Family SICKENED After Discovering Grandma Did the Unthinkable

Family SICKENED After Discovering Grandma Did the Unthinkable

“D’Angelo is dead, Mom. Dead. Why is my nephew and your grandchild dead? Why? I just feel like he’s with me, like his spirit… I don’t know, he’s dead, Mom. I’m going to ask you a horrific question: do you think that it’s possible during your night or sleeping or dreaming that you got up and did anything to him?”

The most dreaded type of 911 call filtered into the Clinton Township, Michigan dispatch on the morning of January 11th, 2010. A little boy had been found unresponsive in his family’s bathtub. What first appeared to be an inconceivably tragic accident soon transformed into one of the most complex and confusing murder investigations, and even today there remains questions: what really happened behind those closed doors that frigid winter morning?

“No one’s putting any blame on you. We just want to know what happened.”

“My God, it just all of a sudden was it just… I don’t know what happened, but it just… it was just…”

It was just 7:30 in the morning when police arrived at the apartment on Clinton Place. After knocking several times, a woman answered the door and silently let them in. Inside, the home was completely dark, save for a single light coming from the hallway bathroom where a tragic scene was waiting for them. Next to the bathtub, another woman was kneeling over a small boy. He was still in his pajamas, which were drenched with water, and he didn’t appear to be breathing.

First Responders took the boy into the living room and made every effort to resuscitate him, but were unsuccessful. In one final effort, they loaded him into an ambulance and rushed him to the hospital. Officers at the scene noted strange behavior, especially on the part of the older of the two women. She explained that she was the boy’s mother, but was unable to give his full name or his birthday. The younger woman said she was the boy’s aunt, but was also unable to provide definitive information. Maybe they were both in shock, or perhaps there was something else going on.

The boy was eventually identified as 4-year-old D’Angelo Tohia, and was being cared for by the two women that shared the apartment: his aunt, 25-year-old Tanina Bourra, and his grandmother, 60-year-old Terry Bourra—not his mother, as she had stated. Terry’s older daughters, Vicki and Amelia, lived in the area with their children. Amelia and her husband Bashar frequently left their two sons in Terry’s care, sometimes together and sometimes separately, which was the case on the weekend of January 9th. Amelia, trusting that D’Angelo was in good hands, never imagined that it would be the last time she’d see her son alive.

Back at the hospital, medical professionals did all they could to save the 4-year-old, but tragically, D’Angelo Tohia was pronounced dead just 45 minutes after the initial 911 call. Tanina, who had followed her nephew to the hospital, was transported to the police station that afternoon to speak to detectives about what happened. Police reports state that she was never actually with her nephew while at the hospital.

Both the police and D’Angelo’s devastated family needed to make sense of what happened. The following interrogations have never been seen before. They’ve been analyzed by a qualified team including a licensed professional counselor, a licensed clinical psychologist, a licensed attorney, a former detective, a former licensed polygraph examiner, and a former hostage negotiation commander and instructor.

“I’m sorry for what happened on the… for your loss. It’s horrible. It’s just horrible.”

“I’m just trying not to like break down, and I was crying on the way here.”

“Yeah, it’s… it is so hard. Absolutely.”

It’s an interesting red flag that Tanina feels she has to let the detective know that she was crying on the way over. It seems like she wants to explain and excuse why she isn’t crying now in front of him. A person who is truly emotional and in shock at the death of a family member, especially a child, wouldn’t have to make such an obvious statement or feel the need to prove they cried earlier.

“I don’t know what happened. That’s the thing, like I just woke up and I didn’t… all I seen was him floating in the tub.”

“He said he was face up floating?”

“He was face up. He was floating on his back. And I don’t know anything prior to that. Prior to that, I don’t… I woke up, I was tossing and turning. I didn’t hear any screaming. I didn’t hear anything.”

“Okay, so, I mean…”

“And I think he was… I think he drowned like maybe an hour or so prior to waking up, so I didn’t hear anything.”

It’s certainly noteworthy that Tanina gives a specific time when she thinks D’Angelo drowned, begging the question: how would she know this?

“Okay, you were probably… probably fast asleep.”

“It was fast asleep, yeah. But I didn’t… I mean, I would have woke up if I heard him screaming or if I would have heard anything.”

