If you had to go back in time, what career would you choose?

Wow! A good question but not one I must think twice about. I would have been a missing person/homicide detective. During my career with the National Center for Missing Adults, I worked very closely and became good friends with many law enforcement officers for who I had such admiration. Many told me I should have been a detective.

I thought about it so many times but was so happy running my agency during my prime years that I couldn’t imagine doing something else.

A driving force for me was always to serve and protect, even as the CEO of my agency. I felt a great sense of compassion and care for other human beings and thought I had a higher sense of duty. I would have made a perfect fit. It’s a career where you make a difference in the lives of others during their deepest, darkest times.

While running my agency, we developed the first national training for law enforcement in missing person cases funded through the Department of Justice. We provided a two-day training for Chiefs of Police, sheriffs, and other administrators and another two-day training for detectives. The program was very successful.

What I do regret is having not gone into law enforcement in 2010 when I left my company. By now, I would be a detective. We must all follow our dreams. For me, my career was beyond any expectations I ever had for myself and made a difference in the lives of thousands of people throughout the years. For that, I am grateful to have experienced.

Ted Bundy's Victims: Lynda Ann Healy

Lynda Ann Healy was abducted from her home in Seattle on January 31, 1974.

Ted Bundy once called himself the only man with a Ph.D. in serial murder. He was proud of the fact that he abducted, raped, and murdered approximately 30 women between 1974 and 1978. The true number of victims will never be known, but experts suspect there may have been up to 100. Lynda Ann Healy was one of them.


Ted Bundy's Early Life

Ted Bundy was born Theodore Robert Cowell to Eleanor "Louise" Cowell at the Lund Home for Unwed Mothers in Burlington, Vermont, on November 24, 1946. His father’s identity was never determined with any degree of certainty. However, some of Bundy’s relatives suspected he might have been fathered by Louise’s abusive father Samuel Cowell.

For the first few years of his life, Bundy lived in the home of his maternal grandparents Samuel and Eleanor Cowell in Philadelphia. They elected to raise him as their own son to avoid the social stigmas of their daughter having a child out of wedlock. The Cowell’s told him his mother Louise was his old sister. According to author Anne Rule, who wrote “The Stranger Beside Me,” Bundy found out about his true parentage around 1969 and harbored a lifelong resentment toward his mother for never mentioning his biological father.

Ted Bundy's parents Eleanor "Louise" Cowell and John Bundy in Washington. 

In 1951, Louise moved to Washington state and married John Bundy, who adopted Ted, giving him his name. Their family expanded, as Louise and John had four children together. Linda was born in 1952, followed by a son, Glen, in 1954. Another girl, Sandra, was born in 1956, and Richard, their last child, was born in 1961.

Ted Bundy's childhood home in Tacoma, Washington. 

When Ted was in the second grade, the Bundy family purchased a home at 658 N. Skyline Drive in Tacoma, fairly close to Narrows Bridge. About the time Bundy was graduating Wilson High School in the spring of 1965, the Bundy family sold the home on Skyline and moved into another home.

Author Anne Rule, who had become a good friend to Bundy, believes he began murdering in his teenage years. Bundy avoided this topic, refusing to tell authorities when he started his rampage.

A teenage Ted Bundy (right), with his mother and siblings.

Bundy displayed sexual deviancy throughout his childhood and adolescence. During his college years, Bundy would consume large amounts of alcohol and "canvas the community" late at night, looking through open curtains to watch women undress.

When recollecting his childhood in Tacoma, Washington, Bundy told biographers Michaud and Aynesworth that he would rummage through neighborhood garbage bins searching for pictures of naked women. During high school, Bundy was arrested twice on suspicion of burglary and auto theft. In addition, circumstantial evidence dating back to Bundy’s childhood connects him to the disappearance of his neighbor 8-year old Anne Marie Burr in Tacoma on August 31, 1961.

Bundy also showed a promising career in politics. After graduating from the University of Washington (UW) in 1972, Bundy joined Washington Governor Daniel J. Evans' re-election campaign. After Evans was re-elected, Bundy was hired as an assistant to Ross Davis, Chairman of the Washington State Republican Party. Davis thought highly of Bundy, describing him as "smart, aggressive, and a believer in the system."

Many of Bundy’s victims regarded him as charismatic and handsome, traits he exploited to win the trust of many of his young victims. He typically feigned a disability or injury to gain the young women's trust before overpowering them and abducting them to secluded locations.

With an almost mythical status, Bundy has long held the attention of the public.

During his televised court proceedings, people were captivated by the horrific nature of his crimes and by his strange fascination with his own psychology. During the trial, Bundy was like a cult leader, with women in the courtroom seeking just a glance at the Jekyll and Hyde who became known as America's most notorious serial killer.

Ted Bundy with his girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer in 1974.

America's most notorious serial killer

Bundy was not a gentleman and shouldn't even be described as human. A sexual pervert, Bundy would engage in mutilation and necrophilia with the corpses of his victims. Some victims he would visit for days after he killed them. Sometimes he cut off their heads with a hacksaw so he could admire their faces in his apartment. He then threw their heads into the forest once he tired of them. Bundy told detectives he even disposed of and burned one victim’s head in his girlfriend’s apartment fireplace when she was not at home.

Some of his victim’s bodies were badly decomposed when found by authorities, and the cause of death was hard to determine. However, on others, forensic evidence reflected he would keep his victims alive for days before he killed them. Some bodies were found with newly painted fingernails, washed hair, and fresh makeup.

No, Bundy was not a "gentleman killer" but a monster of the most sadistic and evil proportions.

Many books, documentaries, and movies about Bundy tell his side of the story, neglecting to highlight the truly horrific nature of his crimes. Many fail altogether to tell the stories of his victims. Who were they? What kind of people were they? Who might they have become had Bundy not become intertwined with their fate?

To keep a loved one’s memory alive after they have died, one must continue to say their name. Throughout this article, I will be referring to these young women by their first names.

Lynda Ann Healy

Lynda Ann Healy was Ted Bundy's first accounted victim, abducted from her home in Seattle on January 31, 1974.

Lynda Ann Healy was born in 1952 and was so beautiful she could have been a model. She had long auburn hair, sparkly big blue eyes, and a ready smile. Lynda was 21 years old and a popular student at the University of Washington (UW), majoring in psychology. She often worked with children with disabilities and loved the opportunity to help others.

According to the book The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Killer Ted Bundy, Lynda had grown up in an upper-class comfortable neighborhood in the suburbs with her parents and two siblings. Described as an above-average student and talented musician, Lynda was described as full of life and self-assurance who went everywhere with her camera.

A dedicated student, who lived in an off-campus home in Seattle, Lynda was known for her morning weather and ski reports on a local radio station. She was bright and responsible and had her entire life before her.

The home at 5517 12th Street NE in Seattle, where Lynda Ann  Healy resided with her roommates.

The day before Lynda vanished was like any other day. Lynda got up at 5:30 a.m. and went to her job at Northwest Ski Reports to make her weather report. After work, she headed off to classes, and later that day had planned to attend the afternoon chorus practice on the UW campus.

Lynda had made plans the following day to make dinner for her parents and brother who were scheduled to come over to Lynda’s at 6:00 p.m. She had wanted to make a special meal. When she returned home, she borrowed a roommates’ car to go to the grocery store and returned to the house with her groceries at approximately 8:30 p.m. From there Lynda and several of her roommates decided to walk to Dante’s, a nearby tavern, to have a couple of beers.

According to the book Ted Bundy’s Murderous Mysteries: The Many Victims of America’s Most Infamous Serial Killer, in the weeks preceding, Lynda had complained about stomach pain, but that evening her friends describe her as “lively, talkative and feeling good. Their conversation was light—from psychology to music—not focusing on any specific subject.

Once they all got home from Dante's, one of her roommates would later recall to authorities that Lynda had come into her room at approximately 11:30 p.m. to talk, before heading to her own room in the basement of the home at approximately midnight.

Sometime during the night, Bundy walked up the steps of the home and gently tried the door. To his delight, he found it open. He would plan to return later.

The following morning, on Friday, February 1, 1974, Lynda did not show up for work to do her morning weather report. As usual, her alarm went off 5:30 a.m. and her roommate Barbara Little recalls hearing the alarm continue to go off, finding the room empty when she went in to check on Lynda. She assumed Lynda had already gone to work.

None of the roommates recall hearing anything the night before and initially, there wasn’t concern she was missing. However, Lynda’s employer soon called the house to ask why she hadn’t come to work. This concerned the roommates but they decided to wait for Lynda's father and brother to show for dinner to share their worry.

They explained to Lynda's family that they were concerned Lynda had missed work and that no one had seen her on campus that day. Lynda's mother immediately called the police. The Seattle Police Department responded to the home.

Crime scene photograph of the inside of Lynda Ann Healy's bedroom.

Police Investigation

Lieutenant Pat Murphy investigated Lynda’s room. “The room was very neat,” said Murphy. He also noted the bed had been “made up neatly.” Lynda’s roommates immediately found this odd as Lynda would not make her bed on days she went to work, and she never tucked the blanket with the pillow underneath. She always placed the pillow on top.

While searching Lynda’s room, Murphy turned back the bedspread and found blood on the pillow and head area of the sheets of Lynda’s bed. He found her nightgown, covered in blood around the neck neatly hanging in her closet. By interviewing the roommates, police then determined items missing from her room included the clothing she wore the night before, a pink satin pillowcase, her backpack, and her house keys.

