched DNA evidence.
Police arrested Miller in 2015.
Despite pleading guilty by insanity, Miller still claims he didn't kill Brasso and Bernas.
“He pretty much either denied, lied to us, or kind of toyed with us for a while until we really pressed him," Hillman said. "He couldn’t explain why his DNA was at both crime scenes.”
A judge sentenced Miller to death in June 2023.
Hillman said he believes there are more victims out there.
“He has a pattern of, since he was a young boy of doing these just violent sexual type murders or attacks. So, there’s, there’s got to be more," Hillman said.
Hillman retired after the Phoenix Police Department dissolved its cold case unit in 2017.
Now, he's writing a book about a time in his life he said he'll never forget.
“To this day I’m still in disbelief," Hillman said. "To finally give those girls and their families justice was again the highlight of my career."
>> Hillman is featured in Dateline's episode about the Canal Killer on Friday, Oct. 27 at 8 p.m.
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