[somber music]
- Candiace Person was a devout churchgoer.
- We would just go to Ms. Candiace Person's house
and just have fun there, have Thanksgiving.
- She was a sweet, beautiful, devoted woman.
[siren wailing]
- When I got the call and I found out...
[camera shutter snapping]
I was just blown away.
- She'd found her mother deceased.
She was possibly strangled.
- This was shocking.
You just don't expect someone to be raped and murdered
in their own home.
It was a horrific crime.
- No fingerprints were found.
This was kind of concerning.
- He had been breaking in some of the homes
of the elderly ladies.
- You just hope that it's not a serial rapist and murderer.
[dramatic music]
- The community's on edge.
And they wanted answers.
- He's breaking into another elderly lady's house
through the back door in the same neighborhood.
- It was eerie.
The dismantling of the phone, the strangulation,
the rape, the pocketbook being discarded--
it matched the crime scene to a tee.
- I don't wanna call him a human being, 'cause he's not.
He's an animal.
* *
[sirens wailing]
* *
- After the dawn of the third millennium,
Atlanta, Georgia, is going through
a significant growth spurt.
- Atlanta in 2005 was bustling.
Atlantic Station was opening up.
The aquarium had opened.
And we had the first Black female mayor
of Atlanta, Shirley Franklin.
- And in southwest Atlanta, there's a quiet enclave
that gives residents the perfect mix
of city and suburban life:
Campbellton.
- It was, like, a rural area but very close to the city.
It was safe.
* *
So I think that was sort of the grab for people
is being able to be close to the city
but also being a place with good schools
where people could raise their family.
* *
- Over the years, Campbellton has become known
as one of Atlanta's most devout religious communities.
- Southwest Atlanta was a middle-class community.
And pretty much just like a lot
of predominantly Black areas,
you're gonna have a lot of churches.
- But on November 26, 2005,
this quaint, pious neighborhood
gets a dose of the devil's work.
* *
In the early-morning hours, Fulton County Police
receive a 911 call from a woman on Marvin Lane
named Tisha Person.
- She said she'd found her mother
what she believed deceased on her bedroom floor.
She was emotionally upset when she told us what had happened.
* *
- Tisha identifies her mother
as 53-year-old Candiace Person.
[siren wailing]
Fulton County Police race to the scene
and immediately confirm that Candiace is dead.
- When law enforcement arrive at Ms. Person's house,
they notice that there wasn't any sign of a struggle
because the furniture was intact.
Nothing was really obstructed.
- And then when they made their way upstairs
into Ms. Person's bedroom and located where she was laying,
they found her on the floor
wrapped up in a comforter with her head resting
on a floral pillow,
looking very peaceful,
you know, as if she was just sleeping.
* *
- The positioning of the body didn't appear
that she had been in a struggle.
It crossed our mind, just from the position of the body,
that we could be dealing with someone that knew her.
* *
- There were not any punctures to the body,
so it did not appear that she was stabbed.
There was not a gunshot wound.
- We noticed that there was some hemorrhaging
in her eyes, which is consistent with strangulation.
So we're thinking at this point,
she was possibly strangled.
- And as the detectives peeled back the comforter
off of Ms. Person, they discovered
that she did not have any pajama bottoms on.
She did not have any panties on.
* *
That immediately raised suspicion
that not only is this a murder,
but this could be a sexual assault.
Her underwear was also missing.
So that kind of threw us a little bit.
You know, could this have been a serial killer
that was trying to keep a trophy?
- Near her feet, it appeared that her pocketbook
had been dumped out.
And the contents were strewn about the carpet
near the bottom of her feet.
- Her credit cards were missing.
* *
- After looking over the victim's body,
CSI continues to process the scene.
* *
- They scoured the house.
They were looking for any type of DNA evidence,
swabbing for blood, fluids, anything we could find.
Unfortunately, we came up empty-handed.
- They dusted the home.
And ultimately, no fingerprints were found.
This was kind of concerning.
- We couldn't even find Candiace's fingerprints.
So that immediately told us that this killer
knew what they were doing and took enough time
to clean up the crime scene.
- Detective Gentile speaks to the victim's daughter, Tisha,
who found her mother deceased.
