- 2 days ago
After the remains of a 16-year-old girl are found in the woods with no identification, Gwinnett County detectives have little to go on to find her killer; in the pursuit of justice, the prosecution must prove the girl was murdered despite the lack of evidence for what caused her death.
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00:05The following program documents a real homicide case, the investigation, the pursuit of justice,
00:12and the lasting impact on the loved ones left behind.
00:19This case is always going to stick with me because there's so many unanswered questions.
00:24They say they're out of leads after spending more than a month looking for this missing high school student.
00:31I definitely was hoping she was still alive and still out there and we could go save her.
00:35For those most affected by a homicide.
00:38I remember hearing my mom's cries in the background and I couldn't sleep because not knowing what happened to Susanna
00:44was killing me.
00:46The first 48 is just the beginning.
00:49I have not seen any short-force injuries to the bones.
00:52There was no obvious cause of death.
00:55That's a huge deficit to have in a homicide investigation. Without that, it makes it tough.
01:01This is the story of the fight for justice.
01:03There just wasn't any evidence to show that he caused her death.
01:09In the weeks, months, and years.
01:13We are anxious because of the bomb that the defense attorney dropped.
01:18We are all anticipating what is he going to say.
01:21After the first 48.
01:38When it tell me 9-1-1.
01:39I need to make a report. My sister's been missing since yesterday.
01:43What's your sister's name?
01:46Susanna Wallace.
01:47I'll have an officer out to meet with you and your mom.
01:50Okay, thank you so much.
02:10I feel a little overwhelmed because we're all wondering, did she get kidnapped? I'm just like, what could have happened?
02:27She was like 360 with her friends, and it pinged her last location.
02:31So, her friends went to go look at that last location, but they didn't say anything.
02:51My mom, she felt in her heart that something was wrong.
02:57I was hoping that maybe she did run away and they would find her.
03:05For several weeks, Gwinnett County Special Victims Unit attempts to retrace Susanna's steps,
03:10interview her friends, and respond to alleged sightings of her, only to come up empty.
03:18They say they're out of leads after spending more than a month looking for this missing high school student.
03:25This flyer is all across Norcross and Gwinnett County.
03:28I felt like I couldn't stay still. I had to do something. If I would even sit down for a
03:33second, I would feel guilt.
03:35I had to make sure everybody knew her face to remind people that we're still looking for her.
03:46After months without any leads on Susanna's whereabouts.
03:50SCU's been working a missing juvenile case for going actually six months today.
03:56I was super drawn to this case and I would always follow up and ask them what progress had been
04:02made.
04:03I kind of inserted myself into the case. I definitely was hoping she was still alive and we could go
04:09save her.
04:1116-year-old Susanna Morales lives in Norcross, Georgia with her mother and two sisters.
04:18A junior at Meadow Creek High School and a member of the cheerleading team, Susanna dreams of becoming a professional
04:25singer.
04:28On July 26th, Susanna was contacted by her mother and instructed to come home.
04:33She lived a walking distance. Susanna then begins traveling down Singleton Road and she's captured on this camera.
04:42Her friend was tracking her through Life 360. Then out of nowhere, she starts going the opposite direction
04:49and at a speed of 40 miles per hour indicating she was in a vehicle. They drove for about five
04:55minutes
04:55and then there was an alert sent to the friend's phone. It then sent off a crash alert but there's
05:01no reports of a car accident there. So to me that says her phone was tossed out of the vehicle.
05:07That's
05:07the only thing that made sense. And then the phone remained in that area until it died the following day.
05:13After reviewing all the Life 360 alerts, I definitely knew in the back of my mind that
05:19there was going to be some kind of foul play.
05:26Two weeks later...
05:36A call comes in from a remote area 25 miles from where Susanna was last seen.
05:43I found a human skeleton. It's pretty old. It's very weathered.
05:48All right, we're going to have an officer head out that way.
06:02Patrol secures the scene and calls for homicide.
06:12Look in there.
06:13There's another figure. While Carter works an unrelated case,
06:18detectives join county medical examiner Dr. Carol Terry.
06:22It was dark, so it's harder to see what's not there. And the bones were somewhat scattered.
