Bryan Patrick Miller, the man convicted of murdering two women in the high-profile case known as the "canal killings," will learn his fate Wednesday when the judge in his trial sentences him, either to death or to life in prison.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Suzanne Cohen, who has presided over the trial since it began last October, will announce her sentencing decision at 1:30. In April, Cohen found Miller guilty of killing Angela Brosso and Melanie Bernas 30 years ago in Phoenix. There was no jury in the case, which was heard in a bench trial that ended with the judge deliberating alone.

Cohen had earlier ruled that Miller was eligible for the death penalty for the murders.

During the trial's sentencing phase, Miller's attorneys pleaded with the judge to show mercy in her sentencing. arguing that the state didn't have to kill Miller to see justice in the case.

"I know there is room in your heart for mercy," defense attorney Richard Parker said. "I know that when I speak about mercy, I am not asking the court to excuse Bryan's actions."

But prosecutors said the murders of the two women were especially brutal, driven by Miller's sexual sadism, and told the judge Miller deserved the death penalty.

"A sexual sadist, and this defendant is such, has the ability to control their urges," he said. "He chose not to control them when he murdered Melanie and Angela."

Brosso was stabbed in the back on the evening of Nov. 8, 1992, as she cycled along a bike path close to her apartment home by Cactus Road and Interstate 17. Her body was found where she was mutilated, and her head located 11 days later in the Arizona Canal.

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Bernas was killed Sept. 21, 1993, by the I-17 underpass near Castles and Coasters. The 17-year-old high school student is believed to have been cycling along the canal when she was attacked.

Miller stabbed her, dragged her over the asphalt, cut across her neck and carved letters and a cross into her chest before dressing her in a turquoise bodysuit and dumping her into the canal.

Miller evaded capture for more than 20 years before his arrest in 2015 following new DNA analysis in the investigation.

At his trial, which began Oct. 3, Miller pleaded not guilty for reasons of insanity.

Over the course of the six-month bench trial — the lack of a jury highly unusual for a capital murder case — his attorneys argued he had been in the grip of a dissociative trauma state when he killed Brosso and Bernas and was unable to comprehend his actions.

The defense brought in expert witnesses, who talked in detail about Miller's conditions. The defense also presented accounts of Miller's childhood, including the abuse he suffered from his mother, who died in 2010.

Prosecutors argued there was plenty of evidence of Miller's desires: in the violent porn he consumed, the BDSM sex he engaged in with his ex-wife, and in a document he wrote as a teenager detailing a plan to kidnap, mutilate and rape a girl.

And, they said, there was evidence of his planning: the fact the women were attacked alone in the dark and dragged off the bike path out of sight, that he must have brought a knife to the scene, and, in the case of Bernas, a turquoise bodysuit she was dressed in after her death

Miller did not testify during the trial and did not speak until the sentencing phase. In a statement to the judge, he said accepted the verdict, he said, and hoped it provided "some measure of relief."

But he did not apologize for killing Brosso and Bernas, nor did he shed any light on the circumstances of their deaths.

"I wish I could provide answers to the questions you have," Miller said. "I have learned new things about myself in this process, and while I don't have all the answers, I hope to find some."

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Judge to sentence Bryan Miller to death or life in prison for killings