Bianca Jones was two-years-old when she disappeared.
Her father, D’Andre Lane, says that he was car-jacked on his way to Bianca’s mother’s house.
Bianca, he claims, was in the car.
She was kidnapped.
But the police don’t buy his story. They say something more nefarious happened: That D’Andre beat his little girl to death after she wet the bed and disposed of her body early that morning.
No car-jacking ever took place, cops claim.
D’Andre is arrested and charged with Bianca’s murder.
He’s eventually found guilty by a jury of his peers.
Case closed?
Not exactly.
D’Andre swears that he’s innocent. But that’s to be expected.
Here’s where the ordeal gets interesting.
During the investigation into Bianca’s disappearance, a Detroit patrol officer, Niki Gibbs, claimed that she saw the two-year-old at another house when responding to an unrelated domestic disturbance.
It didn’t dawn on Officer Gibbs that the child she saw was, indeed, Bianca until she viewed a picture of the missing girl on her computer. She then informed detectives investigating the case.
But, according to Gibbs, detectives were convinced at this point that D’Andre killed Bianca, so they dismissed what Gibbs — a fellow cop — had witnessed.
Officer Gibbs wasn’t the only person to spot Baby Bianca at this particular house.
A court-appointed investigator for D’Andre’s defense team, Michael Salisbury, claimed to see the same thing months later. But, this time around, recounts the investigator, Bianca’s appearance had changed.
“A little girl dressed up as a little boy with her eyebrows shaved,” said Salisbury. “I mean, one of the distinct characteristics of Baby Bianca was her thick bushy eyebrows. And even with the shaved eyebrows, to me, that was the little girl.”
Moreover, D’Andre’s own nephew says that his uncle couldn’t have killed Bianca that night, as the prosecutor alleges, because he saw his cousin alive and well early that morning.
“I remember him [D’Andre] bringing her in there, putting her coat on right next to me,” said D’Andre’s nephew Treveon Lane-Trammell.
D’Andrew then dropped Treveon off at school with Bianca in the car.
Bianca was already dead, according to the prosecution, and the car-jacking contrived after dropping off the other passengers.
But, according to Treveon, Bianca was “very much” alive.
There’s much more to this story, as you’ll see in this five-part series.
Hell, D’Andre’s defense attorney believes that Bianca’s mom may have helped orchestrate her daughter’s kidnapping to — get this — punish D’Andre.
Who’s telling the truth? Was D’Andre convicted unfairly? And, if Bianca is still alive, where is she?
Part One:
Part Two:
Part Three:
Part Four:
Part Five: