Hairstylist’s Final Moments Caught on Killer's Phone

"I just killed my fiancee. Please come over here right now." She said, "To real shot my mama and I'm thinking, okay, what hospital do I need to go to?" And she said, "She died." While the techams are trying to piece together what happened to a man in the Williams, the man who openly admits to pulling the trigger desperately wants to talk. She didn't want to get a butcher knife from Downstate Air. So she played around with the butcher knife for a minute. I got the video. I recorded it. It just became even more crucial to see what this evidence was on his phone. "Looks he tried to extend me with a knife." The home where this happened is just a single family home, a little bungalow, with Amanda Williams family living there for years. Amanda, she was the homeowner, her 29-year-old daughter Tyler and Tyler's four-year-old daughter, they were all living in the house, as was Amanda's fiance Tarell Edwards. Amanda Tarell seemed like they had a normal relationship. So it didn't look like anything was wrong on the outside looking in. At about 11.40 that night on October 9th, Tarell Edwards called 911 and told the dispatcher that he needed police to come to the house. "This is 911 with City." "I needed, I just killed my fiance. Please come over here right now." "He was trying to kill me. I got my gun inside her. Oh my god." For the dispatcher, what stands out right away is that Tarell Edwards is claiming he killed his fiance Amanda in self-defense. One thing we look for when someone is going to claim self-defense, did they stay on scene? Did they alert police? And in this case, that's exactly how it started. There's also a 911 call from Tyler where she's distraught and she's saying that her mother has been shot. Warrensville Heights Police arrived at the scene. It's about 11.46 pm. They had body camera rolling. They walked up to the house and addressed the people outside. In this case, it was Tarell Edwards outside the house. "Don't go in there bro. Get in there. Hurry up." "I don't want her doing her in the baby to see you. We need an ambulance too. She's trying to go up stairs with her mom. I'm trying to get up here because she got the night field up under it." The handcuff him, he had already said that he had fired a weapon and so they put him in the back of a police car and had another officer stay with him while some of them then went inside to address the scene inside the house. Warrensville Heights Police. Where are you at? All right, where you where you hit at? Are you shot? Amanda and Tyrell's bedroom was on the second level. There's no door. It just opens to this rather large bedroom. So they go up there immediately. They see Amanda on the floor and the first responding officers immediately start trying to render aid. "Now I'm wake up. Manly with me." She was not moving at all. They saw blood on the floor as well. So EMS was called. They did remove her from the home and take her to a local hospital. As Amanda is rushed to the hospital in this desperate attempt to save her life, the detectives back at the crime scene are already digging. They're trying to find any clue as to what really happened inside that home. When Tyrell first encountered police at the house, he told them that the knife is up under her. When you look at body camera, you see right under her right hand is the silver handle of the knife. The weapon that Tyrell Edwards had used to shoot her was a revolver that was left on a shelf up in the room as well. Meanwhile, Tyrell is talking to the police and he is talking a lot. "I explained to y'all what happened. I explained to y'all." "I mean, this is f***ing good." That farm is evidence too because I got the videos and stuff in there with her. So I know I'm taking the instance with the knife. "There's a chance that she can make up that watch. Our main focus right now." "Hey, you know, man, it's going to be f***ing crazy, man. I externize." I said, "Hey, please, it's kind of." "I externize, it's f***ing crazy, man." "Is she alive, man? Can y'all see?" "I got no thing on there. I know you, man. Do my life away." "You know, I hate that this happened, man." "No, no other guns or anything like that in my house." "I took my guns. I took the f***ing house and put them in the car and my car right there." "I took them out the house because she was going crazy. So when she came on me with the knife, I got her gun. I got her gun." The story really begins on October 8th, the day before. Amanda drove down to Columbus for a hairstyling convention with her associate for work. They drove down and they stayed the night there and the morning of the 9th, Terrell Edwards, sends her a text message in the morning. "It's a good morning, baby. I love you. Have a good day. Go get all that knowledge at the hair show." She opened the message up at 9 o'clock and then responded to my message. So I called her once at 9/17. I called