06:29We've retrieved a significant portion of the skeleton. The skull is complete. There's no
06:35clothing. There's no wallet. There's no, you know, possessions, no effects.
06:41I have not seen any sharp force injuries to the bones.
06:46Right now, we don't have a cause of death.
06:49I know this is likely going to be a challenging case because the soft tissue is gone,
06:53and you may need the soft tissue to establish what the cause of death is.
06:58Looking at it, the growth points is not fused.
07:02My assistant who's there is texting our forensic anthropology expert pictures of the remains.
07:11She said tibia, younger, 17, 18-ish.
07:14She said, this looks like a young Hispanic female. Do you have any missing Hispanic females?
07:21All of us in homicide immediately thought of Susanna.
07:26They were sending pictures of what they had out there, which included her hair,
07:32which was the same color as Susanna's hair. My heart dropped at that point.
07:39Dr. Terry found in the ground some of the teeth that had fallen out post-mortem.
07:43If I can get the dental chart on this person, it should be an easy identification to make.
07:49Because we got feelings in tooth number 14. That's pretty distinctive.
07:54I was hoping that it wasn't Susanna. You see all these other cases where people are found alive.
08:01So there was still hope that she was out there.
08:10While the team waits for the dental remains to be identified.
08:18We need to do a line and grid search of that area for any clothing identification,
08:23anything that could tell us who the remains belong to.
08:34It was a very serious mood because I think we all kind of had a feeling who the remains might
08:38end up being.
08:41Hey, y'all hold up.
08:43The pre-recruit kind of raised his hand and said, hey, I think you need to come look at this.
08:48Okay, let's go.
08:49Our recruit found a gun.
08:52Never in my wildest dreams would I thought we'd have found a gun laying in the woods and I couldn't
08:57believe it.
08:59Probably 30 yards past where the skeletal remains were found.
09:04It's definitely suspicious.
09:06You want to run that really quick?
09:07We had the serial number ran over the air through our dispatch.
09:11It means it's stolen.
09:15The day after Susanna went missing, the gun was reported stolen from the same apartment complex where she was last
09:22seen.
09:23The likelihood of that being a coincidence just wasn't possible.
09:29As the search wraps up.
09:31Saw the vehicle driveway.
09:33Carter arrives after getting an update about the gun.
09:38I got super excited because now I'm like, okay, we're getting somewhere.
09:42That's where the gun was actually found is where that dead ends.
09:45I want to talk to the guy who reported it missing.
09:49The owner of that firearm was priority number one to talk to them and see how their gun ended up
09:54in the woods out there.
10:00Back at headquarters.
10:04Miles Bryant, the guy who reported a gun stolen the day after Susanna went missing.
10:11He reported from his courtesy officer job at Winsgate Village.
10:15Miles Bryant lives at the same complex where Susanna visited friends the night she went missing.
10:21He also works security there.
10:24Oh my gosh.
10:26This is crazy.
10:29At that moment, I thought it's not something you run into every day.
10:52The gun owner, 22-year-old Miles Bryant, works for the Doraville Police Department, 20 miles southwest of Gwinnett.
11:01He has served in the army for four years.
11:04No criminal history, which I figured, but he's definitely a suspect in some odd behaviors.
11:10Miles had a documented history where he was listed in multiple reports, reports of him allegedly breaking into girls' homes,
11:19allegedly stalking another female.
11:23The neighbor then showed her video of a man with his face covered in a hoodie, grabbed a doorknob, twist
11:28it, and pushed the door, then leave.
11:31She believes the person was Miles Bryant.
11:33This incident was investigated four months after Susanna went missing, but charges were never filed.
11:40This guy right here is tingling a lot.
11:42He's sticking out.
11:43My gut feeling, Miles was the guy that we needed to start focusing on.
11:48I've learned that nine times out of ten, my intuition and my gut feeling are correct, but just your gut
11:55feeling isn't enough to arrest anybody.
11:57The next thing we needed to do was getting his phone records, which were going to help us identify where
12:02he was at the time Susanna went missing.
12:09The next day, we obtained dental records for Susanna that were then provided to the medical examiner, and she confirmed
12:17that the remains were Susanna.
12:20The cause of death is going to be ruled undetermined because of the state of decomposition and lack of evidence.
