Life360 Uncovers Teen Girl's Horrifying Disappearance

On prime crime, she was out front, she was there, everything was fine. A young teen gone without a trace. They could not find a single thing that pointed to anyone and her life. As her family desperately seeks answers. No, this is bad. I'm really getting, you know, I say purifies. He's been like, like, suspended bars and everything. What I ain't, I'm doing, you know, way of talking. They're left grappling with the unknowns of what happened and who may be responsible. This is not just an effect on youth. This is an effect on all officers everywhere. No, this is not me. If I killed somebody, I would know that. If he was smart and he obviously wasn't, he would have KYD BMS. He would have kept his damn big mouth shut. Hey there, everybody. I'm Jesse Weber and welcome to Prime Crime, where we break down some of the most compelling and memorable true crime cases from across the country. The disappearance of a young teenager sets off a months-long investigation with friends, family, law enforcement, clinging to the hope of finding anything that could bring her home. But as time passes, it becomes clear that may not be possible. And the evidence soon points to an unexpected suspect. On July 26th of 2022, Susanna Morales was walking home from a friend's house back to her mother's home where she lived. And she was just a couple hundred feet from her house. She had told her mom that she was going to one friend's house and ultimately she went to a different friend's house, which I think anyone that's been a teenager before or has a teenager is not unusual. But the family of 16-year-old Susanna Morales, who live just outside Atlanta, Georgia, start to panic when she doesn't come home. Her phone was equipped with an application called Life360, which is an application where friends and family members can monitor real live location. And what the Life360 application showed was that she had gotten back to the road where she lived at. But then almost immediately upon arriving at that road, her phone began to travel in the opposite direction. She was out front. She was there. Everything was fine. And then there was a text, apparently from her, but at least from her phone, that said, "I'm on my way home." Never arrived. According to her phone, she's walking. But then all of a sudden, she's no longer walking, but she's traveling at a speed at her about 40 miles an hour. Obviously, she's now in a vehicle of some sort that doesn't make sense. She did not drive. She did not have a vehicle. And from all of her friends and family, nobody was expecting to pick her up. A search was conducted by her family that night. Around 1030 at night, one of her friends received a crash alert from the Life360 application. Subsequently, her phone record showed her phone never moved from that location. The phone died there in the next morning, and we never were able to recover it. Susanna's family contacts authorities. Over the coming days, it seemed like police really didn't have many leads as to where she was. They had created a tip line for information related to returning her safely. Her family's hunt for answers leads them to a nearby community center where a key piece of evidence surfaces. It's literally not 46. That is her. That's her. Wow. Thank God. Oh my God. There was one video camera that captured her as she was walking back to her home on Singleton Road. She showed her unharmed walking. There were traffic cameras around Winnett County, but certainly not at every intersection. Without knowing what vehicle to look for, it's looking for a needle and a needle stack. Unfortunately, that's where the trail ends. A lone video of Susanna walking by herself along the side of the road. On July 26th at approximately 6 p.m., we know that Susanna Morales left her home and walked a short distance to the Sterling Glen apartment complex. And at about 10 o'clock, she began her trek back to her house. Susanna was not seen or heard from again. Well, poof. She's not where she needs to be. So it's now thrown in my lap as law enforcement. What is it I need to do? There's a magic word. It's called everything. Where was she? Who did she interact with? Who was she with? And what was her interaction with whoever she might have been with? But the investigation grinds to a halt with no new evidence nor leads. They were concerns that perhaps, you know, she had been abducted and brought into the sex trafficking world. The Gwinnett County Police Department conducted an entire undercover investigation. They deployed drones, aerial surveillance, thermal imaging to look for her in wooded areas and on the roadways around the area. Probably one of the toughest things that the family had to go through here was the months of unknown. And not knowing whether her child was safe, whether she had run away. For the next weeks and months, her family and the police got reports of sightings of her across the country. And there were hundreds, if not thousands, of tips where people would claim they saw her in Detroit or in Nashville or in Gatlinburg and across the state of Georgia. The police followed up on all of those. There were some tips that came in that probably gave that family some hope. And then ultimately that hope was unfortunately dashed away. Six months after Susanna's disappearance and miles away, a grim discovery. February 