Former officer accused of killing 16-year-old charged with break-in at yet another woman’s home
A former Doraville police officer who was arrested on murder charges in the death of a 16-year-old Gwinnett girl is now facing new charges.
Miles Bryant was arrested last month after the skeletal remains of Susana Morales were found in Gwinnett County, months after she vanished.
Bryant’s gun was found with the remains. Bryant was initially charged with concealing a death and false report of a crime, but charges were later upgraded to murder.
[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]
Channel 2′s Gwinnett County Bureau Chief Matt Johnson was in Snellville, where the mother of one of Bryant’s former classmates said she’s been waiting for years to figure out who broke into her home.
The mother, who Channel 2 Action News is not identifying, said she never would have imagined it would have been Bryant. But after his arrest, and after she saw him in other videos, she felt confident that the person who broke in was Bryant and got the police involved again.
RELATED STORIES:
Woman says Doraville officer arrested in 16-year-old girl’s death stalked her for a year
Woman says ex-officer broke into home, stole underwear before being accused of killing Gwinnett teen
Warrant application claims Doraville officer lived near teen, ‘dumped her naked body in the woods’
Video Johnson obtained from 2019 shows an 18-year-old Miles Bryant walking through a family’s home after he tampered with a bedroom lock window, Snellville police say.
A former classmate at Berkmar High School lived at the home, but she said she never gave Bryant her address.
[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Bryant’s arrest for Morales’ murder helped the girl’s mother identify the mystery burglar. She filed a report in May 2019 and police showed up to look for him, but then the case went unsolved.
That is until last month, when Snellville police said they determined that Bryant was the offender from the burglary.
Police charged him with first-degree burglary on Wednesday.
The 22-year-old is now accused of breaking into or attempting to break into the homes of four former female classmates.
One of them accused Bryant of stealing her underwear in 2018.
Bryant remains in jail, already charged with kidnapping and murdering Morales last July.
Johnson talked to another victim, Elasha Bates, last month. She shared video from her Snellville apartment in 2022 that appears to show Bryant trying to get inside.
“He’s wearing a glove in the video,” she said. “You can clearly see he’s coming here with criminal intent.”
Bates’ video helped the Snellville mother compare her own video to them before alerting Snellville police. Even before Bryant’s arrest for murder, some who knew him said they worried he had a dark side.
“I was scared that he was trying to rape me,” Bates said. “I very much think that he’s capable of something like that.”
It’s possible Bryant could still face criminal charges form two of the other cases involving former classmates.