- Tisha had just recently moved out of the home
living with her mother.
And according to Tisha, they would speak
two, three, four times every day.
But she said she had called all day.
Her mother never answered the phone.
Tisha got off work and decided to go
to the house to check on her.
* *
Tisha still had a key to her mom's home,
so she said she unlocked the front door.
- Tisha explains that nobody else
was there when she arrived.
And after finding her mother's body,
she discovered something else that alarmed her.
- She ran to the phone inside the house.
She picked it up.
And she said she tried to call 911,
but the phone wasn't working.
It was, like, disconnected, which she said was odd.
So we then went outside.
And we noticed the phone lines had been
ripped out of the phone connection box
on the side of the house.
- We realized it was most likely
because the killer did not want Candiace
getting to a phone to call.
They, in their mind, knew that they were gonna kill her.
And they wanted to go undetected.
- Then Tisha reveals to police another unusual change
to her mother's home.
- Tisha said that she also noticed
that at the back of the carport,
there was a gate that was open into the backyard.
And she said that was extremely odd
because she said no one had gone
through that gate in years.
- We discovered that the light bulb by the back door
had been slightly unscrewed.
So that tells us that the killer most likely
entered the house in the evening time
when the light was on.
They were trying to enter in the cover of darkness.
* *
- We saw that the back door had several windowpanes,
one of which was broken out.
And the back door was slightly ajar.
So it appeared that someone had broke the windowpane,
reached in and unlocked the back door,
and that's how entry was made into the house.
- Detectives must now try to determine
if this was a random attack or if Candiace was targeted.
* *
Investigators question Tisha
about her mother's personal life.
- Candiace Person was a devout churchgoer
who did a lot for her community.
- Tisha said there was not one bad thing
that anybody could say about Candiace.
She was just a very, very loving,
wonderful person.
- Tisha tells investigators
she can't think of any suspects.
But she does give them a potential lead.
- She said that her mom's car,
a 2004 blue Chevy,
was missing from the driveway.
* *
- So we're assuming that the vehicle was used
to leave the scene after the homicide.
- We immediately put out an all-points bulletin
so no matter where that vehicle was traveling,
officers would get an alert over their radio,
their computer systems, and they would know
to stop that vehicle.
And the purpose of that is to catch
this killer as fast as we can.
We were hoping to actually catch
whoever killed Candiace in her vehicle.
* *
- The team is hopeful the APB will result
in the killer's apprehension.
In the meantime, detectives review the crime scene
to ascertain how to proceed.
- So now that the crime scene has been investigated
by law enforcement, they're really concerned
that this perpetrator is not only
meticulous in his cleaning everything
but that he might be very good at what they do.
- Had he struck against other women?
So we weren't really certain
if this was just an isolated incident.
Did he plan on striking against future women?
This happened in a very nice neighborhood.
And it created a whole lot of panic.
So we need answers, and we need answers fast.
* *
This killer was lying in wait
to find the most opportune moment to strike.
Not one fingerprint was even lifted.
- Detectives are concerned that the case may go cold.
- The DNA evidence is our best chance of solving this crime.
- In this case, we hit the jackpot.
[dramatic music]
- Atlanta homicide detectives are investigating the chilling
murder of 53-year-old Candiace Person,
found strangled and wrapped in a blanket in her home.
While waiting on autopsy results,
police canvass Candiace's neighborhood to find out
if anyone saw or heard anything
the night she was killed.
- This murder occurred in this established neighborhood
which doesn't have a very high crime rate.
- It's a very close-knit neighborhood.
Neighbors watch each other's backs.
- People would notice someone who didn't belong
and who stuck out like a sore thumb--
a stranger, so to speak.
- Unfortunately, the neighbors said that they hadn't seen
anything out of the ordinary that evening,
hadn't seen anybody coming or going from the house.
It didn't produce any viable leads for us.
- And that kind of led us to believe
that this killer or killers must have entered
in the cover of darkness at nighttime.
They were lying in wait
to find the most opportune moment to strike.
- The team also looks for surveillance cameras
in the area, but they come up empty.
As the investigation continues,
Candiace's family and church parish
mourn her tragic loss.
- Candiace Person was a trusted and beloved
member of her church.
