Cop in Georgia Charged With Murdering Girl, 16

A Georgia police officer who was fired on Monday had the charges against him upgraded Wednesday to felony murder and kidnapping in the death of a 16-year-old girl who disappeared in July last year. On Monday, 22-year-old Miles Bryant was charged with concealing a death and false report of a crime, NBC reports. The skeletal remains of Susana Morales were found earlier this month. In a warrant application, Gwinnett County police said Bryant dumped the teen's naked body in the woods, reports Fox 5. Police said a search of the area where her body was found turned up a firearm belonging to Bryant, who reported it stolen the morning after Morales disappeared.

Bryant was fired from the police force in Doraville, an Atlanta suburb, when the initial charges were filed Monday. Morales was last seen on the evening of July 26, when she visited a friend and sent a text to her mother saying she was walking home. Her relatives say that she did not know Bryant and that they believe her killing was a stranger-on-stranger crime, per Fox 5. Gwinnett Police Chief JD McClure said Wednesday that police don't know how the teen died, but "what we do know is she died at the hands of Miles Bryant," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. He said it's a possibility that Bryant sexually assaulted Morales.

The chief called the teen's death an "unspeakable tragedy" and said the alleged involvement of a law enforcement officer "evoked anger" in the force. He said it's "entirely possible" that Bryant, who lived in the apartment complex Morales visited that day, had been watching the teen for some time. McClure said there had been previous reports about Bryant, NBC reports. He said Bryant was accused of trying to enter a neighbor's home through a window in 2018, but the homeowner decided not to press charges. In December 2022, "he may have tried to enter" an acquaintance's home in a case that it still being investigated, the chief said. WSB-TV reports that Bryant passed a background check before he was hired by Doraville police in May 2021. (More Georgia stories.)