6th of 2023. At about six o'clock in the evening, the Gwinnett County Police Department received an emergency call from a concerned citizen. He had been off-roading in a remote area when he stumbled across human remains. They were completely skeletal. At that time we had no idea who this person was. It is the worst possible thing to not have closure. I think my daughter may be alive. I hope my daughter is alive, but I don't know. Emotionally debilitating is not the right two words to use. It's worse than that. February 6th, a citizen who was walking in the area of drowning Creek Road and Highway 316 happened upon skeletal remains. And they were positively identified as having belonged to Susanna Rallis. These scenes are a lot different than a normal homicide because there's no flesh. There's no body to find forensic evidence on. There were no traces of any fibers, clothing, flesh or skin muscle. It appeared that this person was unclothed. There were no traces of any fibers whatsoever. We also found that the body had been disturbed by apparent animal activity. Because there were no clothes at the scene, law enforcement had to immediately treat it as though there was some type of foul play. When you have someone dropped off in a secluded area but not far away from a very highly trafficked area, it shows some haste in the crime, some level probably of panic. It made it pretty evident that they had a crime on their hands not just to run away. Susanna was your typical 16-year-old girl. She was very kind, had a reputation of being very friendly. Everybody described her as an extremely outgoing, extremely loving and kind individual. She loved to spend time with her friends. She loved to sing. Her mother would talk about her singing in the house and she loved music. She had recently picked up playing the ukulele. Like many teenage girls, she spent a lot of time doing her makeup and would spend a lot of time in her room with makeup tutorials. She was the baby of the family and everybody adored her. A promising life cut tragically short. And while Susanna Morales' family finally has some answers, this investigation is far from over. I don't think your gun was solid. We did find your gun, actually. Yeah, so that's just like raising suspicion even more. Right now we'll just go up there. You got any guns or anything on it? You know I don't. You know? Okay, can I patch you down? Just make sure. What's going on? You're good. It's our policy man. You know how it is. As Georgia detectives continue their investigation into the death of 16 year old Susanna Morales when it remains are discovered more than 20 miles away from where she was last reportedly seen six months earlier. started as a missing person's case becomes a homicide investigation. They investigated every single person in her life to see if they had anything to do with it. They could not find a single thing that pointed to anyone. The only remaining theory was that this was a stranger. Somebody took her from the street as she was walking, and that's every parent's worst nightmare. Investigators get a major break when a key piece of evidence is located near her remains, sparking new questions and possibilities. We located a firearm that had been reported stolen on July 27. This is the same day that Susanna was reported missing. It's the heavily wooded area with a lot of foliage on the ground, leaves and sticks and debris. About 100 feet away from Susanna's body, an officer found a Glock 19 pistol that was abandoned on the ground. It wasn't buried or hidden. It looked like it had been dropped. Because law enforcement was so thorough in going over it piece by piece, inch by inch, they came across a handgun. Now what does that tell you? Possibly she was shot by that weapon, but you don't know unless and until you can perform ballistics. It creates more questions than answers. We had a really difficult time trying to figure out what happened to Susanna. The medical examiner did perform an autopsy of Susanna. There were no obvious signs of a bullet defect where a bullet would have struck one of her bones or knife wounds. A majority of Susanna's body was recovered about 95% or so, but there were several bones that were missing. Because of that, cause of death was unknown. The chances that a firearm would be found that close to her remains was just very unlikely that it wouldn't be related in some way. And that really was the very first significantly that we had. And strangely enough, way to you here who reported the gun stolen. Yesterday, I don't know what time, man. I went running around here. I did a bunch of stuff yesterday. And I came back and went to the store and everything. I headed at the store and I came back. I can't find my wallet. And then this morning, I looked on my floorboard and my black 19-hoaster is on the floorboard. The gun has been reported stolen. Who was the owner of the gun? Oh, it's Miles Bryant. Wait a minute, he is a sworn police officer. Oh, I hate to say, I think I look like, hey, they ain't smashed the window and nothing. I left my door unlocked, so that's definitely missing. I get kids going to the pool all the time. Let's pose. I'm cut back there at least to like behind that little grocery store right there. Oh, yeah. We had people actually rob the grocery store and come run through here. Finding the gun immediately tied Mr. Bryant to the case, whether