-Our whole world has completely changed upside down
In the blink of an eye.
-The school teacher, bianca tanner,
Left home earlier that day and never returned.
-When bianca tanner mysteriously vanishes...
-She didn't disappear into thin air.
Something happened.
-...Her family and her community are shattered.
-I was living in a nightmare.
Is this really real?
-In a world where people are not what they seem...
-This could possibly have been a case of fatal attraction.
-...And facts are hard to come by...
-He was evasive. He didn't feel truthful.
-The math ain't mathing. This is not adding up.
-...It all leads...
-Do I think he meant to kill her?
-...To a killer relationship.
-I think he meant to hurt her.
And then, unfortunately, it cost her her life.
♪♪
-For many of us,
The beginning of a romantic relationship is exciting.
But also can be daunting. It's hard to know who to trust.
So we proceed with caution and look before we leap.
But that's not bianca tanner.
When it comes to matters of the heart,
Bianca wastes no time. She's 100% all in.
In may of 2014,
Bianca is just starting an exciting chapter in her life:
She's a dedicated teacher in a new city with a new man.
[ line ringing ]
-On June 8th, angelo smith calls 911, around mid-afternoon,
Reports that his girlfriend, bianca tanner, is missing.
A radio patrol car was dispatched to the scene.
Patrol officers interview angelo.
Angelo tells the patrol officers the night before,
He and bianca had gotten into an argument.
She got mad and left the house.
She left her phone, her car, as well as her 3-year-old son.
And 12 hours later she's nowhere to be found.
She's gone, vanished.
There's some red flags going up as to
Why is this grown adult who's a teacher and she's missing,
Why did she leave her 3-year-old son
At her boyfriend's apartment in the middle of the night?
They determined that it was a missing-persons case.
-She didn't disappear into thin air.
Something happened.
-Up until now,
Bianca richardson tanner's life is filled with promise.
Born in 1983, in raleigh, north carolina,
Bianca is the second of four children,
In a tight-knit family.
-My mom always talked about how from day one
Bianca just had a mind of her own and did what she wanted.
-She was very headstrong.
"no one's gonna tell me what to do."
She moved to the beat of own drum.
-Bianca's always known that she's wanted to be a teacher.
From the start,
She always knew what her purpose and her passion was.
-After high school,
Bianca enrolls in north carolina a&t in greensboro.
-We were both elementary education majors,
So we had all of the same classes together.
-She was very studious, but she made sure to socialize.
-She was a very attractive woman,
So she did have a lot of suitors, she did.
Yes. She did.
But, even though we had a good time,
She was still all about her work.
-26-year-old bianca earns her bachelor's
And a master's degree, then lands a job
As an elementary school teacher in greensboro.
-She connected with so many of her students
And she took a lot of them under her wing.
-Soon, love enters her life.
His name is officer jeremy tanner.
-They went on that first date,
And things just started clicking.
You know, we thought it was kinda cute,
A teacher with a police officer. They were yin and yang.
He would calm her when she needed to,
And she would make him spontaneous
When he needed to be, so they balanced each other.
April of 2010, within a year of meeting each other,
She said "I'm pregnant."
-Everything happened so quickly.
Then that led into "I'm going to marry him."
But she was excited. She loved him.
-On June 19, 2010, bianca marries jeremy.
-The wedding day was beautiful.
The love was so good.
And then January 2011, jared is born.
-Unfortunately, the sweet family life doesn't last.
In any relationship, yin and yang
Can be a powerful force that brings two people together.
But those differences can also be the very thing
That tears them apart.
A few months after jared is born,
Bianca and jeremy begin clashing,
And as quickly as it began, their relationship unravels.
-Bianca's always been very ambitious and very goal-driven,
And she's never hid that from anybody.
He was pretty much complacent and content with
Where he was in life.
She wanted to get a house, increase their income.
So when he wasn't in line with that,
That caused some tension between them.
-Bianca did mention to me that she was not happy,
That she just was unsatisfied with their marriage.