Her roommates also found the back door open and found this very alarming. Normally, Lynda would let herself in the side door, park her bike inside on the landing, making sure to lock it again. They assumed the night before she had done nothing different.

Bob Keppel, a detective with King County Police said the unique crime scene continues to stand out in his memory. It appeared someone had broken into the house, attacked Lynda, redressed her, made the bed (unbelievable!), and carried her off without a trace into the chilly night.

A frightening incident happened about two months before Lynda went missing. Roommate, Monica Sutherland, told police that she recalled Lynda telling her that she was in the laundromat alone on the avenue near their home when she noticed a man in an orange pickup stop and begin to stare inside. The man then entered the laundromat without any clothing. He briefly fooled around with a machine before proceeding to check the back door of the laundromat as he was leaving. The man never talked to Lynda, but the incident frightened her.

Sutherland also told police about another incident that occurred about a month before Lynda vanished. Sutherland had come home and was alone inside the residence. She suddenly heard the neighbor’s dog start barking and peeked outside the front door to see a man standing on the lower step of her residence. He was holding the little dog around the neck, fiercely shaking it. She recounted how she ran outside and neighbors were yelling that the man—the man replied the dog attacked him and then fled on foot.

One of the only pictures of Ted Bundy and his infamous 1968 Volkswagen Bug he used to prowl for victims.

Was Bundy stalking Lynda?

We may never know if Bundy specifically selected Lynda or just chose a room at random.

Ted Bundy had lived approximately three blocks away from Lynda and frequented the Safeway store Lynda had gone grocery shopping the night of her disappearance.

Also, a coincidence not widely mentioned is Bundy’s cousin, Edna Cowell. She was also a student at UW and lived with two previous roommates of Lynda’s. It is not known if Bundy ever met Lynda through his cousin's affiliation with Lynda's circle of friends.

During the month of January, Ted Bundy had been attending night school at the University of Puget Sound Law School. His normal class time was on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Lynda went missing after midnight on January 31, a Thursday night when Bundy was not in class.

In addition, Bundy was living at 4143-12 NE, Seattle only 14 blocks away from Lynda at the time of her disappearance.

Yet another coincidence, during 1972, Lynda and Bundy were enrolled at UW where both were majoring in psychology. However, no investigation has concluded that Lynda and Bundy ever met.

Possible connection with Karen Sparks

After searching Lynda’s home, one of the detectives made an eerie connection between Lynda’s disappearance and another incident that occurred on January 4. Karen Sparks, an 18-year old dancer, and student at UW was involved in another incident in the University District of Seattle a few weeks earlier.

Karen lived on 8^th Northwest, just 11 blocks from Lynda. She was attacked while in her bed on January 4. Someone had entered her basement room and brutally bludgeoned her about her head with a metal rod from her bed frame. She had also been sexually assaulted with an object penetrated so deep in her vagina that she experienced severe internal damage. The attack also caused significant brain damage causing her to forget everything about the incident. She remained in the hospital unconscious for nearly ten days.

Though a connection may have been made by police due to the case similarities, police were no closer to finding Lynda.

Entrance to Taylor Mountain Forest in eastern King County, Washington.

The case would continue to baffle police until 1975 when Lynda’s skull was found along with several other bodies just 23 miles east of Seattle in the Taylor Mountain Forest.

Still, there would be countless more assaults and disappearances before police would make a potential connection between Bundy, Lynda, and Karen.

Mother of Two Missing: Her Children Have Only One Christmas Wish

Jessica Ashmore vanished May 19, 2019, near her family property in Jonesville, South Carolina.

Mother of two, Jessica Ashmore, was last seen at her home in Jonesville, South Carolina on May 19, 2019.

At the time of her disappearance, Jessica, 34, had been living in a mobile home, on family property located on Jefferies Farm Road. According to the police, she was at the property at about lunchtime with her half-brother and several other family members.

“She and her half-brother had a disagreement in the driveway. She took a right out of the driveway and left on foot, saying she was going for a walk,” said Major John Sherfield of the Union County Sheriff’s Office. “She didn’t specify how long she would leave for,” Sherfield told Dateline.

Rural County Road

The road Jessica would have walked along is a rural country road with only a few houses scattered. A relatively safe town, Jonesville was established in 1770, with a population of less than a thousand people. It’s a beautiful forested place of history where plantations were many, and much has stayed the same.

Means House is a historic unrestored home on an isolated 20-acre property in Jonesville, South Carolina.

Jonesville is known for its history and the Means House. A historic property with unrestored Georgian architecture that sits on an isolated 20 acres in Union County. Land largely untouched since the 1800s.

People don’t go missing here in Jonesville.

The Unknown

According to investigators, Jessica didn’t take any money with her and her cell phone and asthma inhaler were also left at the home. Jessica's mother Angel Ashmore told police that her daughter would have never left without her medication.