12:29There was no obvious cause of death, which was kind of frustrating.
12:33That's a huge deficit to have in a homicide investigation.
12:37Without that, it's hard to reach the threshold of those murder warrants.
12:42Carter turns her focus to Susanna's family.
12:47Break the horrible news.
13:19I remember seeing my mom's cries in the background, and I couldn't sleep because of the not knowing what happened
13:26to her was killing me.
13:30While waiting on Miles Bryant's phone records.
13:34I looked on my floorboard and my Glock 19 holster is on the floorboard.
13:40Fortunately, we were able to find the body camera from when Miles reported his gun as stolen.
13:53It was definitely odd because he mentioned not needing detectives to investigate.
14:00No cop is going to be okay with their gun missing.
14:04Unless you didn't want the police to go look for it.
14:08Definitely raised a lot of red flags that he was trying to hide something.
14:18Two days later.
14:20We just got phone records back on our suspect.
14:22He is in the wood line at 1 a.m.
14:27Miles' cell phone records put him in the wooded area where Susanna was located.
14:32I have chills right now.
14:34From where Miles lived, it's probably a 30 to 45 minute drive.
14:37So, it definitely was suspicious that he was out there a few hours after she went missing.
14:42I definitely started feeling a lot more urgency because he's in a position that he could put more people in
14:49harm's way.
14:50There's no question. We need to move on him. We need to talk to him.
15:01Three days later.
15:03I don't want to go reaching the front door. We need to go up and knock.
15:07So, if we go in there with flash bangs and guns and everything else, he ain't going to say .
15:14There were many discussions on how to approach Miles.
15:19We kind of wanted to play it like, oh, cool. Like, we just need your help. You're one of us.
15:24He says no and tries to shut the door. Are we stopping him?
15:28I think at that point, we have to tell him, you know, we would have a search warrant.
15:37The team heads out to Miles' apartment.
15:42Me and Garrett just went and sat in the complex.
15:45Until he walked outside and we approached him on foot.
15:52Hey, man, what's up? You doing all right?
15:55Yeah, we're trying to look for anybody helping us out with that missing girl.
16:00All right.
16:01You got some time to come up to our headquarters and just talk about,
16:04you know, what you see on a daily basis?
16:06Yeah, um, as it be today.
16:08Yeah.
16:08Yeah.
16:09We got no leads, man. We're just trying to document everything. That's all we are.
16:12Well, get up front seat. All right, ma'am?
16:19There was a lot riding on this interview. At that point in time, we didn't know if he took Susanna,
16:24how she died, why all this happened. We didn't know anything.
16:31Since we didn't have a cause of death for her, there wasn't enough evidence for probable cause at
16:35time. If he did do it, then I wanted him to confess. So I charged him with the murder.
16:55What day was it?
16:57It was her birthday.
16:59The birthday of the mother.
17:02This is my birthday.
17:04She's happy with her flowers.
17:28I would love hearing her sing. She was learning the piano, the guitar. I just love watching her do that.
17:35My passion for the music, I think I was very little, but Susanna, for me, was like a daughter.
17:47I know that she is your mother. And she was my sister.
17:49I know that you took her from when I was little, because I was only working.
17:56And she was very close to me, in the sense that I took my responsibility as a mom.
18:02And for me, it was very hard.
18:06And I thank God for having experimented moments so beautiful with Susanna.
18:28More than six months after Susanna went missing.
18:34Hey!
18:35Hey, how you doing?
18:35I'm good. I'm Detective Carter. I'm lead on this.
18:39This was the first time I ever interrogated a police officer about a potential murder.
18:45So my goal was definitely to build rapport with him and make him comfortable.
18:52We were trying to keep him calm, not to tip him off that we're looking at him for this missing
18:58person and murder.
19:00So I've been getting a lot of for this case, so I got to start working a little bit more.
19:05How long have you been with Doraville?
19:07About two years.
19:08Hell yeah.
19:09I think I've come to Grant, though.
19:10You should, because we need people.
19:13I didn't know if the strategy was going to work with him, because he's also trained in
19:18interview techniques and strategies.
19:21So you said that you possibly went out, like, patrolling that night.
