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Finding the Zombie Hunter: A Conversation with Troy Hillman on Cold Cases and Catching a Serial Killer
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- [00:00]
Anya Cain
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Co-host (Murder Sheet Podcast)
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- [00:43]
Anya Cain
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- [01:05]
Co-host (Murder Sheet Podcast)
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- [01:13]
Anya Cain
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- [02:18]
Co-host (Murder Sheet Podcast)
Discussion of murder, violence and sexual assault, including the murder and sexual assault of a teenage girl.
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Anya Cain
The Arizona Canal flows through Maricopa county, including Phoenix, the state's sprawling capital. In the early 90s, the area around this canal became a hunting ground for a vicious serial killer. On November 8, 1992, the killer murdered and mutilated 22 year old Angela Brasso as she rode her bicycle near the water. On September 22, 1993, the body of 17 year old Melanie Burnas was found floating in the canal.
- [02:56]
Co-host (Murder Sheet Podcast)
Detectives worked that case for decades, but answers were elusive. Then the Phoenix Police Department's cold case squad got the case. Their robust years long investigation is the subject of a new book, 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. The author is Troy Hillman, a retired detective and sergeant with Phoenix Police. He led the cold case squad that busted this serial killer who later became known as the Zombie Hunter.
- [03:35]
Anya Cain
Full Disclosure we share a publisher with Troy the Terrific Pegasus Crime. We loved his book so much that we blurbed it. We feel our audience will agree with our impression of the book. Not only does it delve into a disturbing and compelling mystery, but it also underscores a subject close to our hearts. The importance of dedicating resources to heinous cold cases.
- [03:58]
Co-host (Murder Sheet Podcast)
Troy spoke to us about his journey hunting the serial killer, including searching through thousands of pages of creepy suspects, consulting with the VDOC Society and working with Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick at the advent of investigative genetic genealogy. He also addresses why it is so important for police agencies to devote time, personnel and resources to cold cases.
- [04:23]
Anya Cain
My name is Anya Cain.
- [04:25]
Troy Hillman
I'm a journalist and I'm Kevin Greenlee.
- [04:27]
Anya Cain
I'm an attorney and this is the Murder Sheet.
- [04:30]
Co-host (Murder Sheet Podcast)
We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet and this is.
- [04:40]
Anya Cain
Finding the Zombie Hunter, a conversation with Troy Hillman on cold cases and catching a serial killer.
- [05:01]
Troy Hillman
It.
- [05:32]
Anya Cain
So I guess to start off with Troy, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and sort of your law enforcement background?
- [05:38]
Troy Hillman
Yeah, I joined the Phoenix police department in 97. Basically I was a disgruntled CPA in a Midwestern huge conglomerate CPA firm. I was labeled partner material. I had done really well on the CPA exam, but it just wasn't was it me and or what I wanted to do with my life. So again, joined the Phoenix Police Department, had that opportunity in 97. I always say I put down a briefcase and calculator and I picked up a gun and a badge and I was off and off and running.
- [06:07]
Anya Cain
I guess people might be wondering, you know, that's a pretty extreme switch, right? So what drew you to policing?
- [06:13]
Troy Hillman
Well, I always joke that my dad was a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry, Charles Bronson. I watched Chips Hunter. I binged on all those cops detective shows, Mighty Vice. I love Crockett and Tubs. It was just. It was just something that seems so kind of dry. And then you were basically helping society. So you're using your mind and then you're also helping society. So that was really what drew me to that. And. And yeah, I was. I was. I think I was labeled as almost clinically insane for leaving this paved route for successful future to became a beat cop at first, and. But it just. There was really no doubt in my mind. It was something I was passionate about and I wanted to do.
- [07:01]
Anya Cain
Did you always know that you wanted to get to sort of the investigator detective role and have that be what you were going to do?
- [07:08]
Troy Hillman
Yeah. Not to denigrate the patrol side or the, you know, the street side, because I think you need that to learn how to talk to people and interrogate, an interview, that kind of thing. But, yeah, I always wanted to be a detective. Now homicide was a completely different animal. I thought I was more geared towards financial crimes, identity theft, embezzlements, that kind of thing. So I just kind of happened by chance into homicide and then cold case.
- [07:33]
Anya Cain
Absolutely. And that's one thing I do want to ask you before we get started talking about the zombie hunter in this specific case. But when it comes to homicide versus cold case, what are the differences between working, maybe you say your typical standard homicide versus a case that's gone long unsolved, and is sort of sitting there stagnant?
- [07:54]
Troy Hillman
Well, I think you're out of the gate. Homicide is kind of adrenaline fuel, meaning you have a limited amount of time. And there's always that buzzword, the first 48, 48 hours. So they're kind of under the clock to basically really solve the case in that timeframe because things get kind of more progressively more difficult. And then by the time it gets to a cold case, the definition is that we used was one year and no viable leads. It is infinitely more difficult. And that doesn't mean the job of a regular homicide detective is easy by any stretch. It's just a different kind of mindset. I think the Nicole case aspect is more. It's more sifting through kind of the rough to see what. What they missed and if they're, you know, what new technologies could be applied, that kind of thing. So to me, to me, that was fascinating.
- [08:50]
Anya Cain
It's funny you say that. I I've gotten, not yelled at, but detectives have gotten mad at us in the past where we call something a cold case. And they're like, it's not cold. We're still working on it. So it's interesting the different definitions that can take place. Sometimes it means no one's even looked at this file in like 40 years. And then other times they, you know, just, we, maybe we're still trying to look at it, but nothing's coming up. Is that fair to say?
