- 7 hours ago
20/20 - Season 2026 Episode 16 -
Tracking Susana
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Tracking Susana
tele: https://t.me/TopFilmUSA1
#film#shows#usa#usashows#hot#filmhot
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FunTranscript
00:00:00An all-new 2020 starts right now.
00:00:43When Susanna walked out the back gate of Sterling Glen Apartments, there's a sidewalk
00:00:53there that would take her straight to her residence.
00:00:56Where can I see her last known location?
00:00:58I have a screenshot.
00:01:00You have a screenshot?
00:01:03They could see that she was walking back from the apartment complex down Singleton Road.
00:01:08And all of a sudden, she goes in the opposite direction in the car.
00:01:11And that's when I started panicking.
00:01:13Something happened to her on the way home.
00:01:15This case is just, it's unreal.
00:01:17She walked that way?
00:01:18Good night County police are hoping that you can help them find a teenager, 16-year-old Susanna Morales.
00:01:23Police now believe that she may have gotten into a car that night, July 26th.
00:01:27She was a young, full of life teenager who vanished pretty much out of thin air.
00:01:33You know why we're here?
00:01:34Goodbye.
00:01:34Don't miss you, darling.
00:01:35We just thought about the worst.
00:01:37They needed to do something.
00:01:49Oh!
00:01:52Brushes!
00:01:53Brushes!
00:01:54Oh!
00:01:56Susanna was the baby.
00:01:58She would get everything that we wanted when we were her age.
00:02:01Necklace, earrings.
00:02:02Yes.
00:02:04Yes.
00:02:04Yes.
00:02:05She was definitely spoiled.
00:02:07Y'all really went out.
00:02:09This is cute.
00:02:10I like this.
00:02:11Our best moments is laughing together as a family.
00:02:20Susanna Morales was very close to her family.
00:02:26They lived in Norcross here in Gwinnett County.
00:02:30We are a large county just north of Atlanta.
00:02:35And we are one of the most diverse counties in the United States.
00:02:40Where are you from originally?
00:02:42Mexico.
00:02:43What were you looking for?
00:02:45Vivir mejor, verdad?
00:02:48Three daughters?
00:02:49Tres hijas?
00:02:50Tres hijas.
00:02:51Yulisa, Yasmin, and Susanna.
00:02:57Her name was Susanna, but you called her?
00:03:00Susy.
00:03:03Me and Susanna had a 10 years difference.
00:03:06Me being the oldest, I used to take care of them.
00:03:10Susanna was very outgoing.
00:03:13I was a little closer to Susanna probably because three-year age gap between us.
00:03:17She was always making TikTok videos.
00:03:20She loved to record music videos of herself singing.
00:03:29Susanna's best friends that I've known since like middle school, for her was Kaya and Arrada.
00:03:37They were very, very close.
00:03:39We had fun together.
00:03:42We didn't have to do much to be happy around each other.
00:03:45She was a very bubbly person.
00:03:48I remember this hand.
00:03:50She was very sweet, very nice.
00:03:52Susanna's hair was very curly.
00:03:54She loved exploring new colors with it.
00:03:56She had dyed her hair green, red, and blonde at one point.
00:04:01She worked with her mother at a local McDonald's.
00:04:05She loved music.
00:04:06She loved to play a ukulele that had been given to her.
00:04:11She loved to sing.
00:04:12So won't you sing with me
00:04:14Your location that's focused on communicating
00:04:25Take me through that day, July 26, 2022.
00:04:33Susanna didn't really like fish and didn't want to eat that.
00:04:36So she asked her mother if she could go to her friend Esmeralda's home.
00:04:41How close was that house?
00:04:43Como seis minutos.
00:04:45Six minutes.
00:04:47She told her mom she got to her friend's house safe.
00:04:49And that was around 7, 19 p.m.
00:04:51I just want to know if you got there.
00:04:53Uh-huh.
00:04:54And she responds.
00:04:55Si.
00:04:56Si, with a thumbs up.
00:04:57Uh-huh.
00:05:03Later that night, approximately 9.40ish p.m., Susanna's mom starts calling Susanna and asking her to come home because
00:05:11it's getting late.
00:05:12You were going to go pick her up.
00:05:14I called her three times and she answered me.
00:05:16And she always used to answer me.
00:05:21Susanna's mom reached out for Susanna to be like, hey, where are you?
00:05:24And she texts her and texts her and texts her.
00:05:26Susy, do you want me to go for you?
00:05:28No.
00:05:28I said, my daughter, please answer.
00:05:31My daughter, please answer.
00:05:34Because Susanna's mother was not able to get in touch with her, she reached out to Esmeralda and her family.
00:05:40She called me asking if Susanna was at my house.
00:05:44Susanna had actually never come over there.
00:05:47Of course, that's my best friend, so I will back her up.
00:05:50I told her that Susanna was leaving while I was able to get enough time to get a hold of
00:05:54Susanna.
00:05:55Initially, Esmeralda, being a teenage friend, was trying to cover for Susanna.
00:06:00I contacted her, calling her.
00:06:03No response.
00:06:03So I texted her and told her that her mother was looking for her and she better be on her
00:06:07way home before I get in trouble.
00:06:09Susanna's mother recalls talking to Esmeralda's mother, who told her Susanna was never there.
00:06:17So mom, at that point, is worried and like, hey, why was my daughter not where she said she was?
00:06:25I remember getting a call from my mom like around 9 or 10 p.m. at night.
00:06:30And she was just asking me if I heard from Susanna or if I had talked to her because she
00:06:34wasn't answering her phone.
00:06:36Susanna's mother was continuously contacting people, trying to figure out where Susanna might be.
00:06:42She had a very good relationship with her sisters and her mom.
00:06:45So that was not characteristic if she did not get in contact with her mom.
00:06:48I told my mom that maybe Susanna's phone had died or that she fell asleep.
00:06:52And I just went to morning to hear from her.
00:06:56You realize there's something really wrong here.
00:07:06One of Susanna's friends gets a crash alert on her cell phone.
00:07:11Susanna's in a moving vehicle and there's a serious crash.
00:07:26That's Susy, huh?
00:07:28Your screenshot.
00:07:29La foto de sus quince.