he was the one responsible or somebody took his gun. That gave us a name very quickly, which was critical. Police need to track down 22-year-old Miles Bryant. They locate him at his apartment and immediately ask if he knows anything about Susanna. When she first went missing, I'll fuck to the 500 pieces of like that, they really know anything. And what they would have did say, I would talk to them in a minute, when she first went missing, it was like, it was just with her. I haven't heard anything actually about you, my girl. It's like, it's just weird to say she was walking home and she just, you know. Mr. Bryant was a courtesy officer. Now what a courtesy officer means is that essentially, you are living in an apartment complex in exchange for some type of either reduced rent or payment. You agree to help patrol that apartment complex. So he was likely very familiar with the folks that live there and the regular things that were happening. You got some time for us to come up to our headquarters and just talk about, you know, what you see on a daily basis and stuff like that. Yeah. It's good to be today. Yeah, yeah. Now we're literally walking to everyone here. So we're just trying to document everything up. We got to know at least, ma'am. Hopefully we're here in the know with everything. So we can go it on top of that thing and maybe put some piece together. They take Bryant into the station. And before the lead detective arrives, a few investigators start asking questions. I'm not sure, but this one is terrible. Put the apartment in your room. See it over the police room? Tomorrow. OK. You're just a courtesy officer there. How long have you been living in here? Mr. Bryant was an active duty police officer with the door of the police department, just one county over from Gwinnett County where Susanna lived. We also learned that Mr. Bryant lived at the apartment complex that Susanna went missing from, the Sterling Glen apartments. I know you're the courtesy officer for the leasing office and all that. Anyone come up to you, approach you, did you get contacted by the police? Like, you know, this has to be-- Yeah, like I lived with this missing in the room. Let me know. I'm saying on the news. I hear about our news. People talking about it, stuff like that. She was a frequent visitor there. She walked from the Sterling Glen apartments back to her home, which was a very short trip, maybe about half a mile or so, which was a common thing for her. You said earlier that some of the neighborhood kids were like the other teenagers. They like talked to you about it. They always had the pool on them that day, man. There was a hangar with those of her own, but nothing for incident. Can you remember anything, like any context, though what they were saying about how she was missing? Like, did they have any speculations? No, they didn't have any of that. They did, like, a walk and look for. They don't remember that. They did what they said it was a look for an incident. Do you know when she went missing? That was your last one. So I hope I take it out on there. How long was that piece? So I'm a looner. The detectives are asking, since he was this go-getter courtesy officer, about anybody in that community, anyone else, that maybe they should be paying attention to for this disappearance. Was there anyone else there that they should be targeting? Were there any suspicious people that are commonly going going through? We got a couple of formal conflicts with that, like the same. Homeless dude, walk around and hang around. You've got a year like that. This, so I don't know if he may have seen him, but it's a couple. He made his girlfriend use a little more property, but he's a gang banger. He calls a lot of issues on property. Drug deals, his private property. Thanks, Crypt. That's what I heard. You heard about the neighborhood? How come it was named? He kind of went through and gave a few kind of broad base. Well, there's people that walk through the community. There's some rough people. There's traffic that comes in out of here, but not really any direct specifics. That area of Norcross, you know, that there are gangs present. There are places nearby in that apartment complex that have lots of reports of crime and vehicle break-ins and knowing that there's no connection whatsoever between that person and Susanna. He was just throwing anything he could at the wall to see what would stick. It's a lot of foot traffic. A lot of foot traffic, isn't it? They probably use it as a culture, right? Isn't it like a side cave? Yes. He was a Gungho courtesy officer, as he was self-described, but seemed to have very little knowledge about a missing child that had been in his community. The first red flags for these detectives that were going to interview him was, yeah, he knows more than he's telling us already. With limited clues, investigators pursue any possible leads, but the case soon narrows with a potential suspect in their sites and in their interrogation room. Oh, man. All right. I'm going out there. Yeah. And you said you've never seen her? Are you familiar with her at all? [MUSIC PLAYING] It's something like a part of my head. Well, you know, you know, like a suspect by a nearby. Why? I'm doing, you know, the way you're talking about it. You're talking about it. I know. As Georgia Law Enforcement investigates the possible