And the rape and murder of Candiace Person
was very shocking.
- No one could believe that something like this
could happen not only in the community
but to this type of person.
- Candiace Person was a very independent woman.
She held a job as a custodian
at the DeKalb County school system.
She took a lot of pride in her work.
She was a very, very loving, dedicated mother
to her only daughter, Tisha.
- I knew 100% she was all for Tisha, all for her baby.
That was her only child, and she was very, very loving,
a very loving person.
- And she was very close to her daughter.
At one point, Tisha at 17 got very sick,
and she had kidney failure.
And her mother was by Tisha's side day in and day out
until finally, Tisha had a donor and she got better.
But they considered each other best friends thereafter.
- Candiace also regularly opened her home
to people in need.
- Tisha and I met in college.
So for holidays, I would just go
to Ms. Candiace Person's house.
And we would all just-- you know, just have fun there,
have Thanksgiving or, you know, things like that.
She was just a sweet person.
- As Candiace's friends and family
attempt to recover from the tragedy,
detectives get word that the autopsy results are in.
- The medical examiner was able to determine
that Candiace died of asphyxiation.
She had clear markings on her face, her mouth
that indicated maybe something was held over her face,
either the killer or killers' hands or an object.
- The ME also confirms
Candiace was sexually assaulted before her death
and recovers evidence that could play a major part
in tracking down the assailant.
- As part of the process for the autopsy,
the sexual assault kit was done.
Vaginal swabs were recovered.
There was semen
that was recovered.
* *
And they're sent
to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation
for processing.
- We were hoping that we would get a CODIS hit.
A CODIS hit is a database
offenders coming out of jail had to submit to.
- At this point, the fact that there's no fingerprints
recovered--the DNA evidence is our best chance
of solving this crime at this time.
- It will take months for CODIS to yield any results.
So detectives circle back to Candiace's family
to dig deeper for information about the men in her life.
- After knowing that during the homicide
that she had been raped,
now we're looking at males, obviously.
- I never saw any men around her.
She never had anybody like that.
She stayed at home and basically was a family person.
- And Candiace's family said she was not
currently dating anybody.
She was focused on working, serving her church,
and taking care of her daughter.
She wasn't known to be a frequent dater.
The only significant man in her life
was Tisha's father, Larry.
* *
- In a case such as this, the ex-husband
is usually a very prime target.
- Investigators get Larry's contact information
from his daughter Tisha
and call him in for questioning.
- He was very forthcoming.
He was very cooperative.
- He is completely heartbroken.
He claims that he is distraught
that the mother of his child has been murdered.
- And I learned that they were divorced
but it had been an amicable separation.
They were still getting along years later.
There had been no past incidents
of domestic violence.
- While Larry appears sincere and forthcoming,
the team needs to definitively rule him out as a suspect.
- In the homicide world,
you just can't take somebody's word.
So you need definitive physical evidence.
And the only way to rule Larry out was to get his DNA.
- Larry was extremely cooperative.
We asked for a DNA sample,
which he gladly provided to us.
We collected it. It was sent off to the lab.
* *
- We had that compared with the DNA
taken from Candiace's sexual assault kit,
and it was not a match.
So at that point, we knew we could
rule Larry out as the suspect.
- So now law enforcement is back to square one.
* *
- Then two days into the investigation,
detectives catch a break.
- Ms. Person's vehicle-- we knew
that it was not in the driveway.
So we placed the vehicle in our system as stolen.
We got a call from the MARTA Police Department,
which is the local transit police department.
- Candiace's vehicle had been located at a MARTA station.
And it was located just approximately
five miles from her residence.
We finally got a really, really good lead.
We knew that the killer must have taken her vehicle.
So we're certain at this point
that we have a hook to finding our killer.
[dramatic music]
- The Atlanta homicide team
investigating the rape and murder
of Candiace Person
has just discovered a major lead:
Candiace's stolen car.
- Two days into the investigation
of Candiace's murder, we found Candiace's car
at the MARTA station.
We took it back to our homicide cage
and had the Georgia Bureau of Investigations
respond to our location just to make sure
that we did a very methodical look
for any evidence in this car.
- There was nothing in the car--
no drink bottles, no keys, no nothing.
