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19-year-old Brianna Denison was back in her hometown of Reno, Nevada over the Martin Luther King Jr weekend in 2008, happy & excited to be catching up with her long-time friends during her break. After graduating from Reno High School in 2006, she went on to study psychology at Santa Barbara City College in California, where she was currently a sophomore.
On the night of Saturday, January 19, 2008, Brianna & her friends went to a concert & ended their night at the Sands Hotel & Casino on North Arlington Avenue where they had an early breakfast at Mel’s Diner before they headed back in the early morning hours of Sunday, January 20. Brianna & her friend, K.T. Hunter dropped off four of their male friends & arrived at K.T. ‘s burnt orange, two story rental house just off of the University of Nevada, Reno campus on MacKay Court. Brianna & K.T. got changed into their pajamas, K.T. gave her friend two blankets, a pillow & a teddy bear for extra padding for the pillow & Brianna fell asleep on the leather couch at about 4 am.
Later that morning, at about 9 am, K.T. woke up & she & her other roommate, Jessica, went to the kitchen to make breakfast. This was when they noticed that the couch where Brianna had fallen asleep on was empty. They initially had no concerns, assuming she’d just gone up to one of their roommate’s empty rooms on the second floor. When K.T. went upstairs & knocked on one of the closed bedroom doors, she called out to Brianna so she could start waking up. At about 9:45 am, she went back up a second time & heard no sounds from within the room. This was when she realized that Brianna was not inside the house.
All of Brianna’s belongings were still at the house which included her cell phone, purse, clothes & shoes so K.T. was thoroughly confused & alarmed since she knew there was no way Brianna had left. It was winter time & frigid outside so it was clear that Brianna hadn’t left on her own accord. The last time they saw her, she had been wearing only sweats & a white tank top with no socks.
K.T. immediately called Brianna’s mom, Bridgette Zunino-Denison, at this time it was about 10 am, & because Bridgette knew her daughter to be a rule-follower & someone who wouldn’t have just left the the house without saying something let alone leaving all of her things behind, she immediately jumped into her car. On her way, she got a second phone call from K.T., who was in hysterics as she explained that she’d found blood on the pillow where Brianna had been sleeping. While Bridgette drove to the house, K.T. called 911.
K.T. told the dispatcher that police were needed at their house because their friend was missing & blood was left behind on her pillow. Police were very quickly concerned for Brianna’s well being based on the evidence at the scene. It was clear that she was not a voluntary missing person. When the blood from the pillow was tested, it proved to belong to Brianna. Investigators also noted what looked to be bite marks on the pillow which led them to believe that someone had shoved Brianna’s face into the pillow before she was presumably abducted.
K.T. hadn’t heard a sound while she was asleep upstairs with her dog; there was no sign of forced entry & no indication of a struggle. One of the two blankets she’d given Brianna was still on the couch while the other was about six feet away in the direction to the rear door of the house & the teddy bear was missing.
As the scene was processed, they also located DNA from an unknown individual on the doorknob at the rear of the house. The sliding door had no covering & investigators saw that anyone could have had an unobstructed view of Brianna as she slept on the couch.
In addition to Brianna’s abduction, only one month earlier, there had been another abduction & sexual assault in the same neighborhood when a 22-year-old foreign exchange student had been attacked on December 16, 2007. The woman lived alone at an apartment near K.T.’s rental home & when she arrived in her car at about 2 am, she was assaulted from behind in the parking lot of the complex. She later indicated that she remembered someone putting their hand around her mouth before she lost consciousness. When she woke up, she was in her attacker’s car; the man sodomized her & when he was finished he dropped her back off at her apartment. As she got out of the truck, he threatened that he might be back.
During the attack, the man instructed her not to look at him & covered her face with a hooded sweatshirt, but she was able to tell police that he was a white male with thick meaty fingers, who wore a red t-shirt with a blue neckline, sport pants with an elastic waist, he spoke English without any discernible accent, he was driving a 2005-2006 Toyota Tacoma extended-cab pickup truck & he had kept her underwear, likely as a souvenir. She noticed what she believed to be a baby’s shoe on the front-seat floorboard of the truck. He had brown hair, was between 20-30-years-old, stood between 5’9” & 6’3” & had a large, heavier build.