“My son called me and asked me if Jessica had come by here, the day after she went walking because she had shown back up over there, at the mobile home. And I said no, she hadn’t been by here,” Angel told Dateline about the call she had received the day following her disappearance. “At that point, I wasn’t concerned because I just figured she was at a friend’s house and she hadn’t gone far.”

Initially, friends and family were not concerned about Jessica walking down the road alone, figuring she may have walked to a friend’s residence.

More than 48 hours later, Angel received another call saying Jessica was still not home. At that point, she called Jessica’s phone and nobody answered.

Angel said if Jessica’s phone wasn’t working, she would still have access to Messenger and always contacted her mother back right away. “But she wasn’t contacting me back. And I sent message after message and I wasn’t getting anything,” said Angel.

The Investigation

It wasn't until Saturday, May 25, when Angel called the Union County Sheriff’s Office to report her daughter missing. “That’s when I got [the case] and I’ve been working it ever since,” Investigator Coffer said. “We was already seven days behind the eight ball. We spoke to family members, her boyfriend, and close friends all on that Saturday night, but nothing turned up there.”

Flier for Jessica Ashmore, missing since May 19, 2019, from Jonesville, South Carolina.

Once Jessica’s mother made a missing person report and police were involved, Jessica’s mother and family also began making fliers, handing them out and searching the area for Jessica.

Deputies in Union County search for missing mother Jessica Ashmore in the area near Dawkins Road in Jonesville. Photo courtesy of Fox Carolina.

The Union County Sheriff’s Office deputies conducted searches of the road and densely wooded forests. “There were a couple of cameras at a house up the road. We checked those and didn’t see her [walking along the road], Investigator Coffer told Dateline. “But there was another road she could’ve cut down before she got there – and there were no video cameras on that road.”

Police are handling the case as a missing person case and potential homicide.
“We don’t know if foul play is involved. We certainly hope not,” Major John Sherfield told NBC. “But we are treating it as such, just in case.”

As Union County Sheriff David Taylor sits with two large notebooks on his desk, he vows not to give up, but the truth is, this case has baffled everyone.

“Just like an unsolved murder, just because you get to a place where you’re not getting information, you still have to keep digging,” said the Sheriff.

A Mother's Desperate Search

Jessica’s mother Angel continues to hold onto hope in the aftermath of her daughter’s disappearance. From the beginning, Angel has pleaded to the public and continued to put out fliers of her daughter, vowing to continue until she knows what happened to her daughter.

Jessica Ashmore always kept in touch with her mother Angel on the cell phone and Facebook Messenger.

Angel and her mother are close. Angel describes her daughter as beautiful, loving and funny and says her daughter’s most wonderful accomplishments are her children, Gage, 17, and London, 5.

Angel told NBC, that her grandson knows his mother is missing and trying to put on a brave face. London, Jessica’s daughter, has been sheltered from the conversation until Angel knows what is going on.

Jessica has been missing for more than 200 days. “It actually feels like it has been 200 years, I don’t feel like it’s been 200 days,” On December 5, Angel told 7 News on December 5, “It feels like a lifetime.”

Angel told the reporter she looks up at the stars every evening wondering if her child has eaten, is cold, or dead. Either way, she can’t give up the search while there is hope that Angel may be out there somewhere.

Meanwhile, Angel is unable to eat or sleep and her mind is consumed with reruns of what could have happened to her precious daughter.

Prior to her disappearance on May 19, 2019, Jessica Ashmore is with her 5-year-old daughter.

For this grandmother, dealing with the painful ambiguity of not knowing where her own child is and the thought of her grandchildren spending Christmas without their mother is excruciating. For her grandchildren, only a Christmas Miracle will do.

“Getting up each morning and looking at the kids and them asking me ‘Is mom coming home today?’ And I don’t know, Angel said.

For Angel, she only has one Christmas wish.

“I would like Jessica to walk through the door,” she said. “That would be my gift.”

If you may have information about Jessica Ashmore, please contact the Union County Sheriff’s Office at 864-429-1611.

The Zombie Hunter: Trial Started for Arizona's Real-Life Serial Killer and His Victims

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Frequently dressing up in Cosplay and known by friends as “Zombie Hunter,” Bryan Patrick Miller is also known as the Canal Killer by police after his 2015 arrest for the murders of Angela Brosso and Melanie Bernas in 1992 and 1993.

Known by his friends as the “Zombie Hunter,” Bryan Patrick Miller, 46, began his death penalty trial on October 14, 2019, in Phoenix, Ariz. Charged with the 1992 and 1993 murders of Angela Brosso and Melanie Bernas, investigators wonder if there could there be more victims.

Miller was arrested at his North Phoenix home on January 13, 2015, ending a search for a killer that haunted the Valley for more than two decades.