- [09:14]
Troy Hillman
Yeah, I mean, the definition when, when part, part of why my lieutenant chose me was because of my CPA and my organizational skills. And he said, hey, you need to get us organized, get us policies. And we kind of benchmark off of the state of Arizona had a, a white paper on the best way, best practices for cold cases. So we kind of used that as, as benchma of that and came up with our policy. But before it was whether Bob was retired, you know, he, he had been there 20 years and it still wasn't a cold case. But to me, that definition of one year and no viable leads really was pretty clear. And that kind of gave us the ability as a cold case team to go in and begin reviewing the case and kind of looking at it and seeing what else we could do.
- [10:00]
Anya Cain
Absolutely. And so tell me about the murders of Angela Braso and Melanie Burness. As far as you came to it, is. Is that something where you were, I mean, I guess talk us, talk the audience through, like how you got assigned to that and sort of what they were looking for you to do with that.
- [10:18]
Troy Hillman
So I kind of want to set the stage. When I, when I took over the squad in 2008, we had 2,500 cold cases and two detectives. So it was basically mission impossible. I mean, that's what, 1250 each? My goal was to beef up the squad, but not just beef up the squad. Get the best, brightest, hungriest, most passionate detectives kind of this elite squad. So in the process of building that, I had heard of the Canalbuilders, but I really, with 2,500 other cases we're trying to manage, I was always told the kind of, the going rumor on the department was, hey, this case will never, these cases will never be solved because the killer's dead. He's been in the DNA system since the late 90s. It's never hit. He's either moved on or he's dead. But really kind of that attitude of don't waste your time. And then I ended up getting a media generated public records Request. And one of the things I did as a sergeant, as kind of the team leader, was I didn't want the individual detectives to have to. I wanted them investigating and out there chasing leads and looking for DNA and that kind of thing. So I would take the laborious job of looking at these cases and trying to redact them and trying to make sure that we were transparent. But we didn't give too much information out because giving too much information can lead to a host of problems. So I looked at these cases. I think I was two weeks. And I always joke, I kind of got yelled at by the commander Secretary because I burned through toner and burned through paper reams and reams. And she's like, what are you doing? And I said, well, I'm looking at the Canalmers. So I disappeared. And then I think I thought maybe I can apply my CPA debits credits. There's gotta be something we're missing there. There's something in here that maybe, maybe my organizational brain and no way am I bragging, but maybe I could solve it. And that just wasn't the case. It was massive. And I realized at that point I needed kind of this team, this elite team. And I kind of asked them to come on board. And they were. Each one added their own nuanced. They had. They had their own personalities and they. Everybody kind of had their own share in something on these cases. So I always tell people this was a complete team case. It was a three and a half year journey with the team.
- [12:35]
Anya Cain
I really loved getting to meet the team members in the book and how much, you know, you were very much letting everyone know what their personalities and strengths were and what everybody was doing. Because it really felt like you're getting to like see it happen, unfold when you're reading it. And one, one thing that struck me is that they're all so different. They have different backgrounds, different personalities and whatnot. Were there any sort of commonalities or factors that you were looking for as you were assembling this team as far as who would make for a good detective for a cold case? I remember we talked to an in Indiana cold case investigator and he says you need to be very type A, but also willing to sort of slam your head into a brick wall every day for 10 years to be good at cold cases? I guess. What are your thoughts on that?
- [13:21]
Troy Hillman
Yeah. So I had the joy of owning an English bulldog. Name was Steve the Bulldog. And what I loved about Steve the Bulldog was he would never let go of that rope. That was his rope and he was not going to ever let go of it. So that, to me, was my number one thing that I looked at. Kind of a simplistic example, but never being passionate and never giving up. Just kind of hitting those roadblocks and shaking it off and saying, okay, well, I can't just, you know, it'd be easier to go some, up to some other detail or go back to patrol or chase, you know, burglars. But I'm going to, I'm going to stay at this because I'm hunting these really, really bad people that have done terrible things to members of our society.
- [14:01]
Anya Cain
Absolutely. And one thing I was curious with these, with these investigators, you know, this wasn't the only case they were working. Right. This was kind of. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
- [14:11]
Troy Hillman
Yeah. So the 2,500 cases that we were trying to manage had kind of ballooned every year. I think Phoenix was having 200 or 250 homicides, and then maybe half of those to 60% were being solved. So those were adding on. So they're trying to manage all of these other cases, go to court, pull evidence, give answers to other family members, but meanwhile, work on this case. So it was almost, it was, I call it mission impossible, but somehow we made it possible.
- [14:41]
Anya Cain
Absolutely. And yeah, again, as I said, I love how the book gets into the dynamics and the different personalities of all these investigators. I've always kind of felt that sometimes crime fiction sort of sells us this story about like the lone investigator who's just doing it all alone and is sort of this almost mythic figure. But I think your book captures more the reality, which is that investigations and crime solving, especially with cold cases or more complicated cases, is very much a team sport.
- [15:09]
Troy Hillman
Absolutely. And what I, what I'm really trying to do in the book is I, I, I didn't want to malign any of these fabulous people that I work with. I, I, I truly honor them and I'm blessed to have worked with them. But I wanted to, like you said, paint their personalities because they each had, say, the kid, for example, very, very witty, sarcastic, very energetic. And then he would work with, the more zoos and police works, maybe the more crusty, seasoned, you know, the serial killer hunter, Clark Schwarzkopf. So, I mean, they all, but they all worked well together. And one thing that I kind of highlighted at the beginning of the book was cops have sometimes a sarcastic sense of humor, and it's really a shield for all the bad things that we see because we are inundated by horrible images day in, day out. Sometimes humor is that shield. So there was that banter amongst my squad that everybody had their personality and kind of flowed into that.
- [16:08]
Anya Cain
Absolutely. So getting to the canal murders, what can you tell us about Angela and Melanie? Who were these young women before this horrible thing happened to them?
