ABC to air two-hour Tracking Susana on Susana Morales
ABC’s 20/20 will air a two-hour episode on susana morales at 9 p.m. Friday, revisiting the Georgia teen’s disappearance after she texted her mother that she was walking home. The episode, titled Tracking Susana, includes interviews with Morales’ family and Gwinnett police investigators.
Morales was 16 when she disappeared in July 2022, less than a mile from her Gwinnett home, after returning from the Sterling Glen apartment complex. Her family reported her missing the following morning, and more than six months later investigators found her skeletal remains near a Gwinnett County creek.
Gwinnett County search and discovery
Investigators learned Morales had shared her location with a friend through an app, and the phone suddenly started traveling in the opposite direction at a rate of approximately 40 mph. The app generated a crash alert at Oak Loch Trace. Morales’ remains were found on February 6, 2023, on the side of Ga. 316 near Drowning Creek, and dental records identified her.
An official cause of death was never determined. A loaded pistol was discovered during a search of the area, and the pistol was registered to Miles Bryant, the former Doraville officer who was later convicted in the case.
Miles Bryant sentence in Butts County
Bryant has been serving a life sentence since June 2024 at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Butts County after a jury found him guilty of murder, kidnapping and false report of a crime. He was 23 at the time of sentencing. Bryant said the gun had been taken from his truck and reported the pistol stolen the morning after Morales disappeared.
Investigators also found that Bryant specifically requested that a detective not be assigned to investigate the disappearance of his gun or wallet. Bryant’s personal and police cellphones were pinged in the same area where Morales’ body was recovered shortly after midnight on July 27, and Bryant’s phone was back in the area later that same morning, about an hour before he reported his firearm stolen.
Maria Bran remembers her daughter
Maria Bran told the court at Bryant’s sentencing, "It’s been very difficult since the first day my daughter disappeared," and, "Every night I can’t sleep without thinking of her." Those words sit at the center of the episode’s return to the case, which has remained tied to the unanswered loss of a 16-year-old who never made it home.
For viewers, the episode is the first new broadcast event tied to the case, and it puts the family’s account beside Gwinnett police investigators’ timeline. The broadcast also arrives after Bryant’s June 2024 life sentence, keeping the focus on how the disappearance, the search and the conviction were linked from the start.