The Victims

Angela Brosso, 22, grew up in Camp Hill, Pa., outside of Harrisburg. Friends and family describe her as “happy go lucky” and fearless. “She was a force,” her mother Linda told E.J. Montini, a columnist at the Arizona Republic. “One of the things her father said about her was that she changed the nature of a room when she entered it. And it’s true, you know? She really did.”

She was a shy little girl who always wore dresses, with long blonde hair her mom would put in buns, pigtails and French braids. Her mom called her Angie.

Angela was an adventurer and an animal lover. In high school, Angela worked at Kentucky Friend Chicken and would spend everything she made on her guinea pigs and bunnies.

During a careers-day program in high school, Angela saw a presentation from a representative at DeVry Institute and enrolled in their school in Newark, N.J. for two years. She then transferred to the DeVry in Los Angeles and graduated with honors. Shortly thereafter, Angela accepted a job at Syntellect, a Phoenix electronics company and moved to North Phoenix where she resided with her boyfriend at an apartment complex located at I-17 and Cactus Avenue.

Angela would be nearly 50 now, had gone out for an afternoon bicycle ride in late 1992, along a bike path that snakes through the city along the Arizona Canal. Her nude and mutilated torso was found in a dirt field near her apartment complex. Her head discovered several days later, about a mile from her home, floating in a canal grate near Metro Center.

With Phoenix Police Department’s best working her case, it would come to haunt them throughout the years.

“Every homicide is a tragedy, but I can honestly say this was one of the most horrific murders to ever occur in the history of this city,” now-retired Detective Leo Speliopoulos told the Arizona Republic.

Though Speliopoulos has never said what evidence was collected at the scene, he has clearly stated what wasn’t found: No witness, no description of a suspect, no weapons, no belongings, and no bike.

Ten months after Angela Brosso’s murder, the body of Melanie Bernas was found floating in the Arizona Canal not far from where Angela’s body had been found.

Melanie Bernas was a junior at Arcadia High school and described as the “girl next door” with dreams of becoming a doctor. She was an achiever who had visits with Pepperdine University and the University of California-Berkeley scheduled just weeks after her death. Her friend Daphne Marcus told the Arizona Republic that she grew up just up the street from Melanie and would ride bikes, have sleepovers, and jump on Melanie’s trampoline growing up.

Melanie was found near I-17 and Dunlap on September 21, 1993. She had been stabbed several times; a turquoise bodysuit lay nearby. Her mountain bike - missing to this day.

Police later linked the two murders. To snare the perpetrator, police entered the DNA profile collected at the scene into the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) – and waited.

Police followed hundreds of tips over the years, even placing street signs along the path near where the bodies were found. Local reporters worked for years on stories to remind the public the murders were still unsolved.

Police revisited the case over and over throughout the years, accumulating enough files to justify its own cabinet.

Police enlisted the help of the Vidocq Society, an organization consisting of forensic experts who dedicate their time to solving cold cases to develop a profile of the man who would likely be their killer. Analyzing the cases, Vidocq predicted the man would still be living in the general area of the murders and would have committed precursor crimes. A man who possibly acted out fantasies and set fires. Vidocq detectives also said it was possible police had crossed paths with the individual earlier in the investigation.

When police circumnavigated the case files, they found Miller who, as a juvenile, had been arrested in the stabbing of a woman at Paradise Valley Mall in 1990. A precursor event that supported Vidocq’s predictions.

Miller told police he stabbed the woman because she reminded him of his mother.

Throughout the years Miller had avoided detection by police because his DNA profile had not been entered into CODIS, the national DNA database that cross-references DNA samples from crime scenes with convicted felons.

Phoenix Police Sergeant Trent Crump said Miller had been interviewed when the murders occurred, but there was no physical evidence tying him to the case.

In the weeks before the arrest, police had been surveilling Miller and, using a ruse, collected his DNA. Crump would not say what kind of ruse was used but admitted that it is relatively simple to obtain DNA from items people discard.

Who is Bryan Patrick Miller?

Bryan Patrick Miller is described as quiet by his landlady but went on to say he wasn’t a good tenant and rarely paid his rent on time. She explained the reason she didn’t kick him out was because of her affection for Miller’s 15-year-old daughter, Sarah.

Other renters described him as a shy and a not “quite normal” young man who would dress up in Cosplay, who drove an old decommissioned police car with lights on top and prominent sticker on the trunk reading Zombie Hunter.

Miller marketed himself as the Zombie Hunter on Facebook and other social media platforms, offering to make appearances at zombie walks and comic bookstores. Miller’s Facebook photographs feature the macabre and reflect a wide range of hobbies to include the fantasy subculture, steampunk, and Comic-Con.

On another popular website called DeviantArt, artists can upload their work and share it with the public. Like Facebook, fans of the art site would “like” the photographs. Miller chose to like some of the most frightening images consisting of women who were decapitated or horrifically mutilated.

Miller lived with his daughter Sarah and was a member of the Mennonite Church. Ironically, Mennonites are non-violent and tend to oppose violence and war.

Court records indicate Miller had petitioned for full custody of his daughter in 2008, claiming Sarah was suffering from health problems living with her mother who Miller claimed was homeless and unemployed.

The Arrest

On January 14, 2015, over 25 years after the gruesome murders of Melanie Bernas and Angela Brosso, police arrested Miller, 42 at the time, as a suspect after getting a DNA match using genealogy software.

According to court documents, Miller denied involvement in the murders but had no explanation of how his DNA matched the profile found on the victims. Miller told police that he lived near the bike path and admitted to frequently biking the path.

Police say they are not ruling out the potential that Miller could be connected to other Valley murders. Crump said Miller had moved to Hawaii and Washington prior to returning to Phoenix. Phoenix investigators are continuing to work with other state agencies analyzing unsolved murders for any connections. Crump told the Arizona Republic that it would be “very unusual” if Brosso was Miller’s first victim and Bernas his last.

When police made the arrest at Miller’s home on Ninth Street and Mountain View Road, one could see officers carrying out numerous boxes of items and even a bicycle.

When investigating the scene, police described Miller as a classic hoarder. “Floor to ceiling, it was packed with all sorts of junk – boxes to paper to furniture – I can’t even tell you what wasn’t in there,” said Crump.

Are There More Victims?

Reports obtained by ABC 15, revealed Miller’s own mother called Phoenix Police out of the blue to tell them her son had a strange obsession with Angela Brosso’s case over the years.

Miller’s ex-wife also made claims there may be more victims. In 2015, police released new details in the case that all but confirm those suspicions.

Brandy Myers

Brandy Myers, 13, vanished on May 26, 1992, while knocking on neighborhood doors raising money for her school’s book club. She just so happened to live in the same neighborhood as Miller.

Brandy’s sister Kristin Thelen describes her sister as having diminished mental capacity and very trusting. “So, we walked by him every single day. We had no idea we were living by this monster,” said Thelen. “He lived three blocks from my house and one block from our school.”

Police now believe Miller’s house was the last door Brandy knocked on. “I will tell you that he is a very strong investigative lead in the investigation,” said Crump. In fact, Phoenix police filed a first-degree murder charge against Miller in the disappearance of Brandy. However, the county attorney declined prosecution, stating there was “no likelihood of conviction.”

Miller’s ex-wife Amy’s interviews with police revealed that Miller had confessed to Brandy’s murder decades ago saying, “He grabbed her and dragged her into the house,” Amy told Crime Watch Daily. “At the time I truly believed he was just making up the story.”

Thelen recalls the day Brandy disappeared. “I was supposed to go with her,” said Thelen. “He pulled her into the house, killed her, dismembered her, and threw her body out in the trash,” said Thelen.

Thelen is calling for Miller to confess to the crime. Brandy's body has never been found and Phoenix Police say the investigation is ongoing.

Adrienne Salinas

On June 15, 2013, Adrienne Salinas, 19, was walking to a local gas station to get a cab. Somewhere between her apartment and the station only a quarter-mile away, she vanished.

Adrienne was living in Tempe, Ariz., and attending community college. Her friends talk about her smile and how she was soft-spoken, describing her as one of the sweetest and nicest people they have ever met.

Out on her own for the first time, she lived with two roommates. She also had a job but had been unable to work after suffering from Valley Fever and undergoing lung surgery.

The night she disappeared; Adrienne had left a party that she attended with several friends. That evening, police received a 911 dispatch call reporting a car driving erratically on First Street and had just hit a curb and had two flat tires. The vehicle plate matched Adrienne’s vehicle.

Adrienne had abandoned her car just a few blocks from her apartment. She sent a text to her boyfriend at 4:43 a.m. that she was coming over. Ten minutes later, she called for a cab.

By 5:07 a.m. she either turned her phone off or it went dead and so did her trail.

On August 6, Adrienne’s body was found in a wash in Apache Junction near the Superstition Mountains, 30 miles away from where she was last seen.

There had been a storm with 6 feet of rushing water going through a wash. When the water receded, her remains were found.

DNA confirmed is was Adrienne but in the medical examiner report, it doesn’t mention her head or hands, stating the remains were mummified, mostly just bones. Many questioned if she had been decapitated.

After learning about Adrienne’s condition, Keene Azariah went to Tempe Police and suggested they look at his friend Bryan Patrick Miller.

Azariah claimed he and Miller had attended a party together a mile away from Adrienne’s apartment on the same weekend she vanished. Her body was also found close to where Miller regularly participated in Steampunk and Cosplay activities.

“If you consider that he’s under investigation for murder and he’s a mile away from our case, it’s definitely on our radar,” said Detective Akey of Tempe Police Department. “He’s under investigation for this case, yes. Another person we would like to have a conversation with.”