- And unfortunately, not one fingerprint was even lifted.
Typically people will touch the rearview mirror
and, you know, forget that they did that
just in order to adjust so they could drive.
No fingerprints.
* *
- This coincided with what we saw
back at the homicide scene.
So this right away made us believe again
that the perpetrator or perpetrators
took time to meticulously make sure
that no evidence was left behind.
- But this careful killer may have made a mistake.
The MARTA stations are all equipped
with surveillance cameras.
- We were very, very excited.
Because it was found at a MARTA station,
we knew that there were gonna be cameras everywhere.
So we were certain we would see our suspect
or suspects on the camera.
Once we were able to pull the video at the MARTA station,
we were quickly deflated.
We saw that where Candiace's car was located
was too far from the cameras.
So all we could see was a very grainy image.
- The video at the MARTA
actually didn't produce any leads for us.
So it's back to square one.
- So now, with zero leads, no security footage,
detectives are concerned that the case may go cold.
- As investigators revisit their evidence
to find any clues as to who killed Candiace Person,
they get word that a man has just been picked up
for an eerily similar crime.
* *
- December 1, 2005,
four days after the murder of Ms. Person,
patrol officers picked up Ronaldo Anderson
as he was attempting to break into a home
several blocks from Ms. Person's home.
- Here's Ronaldo Anderson
breaking into another elderly lady's house
through the back door in the same neighborhood,
going after credit cards, just like with Candiace.
So we feel he could potentially be
a good suspect in Candiace's case.
- I immediately requested that the officers bring him
to the homicide office so I could speak with him.
So I sat down, interviewed Mr. Anderson.
- During Ronaldo's interview,
he did confess that he had been breaking in
some of the homes of the elderly ladies
and taking their credit cards.
* *
- I asked him if he knew about the murder.
And he totally denied it.
- He stated he didn't do it,
he had nothing to do with her murder.
But he really didn't have a clear-cut alibi
for the date that Candiace was murdered.
- While Ronaldo denies any involvement
in Candiace's rape and murder,
detectives have one surefire way
to determine his guilt.
- I then asked him if he'd provide a DNA sample
to eliminate him, and he was cooperative.
He provided me with a DNA sample.
- And his DNA was compared to the swab
we collected from Candiace's body
and was not a match.
* *
- Well, the fact that Larry the ex-husband's DNA
isn't a match,
Ronaldo Anderson's isn't a match,
we're still looking for a suspect.
- When something like this happens in a neighborhood,
you actually don't know if it's someone
who plans to go into other people's homes.
You just hope that it's not a serial rapist and murderer.
So the community was really on top of the police
to solve this case.
- Just over a week into the investigation,
police have no suspects to offer up.
And the quiet neighborhood of Campbellton
is growing concerned.
- The community's on edge.
And it was concerning for the neighborhood,
for the community.
They wanted answers.
And unfortunately, at this point,
all we have is that DNA.
And we're doing our best to link it to someone.
- Local media picks up the story,
barraging Atlanta with constant coverage,
christening the killer the Southside Strangler.
- Law enforcement is trying desperately
to keep everyone calm in the neighborhood,
but they really need a break in the case.
* *
[phone rings]
- I get a call one evening
from Ms. Person's daughter, Tisha.
And she said that she had gotten
some mail from Discover Card that was addressed to her mom.
And she said it appeared odd to her
because her mother hadn't used that card in quite a while.
The information that was sent to her
said that her card had attempted to be used
at an Amoco gas station
at the intersection of Interstate 20
and Fulton Industrial Boulevard.
And that transaction was denied at about 6:00 in the morning
the day after the homicide.
* *
- A lot of suspects, when they commit crimes
and steal credit cards, they miraculously
use the credit card.
So that was, in fact, what happened here in this case.
- Detectives immediately jump into action
and rush to the Amoco station.
Is it possible they'll finally get an image of their killer?
- We were praying for video.
We're always praying for video,
which is very hard to come by.
But fortunately, in this case, we hit the jackpot
and was able to recover video.
With that and the DNA sample,
we think we can finally catch the killer.
* *
- She tells them that the male in the video
is her ex-boyfriend.
