By Editor,Troy A Hillman
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The sick moment I knew the ‘Zombie Hunter’ was the sadistic serial killer I was looking for
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By TROY A HILLMAN FOR THE DAILY MAIL
Published: 16:47 BST, 20 September 2025 | Updated: 17:18 BST, 20 September 2025
Detective Troy A Hillman took a step backward and stumbled into a pile of old magazines and newspapers. A family of cockroaches scurried to an adjacent pile.
He pushed himself upright, and stepped into a half-empty McDonald’s carton, complete with crusted ketchup and moldy fries.
Hillman cursed at the disgusting mess – home to suspected serial killer Bryan Patrick Miller. But much, much worse was to come.
As he looked around the kitchen, his eyes were drawn to the refrigerator in the corner – and the vile image that covered it.
In the 20 years that had passed since Angela Brosso had been snatched from a bike path along the Arizona Canal in Phoenix – before being stabbed, sexually assaulted, and decapitated – the public had largely forgotten about her, while her killer roamed free.
It was only when Hillman, and his elite team of cold case detectives, began reexamining her murder – along with that of teen Melanie Bernas in 1993 – that one key, very surprising suspect emerged.
Miller was an outlandish character who called himself the Zombie Hunter – dressing in a steam punk-style trench coat and menacing mask, and brandishing a fake Gatling gun. His pride and joy was an old, customized police car that he drove around Comic Con conventions.
The ‘bloodied’ car was a cynical clue to his true identity.
After he was arrested in early 2015 – following new leads based on genetic genealogy – the painstaking task began to collect enough evidence that would put him behind bars for good.
Miller was an outlandish character who called himself the Zombie Hunter – dressing in a steam punk-style trench coat and menacing mask
He drove around town in an old, customized police car that he also took to Comic Con conventions
His ‘bloodied’ Zombie Hunter car was a cynical clue to his true identity
In this exclusive extract from Hillman’s new book, Chasing Down the Zombie Hunter, he describes in chilling detail the moment he set foot in the sadistic serial killer’s house from hell.
Shocked was an understatement.
My full and undivided attention was locked on the full-size shrink wrap over the refrigerator door.
The shrink wrap art depicted the inside of a fridge with a woman’s head in the freezer, her hands and fingers on a shelf, and eyeballs in a jar.
The original detective’s theory held true. Without words, he just told us.
This is, for the most part, what Miller had done to his victim Angela Brosso in 1992.
I shuddered as I tried to comprehend it. Every time Bryan walked into his kitchen for the past 20 years and looked at that fridge, he ignited his fantasy of the kill and aftermath. And he displayed it in plain sight.
I walked past the crime scene tape and toward the yard – which was just a bloated junkyard.
Angela Brosso (left) was stabbed, sexually assaulted, and decapitated in November 1992; the following year, 17-year-old Melanie Bernas was murdered while riding her bike through Phoenix
The bloodied body suit Melanie was found wearing – Miller had changed her into it after his attack
Miller (left) walked free for 20 years before his crimes caught up with him
A detective dressed in a protective suit offered me one, but I declined. I planned to merely show my support, get an update, and leave.
I stepped over a rusty kid’s bike and slid past a collection of opened Tidy Cats cat litter containers. However, my pant leg caught on a metal bookshelf and ripped. I cursed again.
The cat pee stench overwhelmed me to the point of nausea.
I leaped over a large, dusty ceiling fan and hurdled an engine block.
‘Damn it!’ I yelled. My gray dress pants were now covered in grease.
‘Should have put on that special suit, boss,’ said the detective.
Back in the house, I held my elbow to my nose but should have grabbed a gas mask.
The stench of cat urine outside shifted to an aroma of rotting food and mice feces inside.
Miller’s alter ego image also included a a fake Gatling gun
Inside the compulsive hoarder’s house, the fridge was covered in a sick shrink wrap art (right)
Swelled flies clung to the upper panes of the windows. I couldn’t see the full view out of the window. Pile after pile of stuff blocked the windows to the four-foot-high mark. I couldn’t tell what the floor covering was. Was it carpet or tile?
I continued to forge deeper into the house, stepping on countless pizza boxes and newspapers. Cockroaches scampered with every step.
I pushed against moving boxes and piles to keep my balance.
