Colin Flaherty (Author of Don't Make the Black Kids Angry) Commentary News Video "DNA leads to arrest in cold case murders of two Alabama girls, Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasley, reports say" "Coley McCraney charged with capital murder and rape in cold case murders of Dothan teens"
https://www.foxnews.com/us/dna-leads-to-arrest-in-cold-case-murders-of-two-alabama-girls-reports-say
By Robert Gearty | Fox News
A man was arrested Saturday in the cold case killings of two 17-year-old Alabama girls 20 years ago — one of Alabama’s highest-profile cold cases, according to reports.
Cops investigating the deaths of high school seniors Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasley in Ozark, Ala., got a break when DNA and a search of a public genealogy website linked Coley McCraney, 45, to the crime, local media reported.
Investigators found their bodies in the trunk of J.B.’s car on Aug. 1, 1999, a day after their families reported them missing. The girls were going to a birthday party for J.B. when they disappeared, the Dothan Eagle reported.
One of the girls was raped.
The search of the genealogy website was conducted using DNA from the crime scene, according to the paper.
She said in 2007 that her daughter and J.B. wound up in Ozark after getting lost driving to the party, WDHN-TV reported.
“She said, ‘Mom, we’re on our way home,’” Roberts said, according to the station.
Online records show McCraney, a married Dothan, Ala., man with children, was booked into the Dale County Jail on five counts of capital murder and one count of rape.
https://www.wtvy.com/content/news/Person-detained-in-murder-of-high-school-students-20-years-ago-507248991.html
Posted: Sat 10:49 PM, Mar 16, 2019 | Updated: Sun 8:26 AM, Mar 17, 2019
Ozark (WTVY Staff )-- A man, whom police say is linked by DNA to the 1999 murders of two high school students, faces capital murder and rape charges in their deaths.
Sources say an out of state lab matched McCraney as the possible killer through a genealogy report.
He had not been previously identified as a suspect because McCraney has no previous record, so his DNA was not on file.
Hawlett later called her mother, Carol Roberts, and told her they were on their way home, after receiving directions. They never made it.
The following day, police in Ozark found their bodies in the trunk of Beasley’s Mazda 929. They had been shot.
