On the night of her seventeenth birthday, July 31, 1999, J.B. Hilton Green Beasley, a White female, and her best friend, Tracie Hawlett, also 17, vanished after getting lost on their way to a party. The two high school seniors from Dothan, Alabama, had stopped at a convenience store in Ozark to ask for directions, the last place they were seen alive. The following day, their bodies were discovered in the trunk of Beasley's black Mazda on a roadside in Ozark. Both teenagers had been shot in the head. DNA evidence found on Beasley led investigators to believe she had also been sexually assaulted.
For nearly two decades, the double homicide haunted the Ozark community, remaining a cold case despite numerous interviews and a substantial reward offered for information. The investigation took a significant turn in 2018 when Ozark police enlisted the help of Parabon NanoLabs, a company specializing in DNA phenotyping and genetic genealogy. By running the crime scene DNA through a public genealogy database, investigators were able to build a family tree that eventually led them to a suspect.
In March 2019, authorities arrested 45-year-old Coley Lewis McCraney, a truck driver and preacher with no prior criminal record who lived about a mile from where the girls' bodies were found. Police confirmed that a DNA sample voluntarily provided by McCraney was a match to the evidence found at the 1999 crime scene. He was subsequently charged with multiple counts of capital murder, including the sexual assault and murder of J.B. Beasley.
McCraney maintained his innocence, and his trial commenced years later. During the trial, McCraney testified that he had consensual sex with Beasley but denied killing either of the young women. However, the DNA evidence presented by the prosecution proved to be the key factor for the jury. On April 26, 2023, Coley McCraney was found guilty on all charges. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and is currently serving his sentence at the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility. An appeal for a new trial was denied in July 2023.