Tempe Police say the murder of Adrienne is an ongoing investigation.

Shannon Aumuck

Shannon Aumuck, 16, resembled Brandy Myers and vanished when she ran away from a group home not far from Brandy Myers North Phoenix neighborhood. She was never reported missing.

Her body was found on May 27, 1992, in the north valley and remained unidentified until 2011. She had been buried as a Jane Doe at Twin Buttes Cemetery in Tempe until her body was exhumed on March 22.

Shannon was classified as a “throwaway child” who lived her life in foster care under Child Protection Services (CPS). She was a chronic runaway who had behavioral problems and contact with police constantly. According to police, between 1989 and 1991 it was reported she ran away at least 40 times.

Shannon’s birth has been a result of a sexual assault to a 16-year old mother and adopted out to a family who lived in Flagstaff and later moved to Scottsdale. Because of Shannon’s out of control behavior they gave her back to CPS when she was 12.

Her body had been found in a trash pile by an ATV rider in the rural area of 26^th Street and Deer Valley Road. “She was tossed aside in death as she was in life,” Detective Stuart Somershoe told the East Valley Tribune.

Somershoe and his colleague Will Anderson took over the case in late 2010. They soon found Shannon’s birth mother still lived in the Valley and collected a DNA profile from her. The two then began reviewing 1,600 reports on runaways between 1991 and 1994 hoping to identify the girl which eventually led to an unidentified girl buried in the Tempe cemetery. Shannon’s cause of death was strangulation.

Police continue to investigate Shannon’s murder and hope they can provide answers for both Brandy and Shannon’s families. “Nobody who dies should ever go as unidentified,” Somershoe said. “Everybody has a mother; everybody has a brother. The good news is that we have identified her. The bad news is we still have a child murderer on the loose.”

Whereabouts Unknown: The Disappearance of Maura Murray

Maura Murray vanished February 9, 2004, from Haverhill, NH.

Over 15 years ago, a young woman got into her beat-up Saturn on a cold winter night, drove away from her dorm room, and was never seen again. Maura Murray, 21, was a nursing student completing her junior year at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She vanished on the evening of February 9, 2004, in Woodsville, New Hampshire, a village in Haverhill.

At approximately 7:27 p.m., a local woman heard a loud noise outside her home, and through her window, she could see a car up against the snowbank along the sharp corner of Route 112. A passing motorist who also lived close by stopped at the scene of the accident, asking the woman driving the car if she needs help, but the woman declined and told the concerned citizen that she had called AAA roadside assistance.

The individual decided to call and report the incident to emergency services, but at 7:46 p.m. when police arrived at the scene, the lady driving the vehicle had disappeared. The police traced the car to Maura.

Maura's Early Life

Maura was born May 4, 1982, in Hanson, Massachusetts, the fourth child of Fred and Laurie Murray. Raised in an Irish Catholic household, Maura’s parents divorced when she was six, and Maura primarily lived with her mother.

Graduating from Whitman-Hanson Regional High School, Maura was a star athlete on the school’s track team. After high school, she was accepted at West Point in New York where she studied chemical engineering for three semesters.

While Maura was a good student and gifted athlete, she allegedly had some improvements to make in her personal life. During her time at West Point, Maura had stolen about five dollars’ worth of makeup from a commissary that resulted in an honor code violation. However, Maura was allowed to leave West Point without getting expelled, allowing her to transfer to the UMass Amherst nursing program.

While her father pushed her to succeed, she had also been busted for stealing a credit card that belonged to another dorm student, using the card at several restaurants around town. The charge had been continued in December to later be dismissed after three months of good behavior.

After midnight on February 9, Maura used her computer to search MapQuest for directions to the Berkshires and Burlington, Vermont. The first communication Maura had with anyone was at 1:00 p.m. when she emailed her boyfriend. She also called the New Hampshire Condo Association about a condominium for rent.

At 1:24 p.m. Maura then emailed her supervisor at the nursing school notifying her that she would be out of town for a week due to sudden death in the family. Her family later confirmed no one in the family has passed away.

Maura’s then made a phone call to a number in Vermont that provides recorded information about booking hotels in Stowe, Vermont. Her final call was to her boyfriend’s phone leaving him a message that they would talk later.

Maura then proceeded to pack her car with personal belongings, college textbooks, and birth-control pills. She drove off-campus in her 1996 Saturn sedan at approximately 3:30 p.m. Classes had been canceled that day due to a snowstorm.

When campus police later searched her room, they found most of her belongings were packed in boxes and pictures taken down from the walls. They also found a printed email to her boyfriend indicating they were having trouble in their relationship.