00:07:30On her 15th birthday.
00:07:33For her quinceanera, what did she want more than anything?
00:07:37Mami, quiero tacos.
00:07:39Tacos?
00:07:40Tacos, Susy.
00:07:42All she wanted was great tacos.
00:07:44She wanted us to buy her a mini quinceanera dress, a pink, sparkly, short quinceanera dress.
00:07:52Susanna was always hanging out with her friends.
00:07:59None of them drove, so they all were young and would walk to each other's house.
00:08:07On July 26, 2022, while Susanna's mother was attempting to locate her and worried about where Susanna was,
00:08:16Susanna's friend Kaya had gotten a notification on her phone through a mobile application on their phone called Live 360.
00:08:26It's an app where you can add people to your circle.
00:08:29You can add friends, family members, and it'll tell you their location.
00:08:33It also provides other safety features, like parents can track their kids.
00:08:37It shows how fast they're driving, it shows if the phone battery's low, things like that.
00:08:45Around 10.30 p.m., Susanna's friend Kaya had gotten a notification on her phone that Susanna's phone had been
00:08:54involved in some kind of crash.
00:08:57Kaya gets what they call a crash alert on her phone.
00:09:01To get a crash alert, there has to be serious force with that phone.
00:09:06Susanna could have potentially been involved in a car accident.
00:09:12Once Kaya got the Live 360 notification crash alert, she contacted Esmeralda.
00:09:19So her friends at that point are worried about Susanna, and Susanna didn't drive.
00:09:25After speaking with Esmeralda, she went out there and checked it out because we were thinking she got into a
00:09:30car accident.
00:09:31They had the location of where the alert was sent from.
00:09:34So they went to that location and started looking for Susanna.
00:09:38I was on the phone with Kaya. My sister had Susanna's phone number.
00:09:42My sister was calling her phone to see maybe we could find it or find any debris of any sort
00:09:47of car crash.
00:09:48But that road in that neighborhood was very quiet that night, so obviously there was no car crash.
00:09:55There's no signs at all of a vehicle crash, no signs of Susanna, and no signs of her phone.
00:10:00She couldn't find any debris or anything, so we just assumed that she was sleeping over at a friend's house,
00:10:07and we slept on it.
00:10:14The next day, I received a terrifying call from my mom where she was sobbing, and I was like, what
00:10:20happened?
00:10:22My mom called me and told me that she was going to call the police because she hasn't heard from
00:10:25Susanna.
00:10:26And I turned her away from me, and I left work.
00:10:28I don't think I was really worried until I got the screenshots from the Live 360, and that's when I
00:10:34started panicking.
00:10:34And it basically showed the trip of her walking home, and all of a sudden, she goes in the opposite
00:10:40direction in the car.
00:10:42And it was like a notification of Live 360 that Susanna might have been in a crash.
00:10:48She's heading down Singleton Road in the direction of Back Home.
00:10:54Then we see, about five minutes later, her direction pattern change, and she's going the exact opposite way, away from
00:11:03her house.
00:11:04And here, we see she's now driving in a vehicle at a top speed of 40 miles an hour.
00:11:13Ultimately, we get the crash alert at that location.
00:11:17That's the last known location where Susanna phones pings.
00:11:23Once we got the screenshots, we realized that Susanna had gone to a different friend's house.
00:11:28She actually had gone to her friend Alyssa and Kelly's apartment complex.
00:11:36Kelly is a girl that Susanna's mom, for whatever reason, didn't like.
00:11:41She didn't want Susanna to be around certain friends because she believed they were a bad influence.
00:11:48Susanna knew that her mom was going to say no about her going to Kelly's house.
00:11:52So she asked, can I go to Esmeralda's house?
00:11:55So that's where Maria thought she was going to go.
00:11:58But instead, she ended up going to Kelly's house, which she lived in the Sterling Glen Apartments.
00:12:04The Sterling Glen Apartments is a fairly typical apartment complex for that area.
00:12:10A lot of different buildings that have multiple apartment units in them.
00:12:14There is a clubhouse and a pool.
00:12:17Because of the crime in the area, they also employ a courtesy officer to help patrol the area.
00:12:27The family have, at this point, reached out to all of their friends of Susanna.
00:12:32No one knows where she is, so they reach out to the Gwinnett County Police and make a report.
00:12:37My sister's been missing since yesterday.
00:12:40How old is your sister?
00:12:4216.
00:12:43Okay.
00:12:44Is your mom or dad there?
00:12:45Yes.
00:12:46I'll have an officer out there as soon as possible to meet with you and your mom, okay?
00:12:50Okay.
00:12:50Thank you so much.
00:12:52Maria speaks Spanish.
00:12:54So just to have that clear communication, if we can, we send officers that speak Spanish.
00:13:00Good morning.
00:13:02Good morning.
00:13:02Good morning.
00:13:02Good morning.
00:13:03Good morning.
00:13:08Her friend has her on Life 360, you know that?
00:13:11Mm-hmm.
00:13:12But it's not, like, renewing her location.
00:13:15And once the officer arrived at the house, we were just letting them know what was going on, that Susanna
00:13:19hadn't made home since last night and she wasn't answering any calls.
00:13:22So, where can I see her last known location?
00:13:27That's crucial.
00:13:29We were showing him the screenshots from the Life 360 and all the messages that we had and they asked
00:13:34us to send that to them, so we did.
00:13:39When you're looking at the 360 of her being in a car, it can be someone took her or it
00:13:46can be that she ran away.
00:13:49Whose car is she in?
00:13:50What happened?
00:13:51Is she okay?
00:14:12My name is Xavier Biggers. I've been in policing for 20 years.
00:14:19I've always wanted to be a police officer since I was five years old.
00:14:24At the time of Susanna Morales' disappearance, my title was a sergeant over at the Special Victims Unit.
00:14:31Initially, I had nothing other than what the officers on scene had given me.
00:14:40You showed up something on your phone?
00:14:55Jeans, a yellow tank top, they show Susanna's hair.
00:15:00She had black fingernails. That's something that stood out as something descriptive for her.
00:15:13What I can do right now is the initial report saying she hasn't been here.
00:15:20They gave us a report number.