As investigators began to speak with Brianna’s friends, Jessica Deal told them that she had been out on the night of Brianna’s abduction, but because she was tired, she wanted to go back to the house earlier than everyone else. Instead of getting a cab, she caught a ride with a stranger in the early morning hours of Sunday. This introduced another potential suspect to the case. Jessica acknowledges that taking a ride with a complete stranger was a bad idea, but she didn’t want to walk home since it was freezing cold. When she was in the parking lot, she saw someone else who was leaving & he offered her a ride & dropped her off in his SUV.
It wasn’t until later, at 3:30 am, when Brianna & K.T. came back home after they’d gotten breakfast with friends. Once back, they settled inside & Brianna made herself comfortable on the couch that sat only feet away from an unlocked, glass-paneled door. She texted her boyfriend & quickly fell asleep. Only hours later, she was missing.
Police began searching the neighborhood & interviewing various local sex offenders, but they were coming up without any leads or helpful evidence. The Reno community were scared, on-campus students fearful for their own safety. Blue ribbons wrapped around car antennas, mailboxes & poles around town in Brianna’s honor.
Within days of her disappearance, the man who had given Jessica a ride home that morning came forward to provide his DNA & he was quickly cleared from the case.
Police wondered if the same man who was responsible for abducting & sexually assaulting the 22-year-old student in December, was also responsible for Brianna’s abduction. When they compared the DNA found on the doorknob of K.T.’s house, lo & behold, it matched the DNA from the foreign exchange student’s rape kit. With this, investigators feared that they were dealing with a serial rapist, now aware that this man had attacked two girls, one month apart.
In the meantime, with Brianna still missing, Bridgette could only hope & pray that this man would allow her daughter to go as he allowed the foreign exchange student.
Police released the description of the attacker & it wasn’t long before a third victim came forward. Her attack had occurred three months earlier on October 22, 2007 & just like with the December attack, she was also in a parking lot on campus. As she walked through the parking garage that was situated next to the campus police department, she was attacked from behind & raped while the man held a gun to her head. In this case, no DNA evidence was provided, but she was able to work with a sketch artist & provided enough information that a drawing was created. As with the previous case, her attacker also kept her underwear as a souvenir which only made investigators feel more strongly that this was a third victim who shared the same attacker.
In the meantime, investigators received more than 5,000 tips & tested more than 700 DNA samples from men who voluntarily submitted their DNA in order to eliminate themselves. They continued to interview registered sex offenders & spoke with men who had connections to the two women, but no arrests were made.
On February 15, 2008, a little less than one month after Brianna vanished, a man named Alberto Jimenez was out on his lunch break, taking a short-cut through a vacant field in an industrial park in south Reno when he saw what he thought was a mannequin. Two brightly colored socks caught his eye & then he noticed the victim’s teeth & a wound on her shoulder & was horrified to realize it was the body of a female.
Brianna’s body had been found in a shallow ditch, covered by a discarded Christmas tree & other than the socks on her feet, she was completely nude. Two pairs of petite size women’s underwear were found under her right knee; one was pink & one was black with the Pink Panther emblem. The pink pair contained Brianna’s DNA, the DNA of the friend she had been staying with as well as the DNA of her attacker. The owner of the black pair of underwear with the Pink Panther emblem has not been identified.
The location where Brianna’s body was discovered was eight miles from K.T.’s home where Brianna was last seen. Because the area had been previously covered with snow, police believe her body had been there for more than a week, if not longer.
When an autopsy was done the next day it confirmed that these were the remains of 19-year-old Brianna Denison. She had sadly been sexually assaulted & strangled to death with a pair of underwear. The medical examiner found scrapes & abrasions to her neck that were consistent with the elastic band on the underwear.