According to the CDC, drowning is the leading cause of death for children ages 1 through 4. So while unfortunate, an accidental drowning wouldn’t be such a surprise to law enforcement.

“So can you kind of go over what happened yesterday starting with when… when got dropped off?”

“Yeah, I… what… what time did he get dropped off?”

“He got dropped off actually Saturday.”

“Okay.”

“So he’s been there a few days.”

“Yeah, he was there a couple days, but I think that the floor is really wet in there, really slippery. So I think… I think he bumped his head because there is like abrasions, but I think he like slipped and fell in there.”

We’ll hear more from Tanina later as she shares her fascinating insights on the case in an exclusive interview, but for now, she doesn’t display a lot of shock despite this chilling revelation.

Terry, for her part, was taken into custody at the scene and brought in for questioning earlier in the day.

“My name is Detective Lieutenant Mark Rinsky. Obviously, I work for the police department and I’m here to talk to you about what happened overnight and this early this morning with your grandson, okay? If you can do me a favor, you could just sign over there saying that you acknowledge all these rights. Do you understand all those?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. If you understand all those, are you willing to waive your rights and talk to me today?”

“Um, I think I’d rather have a lawyer.”

“Okay. I mean, I think that would be the best thing, okay? And you don’t have to say anything, that’s up to you.”

“I don’t think… I would rather have a lawyer.”

“Okay, that’s not a problem. Not a problem at all. I just wanted to afford you the opportunity to let me know what happened, but that’s… like I said, if you want a lawyer, that’s fine. I mean, not a lawyer… um, the other… I don’t… can’t afford a lawyer.”

“No, I understand you want to be appointed one. That’s… I understand. Okay, not a problem. Thank you very much. Come back with me over here.”

Despite sounding a bit out of it or shaken by the situation, Terry requests a lawyer, which means she won’t be answering any questions. Her initial request of “I think I’d rather have a lawyer” is not technically unequivocal. In some cases, this statement might be construed as not being a strict invocation of the right to counsel. However, in this case, the detective treats the words as an exercise of the right and ceases questioning. She almost undoes herself when she says “not a lawyer,” but she immediately clarifies that she means simply that she cannot afford one and wants appointed counsel.

Still, while she’s at the station, the officer informs her that a forensic nurse will be taking samples of her hair and fingernails, and he tells her he has a warrant for this collection and one for her house.

“Should not do at my house?”

“Yes, at your house on Clinton Place. They’re going to do a… we already did, and I’ll… I’ll bring you that too.”

“Was there anything wrong or anything?”

“Well, we’re just there to try to figure out what happened, so we have to collect evidence, you know, you know, maybe some the stains in the bathroom and other things like that, okay? Just to try to figure out what happened.”

When a suspect invokes the right to counsel, this doesn’t mean police may no longer talk to them. Police interrogation must cease until an attorney is present and the suspect wants to answer questions, or until the suspect freely waves the right to counsel. It’s noteworthy that the detective doesn’t ask her any questions, which would not be allowed, and instead only provides information.

As previously mentioned, first responders were immediately alerted to the strange behavior they encountered in the apartment, but the unusualness of the situation actually started when Tanina first made her 911 call.

Tanina first called 911 at 7:15 a.m.

“911.”

“Hey, um, my nephew just drowned in the bathtub. Can you send somebody over?”

“Drowned in a bathtub? What was that? What did you just say?”

“My nephew just drowned in the bathtub.”

“What do you mean he drowned?”

“Um, he drowned. He dead. Yeah, I think he’s dead. I don’t know if somebody can resuscitate.”

“How old is he?”

“Oh, my God, he’s only… he’s only 3 years old.”

“Did you get him out of there?”

“No, I don’t know what to do.”

“Okay, get him out of… I’m… get… get him out of the tub, okay? Don’t hang up.”

“I’m not. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”

“Turn him over. Try to get the water up, okay? Okay, okay. Can you… you got him on his side?”

“Yeah.”

“Is he breathing at all?”

“No.”

“Okay. Try… try to tap on his back. See if any water comes up.”

“No, no, no.”

“All right. You know how to do CPR?”

“No.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m 25.”

“All right. Tilt his head back a little bit, okay? Put your face… put your face over his whole mouth, okay? Just give a breath into his… into his mouth, okay? See if anything happens. See if his chest rises or anything like that.”