00:15:26Good morning, GPSP.
00:15:28Good morning. I need to list a juvenile missing.
00:15:33When Susanna's mother called us to report her missing, she was put on the system by the officer that made
00:15:39the report as a missing person.
00:15:42On that day, I was the on-call sergeant.
00:15:45They called me and let me know that they went door-to-door trying to get more information about her
00:15:49disappearance.
00:15:50They went to Sterling Glen Apartments, where Kelly lives.
00:15:56Hello.
00:15:57Hello.
00:15:58They spent about a good three to four hours at that apartment complex looking for her.
00:16:02She here?
00:16:03She's working right now.
00:16:05And they actually spoke with Kelly and talked with her.
00:16:09You know why we're here?
00:16:13What can you tell us about her?
00:16:14Uh, um, she left me at 10, and then there was only one.
00:16:23Like, this is so strange.
00:16:30Susanna ended up walking over to her friend Kelly and Alyssa's home at the apartment complex.
00:16:39We were actually able to locate social media videos that were taken of Susanna and her friends that day.
00:16:46We were doing a belly piercing, just taking videos.
00:16:49We were just hanging out.
00:16:52We ended up walking to the back of the gate to the apartments, and then I just said goodbye.
00:16:57Around 10 p.m., Kelly said that she took Susanna to the exit of the Sterling Glen Apartments on Singleton
00:17:05Road.
00:17:07Singleton Road is located in a pretty populated area.
00:17:11There are residential areas as well as businesses.
00:17:15Even at night, there's a lot of foot traffic as well as vehicles.
00:17:19Susanna had walked on that road numerous times, so she was familiar with it.
00:17:24However, once you pass the businesses, it is a very dark walk back to Susanna's house.
00:17:38This is where Kelly basically walked Susanna out to the back gate, and Susanna went home this way from the
00:17:46back gate.
00:17:48From Sterling Glen Apartments to Susanna home is probably only about a 15-minute walk.
00:17:55To get home, Susanna would have exited the Sterling Glen Apartments through the back gate, taken a left on Singleton
00:18:00Road, and then traveled down Singleton Road and taken a left onto Santa Ana Drive, where her home was located.
00:18:09I was a homicide detective with Gwinnett County Police at the time of Susanna Morales' disappearance.
00:18:15I worked on the same floor as the Special Victims Unit.
00:18:18I heard them talking about it, so of course I jumped in and I was asking questions.
00:18:23There was something up with this that wasn't a typical case.
00:18:28Somewhere after she walked past this parking lot, her phone changed directions and began going back towards the Sterling Glen
00:18:38Apartments at a speed that's consistent with her being in a vehicle.
00:18:41And within less than a mile, a crash alert is received.
00:18:48So this is the direction the 360 application was showing. Susanna was going in at 40 miles per hour.
00:18:57Then this is the area that it pretty much crashes out and round about here.
00:19:02We checked to see if there were any accidents in that area. There was no accidents reported in that area.
00:19:09Given that there's no actual evidence of a car crash, our assumption is that her phone is thrown out the
00:19:16window, out of a moving vehicle, and that the phone is damaged or broken to cause the crash alert.
00:19:21When you're looking at the 360 of her being in a car, you can see it from both ways, and
00:19:26I saw it from both ways.
00:19:27It can be someone took her, or it can be that she ran away.
00:19:39I knew she didn't run away. She was on the way home and something happened.
00:19:45Just because of the information that we had about hanging out with Kelly,
00:19:50and the fact that she told her mother that she was going one place and she ended up going somewhere
00:19:55else,
00:19:55we was thinking maybe that she had thrown herself on the way or got rid of it because she knew
00:20:00she was going to get in trouble.
00:20:01So we linked this as possibly while she was running away.
00:20:09Even with that, we were working the case as a regular missing person by gathering the information we had,
00:20:16as far as her friends, her social media, and doing the things as our policy has stated, and working at
00:20:23that point.
00:20:24Did you ever think she would run away?
00:20:27No, no.
00:20:29I never, never, never thought I was running away.
00:20:32Never.
00:20:33I never thought I was running away.
00:20:36I never thought I was running away.
00:20:37She didn't take her trotter, she didn't take clothes, she didn't take anything.
00:20:40So we were really, really scared at that moment.
00:20:44And that's when we as a family start looking for her.
00:20:50They needed to do something.
00:20:52Suzanne is nowhere to be found.
00:20:53They go out, they start canvassing.
00:20:56Then the family thinks they found something.
00:21:00That's her, that's her.
00:21:02That is her.
00:21:03That's her.
00:21:14Just be honest, we don't throw out search parties unless it's a critical person.
00:21:21Diabetic, can't live by their own, something that will have exigent circumstances for us to find this person.
00:21:28She's 16, right?
00:21:31Yeah, let me make a couple phone calls.
00:21:34After filing the police report, we said that we weren't going to wait.
00:21:37We had to do something.
00:21:39And so using the screenshots that we had, we kind of retraced her steps.
00:21:46We started looking for her in the exact point where the app shows where the incident was.
00:21:54The ping hit at this area right here.
00:21:58Her family came here and it was unfortunate that this was not the location where Susanna was at.
00:22:04It was just the last area where her cell phone pinged at.
00:22:08We tried to retrace her steps that we thought that she would take.
00:22:11So we started at Kelly's apartment.
00:22:19You were the detectives.
00:22:27They needed to do something.
00:22:28Susanna is nowhere to be found.
00:22:30They go out, they start canvassing as well.
00:22:33We were asking all the businesses to see if they had any cameras.
00:22:37And we got to a daycare.
00:22:41The camera system that that place had, it was super old, so it was like an hour ahead or behind.
00:22:47I'll tell you the time of this.
00:22:49At first we couldn't get anything until he went back to the right hour.
00:22:54We saw Susanna.
00:22:59That is her.
00:23:02That's her.
00:23:04We were like, oh my God.
00:23:06That's her, that's her.
00:23:08In the video, Susanna is wearing the yellow tank top jeans and white Crocs.
00:23:14She's alone. There's no cars near her, no strangers.
00:23:17She appeared to be walking towards the direction of her home.
00:23:21And nothing was wrong at that moment.