-They started having, like, more arguments.
Seeing that jeremy wasn't willing to do what it takes
To keep his marriage, she said,
"I'm gonna do what I need to do for me and jared" and she did.
-They file for divorce in 2012,
Not long after jared's first birthday.
-They split custody of their son.
Bianca was devastated in the beginning
Because she really did want the marriage to work.
But she then looked at the brighter side and was like,
"I'm divorced, not defeated."
[ police radio chatter ]
-Once police officers complete
Their preliminary investigation, they
Did a cursory search of the house.
They didn't find anything.
At the same time
They ask angelo pertinent questions about bianca.
Does she have a history of this? -Are they on any medications?
Do they have any health concerns?
Did anything change in their daily routine?
What were they wearing?
-Angelo gave the description of the clothing
That was last seen on bianca.
He stated that bianca was wearing a red tank top
And some black nike shorts or something
That she would sleep in, and black flat shoes.
-She's an elementary school teacher.
She has a 3-year-old son.
Where is she?
♪♪
-Sometime in 2012, once bianca gets over the demise
Of her marriage, she gets to a point
Where she's ready to start dating.
Nothing serious, but she was going back out.
-Jeremy wasn't happy about her moving on with dating.
-He would ride by her apartment to see if she had company over.
Follow her, so he would know where she would be at,
Who she's hanging out with.
-In the fall of 2013,
Bianca attends a homecoming party at her alma mater,
And a fellow alum catches her attention.
He's 29-year-old angelo smith.
-So angelo, he came in as prince charming on a white horse.
And everything she thought she wanted
And needed in that moment is who he was.
He was an engineer, in a well-distinguished fraternity.
He was outgoing, driven.
-She was excited.
I'm like, "okay I keep hearing about angelo."
Angelo was romantic,
And it just made bianca head over heels for him.
-They matched each other.
They just had all these dreams and goals.
♪♪
-But those dreams are shattered when, six months later,
Angelo smith reports bianca missing.
-Bianca and her son just recently moved in with angelo.
Angelo says to detectives bianca was angry about a text message
That he received from an unknown number.
[ cellphone chimes ]
The text message started out with "sweetie."
-She was upset,
Thinking that it might be another girl calling him.
-He didn't recognize the number.
He had no idea. He tried to talk to bianca
But he said she was not listening.
-They got into a verbal fight, and she wanted to leave.
He did not want her to leave because she had been drinking,
So he took her keys from her and she left,
To get away, to cool off.
[ alarm clock beeping ]
-Angelo tells police that on Sunday morning,
When he woke up, bianca is still missing.
But her cellphone is in the home,
Her car is parked out front,
And her 3-year-old son, jared, is still in his bed.
-Angelo started making phone calls to determine
If something happened to her
And she got admitted to the hospital,
And then made arrangements to bring bianca's son, jared,
Back to his father, jeremy.
-The school teacher, bianca tanner,
Was slated to start a new job,
But on Sunday her boyfriend reported her missing.
He said she left home earlier that day and never returned.
-Sunday afternoon, June 8th,
I get a message on my phone from jeremy,
Bianca's ex-husband, to say my sister's missing.
Jeremy tells me he needed to get her son, jared,
Because he wasn't sure where bianca was.
This totally is not her.
She's not gonna leave her son and not come back,
Especially with no communication.
-I got the phone call from cerise.
She was like, "please tell me you've heard from my sister."
And I'm like, "oh, my gosh, I have not."
Why would she walk in the middle of the night,
Leaving her son, and not call?
-This does not make sense.
Now it's a race to find where she is.
-We have signs that there was a physical struggle.
-Has he kidnapped bianca? Has he done something to bianca?
Is he actually on the run?
-We put the puzzle pieces together.
-He still wanted to be in control of things
And run the show.
-Bianca left clues.
She left evidence.
-Charlotte-mecklenberg police are investigating
The disappearance of 31-year-old bianca tanner.
It's now more than 12 hours
Since she vanished into the night and
Detectives are questioning her new boyfriend, angelo smith.
