A former police officer in Georgia who was charged with murder in the death of Susana Morales, 16, turned down the prosecution’s plea deal on Monday before the jury selection started.
Following the girl’s death, Miles Bryant, who is 23 years old, told the court he was ready to face murder charges. In July 2022, he is accused of taking her from her friend’s house, killing her, and then leaving her body naked in the woods.
He is being charged in Gwinnett County with murder, theft, and hiding the death of another person. These charges are related to Morales’ death. He was also charged with making a false report of a crime because it was said he lied about saying his gun had been stolen.
Authorities say Bryant lied when he said his gun had been stolen from his open car on the same day Morales was reported missing. In the end, though, his gun was found in the same rural area on Drowning Creek Road where Morales’ body was.
Morales’ family first told the police that she was missing in late July 2022, after she didn’t come home one night.
Police were called to the area between Drowning Creek and Barrow County in February 2023 after someone said they saw what they thought were human remains in the woods. The office of the Gwinnett Medical Examiners looked at the body and found that the DNA matched Morales’ teeth records.
Bryant could spend the rest of his life in jail without the chance of parole if he is found guilty.
Bryant’s lawyers asked the judge to throw out the trial after a possible juror said she had heard strange things about the defendant while being questioned in public. They said this made the potential jurors biased.
Miles Bryant could spend the rest of his life in jail without the chance of parole if he is found guilty. In the end, the judge fired all 14 jurors who were in the courtroom when the woman testified.
Bryant is also being charged with first-degree burglary in Snellville because it is said that he broke into the house of a former classmate and crept around it.
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