“No, I think he’s gone.”

“Keep trying. How long was he in there?”

“I don’t know, for a while.”

“Well, a while like in 5 minutes, 20 minutes, half hour?”

“Um, I don’t know, like an hour.”

“His lips blue?”

“It’s blue, yeah. I keep…”

“All right, you know how to… where his heart is? In the middle of his chest?”

“Yeah.”

“All right. Take your two hands and just a little bit above, just push on his chest in the middle as much as you can, okay? Do it about… do about 10 times and then breathe into him again. I need you to stay calm, okay? Calm with this, okay? Is there two people there?”

“Yeah.”

“All right, I want two people. One… one to do the chest compressions and the other one to breathe for him.”

“Mom, can you come here? Can you breathe in this? Mom?”

“H…”

“Breathe in his mouth.”

“No, breathe in his mouth. I’m sorry. Come on, buddy. Come on, buddy.”

“They’re on the way. They’ll be there very shortly, but you need to breathe for them till we get there. Where’s your mom at?”

“She’s right here.”

“Is she doing anything?”

“No.”

“Okay. How’s he doing?”

“He feels warm. He’s warm.”

“Okay, that’s a good sign.”

“Hi, what’s going on?”

“He drowned.”

“Are they the… are the medical there?”

“I don’t know, I just woke up this morning.”

“Is there an ambulance?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I’m sorry.”

“I… no. Good job, you did good. Thank you. All right, bye-bye.”

When paramedics arrived at the house, Tanina was still on the phone with dispatch. Terry didn’t open the door or turn on a light before being prompted to do so, and first responders felt it was a bit strange that Terry hadn’t seemed prepared for their arrival. It was also noted that neither Terry nor Tanina appeared to have wet clothing, even though they had removed D’Angelo from the bathtub.

“So can I… can I… can I go back? Okay, last night, what time did you go to bed?”

“Um, I went to bed at 10:30.”

“Okay. And where was your mom and D’Angelo at that point?”

“Um, they were sleeping on the couch.”

“Okay. And were they… were they sleeping? Were they watching TV?”

“Just watching TV.”

“Okay.”

Tanina’s first answer follows a long “um”: “What time did you go to bed?” “Um, I went to bed at 10:30,” indicating that she needs a bit of time to think of her answer. Note in about 30 seconds when she pauses again: “And where was your mom and D’Angelo at that point?” “Um, they were sleeping on the couch.” This wouldn’t be as significant except that with her second answer, Tanina interrupts the detective to say they were watching TV: “Were they… were they just sleeping? Were they watching TV?” “Watching TV.” “Okay.” This is generally a red flag behavior, and detectives are going to want to know why she feels pressured to get that out.

While Terry is being held, her oldest daughter Vicki, Tanina’s sister, comes to visit her. Their other sister Amelia is D’Angelo’s mother. Vicki not only tries to assist her mother while she’s in jail, but also attempts to get some information from her about what really happened.

“Hi, Mom. I love you.”

“Think… yeah. I love you, Mom.”

“Mom, okay. Listen, it’s okay. It’s okay. Okay, what happened, Mom?”

“Uh, I’m gonna give you a… I don’t understand.”

“You don’t understand what happened?”

“Don’t understand.”

“Are you okay? Are you okay?”

“Okay. It’s… Terry, do it. I don’t know what happened. Don’t say nothing. Don’t understand anything. I don’t get it.”

“Okay, you don’t…”

“Together, I don’t either.”

“Okay. I love him so much.”

“I know you do.”

“I love him. He’s like Toy Story.”

“I know, a little Toy Story. And he’s so gentle.”

“I don’t know, he just look like a little doll.”

“I don’t know, just wondering. I’m just always so confused.”

“Okay, I know you’re…”

“I confused. I’m on top of that, very confused on everything. I’m just worrying so much about so many things and I just think you took a toll on me.”

“I called you, I said, ‘Vicki, I said I’m not doing so good right now,’ and you turn around, you said, ‘Oh, I know.'”

“No, I didn’t.”

“And I go, ‘I know, I know,’ but I’m trying to tell you I’m having a hard time.”

“What is the hard time?”