her back again at 9/37 and she answered the phone and she was like, "Oh, my phone was on a nice man. I was asleep." So I said, "Well, how do you sleep when you read my message?" When she got around to seeing what she was saying, her basic reaction was, "Okay, well, you know, that's your issue, not mine." She was the primary account holder with the cell phone company and she sent him a screenshot showing that she had kicked him off the plan. She had my phone deactivated. She cut the phone off. I'd get a whole new phone number and anything. I changed my number. So I got off work about 620 today. She came home with like 640. He was downstairs in the basement. He described that Amanda was upset that Terrell had gotten this other number and that she didn't know the new number he got and then that caused another argument between the two of them. She said, "You know what? I'm sick of you. Go." So she kicked all my shoes down the stairs. She went upstairs. She said, "Well, I'm just going to call the police and tell them that I won't you go." I said, "Call them. The police didn't be here before." There were some incidents between Amanda and Terrell. It was actually Terrell Edwards who called the police because Amanda had thrown his clothes down into the basement and he wanted the police to be there so that nothing would go further between him and Amanda. She's like, "No, you ain't f***ing thing here tonight." I honestly think that she by phone her, like her eyes got real red. I seen like a demon coming out of her. She didn't want to get a butcher knife from downstairs. I got the video. I recorded her. I got the video on her with the knife. You know, I said, "I'm a recorder. Look, she trying to understand me with the knife." So then she goes back downstairs. That's when I get the guns that I told you that's in the car. I got the two of my two guns. I put them in the car just thinking that she's just going to calm down. She come back upstairs with the knife. So I record her again. She grabbed the phone out of my hand while I'm trying to record and take the knife and poke the screen and bust the screen all up on the phone. Then she slain the phone. And then she come towards me. So I'm wearing the round of room. I just want to f***ing day it. And when I jump up on the bed, she trying to come down on me with the knife. So I grabbed her gun from under the f***ing mattress. And she jubbed it. You know, she was trying to come down. I shot. I shot. Man, I kept telling her, "Baby, calm down. Put the f***ing thing down. Stop." Everything you recorded was before you put the guns in the car? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you record anything after that? No, I just recorded it. I recorded it you know before. What are you going to say? It's like I'm just shot right now. Then Dorel offers an explanation for why he removed the guns. And it's a reasoning that's enough for the officer to stop and take notice. You see what I'm saying? I didn't want to do this to the person. It's only going to put the guns in the car. Like I say, man, I'm not a bad person at all, man. I'm really a good person. That's why you think I called man one more? Thanks for the damn brain. A nightmare, man. Amanda's daughter, Tyler, is immediately brought to the police station and this statement is taken from her. I mean, it was like arguing going back and forth for a little minute when she got back from Columbus today. And then they kept arguing, she went upstairs to her room, he stayed downstairs. And then after that, we had my daughter, we got the baby with the sleep. And I heard her moving stuff around, like get your stuff out or whatever. And he just taking his stuff downstairs. It was a little tussle going on. And she, like, you need to leave. It was quiet. And then, as soon as you know, I heard like a boom, boom, like they hit the dresser or something, like they was tussling the fight and then for a shot swing off. So what's going on, my mom? I don't know. After Tyler gave her statement to the police, they actually all went to the hospital. And they learned there that Amanda had passed. Tyler called me on the phone. It was the wee hours of the morning. And she said, "To real shot, my mama." And I'm thinking, "Okay, what hospital do I need to go to?" And she said, "She died." I didn't know what to think. I didn't know if it was accident or intentional. I met Amanda in 2003. We were both students at Cleveland State University. We were both interested in joining the same sorority. You know, we just kind of bond it from there. That's my best friend. She's like a sister to me. That's my family. She just had the type of presence that demanded attention when she walked in a room. She was just beautiful externally, internally. You know, she dressed nice. She loved nice clothes. And she's just very photogenic. Very confident. She's very bubbly, very genuine person, creative. Just overall, loyal person. And