19:25Do you remember anything? Anything that stands out to you?
19:28Not really. At that time, no.
19:32That was wild, my man.
19:34So I know that your gun was stolen.
19:36Do you know if it was located or anything yet?
19:38No, I don't really think.
19:39At that point, we wanted to start laying the trap for miles.
19:43So I started giving him little bits and pieces of information that I knew.
19:48So we did find your gun, actually, yes.
19:52You watch the news. You know we found Savannah.
19:55But there was actually a gun found out there, too.
19:58For real?
19:58Yeah. And it's the same serial number.
20:02I wanted to get his reaction to see what he would say.
20:04He was like, oh, that's crazy.
20:06But it didn't seem like a genuine shock.
20:08Do you know where she was found?
20:11316 somewhere.
20:14Do you ever go in the woods and stuff out there?
20:16In the woods now.
20:18I need you to think really hard, though, with me.
20:20Think of anybody that was out there that night, because I know you were out there patrolling that night.
20:27Me and my girlfriend actually arguing that night.
20:30Mm-hmm.
20:31So I think I just was driving around.
20:33What were y'all arguing about?
20:35Miles says his girlfriend confronted him about cheating on her.
20:39What were y'all trying to do?
20:41I went toward, God, this sounds bad.
20:45It sounds terrible.
20:48Probably went up to Lawrenceville area.
20:50Lawrenceville's pretty big, so I'm not sure what you're talking about.
20:53It is over about 316.
20:58I mean, you're saying that's bad.
21:00I mean, the area where...
21:02Yeah, I'm going to be honest.
21:03My gun was found in that area, you know.
21:05Technically, it was in that area, stuff like that, you know.
21:09I don't think you have anything to hide.
21:12I mean, you're a police officer.
21:15I don't have no disrespect.
21:15I really get, you know, I say perk vibes.
21:18It's like suspect vibes right now.
21:20Why?
21:20The way y'all talking...
21:22We're just talking.
21:24I think he felt like he was still kind of in control at that point.
21:28But I think he also knew that he was in trouble.
21:32So I did get your phone records.
21:35So I knew you were already up there.
21:38I don't know what you're thinking, but no.
21:41We know you were there, but we need to figure out why and what happened.
21:45I'm being 100%.
21:47I've literally never seen her.
21:50Your phone is right there where your gun was dropped.
21:54Carter kind of flipped the script and put the pressure on him.
21:58I think Miles felt powerless in that moment.
22:00I was on 316, but in the woods, no.
22:04I wouldn't.
22:05No, I would not do that as well.
22:07I'm nervous right now.
22:08You've been nervous the whole time.
22:10Take a minute.
22:10Take a breath.
22:16It's a question about if you are a cold-blooded killer or if you made a mistake.
22:22I would not do that and say, well, maybe I messed up.
22:26No, none of that.
22:27Not at all.
22:29All right.
22:29Well, we do have to get your phones, okay?
22:32All right.
22:33Just hang out.
22:36It's definitely frustrating.
22:37We were hitting dead ends.
22:42If he's not going to change his stance, we needed to take a break and regroup.
22:47He's not going to come off of it.
22:49You want to try?
22:52Maybe it's because I'm a female.
22:54Given his history, I didn't think he really respected women.
22:57So I made the decision to switch places with Sergeant Poppy to hopefully see if Miles would respond to him
23:04more.
23:06So we read body language, right?
23:08Big time.
23:10Big time.
23:10And the stuff you're giving us is just not telling us that you're not guilty.
23:16I did not do that.
23:19Most people who say that do not say my voice now.
23:22Me and Sergeant Poppy went back in and kind of just hit Miles a little more aggressively.
23:28Why was your gun being stolen, like, of so little importance to you?
23:33I have a lot of guns.
23:33So?
23:34So I went and reported.
23:36You told the officer, you don't even have to investigate this.
23:39Because if you...
23:40Because if we investigate it, we're going to find it, and it's going to be near a dead body that
23:43you killed.
23:44No.
23:45I feel like you reported it stolen.
23:46Because you're trying to set up an alibi for your gun.
23:48No.
23:49That's not why.
23:50The officer's pain, he's a suspect.