“Everything. What happened and there’s just so many bills and everything. It’s all…”

“What does it have to do with D’Angelo?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay. What happened with D’Angelo? Does Tanina know what happened?”

“No, no. You just woke up this morning.”

“What did you tell the police?”

“I don’t know.”

“So that was the last time you really saw them and then you went to bed. Did you hear any noises throughout?”

“No, I didn’t hear any noises. I didn’t hear any noises in the morning.”

“Okay, so I didn’t… I didn’t hear anything at all.”

“Okay, so you woke up at what time?”

“I woke up at… um, I woke up at 7.”

“Okay, this morning?”

“7:00, yeah.”

“Okay, and what happened then?”

“Um, I walked into the bathroom and he was floating on top, and he was just floating on the water, and he had his pants on still, and um, he had a shirt…”

“You have a bathroom in your bedroom in there, so why would you get up and go in the other bathroom? Somebody say something to you? Direct you to do that?”

“My mom was… ‘Tanina, are you up?’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m up.’ And um, I walked out of my bathroom and I just walked down the hall.”

“And where was your mom at at this point?”

“She was just pacing back and forth like she really didn’t know what she was doing.”

“Pacing where? In the living room, the kitchen, the hallway, her bedroom?”

“Um, she was pacing in the kitchen.”

“Okay, and she didn’t… she didn’t say, ‘Hey, D’Angelo was in the bathtub, call 911’?”

“No, she did. She told me… she told me to call 911.”

“Why would she do there?”

“Um, maybe she was in shock or…”

“Okay. And where was she at when she told you this?”

“In the kitchen still, yeah.”

“Okay, so she’s in the kitchen kind of pacing back and forth?”

“Kind of, yeah, maybe she didn’t… yeah, like she didn’t know what she was doing.”

“Okay, I think she was in a state of…”

How had she been acting recently?

“Um, she’s been acting a little different. Um, she went through a huge depression after my dad died.”

“When did he pass away?”

“Um, he passed… passed away 5 years ago, but I think it’s finally sunken and…”

She’s showing some signs of anxiety, such as itching her nose and rubbing the back of her neck. It’s also odd that she’s kept so many layers of clothing on. She’s dressed for winter, but the officer doesn’t seem to be as bundled. Anxiety can pull the blood away from your extremities, so it can make you feel quite cold, which might explain why she feels the need to be bundled up.

“I think it’s been really hard for her to pay for everything and do everything. I think the bills have loaded up on her.”

“Okay.”

“And you know, she’s been under a lot of stress. She’s a very good woman, very wonderful mom.”

“I mean, how’d she get along with you and with your sisters?”

“She gets along with everybody. She worries about everybody. She calls us every minute, like you know, she’s just an… you know, regular, normal mother.”

“Gotcha.”

“You know, yeah, sure.”

Tanina abruptly shifts from attempting to make character references for her mother by saying she’s a good woman and mom to “a regular, normal mother.” This change brings up some questions about what Tanina really thinks about her mom. Her rapid verbal slippage seems to indicate that she quickly realizes that saying Terry is a great woman and mom will be found as a lie, or at the very least something that could be challenged, so she has to downplay it quickly in the same breath. If she did it over a period of time, it might seem more normal, but this is in the same sentence.

“Did your mom normally give D’Angelo a bath, and if so, what time does he normally give him to him?”

“She normally gives him a bath… um, is it normally at 6:00 in the morning or 5:00 in the morning, which would have been the time frame if you woke up at 7 for an hour you look a.m.? Maybe he woke up and maybe he turned the bath on himself. Maybe he slipped and fell. I mean, I don’t know, I’m just…”

Once again, like… yeah, maybe…

Here has a significant upward inflection. This seems to indicate her uncertainty. She might truly not know the answer, or she’s searching for an explanation. The officer isn’t doing a great job with this question so far because he’s asking multiple things at once and not letting her answer before moving forward. He should ask one question at a time and leave them more open-ended.

Tanina seems to be throwing out a lot of options here. This is similar to what we see when guilty individuals throw out a lot of alternatives for detectives to look at to keep them searching in different areas and looking at people besides themselves—anything to take the focus off of what actually happened as well. Typically, we would expect to see Tanina be horrified and demanding answers to explain what happened to her nephew.

“I don’t know what happened because I didn’t hear her and I didn’t hear… and all I did was wake up and see him floating on top of everything and like…”

Perhaps Tanina is being truthful here. Of course, one also has to consider that she might have been awoken by sounds of screaming and thrashing coming from the bathroom and arose to see what was happening.

“The floors are really slippery in there, so I don’t know if he might have just slipped and hurt himself. I mean, I don’t know what happened, I don’t know. I was just in the state of shock and I tried to get him out of the tub and resuscitate him.”

Absolutely. In actuality, Tanina had to be told by dispatch to take D’Angelo out of the tub.

“And what was your mom doing all this time when you’re doing CPR?”

“I think she was just watching me and she was kind of pacing still. I think she was just in disbelief. I think she was just in another world like she didn’t know what happened or what…”

“Do you remember asking her to help you with CPR?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you remember what her response was to that?”

“Um, I don’t think she could do it.”

“Okay.”

“I think she was just… it was something tragic, you know, like she just couldn’t bear to do it. Sometimes people aren’t strong, you know what I mean? Like… I mean, holy shit, I don’t even know how I could even get down and you did…”

“You managed to do it. Managed very well.”

“I listened to the… really, yeah, I listened to the 911 tape.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah.”

It seems strange that Tanina would be apparently flattered by the detective’s compliment that she did a good job administering CPR. Despite the alleged attempt to save D’Angelo’s life, the little boy passed away, yet she is happy to have received the praise.

“Um, for somebody who didn’t know really CPR, the way you listened to the dispatch and what he did, sound like you did everything you possibly could.”

“I tried.”

“So, are you…”

Law enforcement was able to obtain an exclusive interview with Tanina Bourra 13 years later. Tanina’s recollection of that morning looks a bit different, as does other changes and discrepancies in her story, which will come up later. We’re using stills from our call with her because her internet connection was too unstable.

“When I woke up, my mom had knocked on my door. It was 3:00 a.m. in the morning. I woke up at 7…”

And it’s interesting because Eminem has a song, “3:00 a.m. in the morning, put my key in the door, bodies laying all over the floor, I don’t remember how they got there, but I must’ve killed them.” And I think it’s a really interesting song because that happened to me at 3:00 in the morning. I think he drowned like maybe an hour or so prior to waking up. I don’t know how that happened. I tried my hardest. I’ve never given CPR before, and they said I was ordering a pizza, and no, I was not ordering a pizza, and I did not find that funny. I did not find any of their comments funny because it was a really big struggle. I had to get water out of his lungs and I had to breathe into his mouth and I had to make sure, you know, to tip him over to me. And I did this for 15 minutes.

Remember Tanina’s comment about the Eminem song? We’ll come back to that in a bit.

“Yeah. But um, why didn’t Mom let the firemen in? Why did they have to bang on the door?”

“Um, I don’t know, maybe the door was locked.”

“It was locked, yeah, maybe it was locked.”

“But um, why did it take her a while to answer that?”

“Because you couldn’t do anything, you were busy doing CPR.”

“Why didn’t she answer the door?”

“I think she was just pacing. I think in her mind she has racing thoughts.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Many like… she just has racing thoughts. But the paramedics, I don’t know if they were high, if they were on drugs or what they were doing because they went the wrong way. Why would you go the wrong way when you’re directly across the street from me? But they went in the back entrance and it took them 15 minutes to realize there’s a front entrance.”

Once again, it’s difficult not to notice the difference in Tanina’s accounts.

“Just thoughts that keep on polluting her mind and computing it, and I think that she just doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“Did she… has she ever said kind of strange things to you like hearing voices or or somebody telling them they’re here to do something or you know acting violently recently? Anything like that?”

“There hasn’t been any violent stuff, but I mean like she does have strange behaviors. She cannot clean a house, she can’t function to do daily things, but nothing where like she’s ever acted violently or hit anybody or hurt anybody. Things happen, you know, everything can happen, you know, especially…”

There is an interesting pause here, like she was going to say something, but then repeats the idea that he slipped and fell. She seems stuck on that idea and maybe even be pushing for it to be believed.

“Somebody could slip and fall, you know what I mean? Like it could… you know, it is possible too. And like she isn’t in the right state of mind either.”

“Or would have gotten himself right up out of the tub, right?”

