Being Brighton: Brianna Denison’s brother talks about his sister's murder

Brighton Denison walked to the dean’s office at Reno High School.

Brighton doesn’t remember what class he was in, but knew as he walked down the hallway that school didn't matter. 

No one cared if he did his homework. They just looked at him sympathetically. Hugs from crying strangers were common.

All that mattered to anyone, to him, to his mom Bridgette Zunino Denison, was that they found his big sister.

The impact of Brianna's Law: More than 1,000 felony arrest DNA has matched previous crimes.

Brianna Denison timeline:From her disappearance to the death penalty for James Biela

The disappearance of Brianna Denison gripped the community 10 years ago.

The 19-year-old college student disappeared after a night out with friends from a house near the University of Nevada, Reno on Jan. 20, 2008.

“Whoever has her, I want her back,” Brighton said in an interview just days after his sister went missing. “We love her. She’s ours and we want her back.”

Brighton was just 15.

For the high school freshman who loved to skateboard and had started playing guitar, everything changed that day his sister was taken.

He was the little brother, awkward at times, at memorials and candlelight vigils.

He volunteered to help make the blue ribbons that became a symbol for the Bring Back Bri campaign, seen all over Northern Nevada.

Today, Brighton is 25 and living in Las Vegas, in a city too big and removed from the tragedy to take notice when he says his last name.

He is the father of a 4-year-old son.

“It absolutely changed everything,” Brighton said of his sister’s murder. “I didn’t get to have a normal childhood after that. My mom couldn’t let me out of her sight.”

Brighton remembers Feb. 15, 2008.

Reno Police victim’s advocate Lori Fralick was waiting for him in the dean’s office at school.

In the three weeks since his sister had gone missing, it wasn’t unusual for Fralick to pick up Brighton. Assigned to support the family, Fralick said she has a special place in her heart for Brighton.

“With this family, I worked with them for so long because who did this was still outstanding,” Fralick said of an investigation that took 10 months before an arrest was made. She often acted as a barrier to the barrage of media waiting outside Brighton’s home.

On this day, Fralick and Brighton walked to her car parked outside.

He got in the front seat. It was quiet as they drove.  

Brighton stared straight ahead.

“We were about five minutes from my house when she said, ‘They found her body.’”

On the night Brianna disappeared, she went to a friend’s house near UNR’s campus.

The 2006 Reno High School graduate was a sophomore at Santa Barbara City College,  majoring in child psychology.

She was home in Reno for winter break.

On Jan. 19, 2008, she went out with friends.

The evening started at the Sands Regency Casino Hotel. The group of friends then took a bus with other college students to see a concert.  Brianna and her girlfriends went back to the Sands after the concert, eating mozzarella sticks and drinking milkshakes at Mel’s Diner. Afterward, they got a ride back to her friend’s house.   

Brianna’s friend gave her a blanket and pillow to sleep on the couch. The couch was next to a door that was unlocked.    

Brighton was with his grandmother when his mother called to say Brianna was missing.

“I just remember thinking, ‘What the heck is going on?’” Brighton said.

He listened as his mother and grandmother talked about blood on a pillow where his sister slept.

“I remember going to my aunt’s house and family just started coming,” he said. “I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere because they didn’t know who was a suspect.”

In interviews with the RGJ in 2008, Brianna was described by family and friends as a goofball with a feisty sense of humor.  She was a loyal friend and an adored daughter, sister, niece and granddaughter.

Her mother called her “Breezy” because she reminded her of a “breath of fresh air on a cool summer day.”

Brighton said Brianna loved the beach.   Her bedroom, across the hall from his, was decorated with palm trees, and pineapple-shaped lamps lit the nightstands next to her bed.  

Their childhood was filled with traveling, including living for a year in Italy with family.

When Brianna went to college, they stayed close.

 “I remember calling her when I had an issue with my mom,” he said.  “She would give me advice.”

Brighton said he doesn’t remember much about that time in his life but little details still stand out.

He remembers the day his mother locked his sister's room.

"So many family and friends were just going in there to sit or feel close to my sister," he said. 

After her body was found, they donated Brianna's things to organizations in Los Angeles, fearing that seeing her things in Reno would be too upsetting. 

 “I remember going places with my mom and everyone would just hug us and say how sorry they were for our loss. I remember not knowing how to act.”

He felt uncomfortable.  “I would just shake my head and stay quiet.”

For months, Brighton said police were worried about his safety. During a memorial for his sister, he sat behind a protective screen.

Ten months after Brianna went missing, police got the tip that would solve the case. 

On Nov. 25, 2008, James Michael Biela, 27, was arrested. The former Marine and construction worker from Sparks became a suspect after a Secret Witness tip.

Biela’s girlfriend provided DNA from the couple’s child which linked him to the DNA found at the crime scene and two previous rapes.

The murder trial of James Biela started the spring of Brighton’s sophomore year.