23:52Miles was either going to break and confess, or he was going to shut down and say he's done talking.
24:08I'm hoping you were going to be a man throwing up to whatever you did.
24:13You don't represent this badge.
24:15At all.
24:18You'll be charged.
24:22Since Miles didn't confess to anything during his interview,
24:26we weren't able to charge him with the murder.
24:28But we knew he made a false report for his gun being stolen.
24:32And we knew that he was out there at the time that she was likely dropped there.
24:37So we charged him with concealing a death and false report of a crime.
24:41The decision was made to charge him with these crimes to get him off the streets,
24:45because he's clearly a danger.
24:47I definitely was nervous and anxious, because if we don't find the evidence
24:52that we needed to charge him with the murder, he could potentially walk.
25:01While Miles awaits a potential bond hearing to be released from jail.
25:17It showed that he had taken a huge amount of steps within such a short period of time.
25:22At 1.20 a.m., he traveled 381 meters, 131 140 meters, 141 373 meters.
25:30The activity was recorded when Miles' phone was in the woods where Susanna's remains were found.
25:37Miles' activity was a game changer because the amount of steps he was taking indicated somebody's
25:42searching for something. I think he was trying to find his gun.
25:46Then...
25:46Here we go.
25:47We were able to get search history where we saw he was Googling things like,
25:54how long does it take a body to decompose?
25:56The internet search was made after Susanna disappeared.
26:01Hang on. Mic drop.
26:03Can I get my word now, please?
26:06After all the cell phone evidence, Carter was able to charge Miles with the murder of Susanna Morales.
26:16My initial impressions of Miles' case, I thought it was a strong case. There was no motive. There was no
26:24cause of death. So we don't know how she died. There was zero evidence to go towards the murder case,
26:31in my opinion. That was going to be one of the largest defenses that we are going to have to
26:36overcome.
26:36Because we had no cause of death, how can you prove this was a murder?
26:42Could she have been stabbed? Sure. Could she have been shot? And it didn't hit the bone? Sure.
26:47But I can't say absolutely, just by looking at these bones here, that this establishes a
26:54definitive cause of death, because it doesn't. Because we couldn't prove how this happened,
26:59we had to prove why would he do this. In researching and investigating Miles Bryant,
27:04he had a history of allegedly stalking women. So we charged him with malice murder, kidnapping,
27:12and criminal attempt to commit rape that he intended to rape her. During their research,
27:19prosecutors discover evidence of alleged stalking or other suspicious behavior by Bryant towards
27:25multiple women. They submit the evidence to the judge, even though none of the cases led to charges.
27:31This case was based on circumstantial evidence. So we needed to present these alleged acts to
27:37the jury to show his motive and intent.
27:45Nearly two years after Susanna's death, the trial of Miles Bryant begins.
28:06I couldn't even look at him. I didn't even want to see his face.
28:12I attended every day of the trial instead of just coming to testify. It was really,
28:17really important case to me. So I wanted to make sure everything went right.
28:22Then. Ms. Drake, you said there was something to take up?
28:26Yes, Your Honor. Right before opening statements.
28:31This Light 360 that the court has heard a lot about, I think it is
28:37error to bring that in. And I would ask that it be kept out at this time.
28:42This to us came out of nowhere. We had already had days of pre-trial motions. And the defense
28:49attorney starts to try and keep out something that was essential to our case.
28:54These are screenshots of the Life 360 app that show Susanna's movements from that evening.
29:00This shows to us that Susanna was taken against her will and in a completely different direction
29:05from our home. The Life 360 is a form of hearsay through the photograph. The state was unable to
29:13produce business records from Life 360. Those have to be requested within six months. So the only way
29:22that they could get in anything would be through these individual photographs.
29:28Without that Life 360 evidence, our case would have been much harder to prove to a jury.
29:33That was the crux of the whole state's case.
29:36If we didn't have that evidence, we have no direction to go in.
29:51At this point, that is hearsay because it's not a business record exception.
29:56The defense was arguing that because these screenshots from her friends' phones didn't
30:01come from the Life 360 corporate headquarters, that they were not official. We relied on case law
30:07that shows that people who received the messages are able to testify to it.
30:13The judge makes her ruling. I am denying Mr. Bryant's motion.
