A Gwinnett County girl vanished without a trace while walking home from a friend’s house one summer night in 2022. Nearly seven months later, police announced they had found her remains and delivered a shocking revelation: The suspect was one of their own.
Beginning Monday, a jury is set to weigh the fate of 23-year-old former Doraville police officer Miles Bryant, accused of kidnapping and killing 16-year-old Susana Morales and dumping her body 20 miles from her home.
Since Bryant’s February 2023 arrest, details surrounding Morales’ death and her accused killer’s history have slowly trickled out, capturing the public’s attention and placing a spotlight on the lack of trust some in the Latino community have in law enforcement.
Credit: Gwinnett County Police Department
Credit: Gwinnett County Police Department
Susana’s body was left in a wooded area near Dacula in July, the height of Georgia’s summer heat. A man eventually stumbled upon her remains, fully skeletonized by then, in February of the next year.
Bryant was arrested a week later, then fired the same day. His attorneys did not return a request for comment ahead of trial.
Susana’s family has remained steadfast during the lengthy investigation and pre-trial hearings to ensure that justice is served.
“No amount of money, no amount of justice, can ever bring her back to us,” her sister, Jasmine Morales, said.
In anticipation of the trial, here is a summary of the key points:
Who was Susana Morales?
The junior at Meadowcreek High School was a happy teenager and loved by many, her mother Maria Bran told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Her parents had immigrated to the United States from Mexico nearly a quarter-century ago hoping to provide their children with more opportunities.
Credit: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Susana wanted to one day be an undercover detective, her mother said. Jasmine Morales described her sister as the baby of the family. Beautiful and talented, she was always quick to hop on the piano or sing a song to brighten the room.
Susana was bubbly and intelligent, and her future looked bright, her family said.
Who is Miles Bryant?
Bryant began his career in law enforcement as a jailer with the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office in 2020. He joined Doraville police the following year, where a supervisor once wrote in a performance review that Bryant was well-liked by his colleagues and had the potential to be “an exemplary police officer.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
He lived at the same Norcross apartment complex where Susana visited her friend the night of her disappearance, but police have said there was no known connection between the two.
How the case began
Susana texted her mother the night of July 26, 2022, letting her know she was walking home from the Sterling Glen apartment complex. It is just less than a mile from her house, roughly a 20-minute walk along busy roads.
But she never arrived.
Her family filed a missing person report the next morning, and investigators quickly learned Susana had shared her location with a friend through an app. It showed that as she walked home, her phone “suddenly started traveling in the opposite direction” at a rate of approximately 40 mph, court records show. Detectives have said they believe that was when Susana got into a vehicle.
Credit: Rosana Hughes / Rosana.Hughes@ajc.com
Credit: Rosana Hughes / Rosana.Hughes@ajc.com
Shortly after, the app generated a “crash alert” at Oak Loch Trace, just under a mile from where she was allegedly taken. Investigators believe that is where her phone was thrown from the vehicle, and it stayed there until its battery died, Special Assistant District Attorney Brandon Delfunt wrote in a court filing. The phone was never recovered.
A body found, a gun located
Nearly seven months later, on Feb. 6, 2023, Susana’s remains were found on the side of Ga. 316 near Drowning Creek. They were confirmed through dental records, and it was apparent her body had been dumped there naked, prosecutors have said.
Due to the advanced stage of decomposition and no trauma to her bones, an official cause of death hasn’t been determined.
Police said they later found a loaded Glock pistol during a grid search of the area, and it looked like it had “been there for a prolonged period of time,” Delfunt wrote.
That gun turned out to have been registered to Bryant, who reported it stolen the morning after Susana disappeared, saying it had been taken from his truck. However, he “specifically requested that a detective not be assigned to investigate the disappearance of his gun or wallet,” prosecutors have said.
Cellphone data later revealed that shortly after midnight July 27, both Bryant’s personal and police phones were pinged in the same area where Susana’s body was recovered, according to court documents. Records also showed his phone was back in the area later the same morning, about an hour before he reported his firearm stolen.
Based on the findings, prosecutors believe “it is apparent that the defendant returned to the scene to attempt to locate the firearm that he dropped the night before,” Delfunt wrote.
The interrogation
That was enough for detectives to take Bryant in for questioning, after which he was arrested and booked into the Gwinnett County jail. While there, he allegedly spoke with a confidential informant, who then relayed what he heard to investigators, prosecutors have said.
According to court records, the informant told the DA’s office that after Bryant was presented with the state’s evidence, he told his fellow inmate that “the state did not have his ‘blood or semen.’” Prosecutors did not specify what they believe was Bryant’s purpose for allegedly communicating that to the inmate.
During the interview with detectives before his arrest, Bryant denied knowing or ever seeing Susana and initially claimed he hadn’t driven to the area where her body was found. But he eventually changed his story, investigators said.
He told detectives that he and his girlfriend were fighting that July night over accusations that he cheated on her, so he began driving aimlessly and ended up on Ga. 316, where he pulled over to call her, according to court filings.
Investigators said they didn’t buy his explanation, and he was arrested. His work and personal cellphones were seized, both of which “revealed numerous incriminating pieces of evidence,” Delfunt wrote, including several instances in which Bryant is accused of covertly sending himself explicit photographs of various women.
Spotlight on Bryant’s history
Text messages between him and his girlfriend also revealed that Bryant hid “several pairs” of women’s underwear that did not belong to his partner, including at least one pair that he told her was evidence in a burglary case, Delfunt detailed.
“Definitely need to meet later (to) put those in evidence,” he texted his girlfriend, court records show. However, a review of body camera footage from that case did not show the recovery of any underwear, investigators noted. It is not clear if detectives determined from where the garment was taken.
In addition to what was uncovered in the murder investigation, numerous allegations of misconduct have been documented against the former officer.
They include accusations of sexual assault, burglaries and attempted burglaries, an encounter with a 12-year-old runaway and surreptitiously obtaining sexually explicit photos of women he detained while on duty or with whom he worked while serving in the National Guard.
Latino community impact
News of what happened to Susana upset Gwinnett’s large Spanish-speaking population. Her family was especially angered because they felt police investigators didn’t take her disappearance seriously from the start.
Her body could have been found sooner if police hadn’t treated it like a runaway case, her mother said. Maybe they wouldn’t have had to identify her from dental records because all that was left was her skeleton, Bran continued.
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Worsening the tension was news about two other teenagers — including one from Susana’s high school — who were killed or died of an overdose, all within a few weeks.
During a community meeting to address residents’ concerns, Gwinnett police Chief J.D. McClure acknowledged that early information indicated a possibility that Susana had run away. But, “as more facts became available, that case transitioned to a (case) where we suspected foul play could be involved,” he previously said.
“We knew she didn’t run away,” Jasmine Morales said. “We have to accept the fact that we’re not going to see her again.”
The family has said they hope Susana’s story will highlight other missing persons cases, particularly those in minority communities, and motivate police departments across the country to take them more seriously and make no assumptions.
“Maybe we would have found her little body together in one piece and not the way it was found,” her mother said through tears. “We do not want any other families to go through what we are going through.”
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