[camera shutter snapping]
- That was huge because that was
very specific information that had not been
released to the media.
We finally feel that we have our first real suspect
in the murder of Candiace Persons.
- She said that he went on to date
Ms. Person's daughter, Tisha.
- Atlanta detectives investigating
the brutal murder of Candiace Person
are going through surveillance footage at a gas station
where someone used Candiace's credit card
shortly after she was killed.
- Video inside the store did reveal
that a short Black male had entered the store
and had walked around.
We didn't have an identification
of who that was, but it was somebody
that we definitely wanted to try to speak with.
- We finally feel that we have our first real suspect
in the murder of Candiace Persons.
[dramatic music]
But we have to identify who this person is.
So our best tool is the media.
We get the image out on the media.
And we're hoping for tips and leads
and things we can follow up on.
[phone rings]
And we get a very interesting phone call
from a woman named Nicole Andrews.
She stated that the person in the video
was somebody she used to date.
* *
- Detectives quickly head over to Nicole's apartment
to speak with her.
Nicole tells investigators she was surprised when she saw
Bryant's picture on TV.
- Ms. Andrews tells law enforcement
that she's certain the male in the video
is her ex-boyfriend Willie Lee Bryant.
- Nicole tells detectives that she knew
Candiace Person because she was good friends
with her daughter, Tisha.
She also says Bryant is no stranger to violence.
- I couldn't believe it.
I mean, I could, but I couldn't.
He was just hot-tempered.
The red flags were all over the place.
I started to date Willie in college.
I quickly found his true colors to be disturbing.
I would wake up, and he would be choking me.
It just was just bad.
If I stay in this toxic, very abusive relationship,
then I don't know what's gonna happen.
So I kicked him out.
And I was like, I'm done with it.
- Nicole says after finally ending the relationship
after several years, she obtained
a restraining order against Bryant,
but it didn't stop the abuse.
- Nicole explained to me one specific incident
where she came home one night, came into her apartment,
and noticed that the sliding glass door
in the rear of the house was open.
- I thought I had checked everything.
But my closet, I did not check closely enough,
because he comes out.
And I said to myself right there, this is it.
I was like, he's gonna kill me today.
- At that point, they got into a physical confrontation.
- He just kept repeating,
if I can't have you, nobody else will.
He just kept saying that over and over and over and over.
* *
And he had me sitting there, torturing me
for I don't remember how many hours, but it was hours.
After a certain amount of time, he decided
he was going to rape me.
And he did monstrous things.
It was terrifying.
* *
- The information that Nicole Andrews
gave us was very credible.
She appeared very truthful.
- Nicole's story tells detectives Willie Bryant
is capable of a violent attack.
But what she tells them next sounds eerily familiar.
- She said that when he finished this violent attack,
he took her pocketbook and he dumped it out at her feet.
He stole a credit card or some money
and that at some point
had taken her phone and thrown it against a wall
in an attempt to make it so she couldn't call 911
and exited the apartment.
It was eerie to hear her recall her account--
entry through a rear door,
the dismantling of the phone, the strangulation,
the rape, the pocketbook being discarded.
And it matched the crime scene of Ms. Person almost to a tee.
- That was huge in this case because that was
very specific information that had not
been released to the media.
So that whole MO that Willie used with Nicole Andrews
was the same thing that he did to Candiace.
* *
- As suspicions grow, police ask Nicole
if she knows of any connection between Willie Bryant
and Candiace Person.
Nicole's answer leaves detectives speechless.
- She said that her ex Mr. Bryant went on to date
Ms. Person's daughter, Tisha.
- I was floored by it.
Tisha and I had been such good friends
that I didn't understand, like, why you would have him
in the house, because she was around to experience
some of his tirades and his anger.
I didn't know why she would
involve herself in somebody like that.
He's a disgusting, despicable--
I don't even want to call him a human being, 'cause he's not.
He's an animal.
So when I found out that he had been
accused of raping and murdering Candiace Person,
it didn't shock me.
And I said, if you don't get him off the streets,
he is going to rape and murder someone.
- The fact that Willie began to date Tisha,
which is Candiace's daughter,
that was the first real big connection to tie
Candiace's killer to a person she knew.
She knew Willie.