30:21That moment was important to us because that Life 360 evidence was essential.
30:27Does the state wish to make an opening statement?
30:31He was supposed to serve and protect. Instead, the abuse is a cop who turned into a killer.
30:42You don't have to lie to my client. And back to the conclusion of this trial,
30:47you're going to think that he is the most callous, uncaring coward that you have ever seen.
30:55But you're going to hear from Miles Bryant. He's going to explain to you exactly what happened.
31:04We are shocked. None of us expected that Miles Bryant is going to testify.
31:09That had always been our strategy. I felt that in order for any shot at an acquittal,
31:17he needed to testify. We are anxious because of the bomb that Tracy Drake dropped.
31:23We are all anticipating what is he going to say.
31:27Stay ready to proceed with the first witness.
31:32Okay. Prosecutors call Susana's mother, Maria, to the stand.
31:37How long was it from when Susana disappeared to when the police found her?
31:44Almost seven months.
31:45Almost seven months.
31:48What went through your mind at that moment when you hurt?
31:55I was waiting for her.
31:56I'm still waiting for her.
31:59My heart really broke for her. You could feel her pain. I cannot fathom
32:06what she went through all those months.
32:10Did you ever know that she would smoke marijuana?
32:15Yes.
32:16And did you ever hear Susana tell you that she did anything else other than marijuana?
32:22No.
32:22No.
32:24We had to get that information out there because we figured the defense attorney would
32:28try to smear Susana's character.
32:30You mentioned you thought that she had tried to drug something crystal. Would that be crystal meth?
32:37Um, can't say for sure.
32:38Do you also remember telling Detective Carter that it was something bad?
32:46Possibly, yes. I can't say for sure.
32:49The fact that there had been some drug use by the victim was very important to our case.
32:56The idea that perhaps she had overdosed was a very big defense and a very real possibility.
33:06The state summons the first of multiple women who alleged suspicious behavior by Bryant,
33:12Susana's high school friend who was with her the night she went missing.
33:16The friend lived in the same apartment complex as Miles.
33:20Had you ever had any personal interactions with the defendant before Susana disappeared?
33:26Yes.
33:27And can you tell us what those are?
33:28We were there at the pool and he came and he came with his backpack and he had
33:33um a drink with him and he had little shot cups and he had um edibles and stuff and he
33:39asked how old
33:40I was and then when I told him my age he like still wanted to talk to me but didn't
33:44talk to me
33:45because my age but he still offered the edibles.
33:48And Susana was with you?
33:49Yes.
33:50During those?
33:51Yes.
33:51We thought it was important for jurors to see why would he target Susana? Why would he pick her up?
33:57Well he had done these type of things before.
33:58Yes, it looks horrible that he's approaching minors and offering them drugs.
34:05However, it does establish that Susana knew who he was and it does emphasize that possibly she
34:13had a bad reaction to a drug or overdosed.
34:22Day three of the trial, prosecutors called a former classmate of Miles to the stand.
34:29What do you have Mr. Bryant saved in as your former?
34:33Miles the soccer with an axe and a hole.
34:36Did you put that in there?
34:37I sure did.
34:40Ring doorbell cameras from her neighbors shows Miles Bryant trying to break into this young woman's
34:45apartment over and over again.
34:49What did you see when you looked through the people?
34:52He started knocking on the door and then as I backed away he started kicking on harder.
34:58I grabbed my gun and I peeked through the peephole.
35:01I cocked the gun back and he had his pointed at the door as well.
35:07Did you end up speaking to the law enforcement?
35:10I don't think they sent the unit. They called my phone but nobody ever came.
35:15Her belief was that because he was a police officer, she was ignored.
35:20I knew that the prior bad acts kind of puts a bad taste in the jurors mouths, but that doesn't
35:27mean
35:27that they had proven kidnapping, rape or murder.
35:35Finally, the state calls their key witness, chief medical examiner, Dr. Carol Terry.
35:42As Dr. Terry is coming into court, all of us were nervous, nervous about what were the jurors going
35:48to think because she's the one who ultimately says, this is a murder. And we didn't have that.
35:54All right, good afternoon, Dr. Terry, how are you?
