GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — After days of testimony, the former Doraville police officer had one thing to stay right before a judge sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole in a murder case of a 16-year-old girl.
"I just want to apologize to everybody, and the victim's family," Miles Bryant said, wearing a green Gwinnett County jail inmate suit -- which was a change in attire from earlier in the day.
A jury found Miles Bryant guilty of malice murder, felony murder, kidnapping and the false report of a crime Wednesday evening. Susana Morales was reported missing during the summer of 2022. Her remains were not discovered until months later in a wooded area.
Before Judge Tamela Adkins shared Bryant's fate with the courtroom, Morales' family gave emotional impact statements about how the tragic killing of their 16-year-old loved one has devastated the family.
Jasmine Perez, Morales' sibling, said that all she ever wanted was to see justice for her little sister. Breaking down in tears, she pleaded for the judge to give Bryant the maximum sentence.
"No family, no mother, no father, no one deserves to go through this," she said. "No one deserves to go through what we went through... these two years."
Another sister of Morales shared more of the family's grief, including watching her mother not being able to sleep while they didn't know where the teen was.
"Our minds were thinking the worst," she said as the days, weeks and months went by. "Every single day, we had a different theory of what could have happen to her."
She described their devastation as something she wouldn't want anyone else to go through.
But it was also Morales' mother's tears that captivated the room. Her mother, Maria Bran, approached the front of the courtroom with an interpreter to translate her Spanish into English. The cries during her impact statement painted a picture of some of her pain.
"Only after we found her, I promised her that we were gonna have justice," she shared supported by the interpreter.
"I know that none of this will return her back to me, and none of this will take away the pain that I feel every day," she added. "There's not a night that I don't go to bed thinking about her because I miss her so much."
The judge expressed to the heartbroken mother that she couldn't imagine the torture that she went through.
"Susana did not deserve this," Adkins said. "I just hope that after today, you and your family and find some peace. That is what I wish for you."
Before the night concluded, Judge Adkins sentenced Bryant to life without the possibility of parole for the malice murder charge. She also sentenced him to 12 months for the false report of a crime; it's to be served consecutively with the life sentence.
After the proceedings concluded, Morales' sisters and her mother gave each other a warm embrace in the courtroom -- a heartfelt moment from this painful journey in Morales' absence.
