Angelo Smith pleads guilty to manslaughter in the death of Bianca Tanner

When Bianca Tanner disappeared from her home in Charlotte, North Carolina, on June 8, 2014, the elementary school teacher left behind her three-year-old son. Around noon that day, her boyfriend, Angelo Smith, reported her missing to 911. Family and friends immediately became suspicious.

“That’s not her at all,” Cerise Richardson, Tanner’s sister, said on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkinsairs Saturdays at 8/7c on Oxygen. “She is not going to leave her son and not come back. Especially without communication.”

Smith told police he and Tanner got into an argument around midnight after he received a text message from an unknown number calling him “Honey.” He said she left the house, leaving behind not only her son, but also her phone and car, and he “hasn’t heard from or seen her since.”

“She left. Disappeared. He didn’t seem very nervous or upset about her disappearance. And it was questionable,” said Charlotte Det. Tim Jolly on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins. “But in this situation, (police) saw no evidence that there had been a fight or fight.”

It took police nearly a month to piece together the details of what happened to Bianca Tanner, which all led to her relationship with Angelo Smith.

Bianca Tanner and Angelo Smith’s relationship falls apart

Bianca Tanner met Angelo Smith at a party in the fall of 2013. She recently got divorced and shared custody of her baby.

“So Angelo, he showed up as Prince Charming on a white horse, and all she thought she needed and wanted at that moment was who he was,” Richardson said.

Tanner and her son even moved into a new place with Smith. But soon after, Tanner began to question her relationship, friends and family told police.

“Angelo has been getting hot-tempered lately. More control,” Richardson said. “He wanted to monopolize all of her time except for her and Jared. He didn’t want her attention to be focused on anyone else.”

Six months after they started dating, Tanner disappeared. Although the message to Smith did turn out to be from the wrong number, police found that his story about what happened to Tanner didn’t add up.

“We found a notebook in the trash,” Jolly said. “The recorded statement, almost verbatim, that Angelo gave to missing persons detectives on June 8th. It was very much like he was rehearsing his interview for missing people… and that was very strange to me.”

Smith has also been accused of physically abusing girlfriends in the past. “The college has received records indicating that he was arrested on campus for domestic violence. It’s possible that something really happened that night when they argued,” Jolly said.

Additionally, telephone data from Tanner and Smith’s phones showed that Smith was lying. “In the first interview there was never any mention of him leaving the apartment or anything like that. Angelo stated that he was there the whole time,” Jolly said.

However, evidence showed that on the night Tanner disappeared, her and Smith’s phones were located about 30 minutes from their home.

Angelo Smith’s friend says Smith killed Bianca Tanner

Confronted with his phone data, Angelo Smith admitted to police that after Bianca Tanner left, he turned to his fraternity brother Lawrence Briscoe for help.

“Lawrence said to him, ‘Well, if Bianca is missing, where is her son Jared?’ And Angelo tells him he’s back home in the apartment,” Jolly said. “Lawrence told Angelo that he should go home and report her missing to the police department.”

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But the police did not believe that Briscoe was telling the whole truth. They were proven right when Briscoe called the police a few weeks later, ready to confess.

“Lawrence said Angelo came to his house and Angelo told Lawrence that this time he screwed up and went too far,” Jolly said. “That he strangled Bianca. And Bianca was lying in the kitchen, on the floor.”

Briscoe also admitted that he and Smith drove back to the house, carried Tanner’s body to the car and dumped her body in a wooded area near Briscoe’s home. In the early morning of July 3, 2014, Bianca Tanner’s body was finally found.

Angelo Smith Found Convincing Evidence in Bianca Tanner’s Murder

Police obtained physical evidence against Angelo Smith when they obtained a warrant to use an ultraviolet lamp on his body.

“It flashed like a bright light. You can see bruises and hand marks on his forearm,” Jolly said. “And then a bruise appeared on the webbing of his arm. Between the index finger and thumb.

“They used scientific processes to determine that the stages that the bruises went through corresponded with the time of her disappearance,” said Charlotte Det. Rosalyn Harrington added Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins.

Confronted with new evidence, Angelo Smith again changed his story and stated that when he received the text message, Bianca Tanner became angry and pulled a gun on him.

“And then Angelo said he took the gun away from her and she started fighting with him again and he started putting her in a chokehold,” Jolly said. “Eventually she went limp and he put her on the floor… And there was no evidence of this. And she has never owned, been around or had anything to do with guns.”

In May 2016, Smith made a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He was sentenced to 26 years in prison. In 2021, he committed suicide behind bars.

“Do I think he wanted to kill her? It’s still up in the air for me,” Jolly said. “I think he wanted to hurt her. To let her know he’s the boss. And, unfortunately, it cost her her life.”

Lawrence Briscoe was sentenced to three to six years in prison.

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