Atlanta Man Burns Live-In Baby Mama/Girlfriend’s Body After She Discovered He Was Secretly Married

Lately I’ve heard a few stories online about wives who play their husband’s girlfriends together.

This is one of those stories.

On March 17, Briana Winston vanished from the face of the earth. 

Briana didn’t show up for work on the 17th. She was reported missing at the beginning of April. Winston’s cousin, Jasmine Walker, said the family found out from a friend that Winston, 23, was last seen heading back to the apartment she shared  with Michale Edwards, her child’s father and boyfriend.

Her family reported Winston missing after discovering her apartment had been cleaned and cleared by her boyfriend Michale Edwards, according to police.

“He took all her furniture. her clothes, everything,” said Walker.

She has not been in touch ever since.

“That isn’t like Bri. If she didn’t talk to anybody, she’d call me two or three times a week to see how grandma was doing. Where is my baby?” said her grandmother Ann Thomas.

Two Women With The Same Name

Police have now classified her case as a homicide. Her live-in boyfriend and child’s father Michale Edwards and his wife Brienna Phillips-Edwards were classified as persons of interest.

“We just found out about the other Brienna his wife. We didn’t know he was married,” said Walker.

“Everybody knows she is a hard worker. She had two jobs. For her not to go to work that was kind of a red flag there,” said Walker.

A WITNESS COMES FORWARD

Earlier this month, Edwards was arrested after a man came forward offering authorities details about Briana’s disappearance and death.

On the morning of March 17 , 2024,  Michale Edwards strangled Briana Winston to death, during an argument about his alleged infidelity.  She found out that he secretly married to Brienna Phillips, his long-time girlfriend, while he was in a relationship with Briana.

The informant revealed that he had helped Edwards dispose of Briana’s body after he killed her that day.

After killing Briana, Edwards stuffed her lifeless body into a suitcase. Afterward, the Atlanta 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.

The unnamed informant/accomplice requested immunity in the case in exchange for the gruesome information.

It’s a Family Affair

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.

Edward’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.