kidnapping and murder of teenager Susanna Morales, local police officer Miles Brian finds himself in an interrogation room, and that's when detectives drop a bombshell. I actually saw the next day, like, someone broke into your car. Yeah. We're thinking it's probably going to be related, because it was kind of the same night. Like, the person who probably did that to you made me know something. I looked everywhere, looked in the house, and I broke into the making jokes, and all of the stuff. So I took your gun and half, so I took your gun. You know, if it was located or anything? No, I've already been. I haven't run any yet. I want to check that really quick. Let's see if it was found. We as viewers, we watch the news. And a lot of times we go, man, why aren't the police telling us more? This is an example of why. Because there's certain elements to a crime that they don't want to be public, so that when they have the opportunity to interrogate or interview someone about it, they're going to be able to go in with information that the suspect doesn't know that they know. And his gun was a key component to this. They didn't let them know that they had it. Yeah, so that's just, like, raises suspicion even more. No, and you'd be like, I think it's the same person. You watch the news. You know we found it, Banna. [BLANK_AUDIO] But there was actually a gun found out there, too. Yeah. And it's the same serial number. He did verify it. It's crazy. I know. I think that was probably one of the first moments for him to realize they know a lot more than I know they know. Detectives focus on Bryant, pressing him about the night of July 26, 2022. I need you to think really hard, though, with me. I'm not dependent on you right now. Look, I want to be like, doorbell, police officer, help us out, this has been a rather big thing. I think of anybody that was out there that night, because I knew you were out there if it's rolled in that night. Think of anything. I saw what you mean, think of me. I'm not a girlfriend that's actually arguing that night. So I don't think I'm just just drawing around. What are you arguing about? I got caught up with my side, side piece. You've built a rapport with him, and you've become essentially kind of like a colleague, buddy. That's your baseline of his behavior when he is comfortable. The detective would then start to try to determine when he breaks that comfort level. Did you work that night? That night? Were you off that night? Well, everything that was working on trophies of my dad, I wasn't working. When you just run around, is it common for you to lead north-cross? I mean, I would think you would just drive around. Yeah, I would, right now. I'm going to go to the north, I'm going to Atlanta everywhere. I'm going to go a little bit there that night. Yeah, well, we'll put my girlfriend, actually. That night, I'm running around. I don't know what night it is. If this night, particularly-- If the day, this night before you made your report with that, that should be a memory. Yeah, that's the time that everybody got. Yeah, I mean that part. She talked to Chase, and I'm going to try to talk to Chase. Where her car? What the fuck? I'll hug the Jerry Spray episode. I don't know if there's a help, but she takes me into apartment complex. There were several times where questions were asked that he felt to give an answer. They wanted to get his story out there. And they're going to ask the same question multiple times in different ways just to see if they're going to get a different answer. Savannah, do you not live in your complex, but do you know where she lived? I see she lived nearby. Like where? I don't know. She says she was walking home, and she said she lived nearby. So I guess it'd be in the area. I don't think she lived in that apartment complex. I don't remember drawing around in the night. I'm getting chased by my girlfriend. She blackened my car right now and was getting her car. Because I think I'm going out for work. No, this is-- wow. I guess I'm going to be doing some videos or something like that. They had a lot of information that he was not aware that they had. Notice they were on their phones a lot while they were in the room. That's likely because they were texting with detectives who were outside of the room watching the video, and were feeding them information. As he begins to answer the questions, and they're not answered the way they should be, there's a difference. There's a little change here, a little change there. So piece by piece, in a very casual way, they try to come to a conclusion. And they also have to give credit to the fact it's been six months. So if possibly he's not the person who murdered her, then maybe his memory, like all of our memories, is not perfect. Did you ever go out there where she-- do you know where she was found? This seems so weird. Yeah, do you ever go in the woods and stuff out there? In a woods, no. Is there a reason why you would have dropped it out there, maybe? No. No. You all do any training out there or anything? No, not a bit of it at least. OK. So I'm just scared. That's so crazy. That was crazy, yeah. Detective Carter then chose to obtain phone records for Mr. Bryant, just to exclude him as a suspect and prove that he had nothing to do with Susanna's disappearance. He had two phones. He had a phone issued by the City of Doorville that was