“He would have gotten himself right up, so because he was… he was a normal 4-year-old child, right? You know, he was not a special… he was right on top of everything. He was very bright, very smart. I mean, could put my earphones together, you know what I mean? Like snap it out and like, ‘Woah, you need to be a mechanic.’ You know, very bright man, little man. And um, he’s everything is going to be good.”

“Like I mean like in terms of…”

“I’m just trying to keep it together.”

“It’s… I know it’s hard. It’s very hard. You’re going to have a hard time because now you’re going to go back to an empty apartment.”

“Yeah, it’s really hard right now. It’s…”

“If you have a friend or something you can… can stay with you or family. I know you’ve got old sisters, a couple of them. So…”

“Yeah.”

“Gotcha. Can you think of anything else that I’m missing because once again we don’t know really what happened either and I know you kind of slept through most of it.”

Tanina does a lip compression here, and this is a particularly odd spot to have a negative reaction. It could potentially indicate that there’s something the detective is missing, and she may have an idea about what it is.

“Yeah. I mean, that’s the point. I don’t know what happened. You know what I mean? Like I don’t know. We’ll find out more tomorrow because the medical examiner is going to take a look, but…”

Okay. She will finally take off her gloves shortly after this point. This would be a good opportunity for the detective to get a closer look at her hands and see if there are any signs of injuries that could have resulted from a struggle. If he was afraid that asking to see her hands might have revealed his suspicion toward her, he could have said something like, “I like your nails” or “I like your ring.” Tanina would have likely enjoyed the attention and shown him her nails or a ring. However, he won’t take advantage of this opportunity.

“Isn’t it a felony or something?”

“No, you haven’t been charged of anything. You didn’t do anything.”

“I mean, where… where’s everything going to go?”

“Um, okay, well, that’s not going to happen. Is that what you want to happen? I mean, what do you want to do, ma’am?”

“I want to come home.”

“Okay. I want you to come home, too.”

“I want to come home. I just go on. I don’t want none… none of this to happen.”

In between their discussions about Terry’s finances, finding an attorney, and what to do with the apartment, Terry gives little glimpses into the morning D’Angelo died.

“And you’re going to face prison charges, so you better figure out what’s going on, what happened.”

“I want to go home, Vicki.”

“Mom, D’Angelo is… D’Angelo is dead, ma’am.”

“Dead.”

“Why? Why is… why is my nephew and your grandchild dead? Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s dead, Mom.”

It sounds like Vicki may be trying to shock her mom into saying something, but Terry seems markedly unwell mentally. She sounds confused and lost, which could be a trauma response or some significant mental health issue.

“We went to the hospital and look at D’Angelo dead today.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Dead. Why, my God.”

“Oh, and you must be so upset. She must be just crying, crying, crying, cry, crying. That’s her baby. That’s like taking one of us. What happened? Is Tanina involved with anything?”

“No, not… he just woke up in the morning and he just happened to just fall into the bathtub. He drowned in the bathtub. He did drowned in the bathtub in a quarter inch of water.”

“D’Angelo drowned in a quarter inch of water. The kid can swim across an ocean, but he drowned in a quarter inch of water.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he hit his head?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. He hit his head.”

“I don’t know, Vicki. I don’t have any idea.”

There’s a clear discrepancy: was there a quarter inch of water, or was there enough water that he was floating in it? According to crime scene photos, the truth seems to be that there was just enough water that D’Angelo could have been found floating.

“And you woke up to him like that?”

“I’m out of my mind. I can’t even cry. I can’t scream. I can’t sleep. I can’t walk. I can’t eat. I don’t know what the hell… I don’t want to stay here anymore. I don’t… it’s the worst place in the world. I was here for a week, trust me, I know.”

“I don’t want you in here.”

“My mother, you’re Carrie Bourra. My God, what are you doing?”

“I don’t know. They’re so terrible here. It’s so… they’re so mean. It’s so terrible and everything. It’s just awful in here. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I think it’s a dream.”

“I’m king. And did he… what did he say about me?”

“He says you’re the nicest lady in the world and you wouldn’t hurt a…”

“Thank God there was Haiti going on, that the… the earthquake of Haiti, because there’s nothing in there about you. Thank God there was Haiti going on.”

