Truck driving preacher charged with killing Alabama teens [View all]

OZARK, Ala. (AP) — A truck driving preacher charged with killing two Alabama teenagers found shot to death in a car trunk nearly 20 years ago was tied to the killings through a DNA match uncovered with genetic genealogy testing, authorities said Monday.

The analysis linked evidence that sat in a police freezer for years to Coley McCraney, 45, of Dothan, Alabama, police said. The man now faces a potential death penalty in the killings in 1999 of Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasley, both 17. McCraney, who has his own church and preached recently, is cooperating with authorities, said defense attorney David Harrison.

The girls left Dothan the night of July 3, 1999, to attend a party, but never arrived. They were found the next day in the trunk of Beasley’s black Mazda along a road in Ozark, a city of 19,000 people located about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southeast of Montgomery. Each had a gunshot wound to the head.

Last year’s arrest of “Golden State Killer” suspect Joseph DeAngelo in California — in which genealogy testing helped identify the suspect — helped prompt police to send their evidence to Parabon NanoLabs in Reston, Virginia, for DNA analysis, Ozark Police Chief Marlos Walker said. Walker described three rounds of genetic testing that led to McCraney’s arrest. The first gave authorities an unknown suspect and then a genetic genealogy test identified a family. Kinship testing “ultimately narrowed it down to a single person,” Walker said.

https://www.apnews.com/aafdebbbcfe94c59beb8e036a91ab854