00:23:24Susanna walked this way.
00:23:25She walked past the cameras coming right there.
00:23:28She walked down this pathway here.
00:23:33Once we saw that, our mind was thinking, you know, that maybe she got kidnapped, she's being raped, she's trafficking.
00:23:39We just thought about the worst.
00:23:47It was a bad feeling, because we knew for sure something had happened.
00:23:51Because she was on the way home.
00:23:56How did you feel?
00:24:19How did you feel?
00:24:25How did you feel?
00:24:25We have close to 40 to 50 missing persons reports in our system a month.
00:24:31And I would say majority of those, they come back home within the first week.
00:24:37All hands are on deck when it comes to a person that's been abducted versus someone who's just being missing.
00:24:42Because you have to show that foul play is actually involved.
00:24:46And at that time, we didn't have any information that Susanna was abducted by anyone.
00:24:53However, I had taken the case as a personal matter and I was looking for her like someone had taken
00:24:59her.
00:25:02My daughter is 16 at the time when this occurred.
00:25:06I looked at this as if she was my daughter.
00:25:10Because every day I saw my daughter, I saw her.
00:25:13So I was working harder every day because...
00:25:32I came over here to the extra storage space knowing that Susanna was continuing her walk.
00:25:37But unfortunately, the video camera only caught the brush at the bottom of here.
00:25:43It didn't capture the sidewalk.
00:25:45We actually checked the bus's cameras during that time frame when she went missing.
00:25:51We didn't see any footage of her on any of the buses.
00:25:58At Sterling Glen Apartments, the only cameras that they have are on top of the building.
00:26:03Those are considered like live feed cameras, which means live feed, not recording.
00:26:14Once Susanna was reported missing and nobody was able to find any location for her or any information about where
00:26:23she had gone,
00:26:24Susanna's family and her friends and the community began to launch a campaign to try and find Susanna.
00:26:33We decided we would make these big posters and say, have you seen her? Can you please call this number?
00:26:38And we were posting all over social media.
00:26:43I remember I got a call from this woman. She was saying, I have your sister. I have your sister.
00:26:50In that moment, my heart dropped.
00:26:56Especially nowadays with social media, people do things to make you feel like a moment of hope and false hope.
00:27:04And that's what happened.
00:27:07It was just not messing with me.
00:27:11Unfortunately, there are evil people out there and they prey on this.
00:27:20The family is begging and pleading with anyone to find Susanna.
00:27:26We just don't know what happened. We don't know if she got picked up. We don't know if she got
00:27:28lost.
00:27:28She wouldn't just go out and like not tell her.
00:27:31This was a case that grabbed so much attention.
00:27:34You're talking about a teenager and all of a sudden she goes missing.
00:27:38It blows your mind.
00:27:42We did receive a lot of tips from people who were genuine and did care and tried to give potential
00:27:49sightings of her.
00:27:51One tip brings her family to the brink.
00:27:55Someone saw Susanna's bright curly hair at a hotel.
00:27:59Police are dispatched to the scene.
00:28:02What do they find?
00:28:29I remember that we would get a lot of like sightings of her.
00:28:33And so we would always go and check out.
00:28:37At one point a tip comes in that someone saw Susanna's bright curly hair at a hotel.
00:28:44And when we went, we were just like driving around the hotel.
00:28:51And then in one of the windows, we saw like a silhouette of two women and one had super curly
00:28:58hair.
00:28:59And we were like for sure that it was Susanna.
00:29:02So we called the police.
00:29:04We had officers go to the hotel because they were actually in the park lot saying that Susanna was actually
00:29:09there.
00:29:10They were taking forever to get there.
00:29:12And once the police got there, they went inside and they were able to talk to one of the women
00:29:16that was there.
00:29:18But the lady that had left was the one with curly hair.
00:29:20And so we were like, oh my God, what if that was her?
00:29:23So we were left with that doubt if that lady was her or not.
00:29:34They never gave up hoping.
00:29:36I lived off their hope.
00:29:39After my eight hours of work, I would still spend two to three more extra hours on, I would call
00:29:44it Susanna time.
00:29:46Just driving around just to seeing if I could see Susanna sitting on a stoop or sitting at the playground.
00:29:57Hoping that I would possibly see her just walking down the sidewalk.
00:30:04I mean, my car doesn't really look like, I mean, a police car.
00:30:08So I would actually go in plain clothes and just like camp out at some of these hotels.
00:30:14And after a while, some of the criminals who do a lot of prostitution started noticing who I was.
00:30:22This is their RV camp.
00:30:25Someone said that they had thought they saw her, saw a sighting of her over here.
00:30:29And then I just got into a routine that I would do the exact same thing.
00:30:33And I would go from the hotels to here, to the businesses, to the apartment complex,
00:30:43to Sterling Glen.
00:30:45I just kept doing the exact same thing over and over because I just felt that if I didn't do
00:30:51it,
00:30:51that would be the day that someone saw her.
00:30:55It was a super hard time.
00:30:58I was honestly really just trying to be strong for my mom.
00:31:18The longer that Susana remained missing, the bigger of a story this became in the local community.
00:31:25It's been more than a month since anyone in Susana Morales' family has heard from the 16-year-old.
00:31:31This flyer is all across Norcross and Gwinnett County.
00:31:34Today, Gwinnett police said they can't find her alone.
00:31:37Honestly, we're just tired of not knowing. That's like the hardest part.
00:31:39Well, our goal was just to make sure that everybody knew her face.
00:31:43If anybody was just seeing her, they would call us.
00:31:46Gwinnett police on Monday said they have exhausted all options and need the public's help to find her.
00:31:50The Meadow Creek High student is not believed to be in any danger.
00:31:54What's the evidence for them to think that? Or do they have evidence that show otherwise?
00:31:59While we're going through the fall, police don't have any updates on it.
00:32:03During that time, I was pregnant.
00:32:06I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. All I had to do was cry.
00:32:10I got pregnant before I couldn't do anything.
00:32:12And so mainly I felt guilt for not being able to look for her more.
00:32:20As the investigation began to, month after month, turn up no results,
00:32:26the Special Victims Unit turned the case over to the Homicide Unit.