Foul though it was, we had to plow through this serial killer’s belongings and try to locate the tools of his trade and the treasures he took from his victims along the way.
However, the conditions of this house from hell had, for the most part, stomped out our hopes of finding a great piece of evidence.
The team had acquired two massive steel moving pods from a local vendor as well as at least a hundred large plastic storage bins. The pods would be used as temporary, securable storage lockers to be later transported to our crime laboratory.
A centralized station in the rear yard was created to sort, number, photograph, and package evidence.
Admittedly, I was glad to leave the horrid house. I couldn’t believe that anyone could live there and was appalled that Bryan had made his teenage daughter endure those conditions.
Bryan Patrick Miller – aka the Zombie Hunter – pictured in the early 1990s
Cold case detective Troy A Hillman finally brought Miller to justice
I needed to organize the team who would handle incoming tips from citizens and law enforcement agencies on other crimes. We would also coordinate the local and out-of-state interviews to be conducted and ensure the county attorney’s team had what they needed to begin the adjudication phase.
I also needed to change my filthy clothes.
Impressively, in less than a week, the dog-tired search warrant team had wrapped up their deep-dive search at the house from hell and had seized more than 6,000 pieces of evidence, which were itemized, photographed, and sorted into more than 761 packages.
Chilling new theory on why so many serial killers come from the Pacific Northwest
Over two decades had passed since our murders. It was a long shot, but we searched for items taken from the victims’ scenes. Their bikes, their Walkmans, and the knife were at the top of the list. We also hoped to locate evidence from other unknown victims.
As with the refrigerator shrink wrap, we found items that painted a more complete picture of the monster we now knew, Bryan Miller.
A sample of items seized included:
Women’s necklaces and jewelry boxes with women’s jewelry.
A plastic doll of a woman inside a box labeled the ‘Visible Woman.’ A person could in effect dissect the parts from the doll. Within the box, there were a heart, a liver, and intestines made of molded plastic.
A Post-it Note with a drawing. The drawing, titled ‘Murder Scene,’ depicted a person standing with a large head wound.
Photos of women in swimsuits with bottoms on but no tops.
A newspaper article that described unsolved murders in the late 1980s in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
An article titled ‘On Finding a Model,’ which described how an artist wanting a nude body model recruits, with a model release form attached.
Photograph of a zombie creature cutting off a breast of a woman.
Three developed human teeth in a jar.
A book about Jack the Ripper.
Multiple Barbie dolls (all missing their feet).
A large number of violent porn videos depicting torture and bondage of women: One had a woman tied to a large stick, impaled as if she were a pig ready for a roast, others showed women with body parts cut off and lots of blood.
Rope, gloves, binoculars, and other tools suitable for hunting.
Numerous references to the 1982 slasher movie The New York Ripper.
Unlike his home, Miller’s car had been well taken care of – it was his baby and his fantasy
It wasn’t until June 2023 that Miller was found guilty of the murders of Angela Brosso and Melanie Bernas. Now in his 50s, he remains on death row
I walked over to the crime lab and saw Bryan’s now infamous Zombie Hunter car parked in an examination bay.
Unlike his home, the car had been well taken care of. It was Bryan’s baby and his fantasy.
I asked the crime scene specialist if she had found anything. She took a pair of handcuffs, brass knuckles, a white towel with what appeared to be fake bloodstains, XL gloves, and a zombie mannequin from the trunk.
All props for his elaborate zombie hunter fantasy, I thought.
Our next job was to go over the items seized from Bryan’s house, carefully examining items we believed might have our victims’ or other victims’ DNA: blades, knives, a Sony cassette recorder, headphones, a wad of brown hair, electrical cord also with brown hair attached, the three teeth.
Unfortunately, nothing yielded a trace of our victims’ DNA or that of any unknown victim. But this investigation was far from over. In fact, it would be picked apart in the years to come.
It wasn’t until June 2023 that Miller was found guilty of the murders of Angela Brosso and Melanie Bernas.
Now in his 50s, he remains on death row.
Chasing Down the Zombie Hunter: The True Story of a Small-Town Accountant, an Elite Group of Detectives, and Arizona’s Most Terrifying Cold Case by Troy A. Hillman is published Oct 7, Pegasus Crime
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The sick moment I knew the ‘Zombie Hunter’ was the sadistic serial killer I was looking for
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