-Angelo's the last person with bianca.
So the patrol officers look to see
If there's anything out of the ordinary that jumps out
As something bad had happened to bianca.
-Angelo is giving us an account of a story that may
Or may not be true. We have to be aware of that.
-He didn't act very nervous or upset
That she was missing, and that was questionable.
But in this situation,
They did not see evidence of a struggle or a fight took place.
-As the police continue to gather details,
Bianca's family and friends arrive in charlotte,
Anxious for more information.
-When we arrived from greensboro,
The police took everyone's statements.
We said this totally is not her.
She just would not leave like that, not having contacted me,
Or my mom or my dad.
-Like, nothing was making sense.
-Bianca's boyfriend, angelo, said that she just walked off.
So our team canvassed a number of houses.
We were up and down that street.
-One neighbor saw bianca pacing up and down the driveway
The night she went missing,
But nobody else saw her.
-In the hours after she's reported missing,
We have to get a search warrant for the cellphone data
And we look at financial transactions.
Bianca has a bank account that has no activity in it.
That raises additional concerns.
-The fact that bianca left without her phone or
Her wallet and she hasn't tried to access her bank
Account is alarming. It tells the investigators
She's not going about her life as she usually does.
-We need to look into everything --
Foul play, kidnapping, or anything that's questionable.
-In terms of next steps, we need to figure
Out what's going on with the people around her.
-Initially, we had to look at her significant others
Or loved ones.
In this situation we had a current boyfriend,
Angelo, and an ex-husband, jeremy.
Jeremy worked for the police department in greensboro.
He was actually on a case, in a undercover capacity.
But he agreed to come to the station the next day.
-While they wait to speak with jeremy,
The detectives learn more about bianca's
Current relationship with angelo.
-She kinda started to question the relationship with angelo.
-Recently, angelo was becoming short-tempered,
More controlling.
He wanted to monopolize all her time, outside of her and jared.
He didn't want her attention to be with anyone else.
-I said,
"you don't have to necessarily move in with him.
You can stay with me."
And she kind of thought about it.
But then she went back on it and said,
"no, I'm gonna permanently move in with him."
-When you have people making statements like that,
That strikes your interest quite a bit.
We knew that angelo and bianca
Had gotten into an argument the night she went missing.
We'd like to get some more information from angelo.
So the next day we called angelo down to the police department.
-In his description of what happened,
There was no physical struggle.
Angelo and bianca got into a verbal argument
And she stormed off.
-He got that text,
That he was called "sweetie" by the person that was texting him.
That's what the argument started over.
Verifying his information,
He did get a text in the middle of the night.
It was a lady. She'd gotten the wrong phone number.
So it had nothing to do with him
Having a girlfriend on the side or anything like that.
-Angelo smith then gives detectives their first big lead.
-He stated that bianca had a former boyfriend
Named chris hamilton.
They had a falling out and that she had had
A restraining order out against him.
And angelo felt that chris had something
To do with her disappearance.
-It's a potentially explosive turn in the investigation,
And all eyes turn to chris hamilton.
The detectives need to find out who he is, where he is,
And what he was doing the night bianca disappeared.
-We found out chris lived in greensboro.
He was a cross-country truck driver,
And he'd been calling and stalking her.
-The constant calling, the stalking.
-Was he obsessed with bianca?
He didn't want anybody else to have her but himself.
-This could possibly have been a case of fatal attraction.
We need to talk to chris.
-In charlotte, north carolina,
The detectives search for answers
In the disappearance of bianca tanner.
Through her boyfriend, angelo smith,
They learn about an obsessive suitor in her recent past.
But will this new information help find bianca?
-When initially interviewed,
Angelo said that this guy chris hamilton was calling
And stalking her.
I'm still looking at angelo as a person of interest.
We were waiting for jeremy.
But in the meantime, I'm looking at chris.
I started getting more background information
About bianca and chris's relationship while they dated.
They met in greensboro, dated for a few months.