00:32:35What's interesting about this case is there's a team with the First 48 TV show that was embedded with police
00:32:44during this investigation into this disappearance of a teenage girl.
00:32:49STU's been working a missing juvenile case for going actually six months today. I was asked to come in and
00:32:58assist.
00:32:58And I just got kind of pushy, I guess. Not in a bad way. I just kind of hijacked the
00:33:04case.
00:33:05Carter is just, man, she's a warrior. And she knows she just has a knack for stuff.
00:33:16There was zero communication coming from Susanna after that crash alert. Literally zero activity. Nothing. She's a teenager. That's unheard
00:33:28of.
00:33:28We did have hope that somebody new was coming to the case and hopefully they were able to see something
00:33:33that nobody else saw.
00:33:36I started from scratch. We took metal detectors where her phone was last seen on Live 360 and attempted to
00:33:47locate it.
00:33:48We were just going to check that center median. I really want to find this.
00:33:57We didn't find the phone. We just tried.
00:34:01I spoke to friends. I spoke to family.
00:34:05You treat this just like a real homicide case. Not just a person just walked away. Everyone is now considered
00:34:11a suspect at this point.
00:34:12Throughout those investigations, the police realized that absolutely none of them had any information whatsoever as to Susanna's disappearance.
00:34:21So I asked for another media release to be sent out just to keep her name relevant. And we had
00:34:26no suspects at that time. We don't know who's watching.
00:34:30This is 16 year old Susanna Morales, a teenager who's been missing since summer. Cell phone data and cameras show
00:34:37her last known location was in Gwinnett County walking home.
00:34:40We needed either someone come forward with some information or Susanna come home.
00:34:46If you have information, please call Gwinnett County police.
00:34:50And then within about two weeks or so, we had a break in the case.
00:34:55I received a call saying, did you hear the news? They found your sister.
00:35:10Y'all really went out.
00:35:11Nobody expected to still be looking for her.
00:35:14Gwinnett County police department out of leaves.
00:35:15They said they have exhausted all options.
00:35:17Looking for this missing high school student.
00:35:24We had the meeting where it was decided like I would kind of take over the case.
00:35:28And then we just started doing all these other search warrants.
00:35:30And we got a call.
00:35:36Gwinnett County 911, what's the location of the emergency?
00:35:39He was driving. He noticed on the side of Highway 316 a trail that went into the wood line.
00:35:47He had a small kind of off-road vehicle.
00:35:50And he liked to adventure and find different trails.
00:35:53And so he took that trail down the side of Highway 316.
00:35:58He ultimately said that he got a phone call.
00:36:01Got out and began to walk around the woods as he was on the phone.
00:36:05I was just out walking through the woods off the side of 316.
00:36:09But I found a human skull.
00:36:10All right, we're going to have an officer cut out that way.
00:36:19A patrol officer sent to check out those remains.
00:36:27The immediate assumption is, hey, it's probably an animal.
00:36:31It's a skull.
00:36:31434 right here.
00:36:32We're about a half a mile.
00:36:35Let's go.
00:36:35Oh, it's going.
00:36:37How are you doing?
00:36:38I'm going to sit that way, a little walk.
00:36:40100 yards there.
00:36:41Can you show us?
00:36:42Sure.
00:36:42Officers arrive and they meet the man who made the 911 call from the side of the highway.
00:36:47And he kind of leads them into the woods where he found it.
00:36:50Is it off like this road or is it a little ways off?
00:36:54Right up over here.
00:36:55There's no stores.
00:36:56There's no real residences.
00:36:58It's just literally the side of a highway.
00:37:02It's not a place that people normally would pull over and just walk around.
00:37:05Or there's no reason for someone to be there.
00:37:12We see on that officer's body cam, when he gets there, the officer sees a skull.
00:37:17And the remains are too big to be a small animal.
00:37:20And it's clearly they are human.
00:37:22And there's more.
00:37:24I walked straight that way.
00:37:27Step back a little bit.
00:37:28We're going to see how far we got to cordon this off.
00:37:30I got some taping back in my car too.
00:37:33So the Gwinnett County Police Department confirmed that they did appear to be human remains.
00:37:38And so the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner, Homicide Unit, and Crime Scene Specialist responded to the area.
00:37:46We were called out because a citizen discovered skeletal remains.
00:37:50This is just all wooded.
00:37:51There's nothing out here.
00:37:52You want to go get your phone?
00:37:53Yeah.
00:37:54This general area right here is where the remains were located.
00:37:58This is going to be all in right.
00:38:00Yeah.
00:38:01The first thing that I saw when I got here was a human skull on the ground.
00:38:05Right now they're collecting some of the larger bones of the foot.
00:38:07We retrieved a significant portion of the skeleton.
00:38:10The skull is complete.
00:38:11There's no clothing.
00:38:14There's no wallet.
00:38:15There's no, you know, possessions, no effects.
00:38:18Police look and there's absolutely nothing to identify the person.
00:38:24Not even any indication if they're male or female, adult, child, nothing.
00:38:29I have not seen any sharp force injuries to the bones.
00:38:35Right now we don't have a cause of death.
00:38:37We don't have an identity.
00:38:41Looking at it, the growth points is not fused.
00:38:45He said tibia, younger, 17, 18-inch.
00:38:49The first words from the forensic pathologist when she sees what we have are,
00:38:54do you have any missing teenage girls?
00:38:56So the medical examiner, Dr. Terry, she's able to tell that they're female
00:39:01and that is when red flags start going off in our heads.
00:39:05Could this be Susanna?
00:39:09As we were sifting through the topsoil
00:39:12and recovering some of the small bones of the hands,
00:39:15one of the medical examiner investigators, he recovered some fingernails.
00:39:20We found some fingernails.
00:39:24This paint was peeling off of them, right?
00:39:26Yeah, I like the black.
00:39:29This started missing.
00:39:31As soon as I saw the nail polish on the fingernails,
00:39:33I recalled a photo that Detective Carter had shown me of Susanna.
00:39:38In that photograph, her nails were painted black.
00:39:42It kind of put a chill in my spine.
00:39:45Something he took note of was that the remains that we were able to actually recover
00:39:50indicated that her clothes were not with her at the time that she was killed.
00:39:55I definitely remember thinking that whoever this girl turned out to be,
00:39:59you know, it was immediately obvious that she didn't walk out into the woods.
00:40:03As thick as it was, she didn't walk out here in the nude with no shoes on.
00:40:07That was immediately suspicious.
00:40:11By the time the medical examiner processed the scene, it was completely dark in the middle of the woods.
00:40:18Our immediate concern at that point was trying to verify if, in fact, these were Susanna.
00:40:26Could it really be Susanna?
00:40:27All of our hearts break because, of course, we still hope she's alive.
00:40:35I made arrangements to have uniformed officers out here so that there would be bodies all night guarding this perimeter,
00:40:42making sure that no evidence could be tampered with, to come back out here the next day to search for
00:40:47additional items
00:40:48just because it was too dark to perform that thorough of a search.
00:40:54Hey, y'all, hold up!
00:40:57Recruits found a gun.
00:40:59It felt really strange that a firearm would be out here.
00:41:01Probably 30 yards past when the skeletal remains were found.
00:41:20I was just out walking through the woods off the side of 316, but I found a human skull.
00:41:28I walked straight that way and there was a few more over there.
00:41:33So we went that next morning out to the remains.
00:41:42So just make sure that you're scanning carefully because they're going to be small pieces that you're looking for.
00:41:47In addition to clothing, shoes, something like that.
00:41:51All right, let's go form the line from here down to the guardrail.
00:41:55Let's fill in any gaps.
00:41:56So we line up police officers to do a grid.
00:42:01Walking through the woods near that remains to see is there anything that could have been left there.
00:42:09Hey, y'all, hold up!
00:42:14Recruits found a gun.
00:42:17Probably 200 feet off the highway here was a black pistol, just barely covered with pine straw.
00:42:24It was a 9mm firearm that had a flashlight attached to the firearm as well, and it appeared it had
00:42:33been there for some time.
00:42:35Probably 30 yards past where the skeletal remains were found.
00:42:41It's definitely suspicious.
00:42:43You want to run that really quick?
00:42:45We're at a 10.9 block pistol, serial Bravo Romeo X-ray Lattel 074.
00:42:55It means it's stolen.
00:42:59The gun was loaded but there was no evidence to say that it had been fired.
00:43:04That's where the gun was actually found, is where that dead end was.
00:43:08Definitely the close proximity that the gun was to the remains and then the gun being listed and stolen it,
00:43:14it doesn't take a rocket science to figure out that they're probably related.
00:43:17I want to talk to the guy who reported it missing.
00:43:23Police run that serial number of the firearm, they find out that that gun was reported missing by someone named
00:43:29Miles Bryant.
00:43:32Miles Bryant actually lived in the Sterling Glen Apartments.
00:43:37I pulled the report and saw that it had been reported stolen the same day that Susanna was reported as
00:43:45missing from the same location, Sterling Glen Apartments.
00:43:50She's last seen July 26, 2022, 10 o'clock p.m.
00:43:56The next morning in the early morning hours, that gun's reported stolen from the Sterling Glen Apartments.
00:44:04Miles Bryant is the owner of that gun.
00:44:07He lives at the Sterling Glen Apartments complex where Susanna was last seen.
00:44:12All of our evidence is coming back to Sterling Glen.
00:44:16Miles Bryant, the guy who reported a gun stolen the day after Susanna went missing.
00:44:23He reported from his courtesy officer job at Windskate Village.
00:44:26He was working in security.
00:44:28Yes.
00:44:31Oh my gosh.
00:44:31He's a cop.
00:44:33Yeah.
00:44:36The moment that I found out that he was a cop, it was like, are you serious?
00:44:40What the heck?
00:44:42Like, it was kind of extremely shocking because you never think you're going to see that.
00:44:50He's like getting crazy.
00:44:52Where is he, the officer?
00:44:54Torville.
00:44:54I learned that the person who reported the gun as stolen was Miles Bryant.
00:45:00From there, I started doing some research on him.
00:45:04Miles Bryant was working for the Dorville Police Department.
00:45:07Dorville is between our area in Gwinnett and the city of Atlanta, not far from us.
00:45:15His side gig was to do security.
00:45:18He was a courtesy officer for the apartment complex where he lived.
00:45:22And that's typical.
00:45:23You'll see officers live in different apartment complex and they'll do security for them.
00:45:28He appears very young and he is young.
00:45:30He was in his early twenties.
00:45:34Miles grew up here.
00:45:36He went to school here in Gwinnett County.
00:45:40Me and Miles Bryant grew up since I was in elementary school.
00:45:44We were best friends.
00:45:45He was kind of nerdy.
00:45:46He wore glasses.
00:45:48He liked me.
00:45:49He wasn't my type.
00:45:50So I just kind of threw him into the friend zone.
00:45:55Miles played football at Burtmore High School.
00:45:57He was a running back.
00:45:58His number was 23.
00:46:01He would post highlight videos of himself to his huddle account.
00:46:08He's an ROTC in high school.
00:46:11He joins the Army National Guard.
00:46:13Miles was very proud of his National Guard service.
00:46:16He posted photos of himself in his uniform on social media.
00:46:20He always wanted to be a police officer.
00:46:29Detective Carter began to review that report of the missing weapon, believing that it was very possible somebody had stolen
00:46:35this gun and used it to abduct Susanna.
00:46:43What's up, man?
00:46:44Hey, Mr. Bryant.
00:46:44Y'all probably getting slammed.
00:46:45I'm sorry.
00:46:46No, you're good.
00:46:46Yeah.
00:46:47At that point, that's when we pulled that body cam video on the gun reported missing.
00:46:52So, yesterday, so I can't find my wallet.
00:46:57And then this morning, I looked on my floorboard and the...
00:47:02My Block 19 holster?
00:47:03Right.
00:47:04Oh, I hate to say it.
00:47:05I think I left my...
00:47:06They didn't smash the window or nothing.
00:47:08I left my door unlocked.
00:47:09Miles Bryant reports that from his personal vehicle, his own truck, his wallet is taken and his gun is taken.
00:47:15I looked down this morning and saw my holster.
00:47:17I said, I can't find my wallet.