for work. And he also had a personal phone. Those phone records are able to help the police try and relate to a degree where somebody's phone is located at any given time. Detective Carter then started to analyze that data. Figure out where Mr. Bryant's phone was at the night of July 26, then to the morning hours of July 27. And what they found was fairly shocking. You didn't go over where her body was found that night, right, to like in the woods or anything? OK. All right. I'm going to provide the phone. After 16. No. I just drove around. You didn't go in the woodland contemplating life or anything, did you? I'm just joking with you. I'm making jokes about the creepy-ass place to walk to. I start to read where I'm not sure where I drove. You all just played chase and move until you went home? No. Who went home first? I don't know. But I lost there and I just drove around. Where I dropped to. I went toward-- god, this sounds bad. This sounds terrible, because I remember being on the exit going to LA trying to lose her. I remember going to a hollow mess on the head. It is over about 3'16." He's starting to feel pressure, and he's also hopefully going to feel in their eyes relief, if he'll actually admit to what he did. Just a few hours after Susana disappeared. Mr. Bryant's phone was used to make several phone calls between 1 and 2 o'clock in the morning on the morning of July 27th. And the phone towers that his phone communicated with were located out in Decula, Georgia on the sign of Highway 3'16. Mr. Bryant's phone was in the woods exactly where Susana's body was located. I'm going to be honest, I don't think so. Yeah. I don't know what's going on in that area, you know? I'll take those in that area, stuff like that, you know? I mean, it sounds bad, man. I don't think you have anything to hide. I think you're a good person. I mean, you're a police officer. Nobody wants to be a police officer. As they begin to narrow down and see the discrepancies between what he says and what actually happened, they begin to focus in and they realize that he's not telling the truth. At that point, it was obvious to myself and to the Gwyneth County Police Department that Mr. Bryant was involved. Listen to me, your device was the only one out there. She went missing. She died there. Your gun is there. Your phone is there, okay? This is your moment. It should talk about it. All right, this looks bad. This is terrible. Maybe we're a monster. Oh, he'll live. For everyone, I don't believe you. Right now is the only thing I'm thinking of. Then that's what everyone else is going to think, too. [MUSIC PLAYING] It's you, the baby. Look at that. Oh, baby. Yeah, I'm sure this is a big weight. I don't know. Look at her. No, no, no, don't do it this way. I know, but she's got a tiny little baby. I know. All eyes are now on Georgia police officer in National Guard member Miles Bryant, the primary suspect in the kidnapping and murder of Susanna Morales, the pressure mounts in the interrogation room. But Bryant maintains his innocence. It's not a question about if it's you or not, because we already know that. No. Let this in. It's a question about what happened, okay? It's a question about if you are a cold blooded killer or if you made a mistake. You know, you're involved. No, we're not involved. No, I'll not do that and say, well, maybe I messed up. No, not that. Not involved. You could tell there was a drastic shift in that interrogation when they confronted him. And that's when all of his explanations began to just be, no, I didn't do that. No, I didn't do that. I would never do that. If he was smart and he obviously wasn't, he would have KYD BMS, what does that mean? Instead, his story unraveled and it unraveled rather quickly. Did he just black out sometimes when he got angry? No, I don't really. He said not really, wouldn't that mean? No, I don't black out where I can remember what I do and stuff like that. I killed somebody, I don't know that. Did you kill her? No. Were you with her when she died? No. Why did you dump her body there? I didn't dump her body there. Were you trying to help her? She was already done when you found her? No. I wasn't nowhere in the woods. I would not lie about that. But you are. You are. Along the way, one crucial detail emerges that confirms investigator suspicions. You also tried to get into a girl's apartment off Annas Town. You did? Oh, you did. You published a page where we were there, too? No, I had a bad old investigation about that. It was there, but I didn't try to break that apartment. She lied. Mr. Bryant, four years. And dating back to 2018 that we were able to document, began praying upon women in high school. He started burglarizing homes belonging to classmates of his. This escalated, even after Susanna's murder with him trying to break into a young woman's apartment, he would just show up at her apartment. Knocking on the doors, attempting to break in. We had him on video trying to break open her door. while he was wearing his National Guard fatigues. - Why was she hiding your head? - It was raining. - Oh, it was raining, 'cause you didn't want anyone to see your hat because it has your name on the back of your head. - She knew that where it was. I took, she knew where it was. She didn't watch it here. - She didn't ever tell me that. - You're just the victim in all this. You just casually being