For the next ten months there were no further clues as to who was responsible for Brianna’s murder until an anonymous caller placed a tip to investigators on November 1, 2008. The caller indicated that a friend of his girlfriend’s had found another woman’s underwear inside the glove compartment of her boyfriend’s new truck in September.
Before this tip came in, police announced months earlier that the suspect had a fetish for collecting size small women’s underwear. The suspect the anonymous caller named was James Biela. He’d recently owned a Toyota Tacoma described by their previous victim, had similarities to the sketch, he worked as a pipe fitter & had thick, meaty fingers.
When Biela was approached by detectives on November 7, 2008, he refused to provide a DNA sample that could potentially quickly clear him as a suspect. He denied any involvement in Brianna’s murder as he explained that his girlfriend would confirm his alibi for the morning of Brianna’s abduction.
However, when investigators spoke with his girlfriend of six years, Carleen Harmon, rather than confirming his alibi, she said that she was not able to account for Biela’s whereabouts on the night in question. Not only that, but on November 12, 2008, she offered to give police a DNA sample from their 4-year-old son.
Carleen indicated that their relationship was tumultuous & in the instances when the student was kidnapped & raped in December as well as Briana’s abduction in January, he’d left the house angry, only to return days later, indicating that he’d been sleeping in his truck. Because their relationship was rocky, she didn’t find him being gone as odd. Carleen also indicated that she previously confronted him when she found a small size pair of thong panties while they were doing laundry at a Seattle laundromat.
When the DNA was tested from their 4-year-old son, it proved that the boy was related to Brianna’s attacker. Once they had their proof, his girlfriend confronted him in an interrogation room & tearfully asked him, Did you do this? Oh my god. Did you? Did you? He didn’t deny or confirm his involvement & only responded, Now is not the time.
James Michael Biela was born on June 29, 1981 in Chicago, Illinois, but he & his family relocated to Reno when he was 9. As he grew older, some referred to him as the life of the party, he was a guy who took martial arts classes. Others considered him a bully & a person who was quick to anger. After high school, he joined the Marine Corps where he was promoted to lance corporal before he was discharged in 2001 for drug use.
He was back in Reno & in 2002 Biela was arrested after he drunkenly threatened a former girlfriend’s neighbor with a knife. The former girlfriend filed a restraining order against him & in April 2003 he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge. He was sentenced to alcohol counseling & ordered to have no contact with the victim for a year. Because the charges were only a misdemeanor, no DNA samples were collected.
A judge signed a warrant for Biela’s arrest & ordered that he provide a DNA sample that not only matched what was found on Brianna’s body, but also the DNA on the back door of K.T.’s house where she had been abducted. His DNA was also a match to the DNA found on one of the two pairs of underwear located under Brianna’s legs when her body was found in the field which just so happened to be near a business where Carleen was working. His DNA was also a match to the 22-year-old foreign exchange student’s rape kit from December 2007.
Police also found another victim through his DNA that had been attacked on November 13, 2007 when she was walking to her apartment at about 5 pm. A man tackled her from behind, dragged her between two cars & began to grope her. Despite his commands for silence, the victim screamed & kicked; fearing someone would notice the attack, the man, who we now know was Biela kicked her in the head & arm & ran away, leaving several packs of unopened condoms behind. His DNA was a match to what was found on a condom packet.
The foreign exchange student who was abducted & assaulted in December was kidnapped less than 500 yards from MacKay Court where Brianna disappeared. Police believe he returned to the student’s apartment hours before he came into the home where Brianna was sleeping on the couch. At that point, he allegedly, unsuccessfully tried to break into the foreign exchange student’s home.
In Brianna’s case, she was abducted at about 4:30 am & had likely been visible through the sliding glass door as she was asleep on the couch. Biela had no connection to his three victims & each attack appeared to be random.
27-year-old Biela was arrested on November 25, 2008 when he went to pick his son up at daycare. His DNA has been run through the national database & no other hits came back. He was charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping & sexual assault in relation to Brianna Denison.