35:56Fine, thank you.
35:57Worst case scenario was that the defense grilled her as to why there's no cause of death.
36:05And the jury start believing some of those defense arguments and we lose a murder charge.
36:21Dr. Terry, were you able to make any conclusions in your report?
36:26Yes. These circumstances are very suspicious for homicidal violence,
36:29but I can't prove it because of the condition of the remains.
36:32We anticipated the most questions from the defense to Dr. Terry.
36:36How do we know what happened to Susanna? All of this is speculation.
36:40All of this is circumstantial evidence.
36:43But then...
36:44Dr. Terry, thank you so much, and...
36:46I'm just very planning to answer questions for you.
36:48Actually, I'm leaving this to Mr. Dobbins.
36:50Okay, Mr. Dobbins.
36:51He does such a good job. I don't have any questions.
36:54We didn't need to ask her any questions. Dr. Terry was unable to say,
36:59this is the manner in which she died. So there was really no evidence to disprove that it wasn't
37:06an overdose in this case.
37:12The state calls their final witness.
37:15Good morning, Detective Carter.
37:17Good morning.
37:18And submits their last piece of evidence against Miles.
37:23Miles Bryant was dispatched to a residence regarding a missing juvenile. While on scene,
37:29the juvenile returns home.
37:37In the video, he says these striking words. Things that we don't expect police officers to say to kids.
37:46People are my size, big, and just come snatch you up, you can scream, you can shout on your walk,
37:50they're going to throw you in the back of the van, they're going to take you, and your parents never
37:52see you again.
37:53This happens just months before Susanna is reporting missing. Miles Bryant is here snitching on himself,
38:01talking about all things that preview the awful, horrendous acts he committed on Susanna. It's frightening.
38:07It was a blow to the case, and that's why he needed to testify.
38:13I swear you in. Do you swear or affirm that testimony you're about to give in this case
38:18is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
38:21I agree.
38:23I did fear that he would come as a juror that he had a thing to do with it, but
38:27more than anything,
38:28we wanted to know the truth about what happened. Do you understand that no one can make or compel
38:33you to testify? Yes, ma'am. Do you understand that you have the right to not testify if you do
38:40not
38:40want to? Yes, ma'am. Do you personally, Miles Bryant, want to testify or not? No, ma'am.
38:47Okay. I felt it was necessary, but obviously it's his right to not testify. All right,
38:56you may be seated. I believe he just got a little bit worried that he would say the wrong thing
39:02trying
39:03to explain himself. That was a huge letdown for the family because those answers they'll never get.
39:15The jury begins deliberations. Waiting on our verdict is awful. You rehashed in your mind the
39:22whole trial. I was nervous and I was wondering why I was taking them so on to the side. I
39:28did not
39:28think that they proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he himself caused her death. Perhaps she had
39:36overdosed and Mr. Bryant simply freaked out and made a very bad decision to dispose of her body.
39:46Has the jury reached a verdict? Okay, if you'll hand it to my bailiff.
39:58It was the longest three minutes of my life. Tell us, just say it. State of Georgia versus Miles
40:04Bryant. Count one, malice murder. We, the jury, find the defendant guilty.
40:19I lost it. The attorney, they were like, calm down, calm down. But I was just so excited
40:24because I knew all of the work paid off. I remember tears coming to my eyes and I looked back
40:30at Susanna's mom because that's what we were here for.
41:08This case is always going to stick with me because there's so many unanswered questions.
41:14He should have been stopped a long time ago and he should have never had the ability to do this
41:18to
41:19her. Miles Bryant abused the badge. In this awful, awful case, it was so important that there were so
41:27many strong women that put a stop to that. More than three years after she was killed, Susanna's family
41:39visits her memorial. I will forever miss Susanna. Sometimes I forget that she's not even here.
41:51It's really hard. Thank you for coming. Of course. I wanted to see you.
41:58Seeing the memorial, it just reminds me of why I do what I do. It makes me really sad still.
42:05She wants to know if we can go all the way in there. Yeah.
42:12She wants to know if we can go all the way in there. She wants to know if we can
42:30go all the way in there.
42:40She wants to know if we can go all the way in there. She wants to know if we can
42:52go all the way in there.
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