in all these like victim situations where you're just casually in the wrong place in the wrong time. - They uncovered things on his phone where he had been sending some inappropriate things from other female's phones to himself. - He had an instant of a breaking and entering. He'd taken some women's undergarments. He certainly had a history that would raise some red flags. - Investigators have enough to charge Miles Bryant with concealing the death of another and false report of a crime. For allegedly lying about the theft of his firearm found near Susanna's remains, he's arrested and held without bond. But now, the real work begins, as prosecutors seek a murder charge. They can go back and see how he became involved in piece by piece, step by step, doing all the things that he should not have been doing, but they're important because they're building blocks to where he ended up. - Through interviews, cell phone records and circumstantial evidence, Miles Bryant's charges are upgraded to include kidnapping, malice murder, felony murder, and criminal attempt to commit rape for the abduction and death of Susanna Morales. - To believe that a police officer would kidnap and murder somebody they did not know for sexual gratification stretches, the bounds of belief to some extent, we had a big obligation to put together a case that a jury would believe and understand and see who Miles Bryant really was. Not the awards and the uniforms and the military service and the police badge, but who he was underneath. - Here's a question, without any direct evidence tying Miles Bryant to Susanna's murder, is there enough to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt? - The anguish and the sadness and the. Is that the mother-like pose to hit on? - I have a daughter to the same age, and it really touched me that I felt that it was my duty to try to find her. (dramatic music) - The defendant doesn't get to a state justice, he does his good to commit crime. This is good to cover these crimes. - Maybe could house great suspicion is not beyond a reasonable doubt. - With a suspect behind bars, prosecutors and defense attorneys build their cases and on June 5th, 2024, almost two years after the kidnapping and killing of 16-year-old Susanna Morales, Miles Bryant, the accused murderer, goes on trial. - He was supposed to serve and protect. He is one of the people that we should trust to enforce the law, so that we should all to a higher sting, but he didn't do any of those things. Instead, he abused the law and he used his badge and he used his position to satisfy his own sexual desires. - When the police had the theory they needed, they had the defendant they knew had committed the crime, they had to be able to prove it. - We spent months and months preparing to put together a cohesive trial that would tell how a police officer of all people, somebody who was meant to serve and protect, who took an oath to do that, could possibly do something like this, but it was overwhelming that he was involved in some way. - He is a cop who turns into a killer. Jurors listened to emotional testimony from Susanna's family, including her mother, who tearfully illustrated the agonizing hours and days, following Susanna's disappearance. - From the time that Susanna was taken, how long was it until you didn't heard anything about finding her life? - Almost seven months. - What went through your mind at that moment when you heard? - You don't get it, you don't get it, you don't notice? - I did not want that news. You let's wait up. - I was waiting for her. - You let's wait up, I'm still waiting for her. - And her sister, who describes searching for Susanna. - Did you ever stop going out and looking for your sister? What went through your mind when you found her? - About the police finding her body. - A lot of things, I couldn't believe it. I didn't want it to be true. I wanted to see her. I wanted proof that it was actually her. I didn't want to believe that it was her 'cause up to that point it just looked like it for her. It took a while. - And the moving statements from law enforcement showed the widespread impact of Susanna's disappearance. - Jasmine called me on the daily basis. I wanted her to call me at any time. It was two o'clock in the morning. It didn't matter. I actually neglected my family because I made sure that I went not in for. And I meant a lot to me. So I would even do it on my own time because I just, every time I see my daughter, the first thing I thought of was Susanna. And so it was driving me to find her 'cause I mentally was telling myself that we are going to find her. I made sure that I told Jasmine that I will give my all. Detective Cashler was communicating with me while I was at the other scene and telling me that they believed it was gonna be, sorry, a spandex teenage girl. It all lined up. I really was hoping it wasn't her. - Have you ever heard of any case involving what they was to call me for teenagers? Maybe body was found in the woods and it was not that homicide? - No, I have not. - One big question on everyone's mind is whether or not Bryant and Susanna had ever crossed paths before. - At the time that Susanna was missing, when it seemed to kill, y'all had been friends for about five years? - Yes, sir. - What was the last time that you saw Susanna in person before she was taken? - Maybe two days prior. - Has