- [16:19]
Troy Hillman
So Angela was. It was actually the night of before her birthday and she was turning 22. She had grown up in a small town in Pennsylvania. Phenomenal person, got along with everybody. Everybody liked her. She moved to. She did her studies at DeVry New Jersey. Moved to LA to complete her studies at DeVry and then subsequently moved to Phoenix. This summer before she's murdered she moved in with a boyfriend who'd also she admitted DeVry here in Phoenix. So they were living in north Phoenix in an apartment and she really liked to go out on bike rides at and she would typically go when it was a little bit cooler at dusk and she would go along the. We have a canal system running in Phoenix. She would go along the bike trails that kind of parallel those canals. But a very avid bike rider and that's what she went out on a Sunday night for her last, unfortunately her last bike ride.
- [17:16]
Anya Cain
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- [17:30]
Co-host (Murder Sheet Podcast)
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- [17:58]
Anya Cain
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- [18:28]
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- [18:35]
Anya Cain
Right now my listeners can save 50% on a SimpliSafe home security system at simplisafe.com msheet that's simplisafe.com msheet there's no safe like SimpliSafe. It's okay not to be perfect with finances. Experian is your big financial friend and here to help. Did you know you can get matched with credit cards on the app? Some cards are labeled no ding decline, which means if you're not approved, they won't hurt your credit scores. Download the Experian app for free today. Applying for no ding decline cards won't hurt your credit scores. If you aren't initially approved. Initial approval will result in a hard inquiry which may impact your credit scores experience. And then a year later, Melanie was taken.
- [19:23]
Troy Hillman
Yeah. So Angela was. Was. Yeah, brutally killed. But it wasn't just your, your standard, I hate to say standard murder. She was beheaded. The killer took her head, he took the bicycle, he took her walkman, and then he. It looked like he almost tried to cut her in half and he eviscerated her and then left her almost posed. So that was Angela. Ten days later, from after Angela, he decides to throw the her head back in the canal a few miles south, which caused shock and awe in the city of Phoenix as It's just horrendous. Ten months later, Melanie Burna, she's 17, she's a junior in high school. She lives kind of in an eastern section of Phoenix. She goes out for a ride in a kind of a northwest pattern along the canal at dusk and ends up found the next day brutally murdered, redressed. And she'd been carved on really disturbing stuff.
- [20:17]
Anya Cain
And, and these were, I mean, I, I imagine from the get go, it was looking like those were connected killings.
- [20:26]
Troy Hillman
Yeah. I mean, you had two girls on a canal, both bikes taken. You had some similarities. The killer left both shoes and socks on both girls. But then there were some dissimilarities based on how he, he killed both in the same manner as a stab wound to the back which immediately incapacitated them. But then, yeah, there were some, some things with Angela that he did, obviously cutting off her head, cutting her in half, that kind of thing that he didn't do with Melanie. So I think investigators were slow to say at the time, hey, let's not say these are related and cause fear and say that they're a serial killer. But it definitely looked that way. And then a couple years later, DNA was kind of becoming, coming into its own. This was the early 90s, so DNA really wasn't a thing. But they made a case to case DNA. Comparison, and I believe it was a couple, maybe a year, year and a year after the second murder.
- [21:21]
Anya Cain
Right. Because there was sexual assault. So there was some sort of DNA presence from the killer.
- [21:27]
Troy Hillman
Yeah, there was.
- [21:29]
Anya Cain
Right. But, but at the same time, I think you mentioned this earlier. It's not like there's no hit on it in any of the, you know, systems.
- [21:37]
Troy Hillman
No. The national database, from my understanding, didn't take effect until very late in the 90s, say 1999, early 2000. And they started to populate that with the different levels. There's a state level and then there's upload into a national level. So that's run by the FBI. It's called CODIS. And it wasn't operable until the late 90s, but it was our, the sample, our killer sample was uploaded in the late 90s, early 2000s.
- [22:04]
Anya Cain
One thing that struck me about the book is it takes us down so many different paths as far as the people who came up in the files that you were examining and sort of going through. And what really is shocking, not really that shocking when you learn a lot about crime, but certainly might surprise some people, is how many people just seemed like really creepy or like possibly, you know, sound pretty good on paper as far as being capable of doing this or having some really strong red flags. And I'm curious, in your sort of view as an investigator, is that sort of pretty common when it comes to these high profile cases that you actually might get a couple people where you're like, wow, sounds like that's him. And then it's actually not because they don't match the DNA.
- [22:47]
Troy Hillman
Yeah, there were, I mean, something we ran into over the years. They saturated the canals afterwards. They talked to anybody and everybody and they came up with this, what we coined the. It was a spreadsheet, which I love because I was a CPA and I had my organization, Detective Mark do it. So he was excited about it. But we were able to basically come up with this creepy canal list. And it was probably 800 to a thousand people, men that have been called in on that were somehow maybe possibly been related. But it was kind of interesting because it was. Some of them were, yeah, I saw Bob with the samurai sword. So he, he's the canal killer. And was kind of silly. And then other ones were. You'd have multiple calls and you, you'd look at it and be like, yeah, you know, we need to check this guy out. And since it was pre DNA, the investigators, when they were looking at some of these guys, they, they didn't go and get their DNA. So that left us with the task of sometimes traveling all over the country to get DNA. It was expensive, it was time consuming, and we had to also play by the rules of whatever state we flew back into. Some of them are much stricter in terms of whether a judge would give a search warrant or court order to get somebody's DNA. So it was riddled with challenges. We got excited. I called it an emotional roller coaster because we got so excited over different individuals, and each team member kind of had a different ownership because they would either be heavily involved in that particular individual, and me, as the kind of the team leader, would have to kind of manage those emotions as our team kind of struck through those names on our dry erase board, you know, on. Onto the next one.
- [24:31]
Anya Cain
How do you avoid kind of losing hope or maybe losing your mind when there's so many people that it sort of seems like this is it and then it's just not. And how do you not only avoid that for yourself, but help team members avoid the same?
- [24:47]
Troy Hillman
Well, again, we're all hardwired with that bulldog mentality. So we had been kind of. We knew that going in that we may never. That we. We had to. To try like hell. But we may not. May not do anything because he may in fact be dead or could have gone in an insane asylum, and we would never get his DNA. But we. We kept trying, and a couple of little blessings would pop up as we would move through. We had a group, and I don't know if you've heard of them. I'm sure you have. The VDOC Society out of Philadelphia. Phenomenal group of people. And we kind of just happened on them. By chance, A mother of a victim of another homicide had called in and asked William, One of my detectives had said, hey, what about this vdox society? And unfortunately, they wouldn't take that mother's case, but they would take the canal murders just because of how they're the screening criteria. One of the highlights of my career was to go interact with those people. I called them the upper echelon of law enforcement. Just made my head hurt in a good way to try to keep up with them. Because I always tell people they don't teach serial killer hunting in Homicide 101. It is not something that's done. So you really need. You need help, and you need to set your ego aside and be willing to go and kind of lay it all on the table and say, hey, we need help. And that's what we Did. And along the way, we met kind of. It's more in my book, but a very eccentric individual who's. Who's got a lot of notoriety, but he's also very controversial. His name's Richard Walter. He's a very, very. I cannot say brilliant, but also eccentric profile of forensic psychologist. But he kind of became. He and I became kind of pen pals, and he was kind of nudged me in certain directions to go in different directions and kind of open up our minds to who we were looking for.
- [26:41]
Anya Cain
Yeah, I almost lost it when he came up in the book. He played a small role in the case that we're known for covering, which is the Delphi murders case, although I think he was quite a lot older at that point and more of a minor figure in our book. But I was like, wow, this is crazy. I was so stressed reading about you guys presenting at the V Doc Society. I'm not gonna lie. That just sounded like an incredib. Stressful situation. I'll let people read it. But I was just sitting there like, oh, my gosh, this is. I mean, I. You. You recounted it very well.
- [27:12]
Troy Hillman
Thank you. Yeah, it was not the way we wanted to meet Richard, but it ended up well. And, you know, there's lots of yelling. Yes, yes, it was. And the eye rolling and kind of craziness and. But, yeah, it was phenomenal. And just to be able to download some of their. Their information that he gave us and they gave us, it was. Was phenomenal, you know.
- [27:35]
Anya Cain
You know, you mentioned the profiling. Obviously, profiling can be a helpful tool for investigators to sort of narrow things down, especially in a case like yours where you're just. There's so much data and you're trying to figure out, you know, where do we prioritize the resources? It's not something where you're necessarily going to be able to say, oh, you know, profiling tells us it's definitely this guy. You have to have evidence. But I guess, what were you able to learn about profiling and sort of like different types of serial killers, you know, through some of the. That immersion and speaking with Richard Walter and whatnot.
- [28:06]
Troy Hillman
Richard had worked with OC who was kind of famous for interviewing Ted Bundy, I believe. And if I'm getting that right, from my understanding. So they developed something together called the Helix. And basically it was a development of how these guys, and especially different subtypes develop. And that was something that we took back to our files, was, okay, what. What. How do these. These guys obviously do certain things and they get arrested or complained on for different things. What, what names in that file have these kind of precursors that we need to be looking at. So definitely a huge help. But there's, there's one nugget of information that I took away from that and we took away that basically don't want to give up too much. But he said in your files there's a, there's a percentage that he's going to be in your files.
- [29:00]
Anya Cain
So you, you like, you talk to him at some point. He's in there. It's not some random guy that no one's ever heard of.
- [29:07]
Troy Hillman
Yep. He'd either inserted himself or had been talked to or. Yeah, definitely. So that was something. But again, the files were in the mouths of the basement and there were thousands.
- [29:21]
Anya Cain
Absolutely. Yeah. No, I mean that, that, that's I think very important to underscore how the she of what you were looking through.
- [29:29]
Troy Hillman
And couple that with the, again, the 2,500, 3,000 other cold cases were trying to work. We just again couldn't justify telling all the other families, hey, we're going to stop everything and work on the canal murders. Because that wasn't right or that wasn't fair. But to be able to balance those things was quite an act and quite a feat.
- [29:48]
Anya Cain
So I want to kind of touch upon, you know, this case came up just in conversation with a different investigator where they were just talking about investigative genetic genealogy and sort of this being a landmark case in that sense. Can you speak to that a little bit about how, you know, Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick and sort of that ended up being something that I don't. This was like the first time that was really used, right?
- [30:14]
Troy Hillman
Yeah. And I always get a little mad at Phoenix PD because not that it should be about who gets credit, but really this is 2014. Phoenix PD was the first major or agency to use this on a major serial killer type trial. Years later, 2018, the Golden State Killer authorities, and I'm glad they caught them and it has nothing to do with that, but they, they kind of went out on tour saying, hey, we're the first agency and they kind of got the notoriety for that. But it was really Phoenix PD and our team that, that used this technique. But to be honest with you, we stumbled into it. I'll never forget. You know, we got a call, a voicemail from Dr. Fitzpatrick and we were kind of blown away. We didn't know what to think. Again, this is 2014. I had heard of genealogy. My father in law used it. He loved it. My dad used it, but really I didn't see any practical application towards law enforcement. I guess we were, we were really wrong in that. And we actually, I confided one of, One of my favorite, not favorite, but one of my really special characters in the book is a DNA expert, Kelly Merwin. She was over at the lab and she was a big part of this team and I confided in her a lot as to, hey, you know, is this a good move for us to look at genetic genealogy? Is, is it worth talking to Colleen? And she ended up talking to her before and kind of vetting her out and saying, hey, it's worth a shot. This is going to be something, this is going to be a thing. So it was really Kelly that kind of pushed us in that direction.