she was never a selfish person. She owned her own hair salon. But she was very proud of. She had worked in hair for a long time. But it just recently opened her own business. She came up with the concept of the salon. She put the ideas together and made it come into existence. Her daughter and her son and her granddaughter. They were her world. She would do anything for them. And when Amanda met 41-year-old Tarell Edwards, it seemed like she had finally found the one. She seemed like a nice guy and she seemed to like them. Tarell and Amanda were a friend and girlfriend for a long time. But years later in their relationship, he came to one of her family gatherings and actually proposed. But afterwards, she didn't do a lot of wedding planning. I asked her, "When are you guys going to get married?" And she said in three years. And that just kind of stood out to me because I'm like, "You've been waiting for this for so long. Why wait three more years?" Melanie was about to find out that her best friend's relationship was far rockier than she ever let on. She said he needs to work on his temperament, get some therapy. He had trust issues. He always thought that she was doing things, showing up to her shop, unannounced, looking for her. She found a tracker on her car, which she confronted him about. He was just jealous overall. She's the one that maintains more of the control when it comes to finances. He moved into her home. So it was her stuff. She managed the phone plan. She was more like the head of the household. In some relationships, if you have a female who's more in charge, for some men, they have issues with insecurities or wanting to be in control. He was verbally abusive. She said his mouth is her words reckless. So she was hoping that him going to counseling would kind of resolve that issue. Detectives can't help but wonder. Did these problems play a role in what happened to Amanda? And it's when the autopsy results come back, particularly the severity of her injuries that only deepens those suspicions. She was shot six times, causing eight separate injuries to her. She had a through and through wound to her left arm, which is actually two injuries caused by the same bullet. And then that bullet reentered her body in her chest area. There was another shot to her that went in and out of her chest as well. One of the shots that Amanda was hit with went in and out of her neck. It went in and out through the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae. Not only did it go in and out the vertebrae, but it actually severed her spinal cord. And she would have just fallen and not be able to move whatsoever. If you're acting in self-defense, why would you have to shoot more than once? I'm pretty sure most people know that when you pull the trigger even more than once, you could kill someone. Terrell Edwards is arrested and taken to Warrensville Heights police. He's interviewed the next day. I guess she couldn't have the control no more. So that's when she grabbed all my clothes out the closet. She got thrown them downstairs. So then she said, "Well, just get out. I say, fan." I said, "Let me put some clothes on." "No, I just get out. Now." I said, "Well, I gotta, I say it's late. I gotta be working seven and one." I said, "Well, I gotta get out well." If you stay here the night, you gotta sleep with one eye on me. I was saying, "Damn." So that's when she'd go to reach for the drum like, "Oh, f**k." So that's why I keep my personal gun. That's why I was telling it to take the last night. That's how the gun's got in my car. The unit car last night, maybe. I talked about one of the uniform officers. You may have told one of them. You put the guns in your car because you were afraid that you might shoot him when she was acting. No. I'd just said, "I want to put him in the car because she went to reach, when she went, she told me that you don't have to sleep with one eye open the night." So no, I never told her the officer that last night. What he's not realizing is that he's not consistent in his story. That is a clear slip to me. When you start shooting how close were you to that? To whatever harm's left here. Definitely harm's here. If she'd never would have had no knife, I would have been able to leave. She'd held me hostage with the knife. So you were playing on leaving? Absolutely. I was playing on leaving because I had my, I was just going to leave for the night because I had my work clothes. I just can't wrap my head around the fact that she told you to sleep with one eye open. You felt it necessary to take your guns out of the house. But because she went for them. Because she went for them. She reached for them. I know what she was doing. I probably would have just gotten the car thrown away. I wish I wouldn't. I wish I wouldn't get into the dress. I believe I wouldn't have been cut up if I didn't do what I did. I really do. Everybody has a choice. He didn't