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A 23-year-old mother is dead after discovering her live-in boyfriend married another woman. The Georgia man, whom police revealed as Michale Edwards, is accused of killing Briana Winston and burning her body afterward. They reportedly shared a child.
The Clayton County Police Dept. revealed details about the disturbing case on Monday (May 13), per PEOPLE. It had been about a month since her family reported her missing after losing contact with her in mid-March.
Authorities arrested Edwards after a man offered details about Briana’s disappearance earlier this month. Michale Edwards is charged with aggravated assault, malice murder, felony murder, and tampering with evidence.
Meanwhile, the unnamed man requested immunity in the case in exchange for the gruesome information. He revealed that he had helped Edwards dispose of Briana’s body after he killed her on March 17. On that day, she had reportedly confronted her boyfriend for cheating on her.
Amid arguing, Lt. Ashanti Marbury says Edwards “choked” Briana Winston and then stuffed her lifeless body into a suitcase. Afterward, the Georgia man drove to Gates, Tennessee — over 400 miles from Clayton County. Together, the men put Winston’s body inside a burn barrel and lit it on fire using an accelerant. Police allege that they let the body burn for hours until the 23-year-old was just “skeletal remains.”
“Then they used a shovel to break down Briana’s bones in an attempt to speed up the burning process,” Lt. Marbury said at Monday’s press conference.
Afterward, both men spread her remains in different locations. The Georgia man (her ex-boyfriend) scattered them along Interstate 40 in Tennessee. Meanwhile, his accomplice dumped his portion of her remains in a cemetery behind a church.
Edwards was a person of interest in the missing persons case from the jump. During Briana’s disappearance, her family discovered that Michale had completely cleaned out their joint apartment, per a police statement.
Police first interviewed him on April 4 after arresting him for aggravated stalking, which was a violation of a protective order involving Winston.
The following day, his wife, Brienna Phillips-Edwards, was also jailed for allegedly providing false statements to the police.
It’s unclear what those statements were, but Lt. Marbury says Edwards turned the crime into “a family affair” by looping in his folks. His wife allegedly aided by providing Edwards with the car to transport Briana’s body.
“We also learned in that interview on April 5 that [Brienna] had secretly married Michale on Jan. 25, 2024, and that nobody was aware that the two were married,” Lt. Marbury said.
See their photos below.
The Georgia man’s mother, Ebony Anderson, and brother, Keilan Wright, are also behind bars for conspiracy of tampering with evidence. In a recorded jailhouse call, Edwards instructed them to burn a pair of shoes and gloves that he allegedly used during the crime.
This is a developing story.