- [31:47]
Anya Cain
Right. Yeah. No, I think that's important to underscore how this wasn't a thing before your case. Really, it was, you know, it's, it's one thing, I think people probably listening to this, they're like, wow, they had DNA, like, you know, it's going to be solved. So we all have that modern day confidence. You have DNA, you can figure it out. But back then, this, this just wasn't a thing.
- [32:08]
Troy Hillman
No, it wasn't. Again, we, the upper chain called that there were whispers of voodoo and some kind of weird magic and, and I, to this day I don't completely understand how you can take a string of numbers and, and kind of crunch out. Maybe you run it through like a flux capacitor, Ali's joke. And you come out with a surname. And I was just kind of still kind of, we were all blown away, but for, you know, a very reasonable price tag. A price tag of flying a detective back to somewhere to get somebody's DNA. And you could, we could hire Dr. Fitzpatrick. And it ended up being awesome.
- [32:45]
Anya Cain
So that's incredible. And, and I think, you know, I mean, you said the surname right, but at the same time, you know, you don't just take that to a judge and say, all right, you know, we got him. You have to do the legwork then once you get that investigative lead and can you tell me about that?
- [33:06]
Troy Hillman
Yeah, well, so she. I'll never forget the day I had my extended family, I had a six month old daughter and I was kind of enjoying them. We were all kind of tired three months into the, maybe three, close to three and a half years into this investigation and get a call from Colleen and she said, hey, I think his surname's Miller, and scratched my head. And I was like, Oh, I kind of did some research, and that's the seventh most popular name at the time in the United States. And I was like, oh, I don't know. But I remember something the VDOC Society had told us. And so let's check the files.
- [33:41]
Anya Cain
Absolutely. And I do want to sort of encourage people to read the book. And so I kind of want to. You know, this is where we kind of find the zombie hunter, right?
- [33:50]
Troy Hillman
This.
- [33:51]
Anya Cain
This person who is being investigated as far as being a serial killer. So I'm going to kind of say people should read this in order to kind of learn more about, you know, who ended up being really behind this and sort of what that investigation looked like. But with that in mind, is there anything that you think it's important for people to sort of basically understand about Brian Patrick Miller and sort of this zombie hunter, as you call him?
- [34:16]
Troy Hillman
Brian had actually had a kind of a twisted past, and that done a lot of things that kind of put him on the radar as to working his way up what the V. Doc and Richard told us he might. So he was definitely a colorful character as far as wearing a mask. He was engaged in a cosplay. He had a zombie automobile with a mannequin in the back that was bloody. So he was really, truly, if you meet the definition of hiding in plain sight, taking pictures with officers and that kind of thing, and kind of mocking us, which was kind of really disturbed.
- [34:57]
Anya Cain
Yeah, no, definitely. In terms of serial killers, I often see, like, the definition is three or more victims. Obviously, in this case, we have a, you know, a series of two. But in your sort of view, is it possible that Miller may be responsible for other murders?
- [35:16]
Troy Hillman
Actually, we had. We can't. It won't go to trial because there just wasn't enough. But actually there was a girl, a little girl that had been killed by Brian that he basically admitted to his wife. So that by definition, that would. That would be the third. And then I think we looked at a host of other crimes, not only in Phoenix, but around the nation, and I'm. I'm convinced that he's good for many more. Whether. We just can't. We just can't prove it.
- [35:46]
Anya Cain
Right. You're not gonna. You have to go where the evidence is. And if there isn't enough, you. That's not gonna be a trial.
- [35:52]
Troy Hillman
Yeah. Maybe someday he'll give a. A confession from jail of all, you know, what. What he's done.
- [35:58]
Anya Cain
One thing that kind of struck me is that, you know, he's arrested and then it Takes years for this to go to trial.
- [36:04]
Troy Hillman
Is that right? Yeah. We arrested in 2015, and it didn't really go until the tail end of 2022. And he was, it was a really long trial and it ended up being resolved in mid June, the summer of 2023. Wow. It was agonizing for the families to have to wait that long. Part of it was Covid, which was completely out of control, but part of it was what I call defensive maneuvering to try to figure out how to present his, his trial from a defense side.
- [36:36]
Anya Cain
You know, I want again, people to read the book. I just, I, at this point, I don't know. I think when we started off with this true crime podcast, a lot of our big question was like, why do people do this? Or why would somebody do something horrible? And the more time goes on, the more I feel like, I don't know, who knows? Like, it's hard to understand people. Like, I, who cares? On some level? Like, it's like, I don't know if we can, like that level of madness, I guess, or whatever you want to call it, but having immersed yourself so much in this case and worked on it and written this book, as you reflect, are there things that you think went into Miller's motivations around this?
- [37:18]
Troy Hillman
Certainly, I think there's again, I'm not a forensic psychologist, but I working around several. And then Richard and to me, to me, it's, there typically is some level of abuse early on and there's some somehow a skewed role model, either mother, father issue that kind of sends this to me. It has to be. There's maybe it's. Certain people are more valuable or more susceptible to turning bad, I guess, because to me, I, I, I still can't understand the, the sexual nature of it. Being gratified from blood rather than, you know, other normal, what we would, you know, say normal. And you know, to me, it just, it just strikes me as odd to him, him be turned on by, you know, a woman being desecrated as opposed to, you know, something else. So, yeah, there were things definitely in his past. Do I buy the his defense, which was mommy made me this awful person and his killer? No, because there's lots of people that have really rough times as children and they turn out to be great adults and make something of their lives. So I again, really didn't buy the poor Brian excuse. But I will say, and to your point, the book, these investigations are massive. When we tried to discuss them, lecture on them, it's taken us, we could Spend days going into all the. The pieces down the different trails that we went. So, yeah, they're. They're. I would encourage people with the book. They're. I didn't even hit all the points. I tried my best to put it all down and I think. I think it turned out well. But again, I think there's just so much more to these cases. And, you know, you could take. Concentrate more on the girls. We can concentrate more on Brian, or, you know, just. Or. But I chose to concentrate on the team and the cold case efforts that we kind of went through and kind of has a lesson of why cold cases matter and why they're important and why we can't give up.
- [39:27]
Anya Cain
Absolutely. Yeah. And I think. I think people are going to get a lot more detail. I want. I want people to read the book and sort of. It feels like you're following along with the team as they're investigating this and you're getting this sort of comprehensive view of what's important in the case and then ultimately the sort of conclusion and figuring out who did it and getting as close to why as possible. So I would definitely encourage people to pick this book up. We loved it. One question for you would just be, you know, we talked a bit about possible other cases he might be. Might have been involved in or maybe he probably was involved in, but there's not enough evidence to go to trial. Are there other unanswered questions for you as someone who worked on this so closely that you would love to answer but just feel like you can't quite. Or stuff that you still find elusive?
- [40:19]
Troy Hillman
So there's a whole list of questions that I. In fact, I denoted them in the book kind of as I. As I walked through the crime scenes and just trying to figure out why he did certain things to me. You know, he left a lot of clues. And trying to figure out. To this day, we don't understand. We focused on those clues and trying to unlock them, but we still don't understand things that he put in the tunnels, you know, and I go into more of that in the book, but it's just. Yeah, there's. If I ever sit down with Brian Miller, I would love for him to tell me, a host, a litany of questions that I. That I have to this day.
- [40:57]
Anya Cain
I will say I. My. My heart sank or stopped or whatever you want to say. When I saw that there was discussion of runes in the book. And anyone who follows our show knows that we reported extensively on the Delphi murders case and runes became a Whole thing in that situation. So you guys are really looking at all the possible symbology of some of this crime scene stuff, which was very interesting.
- [41:20]
Troy Hillman
Yeah, I mean, I got obsessed by it and I was trying to unlock it and read everything I could on the Internet because being a. Sometimes being a sergeant or a leader is. Is I'd been a sergeant for a long time. It was pretty. It was pretty easy. And doing personnel files and that kind of stuff, boring. And this chance to get involved and heavily involved in serial killer stuff was fascinating. And to give. Ultimately, it was about giving these girls Delane justice and their families. And that's what I think we're most proud of, is that we had that bulldog mentality. We didn't give up because we could have easily said, oh, he's dead, let's move on and just wait for the DNA hit, which would have never happened.
- [42:03]
Anya Cain
Yeah, no, absolutely. And, you know, I mean, I see the sign behind you. Cold cases matter. And I think in the book, it's really conveyed your passion for cold cases. And I'm wondering if you could tell our listeners why you think it's really important to devote resources, time, money, personnel to cold cases.
- [42:23]
Troy Hillman
So I think we touched on 2008 is when I had the opportunity to take over the squad. And it was two detectives. We built it. We found a recipe for how to review, how to tackle these cases. We weren't God's gift to cold case, but we. We had a pretty good formula for how to unlock them. And we were solving 12 to 15 cold cases a year, back to the 70s, which was, to me, phenomenal. And I was excited, doing a great job. And it culminated in this case where we caught a serial killer who everybody thought was dead, but he's alive and well in central Phoenix or north central Phoenix. So. And then about a year and a half after that, I get a call that says, hey, Troy, you're going back to patrol. Your squad is effectively getting disbanded. And I was. I understood there was a need for shortage of police officers, but I couldn't understand why. To me, homicide is something. It's probably the most important thing that we do, you know, and there's. There's sexual assaults and missing persons and. And so many others right there that are really high priority. And to just say, hey, we're going to stop working these cases whenever, you know, maybe at the year mark and just give up. Not only does that leave a suspect out there who's killed once before or maybe multiple times, but it also sends a bad message to family members that they're never going to get justice and we just give up. To me, that's not, that's not right. And I believe that there's a huge cold case problem in this country. It's getting better with forensic genetic genealogy. But as unfortunately, every time there's a budget cut, it's like, oh, who are we going to cut? Oh, let's cut cold case. And to me, the priority should be on solving murders, whether they're old or brand new. But that is important. So that's kind of my message to kind of hold leadership accountable because they're usually just shuffling for the next chief job or. But there needs to be some pressure on them by society, by the public to say, hey, we want these things solved. We want these killers behind bars, not in our society.
- [44:35]
Anya Cain
I told you're preaching to the choir here. Because it's. These are the cases that truly matter, right? I mean, like, this is a human's life who was, you know, taken away in a really tragic and upsetting way. Those are the cases the public wants to see solved. If you want to look at it from a very cold eyed marketing perspective, you know, in an era where there's minimum, minimum, you know, minimized trust in law enforcement, seeing these cases get solved is a very good, it's very good publicity, frankly, in my view.
- [45:06]
Troy Hillman
Yeah, I had a friend of mine that was a lieutenant that said, he said, troy, you're the only, your, your team's the only good news coming out of the Phoenix Police Department from the last like three to five years. And we would, we would publicize it, we'd put it up, we'd put an arrest flak. And I would see people from other areas of the department stop near our work area and look at those arrest flaques and kind of marvel at the story. And it wasn't bragging, it was just saying, hey, you know, this case from 1978, we didn't give up. We hunted that guy down. To me, that's important.
- [45:37]
Anya Cain
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. And you know, I'm curious for you, what was, you know, you investigated the case, right? And then, you know, you're there, you know, for years. What was it like then? Sitting down to actually write the book on.