00:47:19My holster's there.
00:47:20My gun and holster is never separate, you know?
00:47:21Okay.
00:47:22Anyway, I'll list in the truck just to say it's on the report.
00:47:25Yeah.
00:47:27Um...
00:47:28I don't really care about, you know, the detectives or something like that.
00:47:30I just want to...
00:47:31We found it very odd that Mr. Bryant would not want detectives to follow up on a stolen gun report.
00:47:39Hey, I just want to document this, but you don't need to send it to detectives.
00:47:43You don't need to investigate that.
00:47:46That's...
00:47:46Unheard of.
00:47:47If you need anything, hit me up.
00:47:48I'm more than willing to talk to you.
00:47:49Cool, man.
00:47:50Appreciate it, bro.
00:47:51Hey, hopefully you find your wallet and it's not actually...
00:47:53Yeah, I know.
00:47:54When the police department discovered that he was a police officer, they didn't want to believe that he was necessarily
00:48:02involved in this.
00:48:04But at the same time, it was very difficult to figure out and think about how his gun could have
00:48:11ended up in the woods where Susanna was last located.
00:48:1422 miles away from where he lived.
00:48:17I was, like, hardcore at that point.
00:48:19We need to talk to this person because they're definitely going to have information or some kind of involvement.
00:48:23We're literally talking to everyone here, so we got no leads, man. We're just running.
00:48:2627 miles away.
00:48:39Myself and Detective Carter went and got the dental records for Susanna.
00:48:46The medical examiner was able to match them up and actually told us that it was Susanna.
00:48:54Me and Carter, we just sat there and cried.
00:49:00For about 10 minutes.
00:49:04Because we, um...
00:49:13We didn't want to believe that it was her.
00:49:18We're about to go make death notification to the family.
00:49:23I'm not looking forward to it, but it has to be done.
00:49:34Break the horrible news.
00:49:40You guys want to go inside for a second?
00:49:42Yeah.
00:49:45I remember going to my mom's house to wait for the police.
00:49:48So I know Bakers and Carter were coming.
00:49:50And then that's when they informed us that they had found her remains.
00:49:54And I was like, what?
00:49:56They found my sister.
00:50:00I remember going to hear my mom screaming.
00:50:05And I was in shock.
00:50:06I was like, that can't be true.
00:50:08Like, that can't be true.
00:50:10My mom literally just fell to the ground.
00:50:13Her soul just left her body.
00:50:16It was the hardest thing that I've ever done.
00:50:18And to this day, it's still, obviously you can see that it still stick with me.
00:50:21The worst news that she killed her as a mother is since Susana disappeared.
00:50:56Unfortunately, because of the way the body was disposed of, we have no indication of what
00:51:04happened to Susana.
00:51:07But what the medical examiner also determined very quickly was that there was also absolutely
00:51:13no evidence of any clothing that had been on Susana prior to her being left there.
00:51:19And that was significant because with an accidental death, it would be very unlikely,
00:51:24nearly unheard of for Susana to not be dressed, to not be clothed.
00:51:29And so that immediately told us that we suspected this was a homicide.
00:51:36Investigators in Gwinnett County just told us human remains found along Highway 316,
00:51:40that's in Gwinnett County, are those of a 16-year-old girl who disappeared in July.
00:51:47I remember Carter promising me that she would find out what happened and who did it.
00:51:54Looking at Miles, we're kind of wondering, you know, what his involvement may have been.
00:51:59Is he a true victim and had his gun stolen?
00:52:01And whoever stole it is responsible, you know, for maybe taking Susana?
00:52:05Or is this a ruse to distance himself from his gun being located out in the woods where the remains
00:52:12were found?
00:52:13They then obtained a search warrant for Mr. Bryant's cellular phone records.
00:52:21We just got phone records back on our suspects.
00:52:24He is in the wood line at 1 a.m., which is three hours later after Susana goes missing.
00:52:34Now, Miles Bryant was a police officer.
00:52:36He had two phones, a personal cell phone and a work cell phone.
00:52:40Both phones put him in that location, and he's in the same location at the same time as Susana's remains.
00:52:48Oh, I wanted to go arrest him. I wanted to go arrest Miles, like, right away.
00:52:51I wanted to leave that night and go get him because it was alarming.
00:52:55I'm like, he's in a position of power. I'm like, we can't just leave him like this.
00:52:59But this is a cop involved in this. We need to make sure we handle this correctly.
00:53:03I went out there and just waited for him to walk outside, and we just approached him asking for his
00:53:08help for our investigation on Susana.
00:53:12Hey, man, what's up? You doing all right?
00:53:15We're just down here. We're just trying to look for anybody helping us out with that missing girl.
00:53:20Oh. Yeah.
00:53:21You're the courtesy officer or something? Yes, sir.
00:53:23Cool, man. You know anything about that?
00:53:26Yeah, no, I don't.
00:53:27Miles' response to the information he had about Susana was a little surprising.
00:53:32He should be more informed with what's going on in his complex if he's a good courtesy officer.
00:53:37You know, you got some time for us to come up to our headquarters and just talk about, you know,
00:53:41what you see on a daily basis and stuff like that?
00:53:43Yeah, so at that time, there was no arrest warrants for Miles, so he really needed to come voluntarily.
00:53:48Um, so we kind of just urged him that we needed his help.
00:53:52Yeah, um, is that to be today?
00:53:54Yeah.
00:53:54Yeah.
00:53:56Now?
00:53:58Uh, I have to go meet my girlfriend and I have to work with him.
00:54:02Okay.
00:54:03What time is work at?
00:54:04Four.
00:54:05Yeah, it shouldn't be.
00:54:06We're literally talking to everyone here.
00:54:08We got no leads, man.
00:54:09We're just trying to document everything.
00:54:10That's all we are.
00:54:11No problem.
00:54:11Okay?
00:54:12You can get up front seat, all right, man?
00:54:15Oh.
00:54:16Yeah, we'll get you up there.
00:54:17Knock this out.
00:54:18We don't put him in the back of a patrol car.
00:54:20We actually let him sit up front in the police car, trying to make him feel comfortable.
00:54:25Make him see, hey, we're just police officers, one-on-one friends, talking to each other.