you ever met Miles Bryant with a check? - I didn't know who he was at the time but I have met him before. I would see him around the apartments every once in a while. - Did you ever have any kind of conversation? - Yes. - Tell us about that. - There was an instance where me and Susanna were walking in the Sterling Glen apartments. He had stopped in a black truck asking us if we needed a ride. We just kind of laughed it off and didn't talk about it. When Mr. Bryant was interviewed, he steadfastly denied ever having seen her. Not just met her or talked to her or had any interaction with her. He denied ever even laying eyes on her ever before. And having people testify that that was an outright lie was very significant. Still to today, we have never uncovered a single piece of evidence that Mr. Bryant and Susanna ever spoke. They never texted. They were not friends on social media. Absolutely zero trace of any connection between the two of them. - With the prosecution having laid out their case, the defense now takes center stage. - You don't have to lie to my mind. And in fact, at the conclusion of this trial, you're going to think that he is the most careless, unhearing, coward, that you would never see. However, he is not guilty. What you have from the state is speculation. We found this and we don't really know, but this is what we think happened. So let's just make him look really, really bad and maybe you'll hate him enough that you will be good. - And they make some major admissions. - The only things we know for certain. She was in the truck. Now we do know that he lied in his statement. He said he wasn't in the woods. We do know that Miles left her in the woods. We don't know if she was unconscious at that count or if she was dead. We don't know that he did anything to her to cause that. - They had mentioned during opening that they were likely going to call the defendant to testify on his own behalf. They later changed their minds on doing that. They didn't do a whole lot other than cross-examined the prosecutors' witnesses and try to throw out other theories of how she died, but they didn't have any proof of those theories being plausible. One of the biggest strong points for him was, they ultimately did not find any DNA on her or him that linked the two of them, or in his vehicles. We know that Suzanne was at least at a minimum experimenting with drugs outside of pot. Did she overdose? It was never treated as a possible overdose because of the binding in the woods and not having clothes. We had to overcome the fact that Susanna wasn't a perfect human being. She had made journal entries that while she had tried meth, it made her feel horrible. And she was upset and disgusted with herself and she would never do it again. The defense strategy in this case was to paint Susanna as a troubled youth, as a young lady who had a drug problem, who was a runaway, and maybe into risky behavior. Her friend said that Susanna was fine. While they had smoked marijuana that night, that was a common practice for them, and that this night was no different. His counsel argued that without a cause of death, we can't prove he killed her. Unfortunately, we don't know how to show any time. If there is a netting theory, it doesn't have to be more probable than something else. But any reasonable theory, means you must find him not guilty. The defense calls no witnesses of their own, and following days of testimony, the case is handed off to the jury. Perhaps the most difficult part of any trial in my experience is the moment when the jury walks into the back to go deliberate, the anxiety is through the roof. The reality that if they don't convict him, a killer is going to walk free. After just two hours of deliberations, the jury returns with their verdict. Count 1, malice murder, we the jury found the defendant guilty, count 2, felony murder, we the jury found the defendant guilty, kidnapping, we the jury found the defendant guilty, criminal attempt to commit rape, we the jury found the defendant not guilty, false report of a crime, we the jury found the defendant guilty. Miles Bryant is found guilty of the kidnapping and murder of Susana Morales. He sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. I knew at that moment that we had done our job, no one's above the law, and he got what he deserved. Everybody who encountered him had the same thing to say about him that he seemed very beautiful, very conscientious of his job, loved being a police officer, but what was unseen was his dark side. Just like any profession, you could run into having a bad egg. As a law enforcement officer, your job is to protect others who cannot be protected. This is a very sad case, apparently, of an officer who was not doing it for the right reasons. They found him guilty and they certainly should have. He is someone who should never walk the streets again. But that's not the end of the story. Now you see Susana Morales' family has filed a lawsuit against the sterling Glenn apartments arguing they should have known about Miles Bryant's past and therefore not hired him as a courtesy officer. In other words, this may never have happened. So their battle for justice for Susana is far from over. That's all we have for you here on this episode of Prime Crime. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. I'm Jesse Weber and as always, stay safe.