GUILTY: Jurors proclaim McCraney a killer

OZARK, Ala. (WTVY) - Dale County jurors on Wednesday found Coley McCraney guilty of brutally killing two Dothan teens.

They delivered those Capital Murder verdicts after a 9-day trial 24 years in the making.

Dothan teens JB Beasley and Tracie Hawlett died in the summer of 1999 when their assailant forced them into the trunk of Beasley’s car and shot each in the head.

“Use your common sense,” Attorney General Steve Marshall begged of jurors during his opening statements. They heeded his advice, rejecting outlandish claims made by McCraney, 49, in a last-ditch attempt to save himself.

On the witness stand Monday McCraney claimed to have met Beasley briefly a few weeks before she died and insisted the 17-year-old tracked him down at his mother’s house.

Afterward, they had a brief sexual encounter in his truck as Hawlett waited in Beasley’s car parked nearby.

That following day police found those classmates in the trunk of Beasley’s Mazda 929 about a half mile from McCraney’s home, estimating the bodies had been there since about the time McCraney claimed the teens dropped him off in Ozark after their rendezvous.

McCraney’s testimony did not play out well and likely proved detrimental to the defense, desperate to explain how his DNA got on Ms. Beasley.

McCraney may have dug a deeper hole when he testified that he did not know until his 2019 arrest that Beasley died, claiming he knew her by the name “Jennifer.”

Watch JB and Tracie: The Teen Murders

Though on the road with his trucking company, he regularly returned home to the Ozark area where the girls’ photos were prominently displayed and featured frequently on television broadcasts and newspapers.

At least two attorneys hoping to file wrongful arrest suits on behalf of McCraney had jurors found him not guilty left the courtroom in disgust after hearing McCraneys testimony.

The jury has only two options for punishment---life without parole or execution and should decide that punishment in the next day or so.

This story will be updated.

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