On the evening of July 26, 2022, sixteen-year-old Susana Morales left her home in Norcross, Georgia, to visit a friend. She never came back.
A Normal Evening Turns into a Nightmare
Susana spent the afternoon of July 26, 2022, helping her mother, Maria Bran, at work to earn some extra money. She returned home around 4:00 p.m. and by 6:00 p.m. informed her mother she was heading to Sterling Glenn Apartments on Indian Trail Road to visit a friend.
The complex was less than a mile from the family’s home on Santa Ana Drive, and Susana had made the same trip multiple times before. She kept her mother informed throughout the evening, as was her habit, and at 9:40 p.m. sent a text message letting her mother know she would be home shortly.
That message was the last communication her family received from her. When Susana failed to return, her mother called and texted her repeatedly, but received no response.
The following morning, July 27, 2022, her family went to the Gwinnett County Police Department to file a missing persons report. Officers told them they were required to wait 48 hours before filing a report and suggested that Susana had likely run away — a claim her family firmly rejected, citing her consistent and responsible communication habits.
Contrary to what the officers told the family, there is no legal requirement to wait any set period of time before reporting a missing person.
A Family Left to Investigate on Their Own
With law enforcement declining to act, the Morales family began conducting their own search. They distributed flyers throughout the neighborhood and approached local businesses, asking whether anyone had noticed anything unusual on the night of July 26.
Their efforts produced results. Surveillance footage obtained from a nearby business captured Susana walking along Singleton Road and Indian Trail Lilburn Road shortly after 10:00 p.m. — footage that showed her moving in the direction of her home.
The family brought this evidence to police, who remained reluctant to classify the case as anything other than a runaway situation. A review of Susana’s phone records provided further evidence that something had gone wrong.
Between 10:07 p.m. and 10:21 p.m., data showed her phone in the area between the apartments and her house. However, by 10:26 p.m., her phone had pinged near Oak Loch Trace, approximately one mile east of her home and in the opposite direction. After that, her phone went silent entirely.
The family also relied on the Life360 location-sharing app to track her last known movements. Morales’ mother and sister later testified during the trial about how they had used the app throughout the search, tracing her path in the final minutes before she vanished.
A crash alert registered on the app near Oak Loch Trace, placing Susana in that area at the critical moment she disappeared.
Despite this evidence, Gwinnett County Police issued no public statement until August 29, 2022 — more than a month after she went missing. The department’s press release stated that investigators had exhausted all leads and were asking the public for help.
It also included the statement: “While any missing juvenile is considered endangered, at this time there is no indication that Morales is in any specific danger and it is not believed that she is being held against her will.”
Maria Bran later said publicly that she felt the department had discriminated against her family due to their Hispanic heritage and a language barrier that went unaddressed by investigators.
Telemundo Atlanta was among the first outlets to cover the case and consistently pressured Gwinnett County Police for updates during a period when English-language media had largely ignored the story.
The Discovery That Changed Everything
On February 6, 2023, a man pulled over along Highway 316, near the intersection of Drowning Creek Road in Dacula, to take a phone call. He walked a short distance into the nearby woods and discovered what appeared to be human remains.
Authorities were called to the scene, confirmed the remains were human, and secured the area. Using DNA samples previously provided by Maria Bran, along with Susana’s dental records, the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed that the remains belonged to Susana Morales.
Due to the advanced state of decomposition, a cause of death could not be determined. The body had been found more than 20 miles from where she was last seen.
The following morning, February 7, investigators conducted a grid search of the surrounding forest and recovered an undischarged handgun not far from where Susana’s remains had been found.
When investigators ran the weapon’s serial number, it was registered to Miles Bryant, a 22-year-old officer with the Doraville Police Department.
to department records, Bryant had reported the gun stolen on July 27, 2022 — the same morning Susana was reported missing — claiming his truck had been left unlocked and that his wallet, military ID, and firearm had been taken.
Investigators also established that Bryant not only lived at Sterling Glenn Apartments but also worked there as a courtesy security officer.
Gwinnett County Police Chief McClure confirmed at a press conference that while Bryant may have encountered Morales at the complex, no prior personal connection between the two had been established.
An Arrest and Mounting Charges
On February 13, 2023, Miles Bryant was arrested and charged with concealing the death of another and filing a false police report. He was immediately terminated by the Doraville Police Department.
Bryant had first worked as a deputy in Forsyth County from March 2020 to May 2021, before being hired by Doraville Police in September 2021. On February 14, prosecutors indicated they were also investigating potential sexual assault charges.
By February 22, two additional charges — felony murder and kidnapping — were filed. Chief McClure held a press conference to announce the updated charges and outlined the sequence of events as investigators understood them.
Just days after the initial arrest, on February 16, a 21-year-old woman named Alisha Bates came forward to describe a pattern of stalking she alleged Bryant had carried out against her.
Bates said she had known Bryant since the fifth grade but had rebuffed his attempts to reconnect as adults. A neighbor shared Ring doorbell footage that appeared to show Bryant at her door attempting to gain entry, and in one instance he allegedly broke into her apartment while she was not home.
She reported the incidents to both Gwinnett County Police and the Doraville Police Department. Doraville’s response, she said, was that they had spoken with him and considered the matter closed.