As soon as Nicole Andrews revealed all of this,
we knew we had our killer.
- Atlanta detectives investigating
the rape and murder of Candiace Person
are interviewing Nicole Andrews,
the ex-girlfriend of lead suspect Willie Lee Bryant.
Nicole revealed Bryant had assaulted her
in a similar manner to Candiace.
And he had also gone on to date
Candiace's daughter, Tisha.
- It's probably a lot about control with women.
He may have had something in his childhood
that made him have a certain image of women.
And so cutting phone lines and raping somebody
is the ultimate control for a person like Willie.
- Investigators immediately reach out to Tisha
to glean more information
about her relationship with Bryant.
- We brought her into the homicide office.
And we asked her about this person
she used to date, Willie Bryant.
And she described a whole different story about Willie.
She described him as very calm
and certainly not capable of doing anything like this.
Tisha described their relationship
as him being very close with the family
and coming over for holidays and hanging out
and everybody liking him
and him being not violent.
As we were speaking with Tisha and explained to her
that we believed that Willie
is the person that killed her mother,
she was shocked.
She was in complete disbelief.
She did not believe the Willie she knew
was capable of such a horrific act.
[dramatic music]
- Ms. Person almost thought of him as a son,
that she took him in,
treated him as part of the family.
- Tisha even explained in her interview
that Willie and her mom, Candiace,
were so close that Willie used to call her mom Mom.
- Tisha says while Bryant never assaulted her,
she did get a dose of his bad behavior.
- According to Tisha, what ultimately ended
their relationship was,
he had stolen $500 from her
that was at her house.
She confronted him about it,
and that was kind of the straw
that broke the camel's back in that relationship.
- Tisha explains that she never heard from Bryant again.
And then two months later, her mother was killed.
Investigators believe that with Bryant's temper,
this incident with Tisha may have pushed him over the edge
and motivated him to commit murder.
- In this point in the investigation,
we have a really, really good circumstantial case.
We have finally found the connection
with Candiace and her killer because Willie Lee Bryant
had dated Candiace's daughter, Tisha.
He had committed this horrible, violent act
towards Nicole Andrews, who suffered
the same violence at the hands of Willie
that Candiace suffered.
And we have clear video of Willie using
Candiace's credit card after she's dead.
* *
- So at this point, we're able to secure
an arrest warrant for Willie Bryant
for the murder of Ms. Person.
- We want to bring Willie in, we want to take his DNA,
and we want to compare that
to our best piece of physical evidence.
* *
- Police immediately track Bryant down.
- I learned that sometime in late December of 2005,
about a month after the homicide,
he had been locked up in Fulton County Jail
on drug charges.
But Willie had since been released and was working
for a temp agency doing some type of construction work
and that he was staying in a hotel in Gwinnett County.
I brought him back to the homicide office.
And I sit him down.
* *
I started asking him about his relationship with Tisha's mom.
Oh, she was like a mom to me.
Got along great, blah, blah, blah.
I asked him if he knew about the murder of Ms. Person.
And there was no reaction.
Now, you just told me that this was like a mom to you,
and there's no reaction.
And he just totally denied everything.
I explained to him that I wanted him
to provide a DNA sample for me
to eliminate him as a suspect.
At first, he was a little hesitant.
But he then provided a DNA sample.
- Bryan's demeanor is arrogant as he hands over
the DNA sample to investigators.
Then Bryant makes a surprising admission.
- Willie immediately says that he and Candiace Person
had an intimate relationship.
He stated, about a week before she was found dead,
she came down to the hotel I was staying at.
She brought me food.
And he stated that they had sexual intercourse.
- They had sex voluntarily, that this is something
that they would do from time to time.
But he's denying ever going to the house,
breaking in, and commit the homicide there that night.
He's totally denying that.
So at this point, he wants me to believe Ms. Person--
who was like a mother to him,
who's his ex-girlfriend's mom,
treated him like a son, was churchgoing,
family-oriented lady--
is now having sex with him in crack hotels
on Thanksgiving after spending time with her family
and church members.
No.
Didn't happen.
- Bryant refuses to confess.
