'Canal killings' defendant appears to be a sexual sadist, expert testifies

The man accused of murdering two young women in Phoenix 30 years ago is likely a sexual sadist, an expert witness testified Monday.

Dr. Tina Garby, a psychologist called by the state, described violent pornography found in Bryan Miller's home when he was arrested in 2015 as she outlined her diagnosis in Maricopa County Superior Court.

She said that when she interviewed Miller, she had asked him how he felt when he looked at violent images. He told her, "There is an arousal there, but at the same time it’s repulsive," and also said, "I focus on what the girls look like."

Miller is charged with carrying out the so-called "canal killings" of Angela Brosso and Melanie Bernas in the early 1990s.

Both young women are believed to have been riding their bikes along Phoenix canals when they were attacked, each dying from a forceful stab wound to the back. Each was sexually assaulted and mutilated as or after they died. Brosso was decapitated and subject to a frenzied knife attack and Bernas was cut on her neck and chest.

Miller, now 50, was arrested in 2015 after fresh DNA analysis indicated a match between his profile and semen found on Brosso's and Bernas's bodies, according to evidence at trial.

He has pleaded not guilty for reasons of insanity.

His attorneys say at the time of the murders, when Miller was 20, he was operating in a dissociative "trauma state" separate from his normal consciousness and that his autism and immaturity meant he could not comprehend his actions were wrong.

Pornography found was 'violent'

Garby testified that a person with sexual sadism disorder experienced "intense urges, fantasies or behaviors" about causing psychological or physical pain to somebody, and that it caused them distress or they carried out these behaviors with someone who wasn't consenting.

Happily engaging in violent sex acts with a consenting partner wouldn't meet the definition, Garby said, nor would merely trying out sex involving violence or fear.

"For some people, they do that for a time period, and then they just kind of move on," she said. "They’re like, 'Oh, that was fun, we tied each other up, we used fuzzy handcuffs,' whatever the case may be."

To diagnose Miller, she said, she considered pornography found in his home at the time he was arrested in 2015, among other things.

The pornography was violent, she said, including images of people having sex with decapitated bodies and cuts made to genitals and bodies. Miller told her he masturbated to different types of violent porn.

“Then he said, 'the good news about violent porn is most of it is simulated,'" she said.

Garby said the injuries inflicted on Brosso and Bernas were reflected in some of the images Miller viewed.

"If he is the one who committed the crimes that he’s charged with, his semen was found in the genital area of two deceased females whose bodies had been mutilated in ways that were consistent with the pornography he had viewed," she said.

Expert: 'We do not know' what leads to sexual sadism

The psychologist also looked at letters Miller sent to his former wife, Amy, while incarcerated in Washington state in 2002 for a separate stabbing offense, for which he was found not guilty.

In the letters, Miller described various ways he wanted to cause pain to Amy and scare her during sex, Garby said. She said Miller told her he was aroused by these things.

Last week, Amy testified that Miller began to incorporate violence — including bondage and knife play — into their sex life after he was arrested in 2002.

She didn't want to partake in it, she said, but went along with it, first because she felt it was her duty as a wife and later because she was frightened of Miller.

Earlier in the trial, defense expert Dr. Mark Cunningham testified that Miller's childhood abuse at the hands of his mother, Ellen, had fused the concepts of eroticism and violence from an early age, causing him to develop disturbed sexual fantasies that he stored in a split-off part of his consciousness.

Cunningham, a clinical and forensic psychologist, said in his opinion Miller was in this separated "trauma state" at the time of the murders and potentially not even aware of his actions, or able to comprehend them.

Garby was asked by prosecutor Elizabeth Reamer if it was possible that being exposed to scary things or experiencing a great deal of fear as a child could cause someone to become a sexual sadist.

"We do not know what leads to somebody being a sexual sadist," she said. "We have people who have in their own words normative childhoods, what people would consider the perfect families, and they’re still sexual sadists."

"The other piece of it is, if I’m looking for a sexual paraphilia to see if it exists out of fear, it would fit more with being a sexual masochist," she said. "Like if you’re aroused because you’re fearful or scared, that would fit more with the masochist versus the sadist."

Masochism, she added, is being aroused from fantasies or behaviors involving the experience of physical or emotional pain, humiliation or fear.

Garby said Miller had told her about two separate incidents in which Ellen threatened to cut off his penis, holding a knife during one and scissors in the other.

But she said in her view these incidents weren't connected to her diagnosis of sexual sadism.

"He said he wasn’t aroused, one. But two, if his mother was threatening to cut off his penis and he was aroused, again, that would be more likely to be a pairing of masochistic behaviors," she said.

Asked if people are able to control their paraphilias, Garby said: "Absolutely."

She also diagnosed Miller with antisocial personality disorder, social anxiety, and persistent depressive disorder.

Garby's evidence continues this week.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Expert testifies that 'canal killings' defendant is a sexual sadist