-In the beginning they had a good time together,
But they started having conflict
Because he wanted something that she wasn't ready for
At the time, so they really didn't get along.
Eventually, she ended the relationship.
-Not long after their breakup is when she started dating angelo.
-Chris became upset
And he began harassing her through phone calls,
Calling her job, popping up at her house.
-I knew she was saying,
"hey, this guy just wouldn't leave me alone."
-So bianca filed a restraining order.
-We need to figure out what's going on with this person.
-But when investigators go to speak with chris hamilton,
They run into a roadblock.
-We were able to make contact with the trucking company
That chris worked for.
They advised he was out of town.
-The first thing that came to mind for me was,
"is he on the run for something
Other than being on a run for work?"
-Has he done something to bianca?
Is that why he's out of town?
I spoke to his supervisor
And I requested that when he'd come back in
They would have him contact us.
-While the investigators keep chris hamilton on their radar,
They also want to speak with other key people
In bianca's life.
That includes her recent ex-husband,
Police officer jeremy tanner,
Who's agreed to come to charlotte for an interview.
-When we know that someone has an ex-husband
That they recently got divorced from, they share a child,
We're gonna look into every possible circumstance.
-The family's told us that jeremy was not very happy
About bianca moving to charlotte with their son.
-I think he became very bitter at the fact
That she actually started moving on with her life.
-We don't treat jeremy any different because he's a cop.
We have to corroborate his story and account
Of everything going on.
-He said he was actually working at the time
Of her disappearance. During the interview,
I was getting a feeling from jeremy
That he didn't like angelo.
Jeremy, he was telling us
How he's doing his little investigation.
Is there anything on her facebook account
That shows where she may be?
Why is angelo's facebook account deleted
And pictures on her facebook account of bianca and angelo
Deleted?
-The investigators still need to corroborate
Jeremy's whereabouts.
But the information he brings up about angelo
Is intriguing.
-It's a process.
We're looking at those persons who are close to her.
Is angelo involved more then he's let on?
-We obtained search warrants for his house and vehicles.
There was no evidence found in angelo's car
When we searched it.
And there was no evidence found in bianca's car.
The house was fairly clean.
There were some spots on a sheet,
Some places on the wall that looked out of the ordinary.
And we collected that and turned it into the crime lab.
-But it's what they discover next
That seems particularly unsettling.
-We found, in the trash can,
A notepad with a written-out statement.
It was pretty much verbatim
That angelo gave missing person detectives on June 8th.
Pretty much like he was rehearsing his interview
For missing persons.
He explained that he contacted a friend of his
And that friend told him he needs to start making notes
Of everything he does.
And that, to me, was very odd.
-The math ain't mathing. This is not adding up.
-While the results of their search capture
The detectives' attention,
For now it's not enough to connect angelo
To bianca's disappearance.
Meanwhile, family and friends are increasingly desperate.
They still don't know if bianca is alive or dead
And they do everything they can to find answers.
-I felt like I was living in a nightmare,
Like is this really real?
-The family is driving from their homes
Out of raleigh and greensboro to charlotte every single day,
Trying to help the police look for tanner.
-We were handing out fliers, we're going door to door,
We're doing everything.
Any lead that we got we would follow.
-10 days pass since bianca disappears,
And media coverage intensifies.
-Missing teacher bianca tanner...
-Bianca tanner. -Bianca tanner.
-There are a lot of tips coming in.
-And there was one tip that came in from a friend
Of chris hamilton.
-Detectives realize this is the very same
Chris hamilton who allegedly harassed bianca,
The truck driver who's been out of town
And who the detectives are anxious to interview.
-That friend felt that chris may have had something
To do with bianca's disappearance
Because he made a comment that bianca got what she deserved
And that they'll find her in a body of water.
-Who says that? What do they know?
-Chris hamilton, he's the top of my list as a person of interest.
-It's been just over a week since anyone
Has seen 31-year-old bianca tanner
And there's a new twist in the investigation.
