When Murder Crosses Paths

Arizona Zombie Hunter

The following are excerpts from the graphic novel The Zombie in the Rearview by Phoenix journalist Keen Azariah, which details his seven-year friendship with Bryan Patrick Miller, who would later become infamously known as the "Arizona Zombie Hunter." (store link at end of article)

Shortly after his January 2015 arrest for the murders of Angela Brosso and Melanie Bernas, Bryan Patrick Miller, through a series of letters sent from Lower Buckeye Jail, elucidated on his strange and troubled life.

With each letter, I learned a little more regarding these dark years.

What slowly unraveled was a tapestry of coincidence. I tend to refer to them as synchronicities.

This is one of those synchronicities.

Excerpt: "Blood & Turquoise"

Bookmarked with Scottsdale to its east and Phoenix to its west, the neighborhood of Arcadia sits just along the north side of the Arizona Grand Canal. Seventeen-year-old Melanie Bernas lived with her mother in a single-level home in the Arcadia area, near Osborn Road and 48th Street.

At 5’10”, Melanie was tall for her age, and athletic. She was known to routinely ride her green 21-speed SPC Hardrock Sport mountain bike on long journeys, most often with her best friend, Jessica Preach, who, along with Jessica’s sister Julie, had known Melanie since fifth grade, and referred to her as simply “Mel.”

The Preach family considered Melanie part of their already large family. Together, Melanie and Jessica would ride their bikes across the valley, using the canal as their main route. Once their cycling adventures took them as far as Tempe, an endeavor that Melanie’s mother wasn’t happy hearing about upon their return, seeing as temperatures outside had risen well over 115 degrees. But for Mel, it was nothing that a few gulps of Hawaiian Punch from the fridge couldn’t fix.

On Tuesday, September 21, 1993, Jessica was working her job as a hostess at Carrows restaurant on Thomas Road when Melanie stopped in to say hello. Sitting herself down at the bar, Melanie, still slightly perturbed by an argument she had at school that day with a classmate, ordered a snack, and asked Jessica if she still planned to join her for their planned bike ride later that day. Jessica assured her that she would, as long as the boss didn’t need her to work overtime.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened.

The next morning, Wednesday, September 22nd, as the sun rose in the east, cyclists traveling the now locally infamous strip of canal where the severed head of Angela Brosso was found months earlier, noticed they’d ridden through what looked like a puddle of blood on the paved bike path. They also noticed what looked like bloody drag marks that seemed to be leading around a small tree, then to the canal bank.

Upon returning home, they called the police. Police arrived and discovered a body submerged in the murky water, a mere 300 feet from where they recovered the severed head of Angela Brosso just months earlier. Police divers guided the body from its resting spot eastward toward a concrete ramp that exited the water, where it was placed onto a gurney and into a vehicle.

At 12:30 p.m., officer Randy Chapman, without disclosing that police had pulled a homicide victim from the canal, visited Melanie’s mother and obtained a photo of Melanie, which he would later use to help police confirm identification of the body they’d pulled out of the canal.

Upon retrieval of Melanie’s body from the canal, the first thing police noticed was how she was dressed. She was wearing only a turquoise zip-up lycra swimsuit and the tennis shoes and socks she left home in.

By all accounts, the swimsuit wasn’t recognized as anything Melanie had ever owned. It appeared that whoever had killed Melanie had redressed her after death. The second thing police noticed were the letters “WSC” and a cross carved into her chest.

Excerpt: "Devil Behind Stained Glass"

March 23, 1960, Edinburg, Texas

Roman Catholic priest John Feit approaches 20-year-old Maria America Guerra and places a piece of cloth over her face as she kneels and prays in a church. Guerra screams, bites Feit's finger, and runs from the church.

As the screaming fades, Feit is seen running from the church and into the rectory. He is later arrested, pleads no contest, and is found guilty of aggravated assault.

The punishment?

IT IS THEREFORE CONSIDERED, ORDERED, AND ADJUDGED by the Court that the State of Texas have and recover of the defendant, John B. Feit, the said fine of Five Hundred Dollars.

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April 16, 1960, McAllen, Texas

Less than a month after the attack on Guerra, with the excitement of the Easter weekend upon her, 25-year-old schoolteacher Irene Garza greets the holiday in traditional fashion by calling Sacred Heart Catholic Church to arrange a confession.

Garza made it to church, but she would never be seen alive again.

A few days later, on April 21, Garza's body was found floating face down in an irrigation canal. Also found at the scene was a photo slide projector that Feit himself would soon claim ownership to.

A Texas Canal Killer in Arcadia

One might think it ludicrous to entertain any vague alternative hypotheses proposed by an accused serial killer whose DNA was found on the bodies of the victims, but in these situations, friends and family of the accused, through an amalgamation of shock and denial, are prone to reach farther than most in their attempts to make reality align with the best case scenario.

This is the state I was in—along with other close friends—during the first few months following the arrest of my friend Bryan Patrick Miller, even in the face of what most considered damning DNA evidence against him, along with the sudden revelation of his previous incidents in his past, which seemed to always involve two things: knives and women.

It was in this state of mind that I entertained Miller's suspicions regarding John Feit, and began digging into the Irene Garza case, and Feit's life after Texas.

Life After Irene Garza

It was during my first few correspondences with Miller in 2015 via Lower Buckeye Jail that he mentioned the name John Feit. Miller threw Feit's name onto the table of possible alternative suspects in the murders of Angela Brosso and Melanie Bernas.

How could a canal killer from 1960s Texas be at all connected to the Phoenix canal murders of the 1990s?

1971

Father John Bernard Feit sends a letter to Rome asking that he be released from his priestly duties.

Late 1970s

John Bernard Feit and his family move to Arizona, where he would live uncomfortably close to the Bernas residence. He would become active at St. Theresa's Parish, where Feit's brother, Mathias, served as pastor. Eerily, the church sat a mere 2,500 feet away from the restaurant where Melanie Bernas would often visit her friend, Jessica.

At a time, Feit was living just off of Osborn Road, a mere 200 feet from the Arizona Cross Cut Canal, a narrow stretch of water eerily similar to the murky resting place of Irene Garza 55 years earlier. Approximately 1,000 feet to the north lay the strip of Arizona Grand Canal Melanie Bernas used as a main cycling thoroughfare.

The Early 1990s.

A young Bryan Patrick Miller worked under John Feit at the local St. Vincent DePaul soup kitchen for many years. The John Feit of the 1990s was not the frail and decrepit old man seen using a walker to enter a courtroom in 2016. During the Canal Murders, Feit was in his late 50s, much healthier and more energetic.

Considering the dark cloud of suspicion that hung over John Feit since the assault on Marie Guerra and the murder of Irene Garza, one would think alarms would go off if a woman in his neighborhood ended up dead in a canal. Perhaps it was the thousand miles traveled and the blur of three decades past that dissipated that cloud of suspicion as the former priest settled into a new life in Phoenix.

Regardless, in 1993, that very scenario would occur.

Click here to read more of the 5-part graphic novel eBook!

• The Zombie in the Rearview
  The Zombie in the Rearview is a 5-volume illustrated telling of the bizarre story of "Zombie Hunter" Bryan Patrick Miller and the Phoenix Canal Murders.