00:54:39So we brought Miles up here.
00:54:41He sat in this chair here and we interviewed him.
00:54:45Hey, how you doing?
00:54:45In the interview room, we have seats where we put certain people.
00:54:49Um, like where detective sits, where suspect sits.
00:54:52We let him sit in a detective seat.
00:54:54We didn't change anything.
00:54:56Um, we wanted him to be as comfortable as possible.
00:54:58Um, I'm Detective Carter.
00:55:00Um, I'm Detective Carter.
00:55:00Um, we don't miss.
00:55:01I'm gonna get a lot of for this case.
00:55:03So I gotta start working a little bit more.
00:55:06So Detective Carter obviously wanted to build a rapport with him.
00:55:10They're both working for the same goal, trying to accomplish the same thing, and that's
00:55:14find a missing girl.
00:55:15Have you ever seen her?
00:55:16Mm-mm.
00:55:17She used to be over here quite a bit.
00:55:18Oh, okay.
00:55:19I...
00:55:20I haven't recognized the picture.
00:55:22I haven't recognized it.
00:55:22So the initial plan for the interview again, just go in there, be relaxed, ask him very
00:55:26open, and did questions.
00:55:28I asked him about his gun.
00:55:30Have you heard anything about the gun?
00:55:32And I played dumb.
00:55:34I know that your gun was stolen.
00:55:37Do you know if it was located or anything yet?
00:55:38No, I've heard anything.
00:55:39I haven't run it yet.
00:55:40I wonder, we probably need to check that.
00:55:42And then, at one point when I think I got as much information as I probably could get
00:55:47from him with just being super casual, I dropped that one bomb.
00:55:50Basically, my sergeant did confirm, so we did find your gun, actually.
00:55:55Yeah.
00:55:55You watch the news.
00:55:56You know we found Savannah.
00:55:58But there was actually a gun found out there, too.
00:56:01Really?
00:56:02You've been shaking.
00:56:03Yeah.
00:56:03It's crazy, you know?
00:56:05Why did...
00:56:05I told you you were coming up to you, you know, we wanted your help and everything,
00:56:08and your hands were shaking in my car.
00:56:10All right.
00:56:11Let's look better.
00:56:27We had not disclosed prior to the interview with Mr. Bryant that we had
00:56:31found a firearm near Susana's body.
00:56:36So he learned that for the first time sitting there in the interview room.
00:56:41That's crazy.
00:56:42I found my gun.
00:56:43And it's the same serial number.
00:56:45He just verified it.
00:56:46That's crazy.
00:56:47I know.
00:56:48So help me walk through it a little bit.
00:56:50Do you know where she was found?
00:56:52Mmm, 316 somewhere.
00:56:53Yeah.
00:56:54At that point when I told him we found his gun, he does start shaking a little bit more.
00:56:58That's crazy.
00:56:59I found my gun.
00:57:00So...
00:57:00Did you think it was involved?
00:57:02I mean, that's a crazy coincidence.
00:57:04Yeah.
00:57:04I think it got stolen from you the same day, so it was probably someone that was walking
00:57:07around out there.
00:57:08Yeah.
00:57:09Try to think hard with me.
00:57:10Did you know her at all?
00:57:12Morales?
00:57:13Nothing?
00:57:13Nothing at all.
00:57:15Look, your gun was found there.
00:57:17Yeah.
00:57:17You know how this goes.
00:57:18We have to do like this, that, and a third to do everything.
00:57:23Which we did.
00:57:24We did our due diligence.
00:57:25So I did get your phone records.
00:57:26Mmm-hmm.
00:57:27So I knew you were already up there.
00:57:30Mmm-hmm.
00:57:30So kind of tell...
00:57:31You were there for a little while.
00:57:33So once Miles was confronted with the phone records, he changed her story to say that
00:57:37he got in this crazy chase fight with his girlfriend.
00:57:41I remember...
00:57:42God, I made that part.
00:57:43She tried to chase me.
00:57:44My girlfriend tried to chase me.
00:57:45With her car.
00:57:46Yeah.
00:57:47I mean, I was driving around.
00:57:48I was driving, and I remember I was driving, and I was still in our area.
00:57:54I remember I was driving.
00:57:55She tried to chase me.
00:57:57Yeah.
00:57:57Like the Jerry Springer episode.
00:57:58His story went from there's no reason.
00:58:02I would be there.
00:58:03I'm never there.
00:58:05To, oh yeah, actually I was there.
00:58:07And I stopped and pulled over, and I was on the phone.
00:58:10Going up towards Lawrenceville area.
00:58:11I think...
00:58:12Oh man, that sounds bad.
00:58:13It is over around 316.
00:58:14I mean, you're saying that's bad.
00:58:16I mean...
00:58:17Lawrenceville's big.
00:58:18You're saying that's bad.
00:58:18You mean the area where...
00:58:20Yeah, because...
00:58:21I'm gonna be honest.
00:58:22I'm really sorry, okay?
00:58:23Yeah.
00:58:23My gun was found in that area.
00:58:25You know, technically it was in that area.
00:58:27Stuff like that, you know?
00:58:30So...
00:58:30I mean...
00:58:31It sounds bad, but I...
00:58:32I don't know.
00:58:32Miles ultimately, you know, says that he admits that he was out there.
00:58:37He kind of has to because his phone put him out there.
00:58:39But he said he was...
00:58:40Doesn't get out of his vehicle.
00:58:41Doesn't do anything in the woods.
00:59:01Use...
00:59:05I don't care it, you know.
00:59:05I don't care.
00:59:09This guy knows it's...
00:59:09So that way...
00:59:11Why it can't doesn't dock again?
00:59:13I'm not sure.
00:59:14It can't be...
00:59:19Or I'll set that up.
00:59:20How can I tell it.
00:59:20Because this guy r killed me out there.
00:59:20Like that's a prince.
00:59:20So that's a Actor that's a group idea in the way that turns into a voice.
00:59:20A couple of actors cuz...
00:59:20And that's was probably something to do new people...
00:59:21No.
00:59:21So that just, he says...
00:59:24It's been dating that yes.
00:59:25No, he aged to be a pro- challone.
00:59:30Some divis from...
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