Chilling comments made by her alleged stalker
Chris hamilton, that bianca
"would be found in a body of water,"
Have detectives wondering: Are these empty words or
Clues to her disappearance?
-We found out that he had
An outstanding warrant in greensboro.
It was pertaining to the restraining order
Where he didn't do something that was court-ordered.
-It's a minor offense,
But it's enough to apprehend chris, if they can locate him.
-I made contact with greensboro police department
And advised them that chris was a person of interest
In the disappearance of bianca tanner.
They located him and had taken him into custody.
-Chris tells greensboro police
That he had nothing to do with bianca's disappearance.
-He was very concerned that she was missing
And hoped nothing was wrong with her.
He said that he did care very much for bianca
Even to the point where
He broke down crying during their interview.
The tip that bianca "got what she deserved,"
Chris said that he made that comment out of anger.
He was upset about the breakup.
Greensboro police department did search his vehicle
And they found no indication that she had ever been there
And that he had an alibi for his whereabouts
When she went missing.
-He's not even close, like,
Not even in the same time zone
When the disappearance took place.
-We did not feel like he could be a person of interest
At that point and we moved on.
-And what about bianca's ex-husband,
Police officer jeremy tanner?
-We were able to corroborate his story.
He was on duty 90 miles away from charlotte.
So jeremy tanner is no longer a person of interest.
-Once I got that information I'm like, "okay,
Jeremy, her ex-husband's cleared."
Chris is pushed to the bottom of the list now.
So now my focus goes back on angelo.
We're doing a subpoena for the phone records
For his phone and bianca's phone.
-As detectives take a deeper dive into angelo's background,
They discover a disturbing pattern.
-Angelo had a history of physically assaulting
Prior girlfriends. From the college,
There was records showing
That he had been arrested on the campus for domestic violence.
Maybe something did happen that night
When they got into an argument.
But there's no physical evidence to show
That angelo's had something to do with bianca's disappearance.
We were having things analyzed from the apartment.
At the time, nothing came back positive as human blood
And we found nothing that assists us in the case at all.
-The investigative team is understandably disappointed.
Bianca's now been missing for 10 days
And they have no clues as to her whereabouts.
Then, as the detectives search
Through the data connected to bianca and angelo's phones,
They uncover crucial new details.
-We get that report back from the phone company.
It shows discrepancies in angelo's story
And his behavior after her disappearance.
Angelo said that the night that they got into an argument,
Bianca left and he went back to bed.
The initial interview never mentioned
That he left the apartment or anything.
Angelo stated that he was there the whole time.
-But on the night of the disappearance,
Bianca's phone and angelo's phone,
They're matching up to an area
Approximately 30 minutes away.
It's in southwest charlotte,
Where angelo and bianca lived was in north charlotte.
-We need to find out what's out there in that area
Where their phones are pinging.
-When the detectives ask angelo about the cellphone records,
He finally admits that in the early hours
After bianca disappeared he sought support from a friend:
Fraternity brother lawrence briscoe.
-This is essentially angelo's alibi.
We need to speak to lawrence.
-Lawrence said on the night of bianca's disappearance
That angelo had been calling him
And angelo ended up
In the middle of the night at his house.
He drives literally across the county to lawrence's house
To tell him that bianca is missing.
Lawrence told him that, well, if bianca is missing,
Where is her son, jared?
And angelo tells him he's back at home in the apartment.
Lawrence told angelo that he should go back home
And report her missing to the police department.
-Lawrence, he was evasive. He didn't feel truthful.
We felt really strongly that lawrence knew more
Than he was telling us at this point.
-Before we can even charge anybody
With any kind of a crime,
There's more evidence to be collected.
The only thing I could get angelo on
Or charge angelo with at the time
Was child neglect for him leaving jared alone at his and
Bianca's apartment for hours the night she went missing
Because he had gone and visited lawrence.
-It's time to apply some pressure. It's time.
-At this point, the detectives
Have little doubt that angelo smith is linked
To bianca's disappearance.
So going after angelo for the misdemeanor charge of child
Neglect is a calculated move.