This is a particularly troubling comment. It shows how focused they are on themselves. While what has happened is horrible, it’s hard to imagine not feeling any empathy for those in Haiti just because it’s keeping your family out of the front pages.

“Where the hell is Amy?”

“Amy is… I don’t know, ma’am, she just… she’s trying, she’s just, you know…”

“Mom, just let’s just not talk about Amy, okay? Please, I’d rather not talk about Amy, okay? Just… Amy is not mad. Amy is not upset. Amy is just coping, okay?”

“Okay.”

“So just… just, you know what I’m saying, let’s not talk about Amy, okay? She’s not raging, she’s not mad, she’s just coping, okay? And she loves you.”

“I love her.”

Tanina also echoes this sentiment, gushing about what a wonderful mother Terry was.

“And if you want to know about my mom, my mom was awesome. She was the coolest mom ever. Like on Valentine’s day, she would cut my peanut butter and jelly into a heart, you know? She was that kind of a mom. And she just would always do silly things to make her laugh, like she would purposefully like mess up my clothes, like put smiley faces on my butt so I would come home and tell her this funny story about these kids making fun of me because she just loved to laugh and she was a total comedian, and she was everything. She was a lawyer, an accountant, she did everything for our household, and she was such an integral part of our life, and she was an amazing woman. And it’s sad it went down that… that’s the kind of person people think she is, but people think that of me, too.”

When Tanina returned to speak with investigators for a second time just a few days after the tragic incident, some intriguing new information presented itself during the course of the interview.

“I want to ask you some questions because your interview the other day was quick and you know you were rattled, which you… you still are today, but maybe we can get some more information.”

“Sure.”

“Um, it seems to be a secret with some of your family members about your mom being on some depression medications or anything like that. Is that… am I accurate with that?”

“Some people seem not to know.”

Tanina does another lip compression movement, which we’ve seen her do earlier. She doesn’t appear to like that he’s bringing this up.

“Are you okay?”

“I mean, man, I haven’t been okay for, you know, that… for a long time, but just things…”

“I mean, if you have… if you’re still so stressed and you have these problems, why… why didn’t you go back to where you were before and have them help you and you do this with counselors and with people?”

“This isn’t counselors or people, this is jail. This ain’t a great place, you know.”

“I know, this is terrible. Even you’re in the mental jacket, come on, huh?”

“I know, they put me in the mental jacket. I don’t even… I don’t want to live anymore.”

Terry has a history of mental health issues that seem to develop around the time that she lost her husband of 32 years in 2005. She was diagnosed with depression. She was also hospitalized briefly in 2009, just one year before D’Angelo’s death. Major depression can manifest itself in a variety of ways. Most surprising to many is the homicidal ideations and impulsivity that can present in individuals with depression. However, it’s also incredibly rare for someone with depression to kill, and the rates of women with depression who kill are only 0.5% to 1%.

As well, possibly killing her grandson likely indicates severe mental illness, and it’s very unlikely that such severe mental illness could develop due to bereavement alone. It’s likely that Terry had long-standing mental illness that was exacerbated by a major life stressor, such as the death of her husband 5 years prior. Despite all of this, her two oldest daughters, Vicki and Amelia, still trusted their mother with their children.

“Some people seem to be doing some weird… like my sister doesn’t want me to be a part of my… my sister’s funeral…”

“You mean your mom’s funeral?”

“No, no, my… my nephew’s funeral.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, your nephew.”

“No, that’s okay. I mean, no, she… she doesn’t want me to be a part of his funeral. She doesn’t want me to come.”

“Why wouldn’t you want me to come?”

Normally, we point out declarative statements made with palms up and the contradiction in that movement, but here Tanina has got her palms down as if making a statement, but she’s asking a question. This isn’t the typical mismatch we encounter and indicates that perhaps she actually does know why her sister doesn’t want her there.

“It seems like I don’t know, like I don’t know what to say, like it seems like something got plotted, it seems like somebody was like doing something, it just seems weird that she doesn’t want me to answer the phone to anybody, she doesn’t want me to answer the door, she’s taking care of everything, she’s filling my sister with thoughts…”

“Who is my sister?”

“Vicki. She’s filling my sister Amy’s head with thoughts that I’m involved into everything and Tanina has nothing to do with it, for real, for real, swear to God, swear to God, swear to God. Poor Amy, oh my God, Amy…”