On Wednesday, a former Georgia police officer was found guilty of kidnapping and killing a 16-year-old girl who vanished from a friend’s house on her way home.
Former police officer Miles Bryant of Doraville, a suburb north of Atlanta, was found guilty of malice murder, criminal murder, kidnapping, and a false crime report in the death of Susana Morales, who vanished in 2022. Months later, her body was discovered in the woods; WXIA-TV in Atlanta said. Bryant cleared himself of attempted rape. An incident record acquired by HuffPost shows Morales originally reported missing in July 2022 by her mother, who said her daughter never returned to their Norcross house from a friend’s residence nearby.
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A news statement from the Gwinnett County Police Department states that the family claimed they last heard from Morales at 9:40 p.m. on July 26, 2022, when she messaged her mother stating she was on her way home.
While her sister was able to locate her phone using an app until 10:30 p.m. that day, her mother told police Morales did not pick up her phone following that text.
An incident report states Morales’s body was not discovered until February 6, 2023, when Gwinnett County police responded to a complaint from a passerby claiming they discovered skeleton remains while strolling in a forested region roughly 20 miles east of her house.
According to WXIA-TV, the chief medical examiner of Gwinnett County, Dr. Carol Terry, said that decomposition of the body rendered the cause of death unknown.
According to Gwinnett County authorities at the time, Bryant’s gun was discovered close to Morales’ body. According to a police incident record, the then-officer with the Doraville Police Department had reported someone had entered his truck and taken his wallet and revolver on the night she vanished. Gwinnett County police Arrested in February 2023 on allegations of hiding the death of another and fraudulent criminal reporting about Morales’s death
An arrest warrant Atlanta News First published claims that Bryant resided “close to the victim” at the time of the murder “and dumped her naked body in the woods.”
Avyonne Smyre, his ex-girlfriend, told the court at Bryant’s trial that she and Bryant had argued on the evening Morales vanished. She said she found dubious scrapes on his truck.
Morales’s family has demanded justice since her disappearance was discovered, claiming that police discounted their first concerns for her safety and labeled her as a runaway.
Morales’s sister stated in a now-deleted online petition, “Through the entire investigation, the police dismissed us and said that she was a runaway when we knew she would never do that.” “How could she flee while on her way home?”
According to Atlanta’s WSB-TV, Gwinnett Police Detective Angela Carter testified on Tuesday that Bryant’s cell phones showed he was near the location where Morales’s body was dumped on the night she vanished.
Carter also mentioned that Bryant had searched many websites on Morales’s disappearance, one having the query “How long does it take a body to decompose?” as stated by huffpost.com.
“He grabbed his badge and his authority, then turned that toward murder. In his final argument Wednesday, prosecuting attorney Brandon Delfunt told the court he is a cop turned killer. WXIA reports. The defense lawyer representing Bryant, Tracy Drake, did not reply right away to an email from Huffington requesting a statement.