Solved cold cases in Arizona
2 documented cases.
Angela Brosso
Angela Brosso, a 22-year-old woman, vanished during an evening bicycle ride along the Arizona Canal in Phoenix on November 8, 1992, the eve of her 22nd birthday. Her decapitated body was found the next day near the canal path, and her head was recovered from the canal eleven days later. DNA tied the killing to the September 1993 murder of 17-year-old Melanie Bernas along the same canal, and in 2014 forensic genetic genealogy narrowed the unknown attacker to the surname Miller. An undercover DNA sting led to the January 2015 arrest of Bryan Patrick Miller, a local figure known as the Zombie Hunter, who was convicted of both murders in 2023 and sentenced to death.
Pamela Pitts
Pamela Pitts, 19, was last seen at a party in a forest outside Prescott, Arizona, on September 16, 1988. Her burned remains were found at the same spot on September 29. The medical examiner could not determine how she died, and she was identified from dental records. Her roommate, Shelly Norgard, now Shelly Harmon, was suspected for years, but detectives could not build a case. In 1993 she was sentenced to 20 years for the killing of her boyfriend, Raymond Clerx, a separate case. A Yavapai County sheriff's detective who inherited the Pitts file in 2011 kept coming back to her, her prison phone calls were monitored, and a cold case team spent hundreds of hours rebuilding the timeline. Harmon was arrested in Nevada in June 2017 and charged with first-degree murder. A court later barred evidence of the Clerx killing and ruled that no one could suggest at trial that Pitts's death was a homicide. In March 2021 Harmon pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, told the court she lost her temper over rent and a joint bank account and killed Pitts, and was sentenced to 20 years with credit for time already served, so she serves no further prison time. Pitts's family called her account unbelievable but said it was an ending.