But with the surveillance footage tying him
to Candiace's stolen credit cards
and Nicole Andrews establishing
a pattern of violence,
authorities have enough evidence to charge
Willie Lee Bryant with murder.
* *
But when the DNA results come in,
the team hits a potential roadblock.
- So when the DNA results came back,
we found out that Willie's DNA was only a partial match.
- They think they have their man.
They think they have their suspect.
But it's only a partial match, which means that there's
a 1-in-6,000 chance
that somebody else could've raped
and murdered Candiace Person.
- It was like hitting a huge brick wall going
at, like, 90 miles an hour.
It was awful.
- While investigators are confident they have
their killer, the fact that the DNA isn't 100% conclusive
could lead a jury to acquit.
- Even with this partial match, prosecutors decide
they're gonna go ahead and bring this case to trial
and try to convict Willie Lee Bryant
of the rape and murder of Candiace Person.
And it's a risky proposition, but they go ahead anyway.
* *
[camera shutter snapping]
- Atlanta detectives have apprehended
their lead suspect, Willie Lee Bryant,
for the rape and murder of Candiace Person.
Shortly after Bryant is charged with killing Candiace,
the case hits a snag.
- After Willie provided the DNA sample,
it was sent off to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation
to be tested against the DNA recovered at the crime scene.
- But unfortunately, the DNA test was not conclusive.
It came back with a partial match to Mr. Bryant.
There was a 1-in-6,000 chance that Ms. Person's rapist
could've been someone else.
[dramatic music]
- While the DNA is not a complete match,
the circumstantial evidence is compelling.
So prosecutors continue forward
as the case moves to trial.
- The DA highlighted basically just how pure,
what a good person Candiace was.
She didn't have men coming in and out of the house.
She wasn't dating.
She was focused on working, serving her church,
and taking care of her daughter.
- Prosecutors juxtaposed witness testimony
about Candiace's character with Bryant's
far-fetched story about their alleged relationship.
- Bryant has this very bizarre tale
about what could've transpired between he and Ms. Persons.
He claims that they had this love affair
where she would visit him at this roach-infested hotel,
bring a meal, and they would have sex.
- There was no way possible a jury would believe
that this sweet, beautiful, devoted woman
is gonna have any type of intimate relationship
with her daughter's boyfriend.
That just--it's just not believable on any level.
- To ensure the jury understands
the horror experienced by Candiace at the hands
of Bryant, the DA calls a witness
to the stand with firsthand knowledge
of Bryant's brutality.
- And I went to court.
I walked in and went straight to the stand
and did not wanna make eye contact with him.
He was just staring into my soul.
I didn't ever wanna look at him again.
When you really see the person that he is,
when that monster comes out, it's scary.
It's scary.
And when I see...
[sighs] Like, mug shots,
that little stupid smirk that he has
right before he does something terrible,
I know that look.
And so I just knew I needed to get justice for Candiace
and myself as well.
So they heard my story.
* *
- After a weeklong trial,
the jury is sent to deliberate.
And with no conclusive physical evidence
tying Bryant to the crime scene,
the mood in the court is tense.
- During the deliberations, it was a very stressful time
for Candiace's family, for Tisha especially,
for the church, the community.
Everybody was on edge, just praying that
Willie didn't get acquitted
and that he would be back out on the streets
to victimize the next person's mother.
* *
- On February 15, 2010, after a short deliberation,
Willie Lee Bryant is found guilty
of felony murder and rape.
He is sentenced to life plus 20 years behind bars.
- Thank God.
I felt vindicated and extremely happy
for the family and Tisha.
I hate him so much.
And the way I feel is the way other people--
the Persons, everybody in Candiace's life,
that's the way they feel.
And since I know how that feels,
I don't feel bad about saying I hate him,
'cause that pain, you know, it's horrible.
He's a horrible person.
And I hope to God he stays in prison.
* *
- With Willie Lee Bryant finally off the streets
for good, Candiace's friends and family
can finally mourn her life, tragically cut short.
- Candiace was extremely bubbly, so funny.
I mean, she used to have me in stitches.
She was a very-- just a sweet person.
And I feel so bad for the Person family
because I know that they still struggle.
I know that they still are broken.
I hope they find healing,
'cause I'm still looking for mine.
I hope that they do get that.
* *