Police learned that Biela lived in Sparks & had left town in March 2008, two months after Brianna’s murder, to move to Washington state. On his way he stopped in Kellogg, Idaho to sell the Toyota Tacoma truck he owned at the time he sexually assaulted his victim in December 2007. Six months later in September 2008, Carleen went to Washington to help him move back to the Reno area.
Detectives described Biela as the unassuming monster we had been saying he would be the whole time. He is a dangerous individual who was stalking women by stealth & escalating in his violence. He was a local terrorist & frightening the community for nearly a year. By January of 2008, Biela had likely been responsible for four sexual assaults, one that ended in murder. His victims were attacked in October, November & December of 2007 & then in Brianna’s case, January 2008.
At the time of the crimes, Biela had been working in construction for a local company doing a project for the University of Nevada, Reno.
During the trial, which took place in May 2010, Biela’s public defenders urged the jury to consider the fact that he had no previous criminal record & was raised in an impoverished home in Chicago where he witnessed his father beat his mother on a near daily basis. Biela did not take the stand in his own defense at the recommendation of his lawyers.
The trial lasted three weeks & after sixty witnesses testified, the jury, which consisted of seven women & five men, went on to deliberate for nine hours. They returned with a unanimous verdict of life without parole & sentenced to execute Biela by lethal injection.
Before sentencing deliberations began, Biela never apologized for his actions & only voiced that he regretted that he wouldn’t be able to see his son grow up.
Bridgette Denison spoke about her daughter during a news conference, Together, we lost a beautiful, vibrant & promising life & my family & friends have suffered unimaginable tragedy, but we can & will turn this loss into something positive & good. When James Michael Biela messed with my little girl, he messed with the wrong families, the wrong group of women & the wrong city & state.
They have since created the Brianna Denison Foundation where they will work to strengthen laws against offenders in order to prevent others from experiencing the heartache they’ve been forced to endure.
In a horrific twist of fate, exactly ten years after Brianna went missing, her cousin, Caitlin Denison, who was also 19, the same age as Brianna was at the time of her abduction & murder, went missing in January 2018. She told her family that she was flying to Midland, Texas with a man that she met in Reno. They determined that she landed in Midland at 1 pm on Tuesday, January 9, 2018. One day later, Caitlin utilized the wi-fi at a Midland Walmart on North Midland Drive to call her family at about 2:30 pm. During the call, she indicated that she was scared for her life. That was the last time they heard from her.
During the investigation, it was determined that she had been looking for work at Rick’s Cabaret as well as Domino’s Pizza in Odessa on Linda Avenue. She has blond hair, blue eyes, is 5’5” & weighs 120#. She has an alien tattoo on her left finger as well as the letter M. She also has a Libra scale tattoo on her left forearm, two piercings on each side of her nose & bottom lip. She may have been wearing a black shirt with a fur vest over it, black leggings with braiding down the sides of the legs & furry boots.
The man she was last seen with was a known truck driver in the Permian Basin oil industry. Caitlin was likely staying with him in his RV, which may have been parked in West Odessa. On January 10, 2018, the day that Caitlin called & told her family was afraid for her life, he moved the RV to Midland. Before she vanished she was last seen in his Ford F-250 truck. His name is being withheld & it’s believed that his friends & associates may have some information that could help solve this case.
Nearly seven years have passed since Caitlin was last seen & the search continues.
Anyone with information in regards to Caitlin’s disappearance is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 432-694-TIPS. There is a $3,000 cash reward.
References:
- Oxygen True Crime: College student staying with friends mysteriously disappears from their living room couch
- Fox News: Police arrest suspect in sex assault slaying of Reno teen Brianna Denison
- RGJ: Police: DNA links Denison murder suspect to crimes
- Tahoe Daily Tribune: More details emerge in Brianna Denison case
- Your Basin: Family of woman last seen in Midland releases new information
- News West 9: Renewed interest sparked in 2018 missing person’s case
- CBS News: Brianna Denison’s killer, James Biela, gets death; Mom says “he messed with the wrong family”
- Murderpedia: James Michael Biela
- Newsnation: ‘New information’ sparks renewed interest in Caitlin Denison disappearance