Chief McClure also acknowledged that in 2018, Bryant had been accused of trying to enter a neighbor’s home through a window, and that in 2022 he had failed to file paperwork for a missing child report for three days.
Neither incident led to formal discipline. Bryant had been denied bond twice by May 2023, with a judge citing the danger he posed to women in the community.
On January 2024, prosecutors filed an additional charge of attempted rape against Bryant, reflecting investigators’ growing understanding of what had occurred to Susana during the period between her abduction and her death.
The Trial
Jury selection in the trial of Miles Bryant began on June 3, 2024, at the Gwinnett County Superior Court. Testimony opened on June 5 with an emotional account from Susana’s mother, Maria Bran, describing her daughter’s last evening and the months of anguish that followed.
Susana’s best friend, Esmeralda “Rose” Castillo, testified the following day about the moments before Susana left Sterling Glenn Apartments, her growing concern when Susana failed to arrive home, and an earlier encounter in which Bryant had offered the two girls a ride — an offer they declined.
Susana’s boyfriend, Axel Zaragoza, also testified, describing multiple FaceTime calls he had with Susana on the night she disappeared.
A cellphone expert told the jury that location data from both of Bryant’s phones — his personal T-Mobile device and his Doraville Police-issued Verizon phone — placed him in the same area as Susana during the critical window between 10:00 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. on July 26, 2022.
Bryant’s ex-girlfriend, Avyonne Smyre, testified that she had confronted him that same night near Oak Loch Trace, where the Life360 crash alert had registered.
She stated that Bryant cracked his window only slightly when she spoke with him and that she did not see anyone in the vehicle, though investigators noted the truck had heavily tinted windows.
A jail inmate named Michael Jones also testified for the prosecution, telling the court that Bryant had told him, during the time they were both held at the Lawrenceville facility, that he would not be connected to the murder because there were no bodily fluids to link him to Morales.
Despite his defense attorney’s opening statement suggesting Bryant would testify, he ultimately chose not to take the stand. During closing arguments, defense attorney Tracy Drake acknowledged her client had filed a false report and had disposed of Susana’s body in the woods, but asked the jury to consider his age in sentencing.
Drake later stated that the most damaging piece of evidence against her client was the Life360 data.
“Without the Life360, it would have been more difficult to show arguably where she was picked up, where she went, the crash alert. I think all of that really bolstered their case to show that obviously he did something to her,” Drake said.
The jury deliberated for approximately six hours before returning a verdict on June 12, 2024. Bryant was found guilty of malice murder, felony murder, kidnapping, and false report of a crime. He was acquitted of the attempted rape charge.
Judge Tamela Adkins sentenced Bryant to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 12 consecutive months for the false report conviction.
Before sentencing was handed down, Bryant addressed the court briefly: “I just want to apologize to everybody, to the victim’s family, that’s it.” Special prosecutor Brandon Delfunt, in his closing, had referred to Bryant as “a monster with a badge.”
Bryant has since filed motions seeking a new trial, arguing ineffective assistance of counsel, but those motions have been denied.
Accountability and Demands for Change
Following the verdict, the Morales family and their attorney continued to push for broader accountability. Their attorney stated publicly that the city of Doraville had been “put on notice” of Bryant’s history before Susana’s murder.
“There’s a previous allegation of stalking, prior acts of acting inappropriately towards other young women by Miles Bryant,” he said. “City of Doraville was put on notice of these issues and did an internal investigation but took no corrective actions.”
The family also pursued legal action against Sterling Glenn Apartments, arguing the complex was negligent in its hiring, supervision, and retention of Bryant as a security officer and that it had failed to address known security concerns.
On February 17, 2023, a community rally brought together dozens of people to protest what many in the Hispanic community described as discriminatory treatment by Gwinnett County Police.
Representatives from the Hispanic United Alliance stated they could not trust law enforcement to handle their cases fairly. “We can’t have confidence in the police. We have to do our own search parties.
We feel like, as a Hispanic community, that they’re not paying just as much importance as any other case,” one speaker said at the rally. Gwinnett County Police issued a response stating it had a history of serving the community without bias, but the family and their supporters disputed that claim.
The Morales family’s Change.org petition listed specific demands: a review of Doraville Police Department’s hiring practices, an evaluation of missing persons procedures for minors, and formal acknowledgment that Title 35 of the Georgia State Code was violated when officers told the family they needed to wait 48 hours before filing a report.
The petition also called for accountability from all agencies whose failures, they argued, allowed a dangerous person to remain employed in a position of authority.
Remembering Susana Morales
Susana Morales was born on June 24, 2006, in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in the suburb of Norcross. She was the youngest of three daughters. Her family describes her as a person of extraordinary warmth whose defining quality was her kindness.
Those who knew her also remembered her as funny, sweet, and full of energy. She was a cheerleader at Meadow Creek High School, where she was a freshman at the time of her death. Music was a central part of her life — she sang, played piano, and had been teaching herself guitar and ukulele in the months before she was killed.
Her mother, Maria, and her sister, Jasmine, were the most prominent voices in the public fight for justice on her behalf. Her sister Jasmine Perez has continued to remember her as a joyful and loving person.
On the one-year anniversary of her disappearance, the family gathered at her grave to lay flowers. She is buried at Gwinnett Memorial Park.