By taking angelo into custody,
Investigators hope they'll be able to persuade
Him to come clean and reveal what happened to bianca tanner.
All they have to do now is pick him up.
[ knock on door ]
-He was not there. He was not there.
-The neighbors said that angelo
And some family members had come
And loaded cars up with his belongings
And he had left town.
-Why did you leave?
Where did you go to?
-Now he's fleeing.
Am I ever going to be able to find angelo again?
The evidence popped out like a bright light.
-Now what do you have to say?
-Angelo, where is she? Where is she?
-He comes in and he says, "we found her."
♪
-In charlotte, north carolina,
The detectives on bianca tanner's missing-persons
Case turn up the heat on their prime suspect,
Bianca's boyfriend, angelo smith.
But just when they move to arrest him
On a child-neglect charge, angelo's nowhere to be found.
In my experience, innocent people don't run,
Which is exactly why detectives decide
To escalate the search for angelo.
-We reach out to the u.S. Marshals,
The big best friends of law enforcement.
-They got their ways of tracking people.
On June 26th, they pinpointed angelo in chicago,
Where he's from,
And they take angelo into custody on the warrant.
Detective harrington and myself made arrangements
To fly to chicago and conduct an interview with him.
-We told him he was being arrested on a warrant
For child endangerment.
-We questioned angelo about some of the other relationships
He had and the assaults between angelo
And his prior girlfriends,
And he couldn't really give us excuse why that took place.
His demeanor is very self-serving, very cocky.
He was very concerned about his well-being,
Not so much the well-being of bianca.
On numerous times, I had angelo on the edge,
Almost ready to confess,
But he would catch himself and withdraw or change the topic.
-After about 12 hours we were like, "okay,
Well, if you don't have anything to say,
You're gonna be extradited back to north carolina."
-So we drove through the night
Into the next morning from chicago.
I wanted to make him uncomfortable.
I had a picture of bianca that I blew up
And I taped it to the back of the headrest,
In front of angelo
So he'd have to stare at her picture
For the next 12-plus hours on that drive.
-Back in north carolina, angelo is no longer talking.
So the detectives turn to technology to get some answers.
Specifically, they get a warrant
To take u.V. Photographs of angelo.
U.V. Lighting can detect forensic evidence on the body
That's not visible to the naked eye, even weeks after an injury.
-Once the u.V. Light radiated across his body,
You could actually see what needed to be seen.
-It popped out like a bright light.
You see the bruising
And the impression of a hand on his forearm.
And then there was a bruise in the web of his hand,
Between his index finger and his thumb
Where it looks like somebody may have reached up
And grabbed it and pinched down enough that it left a bruise
That could be seen underneath the u.V. Lighting.
-Bianca was petite and the prints that she left,
You know, were small.
They use scientific processes to determine
That, based on the stages that bruising goes through,
That it aligned with the timing of her disappearance.
-Angelo's description of what happened
Was they got into a verbal argument.
Now, we have signs that there was a physical struggle.
-Bianca left clues. She left evidence.
-But there's still not enough evidence to charge him
With an actual crime.
I need to prove without a shadow of a doubt
This person was involved.
Angelo was booked into the mecklenburg county jail
For the child-neglect warrant.
He was released. He bonded out.
-Angelo, where is she? Where is she?
-I feel like it was bullcrap, that he's been released.
-Angelo is still the prime suspect
In bianca's disappearance.
But while detectives continue to work the case,
Bianca's loved ones hold out hope for her return.
On July 2nd, they gather in charlotte.
-Family and friends joined together
To pray she'll return home safely.
-We get together and hold a prayer vigil.
We're still having faith. We're still gonna believe.
Because she loved cheetah print,
We went out and got ribbons and the community came out and...
And supported us.
-The emotional response to bianca's disappearance
Is felt throughout the city of charlotte.
That collective concern may be the reason why,
Less than 24 hours after the vigil,
Investigators receive a surprising call
From angelo's frat brother and key alibi.