 “They scheduled all my important classes in the morning, and I would go over to court in the afternoon,” Brighton said.

Coming from high school, he would walk in the courtroom as the trial was underway for the day. 

Some days he sat in the back, but never alone. Family and friends filled the courtroom during the three-week trial.

He doesn’t remember feeling anything as he sat in the room with Biela.

“It was hard sometimes,” he said of the brutal details of his sister’s murder.  “There was stuff that initially no one told me, and I would hear it in court. There’s no filter in court.”

Washoe County District Attorney Chris Hicks remembers his own feelings about seeing Brighton in the courtroom.

Hicks was one of the prosecutors on the Biela case.

“I have two older sisters, and I look up to them,” Hicks said. “I remember thinking how devastating and difficult that would be for me and how respectful (he was) and how he managed to maintain his emotions in those difficult times.”

On June 2, 2010 Biela was sentenced to death for Brianna’s murder.

Brianna’s family became strong advocates for DNA testing after her murder. 

Biela's DNA from Brianna’s murder was linked to two previous rapes, and the family asked police what they could do so this wouldn’t happen to someone else.

Fralick remembers how the family wanted Brianna’s death to have an impact.

“They asked, ‘How can we make sure this doesn’t happen to someone else’s daughter?’” Fralick said.

Jayann Sepich, the mother of a New Mexico State University student raped and murdered in 2003, was contacted by the Denison family. In 2006, Katie’s Law was passed in New Mexico to collect DNA from those arrested on a felony.

Sepich has lobbied across the country for similar legislation.

 “If we had not had DNA evidence in my daughter’s rape and murder, we would have never identified the man that killed her,” Sepich told the RGJ in 2013

 In 2013, Gov. Brian Sandoval signed into law Brianna’s Law. The law mandates a DNA cheek-swab whenever a person is booked for a felony arrest.  The testing moves forward and is entered into a national database if a judge finds probable cause for the arrest.

Today, 31 states have some version of Brianna’s Law and Sepich continues to fight for similar laws across the country. 

District attorney Hicks said Brianna’s Law has made a difference in Nevada.

Since 2014, more than 60,000 swabs have been collected. It has helped identify suspects in more than 1,000 crimes including more than 100 sexual assaults.  It has helped solve cold cases including nine murder cases.

The Denison family advocated for the passage of this law because it could have saved Brianna.

Biela, who was arrested on a felony charge in 2002 for an incident involving a former girlfriend and a knife,  would have had his DNA collected and in the system under this law. When DNA evidence was put in the system on a rape he committed in 2007, it would have given police his name from the 2002 arrest.   

"Brianna would be alive today," Sepich said.

Brighton finished high school at the Washoe County School District’s online program, making up semesters' worth of work in a few months. He graduated in 2011 and moved to Las Vegas.

“I wanted to leave Reno,“ he said. “I love Reno but wherever I went, people would bring it up.”

Brighton now works in real estate in Las Vegas. His new friends don’t know about his sister.

His son, Bradley, is 4.   

 “It gives me a chance to be a kid,” he said of being a father. 

His aunt Lauren Denison, who became a family spokesperson during Brianna’s disappearance, the trial and later advocating for Brianna’s Law, said she is proud of Brighton.

Victim advocate Fralick is too.

Read more: Siobhan McAndrew column from June 2010: If only we could go back

“It is incredible that he didn’t let this break him,” she said.

Brighton said his memories of his sister have faded. He doesn’t remember many details from that time in his life and has moved on.

His mother has also left Reno and stopped doing interviews after Brianna’s Law was passed.     

Brighton would like to someday to move back to Reno, but said as long as his son’s mother is in Las Vegas, that is where he will stay.

Every year, on Brianna’s March 29 birthday, he and his mother go out for sushi. It was Brianna's favorite. She would have been 30 this year. 

Brighton said significant dates like the day his sister went missing or the date her body was found don’t stand out. 

He and his mother don’t talk about Brianna, but for them that’s OK.

He hasn’t cried about his sister since her memorial, and never as he did the day her body was found in a field in south Reno.

 “I am a big believer in living my life and not being afraid of what could happen or I would miss out on so many amazing things,” he said.

Fralick said she knew she had to get to Brighton first on the day Brianna’s body was found.

“I don’t always do death notifications but there were live TV crews at the scene,” she said.  

Before she left to pick him at school, she asked Bridgette Zunino Denison if she should tell him.

Brighton remembers the car ride home, how quiet he was when Fralick told him about his sister, and walking in his house.  

Family and friends had again gathered.

He looked at his mom talking to a detective before he walked in the bathroom and shut the door.

 “I broke down and cried,” he said. “I had been holding in and just cried.”

He said he’s proud of his family for Brianna’s Law but wished it wasn’t a life that had to be lost to make it happen.  

“It is bittersweet,” he said.  “It doesn’t bring justice to or make better anything that happened."