Boyfriend testifies, detective describes victim’s mutilated body in Phoenix Canal Killer case

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) -- Joseph Krakowiecki and Angela Brosso spent Sunday, Nov. 8, 1992, doing and preparing to do the things they enjoyed most. The young couple picked up their mountain bikes from a bike shop, where they were being serviced. Brosso went on a bike ride in the evening while Krakowiecki baked a cake. The next day would be Brosso’s 22nd birthday, but she never made it back from the bike ride.

Police and prosecutors believe Brosso crossed paths with Bryan Patrick Miller that night. They allege that Miller stabbed her multiple times with a knife or other sharp object and sexually assaulted and decapitated her.

During the trial, Krakowiecki explained the couple’s go-to routine as he took the stand. “I expected her to be home by eight,” said Krakowiecki on Tuesday morning. He said the couple watched the television show, In Living Color, every Sunday night. So it was odd for Brosso not to make it home to their apartment by the time the show started.

Krakowiecki was facing Miller, sitting about 30 feet away at the defense table. But Krakowiecki did not appear to make eye contact with Miller. “Where is she? I was concerned where she was,” said Krakowiecki, while describing what was going through his mind as he searched for Brosso that night. Finally, after three attempts to find her on the bike trail, he called police.

Krakowiecki said it was not uncommon for Brosso to take bike rides in the early evening. On the morning of Nov. 9, Phoenix police found Brosso’s body. Krakowiecki said by the time police informed him, he had already seen video of the crime scene on television.

Phillip Keen, the medical examiner at the time, said a stab wound to the back killed Brosso. “That particular injury caused Ms. Brosso’s death in a very quick period of time?” asked defense attorney RJ Parker. Keen replied, “Yes.” So, authorities knew Brosso died quickly, making the condition detective Mike Meislish found her decapitated body at the scene much more disturbing.

“There were some signs of incisions around the stump of her neck. She had an incision that went from roughly the top portion of her chest down to above her pubic bone area. There was another incision that went, circumferentially, from the front to the sides to the back all the way around her body. There were stab wounds on parts of her chest where the skin had been pulled back, and there were also some stab wounds, I believe, to her left breast,” Meislish said.

The cuts on Brosso were so deep investigators thought they were looking possibly for a surgeon or special ops soldier who committed the murder in the dark of night. However, those theories were shockingly debunked in 2015 when genetic genealogy helped identify the DNA left at the Brosso crime scene to a man in the public eye playing a fictional character at events called “The Zombie Hunter, later identified as Miller.

So far, most of the testimony has revolved around Brosso’s murder, but this trial is expected to go on for months, where we’ll learn more details about Melanie Bernas’ murder.

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