At 3:40 p.m., Maura withdrew $280 from an ATM. The closed-circuit footage showed she was alone. Maura then purchased about $40 dollars’ worth of alcohol, including Bailey’s Irish Cream, Kalua, vodka, and a box of Franzia wine. The security footage again showed Maura alone. At some point during the day, she also picked up the accident report from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles.

Maura left Amherst between 4 and 5 p.m., probably headed north on Interstate 91 north toward Vermont. The police investigation revealed there is no evidence she told anyone where she was going, or whether she had even picked a destination.

The Accident

According to the official police log, at 7:46 p.m. a Haverhill police officer arrived at the accident scene but didn’t find anyone in the car. The car had impacted a tree on the driver’s side, pushed the radiator into the fan and severely damaged the left front headlight. The vehicle’s windshield was also cracked, both airbags deployed, and the car locked.

The officer found red stains that appeared to be red wine both inside and outside of the car with a damaged box of wine in the back seat. He also found a AAA card in Maura’s name, a map to Burlington, Vermont, Maura’s favorite stuffed animal, and a book named Not Without Peril -150 Years of Misadventure on the Presidential Range of New Hampshire about climbing in the White Mountains.

Maura’s debit card, credit cards, and cell phone were all missing, with no activity since her disappearance. Police later reported some of the bottles of purchased alcohol were also missing.

Alleged Sighting

At approximately 8:30 p.m. that evening, a contractor returning home saw a young person on foot traveling eastbound on Route 112 about 4 or 5 miles east of where Maura’s car was discovered. However, this lead would not be reported until three months later.

Police search for Maura Murray who vanished February 9, 2004. Photo courtesy of Valley News.

Police Investigation

The day following Maura’s disappearance, a “Be on The Lookout” (BOLO) was issued for her. A voicemail was left for Fred Murray informing him that his daughter was missing, and her car had been found abandoned. When he called the Haverhill Police Department, he was told that if Maura was not found by the following morning, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department would initiate a search. With snow on the ground, the average temperature in Haverhill is 38 degrees during the day, plunging to 18 degrees at night.

Fred Murray appears on the Montel Williams Show about missing adults in 2004.

The Search Goes National

The FBI joined the search within ten days of Maura’s disappearance and Haverhill announced that search had gone nationwide. Meanwhile, Maura’s father interviewed on CNN’s American Morning pleading with someone to come forward. Eventually, Fred was interviewed on the Montel Williams Show reaching millions.

New Hampshire Fish and Game had conducted a ground search in the days following, but 10 days after Maura’s disappearance they conducted a ground and air search utilizing a helicopter with a thermal imaging camera, tracking dogs and cadaver dogs. Maura's scent was picked up approximately 100 yards from the vehicle but suddenly stopped indicating to police she may have gotten into a passing vehicle.

Fred Murray returned to Haverhill nearly every weekend to search for Maura until police informed him that they were receiving complaints he was trespassing on private property.

What People Think Happened

Maura’s disappearance has been referred to as “the first crime mystery of the social media age.” Facebook was only 5 years old and Twitter and YouTube didn’t even exist yet. Now social media is one of the most popular methods of communication and now you can find websites and podcasts dedicated to finding Maura.

On online forums and message boards, you can find armchair detectives analyzing and sharing their theories, obsessively connecting pieces of a puzzle that remains a mystery.

While there is little evidence that suggests what exactly happened to Maura, amateur sleuths seem to join one of four categories; people think she went missing on her own and started a new life somewhere, Maura died of exposure, she committed suicide in the woods, or killed by a killer who preyed upon her at her most vulnerable time.

The most popular theory is that Maura was picked up by a killer possibly local to the area, someone who knew Maura, or someone just passing through town. This theory is based upon the dogs losing her scent in the middle of the road, not too far from her crashed vehicle.

With some, Occam’s Theory abounds meaning the “more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely the explanation, believing she simply died of exposure after becoming dazed as a result of crashing her car into a tree along a hairpin turn.

Fred Murray speaks to Oxygen News about the disappearance of his daughter Maura Murray. Photo courtesy of Oxygen News.

What Her Family Thinks Happened

Maura’s older sister Julie was very close to Maura. Julie told Oxygen News that her last conversation with her sister, 2 days prior, was about her upcoming trip to Myrtle Beach during spring break. When asked why Maura would leave school and potentially drive to the White Mountains, Julie's response was, “My guess would be to take a couple of days and clear her head but it doesn’t make sense to go up there alone.”

Maura’s father Fred thinks something bad happened to his daughter. He emotionally told investigative journalist Maggie Freleng his theory. “A guy grabbed her walking down the road and killed her. Probably that night.” He said his one wish is that he could just see her one last time. “I think she was really upset about something and drove there. I don’t know why she went,” said Fred.

Fred went on to describe his daughter as pleasant and funny. She was determined even as a little girl and a straight-A student. Now, over 15 years later, her father remains most determined to find her.

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