DALE COUNTY, Ala (WDHN) — Jeanette McCraney, the wife of Coley McCraney, took the stand Friday afternoon and described what happened from her perspective the night JB Beasley and Tracie Hawlett were killed, and flashed forward 20 years to McCraney’s DNA test and arrest.
Coley McCraney is accused of killing Beasley and Hawlett and raping Beasley, on July 31, 1999. The teens were found shot to death in the trunk of Beasley’s Mazda 929 on Herring Avenue in Ozark. The case went cold for 20 years until DNA evidence found on Beasley allegedly matched to McCraney.
Marlos Walker, former Ozark Police Chief, testified earlier in the day and said nearly 20 years after the murder in 2019, his department received a list of family names possibly connected to the case from a secondary DNA source, and McCraney’s family name was on the list, so he contacted McCraney to get a DNA sample.
According to Jeanette McCraney, when she and Coley McCraney were at the Ozark Police Station at the request of Walker and he asked for McCraney’s DNA in person, he said “I have nothing to hide,” and willingly gave a cheek swab which was sent to a lab.
On March 19, 2019, Coley McCraney was arrested by now Deputy Chief Micheal Bryan with the Ozark Police Department during a traffic stop in Daleville after Walker said the DNA sample they took from McCraney was a match to the specimens found on Beasley. Walker also says that at the time of the arrest, McCraney was heading toward the police station at the request of Walker.
Over the years, Jeanette McCraney has maintained her husband’s innocence and stuck with the same story.
McCraney’s wife says that around 10:00 p.m. on the night of Saturday, July 31, 1999, McCraney left their house to visit his parents and 5-year-old son in Johnstown, about two-and-a-half miles away from their home, and McCraney came home at 12:45 a.m. Sunday, August 1, 1999. This was past their normal time to be home each night, which was about 11:30 p.m., and McCraney asked for help jumping off his car which had broken down at a gas station nearby, according to McCraney’s wife.
This is the same gas station where the defense is trying to prove that McCraney met Beasley and Hawlett, gave them directions to Highway 231 heading towards Dothan, then after a conversation with Beasley, had consensual sex with her and left.
McCraney’s wife testified that when the two arrived at the gas station and jumped the car off, no one else was there, and they made it home around 1:30 a.m., neither of them leaving until a few hours later to pick up supplies so McCraney could leave for another long-haul trucking trip that day.
McCraney’s wife also says that when McCraney came home, his clothes were completely clean and he had no signs of blood or mud.
The mud has been a large part of the prosecution’s case. According to Micheal Hitchcock, a forensic scientist who took the stand Thursday, soil stains were found on the bottom and the inside and outside of Beasley’s and Hawlett’s pants.
The prosecution claims McCraney met Beasley and Hawlett that night at the gas station, held the girls at gunpoint, forced them to go to another location, raped Beasley, and forced them into the trunk of Beasley’s Mazda 929, before shooting and killing both girls. Testimonies from forensic experts put the time of death as either late Saturday night or very early Sunday morning.
The court dismissed at 3:50 p.m. and will reconvene Monday morning where the defense is expected to bring their first witnesses.
Stay with WDHN as we follow one of the most significant murder trials in Wiregrass history.
