Coley McCraney, a minister and truck driver, was arrested and convicted two decades after the brutal murder of two Alabama teens, thanks to a groundbreaking DNA match. The tragic deaths of J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett in 1999 left their families and the local community in shock, but the long-awaited justice came with McCraney’s arrest in 2019, and his conviction in 2023.
The Night of the Disappearance
On July 31, 1999, J.B. Beasley was celebrating her 17th birthday with her friend Tracie Hawlett. The two set out in Beasley’s car to attend a field party in Headland, Alabama, but could not find the location. Instead, they stopped at a gas station in rural Ozark, Alabama, where Hawlett called her mother, Carol Roberts, from a payphone to get directions back to Dothan.
“She didn’t talk like anything was wrong. There wasn’t any fear or anything in her voice,” Roberts recalled in an interview with “20/20.” But the girls never made it home. The following morning, Roberts noticed her daughter was missing and quickly alerted authorities.
A Gruesome Discovery
Within hours, law enforcement found Beasley’s Black Mazda sedan on the side of a road, less than a mile from the gas station where the teens made their last phone call. Everything in the car appeared intact, including the girls’ belongings and wallets with money. However, upon opening the trunk, officers discovered the bodies of both girls, each with gunshot wounds to the head.
Barry Tucker, a retired Trooper Captain with the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, described the scene as “the only homicide that I ever turned around and had to walk off.”
Twenty years after the deaths of J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett, DNA evidence has revealed a new suspect in the Ozark Police Department’s investigation. Catch WDHN’s Special Report on the case at 10 p.m. pic.twitter.com/QLEA3NuoeR
— WDHN (@WDHN) March 18, 2019
A Breakthrough with DNA
The investigation that followed turned up few clues, with more dead ends than leads. However, a crucial piece of DNA evidence found on Beasley would eventually lead to a breakthrough. Nearly 20 years later, in 2018, Ozark Police Chief Marlos Walker learned about forensic genetic genealogy being used to catch the Golden State Killer in California. Inspired by the success, Walker sent DNA preserved from the case to a lab in Virginia, hoping to find a match.
In 2019, the results returned, pointing to Coley McCraney, a former high school classmate of Walker’s. McCraney agreed to provide a DNA sample, which was a match to the DNA found on Beasley. He was arrested on March 15, 2019, and charged with four counts of capital murder and first-degree rape.
The Trial and Conviction
McCraney’s defense argued that the DNA evidence only proved that he had a sexual encounter with Beasley, not that he was responsible for the murders. During his trial, McCraney testified that he met Beasley at the mall in 1999, a few months before the murders, and that they had consensual sex in the back of his truck on the night she was killed. Despite his testimony, the jury found McCraney guilty of capital murder and rape, sentencing him to life in prison.
The conviction brought some closure for the families of the victims, who had waited more than two decades for justice. “We’d waited 24 years for this, and finally somebody’s going to be held accountable,” said Carol Roberts. Cheryl Burgoon, Beasley’s mother, described her emotional reaction to the verdict: “When they read, ‘Guilty,’ I fell forward and tears just streamed down my face.”
McCraney Maintains His Innocence
In an exclusive phone interview with “20/20,” McCraney continued to assert his innocence, stating, “They can call me a cheat, they can call me a dog. They can call me a lot of things at that time, but they cannot call me a killer.” His defense attorneys have filed a motion with Alabama’s Court of Criminal Appeals, seeking a new trial. The ruling on this motion is expected later this year.
While the verdict brought some closure to the community, the case continues to evoke strong emotions and raise questions about the reliability of forensic evidence in solving cold cases. The story of Beasley and Hawlett’s tragic deaths, and the long journey to justice, will be further explored in a new episode of “20/20” airing on May 10.