[ line ringing ]
-Lawrence briscoe agreed to come in.
I do believe that pressure was getting to him.
Lawrence said angelo had come to his house,
And angelo made a comment to lawrence
That he had screwed up this time -- he'd gone too far.
That he had choked bianca and bianca
Was laying in the kitchen, on the floor.
And then they drove back to angelo's apartment.
Angelo wrapped bianca in plastic and a blanket
And carried her out to her car
And put her in the trunk of the car.
-Lawrence says they then drove to a wooded area near his house.
-He gave us the general location where lawrence and angelo,
Where they drove and got rid of bianca's body.
-Then it's like "let's mobilize. Let's go."
[ siren wails ]
-We get to the location.
It was extremely hot, very humid.
At this point, it's early, early morning of July 3rd.
So we are talking about close to a full four weeks
In the heat of a north carolina summer.
We then began a field search, walking in the area.
-Then, just before dawn, about two hours into the search,
Detectives turn off a trail and make a grim discovery.
-We located human remains.
-They had tried to cover the remains up with some underbrush,
Tree branches, and so forth.
-By the time she was found, the decomposition has occurred.
-Once her remains were located,
It fit the description of the clothing
That was last seen on bianca the night
She went missing after the argument with angelo.
So I was pretty confident that was bianca.
-It is very emotional for the detectives.
We put the puzzle pieces together.
Now we have the case against angelo.
-After nearly four weeks,
The search for bianca tanner is over.
With the discovery of her body
And the confession from lawrence briscoe,
Detectives finally have enough to arrest her boyfriend,
Angelo smith, for killing bianca.
-Once we identified that we'd found the remains of bianca,
They took angelo smith into custody.
-Bianca's family receives the news from a member
Of the charlotte-mecklenburg homicide unit.
-He comes in and he sits down and he says, "we found her."
She did come home. She was found.
But we just wanted to bring her home alive.
♪♪
-For law enforcement, the investigation isn't over.
They need to make their case airtight.
So the pressure is on to secure angelo's confession.
-It was incredibly important to present angelo
With this evidence of her body.
"now what do you have to say?"
-Angelo repeats his claim that he and bianca
Got into an argument over a text message from an unknown number.
But this time his story takes a bizarre turn.
-He said that once the text message came through,
She was angry and she pulled a gun.
-And then angelo stated that he took the gun from her
And she started fighting with him again,
He started putting her in a chokehold
And eventually she went limp and he laid her on the floor.
His story was that bianca did this, this, and this to him.
And there was no evidence of that.
And she's never owned,
Been around or had anything to do with guns.
-He's a gaslighter.
He was a gaslighter up until the end.
-The charge of first-degree murder
Carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
But two years later, in may 2016,
Angelo smith reaches a deal with the state.
He pleads guilty to manslaughter
And is sentenced to 26 years in prison.
-In this situation,
We didn't have a confession in the way
That I would've liked from angelo.
I think the justice system did what they needed to do.
-Do I think he meant to kill her?
That's still up in the air for me,
But I think he meant to hurt her,
To let her know that he was the boss.
And then unfortunately it cost her her life.
-He never, ever, ever apologized.
-Angelo's fraternity brother, lawrence briscoe,
Is sentenced to three to six years in prison
For helping to cover up bianca's murder.
And in a shocking turn of events,
In 2021 angelo smith dies by suicide in prison.
-Our whole world has completely changed upside down
In the blink of an eye.
It just hurts.
But I'll remember her as the total package:
Beautiful, intelligent, humorous, always a go-getter.
-Not a day goes by that I don't think about her.
I just miss her being that friend.
I could call her about anything.
She was such a good friend. Yeah.
-Justice has been served, so I feel like she could truly --
Her soul can truly be free and rest in peace.
-Bianca tanner's bold and confident approach to life
Inspired all who knew her.
She was a beloved mother and teacher,
Working towards her dreams.
Then she met a man who seemed poised to help
Make those dreams come true
Until that bright beginning, ended in a killer relationship.