- [45:56]
Troy Hillman
Was a wonderful but challenging process. My mom was an English teacher. I thought I was a pretty good writer. I had business and technical writing kind of as a CPA business student at the University of Illinois. And then, you know, as a cop, I thought, you know, I know the facts. But then when I started to really try to hone down. I had a hard time telling, you know, how do you tell a story when you weren't there? Because I wasn't 92 and 93. I was, I was in college. I was probably drinking a beer somewhere or at the library. It wasn't much else. So. But to tell a story of, you know, how did it happen, from whose vantage point? And to get it right. Luckily I had some fabulous writing coach named Chad Rhode. He's from Carolinas. He's awesome. He helped me. But I remember at one point he, I always joke with him and he said, this is like a, this is like a sprawling journal. And I said, well, what do you mean a sprawling journal? And he, you know, and he said, no, I'm trying to make you better. So. And he did. So as you, as a fellow, you're an author and you know, to. It's not, it's not easy. A lot of people think, oh, I could just write a book. And then I had all the pressure of, why don't you self publish? You know, maybe, maybe you shouldn't swing for the fences. And I'm like, well, I want to swing for the fence. I want to tell the story to the world because I think it's important. And so. But it took me about. It was like a dating site of trying to get a literary agent. No, no, we're not what we're looking for. No, no, you've been, been through it. And finally my agent, Lindsay Smith took a chance on me as a first time author. Then she worked for a year and a half to pitch it out and luckily. And then Pegasus Crime came along. So to me it's, it's quite a journey and it's, it's taken eight years to get this thing published and my wife can tell you it's. I, I mean, so looking forward to it eventually getting published.
- [47:54]
Anya Cain
I, I cannot wait. I think this will be coming around, around publication time. So. Shout out to Pegasus Crime and thanks for triggering my war flashbacks, Troy, because I definitely can relate to that.
- [48:07]
Troy Hillman
Yeah, it's, it's a daunting task and I don't think the average person knows it. They may ask questions, but they really don't understand all the intricacies that I remember. I get a hold of a gentleman that helped me write my book proposal and he told me, he kind of lit into me about you need to, you need to build a platform and you need to be in the news. And I'm like, like, dude, I'm a cpa. Like I'm a behind the scenes worker bee. I am not all over the news. And he said, no, you need to. Everywhere there's a microphone, you should be talking. And I was like, okay, so. But I did, I learned from that. And anytime somebody wanted me to opine on a cold case or something, you know, I did. So as you know, building the platform is massive and getting a social media presence and, and trying to build a website and again, on a shoestring budget. I've got young family, wife that's a nurse. We're not loaded. So this was kind of a hobby. And as you know, people come out of the woodwork saying, love to get SEO. And I had to look up SEO and the search engine optimization and, you know, and they want you to pay lots of money so that you'll be top ranking. And I said, well, I don't have lots of money, so I just have this story to tell. So hopefully people want to hear it. And I'm excited that people do.
- [49:30]
Anya Cain
So I think people should hear. I think it really under. It's a fascinating book about a serial killer, but it's also really does underscore what it takes to get these cold cases solved and why that is so important. I think that to me is the fundamental lesson. And I did want to ask you, have you gotten like, any feedback from like, team members or people like that who are like, excited about the book coming out or, like, are they like, oh my gosh, what's going on? Like, I mean, what's that feedback been like?
- [49:58]
Troy Hillman
I think none of them have read it, but they're all excited. But I think they're a little bit like, what is Troy going to say about me? I want to, you know, I don't want to make them feel bad at all. I think everything's positive. And you having read it, I assume, you know, there's, there's definitely personality quirks, like William always stretching his back in my, that was a daily occurrence where he would come and crack his back in my doorway and it just kind of became part of him. But, yeah, I, I think just. But they're all phenomenal people. And you know me, I, I get kind of choked up about it. They're very, they're, they're passionate. They're great people and I, I hope I get them right. Bring him to life on paper.
- [50:41]
Anya Cain
For what it's worth, Troy, I did not read the book and think, oh, he really hates this guy. So I think, I think you succeeded in that. I, I thought it was all Very.
- [50:50]
Troy Hillman
Yeah, I love them all. They're like family to me. And the last thing I want to do is go huge public, but hopefully they look at it and be like, wow, you know, he, he documented our story. He told, he told it for us.
- [51:04]
Anya Cain
I want to ask you, you know, like, I, I, you know, one thing that I thought was interesting was like, you do see the toll that a case like this can take over investigators over time. And I was wondering if you could speak to that for yourself or maybe teammates that you saw, team members that you saw kind of dealing with this. I mean, it's a really gory, upsetting crime and then you're working so hard and answers are not necessarily forthcoming. So I mean, how can that affect an investigator?
- [51:34]
Troy Hillman
I think we all, we all have families. We're all human beings and we all kind of, there's that side note or kind of in the back of our head of our families are not safe with this guy out there. We need, you know, we need to make society safer, but we have to always kind of play by the rules and kind of really kind of government is very, it's, it's not the business world. It's very, it's very slow moving. The beauty of Cold Case, though, was we were, we had the green light to be. As long as we could convince them to be innovative and use out of the box techniques. So that to me was the, the kind of, the fun part of Cold Case was to hey, how can we, how can we evolve and evolve quickly and use the latest like the genetic genealogy, you know, to our favor? So that was pretty, pretty exciting. But yeah, there, there is definitely a, a grind. And I always joke whether my gray hairs on the side of my head are from my daughters or from that case or the, the collective cold case experience, but again, I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade either. Fabulous, you know, to, to walk, you know, and be able to do that almost. Some people call it God's work or, you know, it's just, to me it was, it was fabulous to be, to be able to do that kind of.
- [52:54]
Anya Cain
Work and has Phoenix. My understanding from the book is that Phoenix has brought back some kind of cold case team since. Right?
