Kriti Mehrotra
When Susana Morales suddenly disappeared from her hometown of Norcross, Georgia, while walking home from a friend’s place, the entire city was left shellshocked. That’s because the 16-year-old Meadowcreek High School junior was just starting to come into her own and had a really bright life ahead of her, unaware it would all shatter in the blink of an eye. All these aspects have since been explored in ABC’s ’20/20: Tracking Susana,’ along with the efforts of her family, friends, loved ones, and authorities to ensure justice.
Susana Morales Was Found Dead Six Months After She Went Missing
Susana Morales was born on June 24, 2006, to Maria Manzanares-Morales and Florentino Morales, as one of their two daughters, the other one being her sister, Jasmine. According to records, by the time 2022 rolled around, Susana was a typical teenager – she loved hanging out with friends, enjoyed newfound independence, and had a deep passion for music. However, the Meadowcreek High School junior’s passion for the latter went beyond a hobby, as she was a really talented singer and multi-instrumentalist.
Susana had just started dating a guy named Axel Zaragoza, too. She had first met him in May 2022, shortly following which they officially began dating, only for everything to turn upside down on July 26, 2022. That’s when the 16-year-old had left her friend’s home at around 6 pm to walk home, but she never made it. According to the records, she had done it hundreds of times before, since it was just a 9-10-minute walk, but that fateful evening was different. Even though she had left at 6, it was at 9:40 that her mother received a text from her phone stating she was heading back. Therefore, when Susana didn’t arrive home by 10 pm, her parents grew panicked and decided to check on her location through an app, which showed her miles away.
Her phone was seen on Singleton Road from Windscape Village Lane between 10:07 pm and 10:21 pm, then made its way to Oak Loch Trace within 5 minutes before shutting down. What ensued was an extensive search for the teenager after her parents reported her missing, but to no avail. In fact, despite the best efforts of her loved ones, volunteers, and officials alike, it was sadly only her remains that were found on February 6, 2023. A passerby had noticed human remains along Highway 316 between Drowning Creek and the Barrow County Line before calling the police, and they turned out to be Susana’s. Unfortunately, owing to the passage of time, the decomposition, and the fact that her remains were essentially skeletal, her cause of death could not officially be determined.
Susana Morales Was Targeted by a Police Officer After She Rejected Him
Although officials had initially begun investigating Susana’s case as a missing persons case, they left no stone unturned in their search for answers. They thus looked into those close to her and even delved into her personal life, just to learn she had no known enemies and was actually leading a good life. Having been raised in a supportive, tight-knit household, there were no familial troubles that might have led her to run away, leading officials to realize she was most certainly in danger. That’s why they questioned her boyfriend, Alex, and the last person to have seen her alive, her friend, rather extensively over time, with their answers always remaining the same.
While Susana’s friend asserted that she was in a good mood when she left her place alone on the fateful evening, Alex also told authorities that everything seemed perfectly normal. He did state that they had FaceTimes several times that day, but it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for them, since they were still practically in the honeymoon phase of their relationship and getting to know one another. Their claims were corroborated by cell phone records and surveillance footage from the area, which showed her walking away from Sterling Glen Apartments on her own. Everything changed when officials spoke with Susana’s best friend, who told them the only strange thing to happen to them recently was a few weeks earlier.
The best friend claimed a young police officer named Miles Bryant, who lived in the same apartment building as the aforementioned friend, had offered them a ride, but they declined and laughed it off. Little did they know that he had a history of stalking and harassment, and he had reported his weapon missing on July 27, 2022, a day after the 16-year-old went missing. He claimed that one of his service weapons had disappeared, which he noticed the evening prior while looking for his wallet in his truck, only to find his Glock 19 holster without the gun. Suspicions only heightened when the same kind of weapon was recovered not far away from Susana’s remains 6 months later.
Miles Bryant is Currently Serving Life in Prison for Murder
Once suspicion fell on Miles Bryant, officials began looking into him even deeper and uncovered not only his history of stalking and harassment but also other significant pieces of evidence. After all, his cell phone records proved he was on the same route as Susana at the same time as her on the fateful evening, going through Singelton Road and then Oak Loch Trace from 10 to 10:30. As if that’s not enough, the Doraville Police Department officer’s internet search history from both his personal and work phones over the ensuing 6 months was also rather incriminating. He had looked up “How long does it take a body to decompose?,” “How are you id by dental records,” “Gwinnett County teen found,” and location-specific searches about the area from where the teenager was ultimately recovered.
Miles was thus taken into custody for questioning, during which he tried to maintain that, while he was in the area of the crime on the fateful evening, he had no hand in it. However, the evidence indicated otherwise, resulting in his arrest on February 13, 2023, less than a week after Susana’s remains were recovered. He was subsequently charged with attempted rape, malice murder, felony murder, kidnapping, and false report of a crime, which also resulted in his being fired from his job as a police officer.
Miles stood trial for the charges against him in the summer of 2024, during which Susana’s family, best friend, and officials all testified against him over 8-9 days. Then, after just 6 hours of deliberations, the jury found him guilty on all counts except attempted rape on June 12, 2024. He was later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 12 months. Miles has since tried to appeal his conviction and to obtain a retrial, but he was denied both. So today, at the age of 26, he is incarcerated at the maximum-security Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in unincorporated Jackson in Butts County, Georgia.
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