- [53:05]
Troy Hillman
Yeah. So I, I kind of went in what I call exile. I did some various assignments, Internal affairs, I did a stent and he crimes and financial crimes. But I really, you know, once you've, once you've kind of been up at the big leagues and I'm not to denigrate anybody else's, you know, Careers or career choices. But to me, Cold case, homicide and homicide was, was that, was it the top, you know, and to, to go then to investigating spray painting and graffiti and stuff like that really wasn't my, it was kind of a downer, I guess. So I was just going to make it through, get my pension for my family. Then a knock came at the door. It was a lieutenant. And I'll never forget, he said, troy, he said, we made a mistake. Would you come back and fix Cold Case? So that was 2020, got back in the saddle and we had another, I call him Cold Case part two, part due. And basically they were doing fabulous things. We were using the forensic genealogy. We solved several other cases that are phenomenal and you know, worked on a host of more to get them at least move forward. And then they decided, oh, we're going to send you back to patrol for, for sense of time. And I said, would you guys just leave us alone, like lock us in a basement and let us work on Cold Case. You know, we'll generate good things if you just leave us alone. But so I just decided enough was enough and it was my time to kind of roll out, concentrate on this book and really kind of advocate from the outside. And I'm a volunteer for Parents of Murdered Children. Very good friend of Hurley Feldman, whose daughter was viciously murdered. It's going to trial here out of Scottsdale. It's going to trial later this fall. But he is the president of the local Parents of Murder Children. Very brave soul. So I'm supporting from the outside and trying to advocate and consult. And that doesn't mean that I, I've had a lot of people approach me and say, hey, would you take a look at my case from Missouri or would you take a look at my case from Texas? And I'm not quite there yet. I don't have the bandwidth and I also don't have the case files. So that's something that people need to understand is law enforcement unfortunately can be very closed off and very ego driven. Meaning this is my case and I'm not going to let some outsider take the case file, look at it and try to move it forward. So I'm hoping more states and authorities get involved and say, hey, whatever county, give us your cold cases or let us help. I'm hoping there's more of that which goes on in the future.
- [55:47]
Anya Cain
So yeah, tell me about your current project and your current organization, like what you're currently doing and what you're hoping to grow into.
- [55:54]
Troy Hillman
Well, I'm Kind of hoping the book puts me on the map as a cold case expert per se, and that I can consult and possibly teach. I did work with an Arizona State University professor on a textbook for cold case students, which was exciting. So I'd love to give training to agencies on how to build a highly functioning cold case squad. I think that's necessary. But again, the problem arises if nobody cares from those agencies, then what I'm doing is not, I guess, going to help. So I would really like to continue to garner public awareness and keep the pressure on, at least get private investigators. But civilian investigators adequately staff these cold case squads.
- [56:46]
Anya Cain
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think it's important that public pressure continue to mount about this because it, it does seem like you hear about cases where you have a great cold case squad that is lost through attrition or through restructuring or through budget cuts. And it's. I often feel like these are the things that the public actually wants to see resources put toward. Even, even if it can take a long time for one of these cases to get solved. It's important to the public and I think everyone understands that there's modern day cases or there's current cases that also deserve a lot of attention and care and whatnot. But it would be nice to be able to have both or to have the budget resources be put toward that. How can people kind of get in contact with you or see your stuff or do you have like a website or anything like that?
- [57:38]
Troy Hillman
I do. It's Troy Hillman, cold case.com and on there you'll find links to the book, you'll find kind of my background, you'll find kind of some of the stuff that I've been involved with. You know, I've been honored to be on Dateline and that kind of thing. But it's, it's more. They can interact with me. There's also a. They can be. Opt to be put on a newsletter to, for updates on the book. So there's lots of different things. I'm on social media. You can find me on Instagram. I always say I'm on X, which is, you know, was Twitter, which I still am trying to figure out how that works. And then Facebook, you know, I'm all over just search for, you know, Troy Hillman OR Troy Hillman, CPA on LinkedIn.
- [58:21]
Anya Cain
Amazing. And, and, and yeah, I would just want to say to everyone, I'm Chasing down the Zombie Hunter is an amazing book. You should check it out. It's very interesting case, but also very well told by you and yeah. And so that's going to be available pretty much wherever people can get their books.
- [58:38]
Troy Hillman
Yeah, it's, it's going to be, you know, Barnes and Noble. It's going to be Walmart, Target, Amazon, Simon and Schuster directly. So yeah, any, anywhere different bookstores, Barnes and Noble. I am working on maybe a couple of book signings locally that I would love to be a part of. So any questions, they can email me through the, through the website and I'd be happy to tell. So I just appreciate it.
- [59:06]
Anya Cain
Awesome. Well, Troy, thank you so much. And we'll be including some of the links in our show notes so people can click and order them. Troy, thank you so much for the work you did on this case, but also just for coming on our show.
- [59:16]
Troy Hillman
We really appreciate, was an honor. Thank you very much. And I look up to you and your husband and again, quite an honor.
- [59:24]
Anya Cain
Well, we look up to you. You're the one who actually like solves it. Cold case. We're just sitting here yapping about him.
- [59:30]
Troy Hillman
Oh, but you're bringing attention to them, which is important. Equally important.
- [59:33]
Anya Cain
Thank you so much. All right, awesome. We want to say thank you so much to Troy for speaking with us. Please check out his book. We'll include links in our show notes as well as a link to his website. And obviously, if you're looking for someone to consult with about cold cases or if you're a creator who's interested in the book, reach out through his site or reach out to us and we'll pass you along. You can find us@murdersheetmail.com thanks so much.
- [60:01]
Co-host (Murder Sheet Podcast)
For listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us@murdersheetmail.com if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.
- [60:20]
Anya Cain
If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com. if you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.
- [60:44]
Co-host (Murder Sheet Podcast)
Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the web@kevintg.com.
- [60:54]
Anya Cain
If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening. Not great with finances? That's okay. Experian is your big financial friend. Explore credit card offers, some labeled no Ding decline, which means if you're not approved, they won't hurt your credit scores. See experian.com for details. Applying for no Ding Decline cards won't hurt your credit scores if you aren't initially approved. 2025 Experian Experian.