give himself a choice. Why'd you have to shoot so many times? How many times did I shoot? I thought four. The guy I think holds six runs. The situation just happens so fast. Like, I don't know. You didn't think to move hers too. I didn't think about, like I said, when she chased me around the bed. And I, and I just felt, I didn't even think about hers. Because I don't, I really don't deal with her gun. We never had, it ain't never get this bad. It ain't never got this bad. This is probably as bad as it gets. Did she pass away? Yes. He knows he's shot her six times. He knows she's not moving upstairs. He also knows he did not render any type of aid to her. None. So in his own mind, he has already come to terms with what he's done. He has killed her. It's a little interesting as to why he even asked. Because on his 9-1 call, he says that he killed her. Like I say, man, if the night when the ball she wouldn't try to stab me, I wouldn't ever even try to protect myself. Hey, she a woman. But with a knife, you didn't use it. Especially with a big knife like that. Like, man, you, you see the video, man. It should be too. We have some suspicions about what he's saying. But as far as the sequence of events that happened in that room, we really don't know. And we can't really confirm one way or another. The reality ain't set in for you. Terrell Edwards wanted the police to see these videos that he says he had on his phone. You never know what's going to be on a video until you see it. It's almost like he's starting to build his own case. He's serving as his own defense attorney in a way and trying to say, "See? Can you see what's happening here?" Combined with everything else, him saying exactly where that knife was under Amanda's body, him keeping tight. Tyler out of the room, it just became even more crucial to see what this evidence was on his phone. - As police press forward with their investigation, Amanda Williams' community is prepared to say their final goodbyes at the church that she had called home. - When I looked out into the church to see how packed it was, it just speaks to just the support she had. - Anybody who's friends with Amanda knows that they have a loyal, honest, spicy and high energy friend for life. She had friends in many circles, but she was always the same person with everybody. I'm so proud of my friend and I'm going to definitely miss her. - When Amanda walked in, you knew it, you felt it, you could sense it. She was alive. She was alive for her children, a live for her grand daughter. That's where her unnecessary, untimely death bothered us all so much. Only two people in the world know what happened. And only one is still alive. I could not shoot the woman that I love, not even once. - But at some point, her children had her cell phone. They were able to kind of guess the code correctly and get the phone open. There were pictures in the phone of her, documenting her bruises to where she got wear a mask on her face and they were looking at text messages and they were able to see him apologizing for either hitting her or doing something to her. Everybody was shocked because Amanda never let on to a lot of people that that's what was going on in her life. She was a private person. A lot of times, victims are protective of their abusers. They don't want to get them in trouble. Domestic violence. Victims become so focused on the abuser that they almost forget that they are a person in the situation. - And if their grief wasn't heavy enough, Amanda's family's left with another burden. Wondering why the man responsible for her killing hasn't been charged. - Terrell was free. He was out at restaurants, out at the barbershop. The family's not hearing nothing. They're trying to figure out what's going on. So at some point, passive ironing stepped in and he arranged a press conference to be held at his church. - You see all these people behind me? I mean, she is loved by a lot. She got an army behind her. And we begging for it the right way we want justice. And we want this not just for our family, for any woman to be killed. - In Warren'sville, they only have 48 hours after someone's arrested to charge them or release them. When that 48 hours had elapsed, they had still not been able to get into the phone. The decision was made in consultation with the prosecutor's office to release Terrell Edwards pending further investigation. That sometimes is difficult for families to hear. Because to them, they know who did it. Why aren't you arresting him? We don't just prosecute cases based on what we think. We prosecute cases based on evidence and what we can prove. And so while we knew Terrell is the one who killed Amanda, what we didn't know was whether he truly acted in self-defense or not. - So it becomes critical for investigators to find a way to view the cell phone videos of this alleged altercation. The ones that Terrell was so desperate for them to see. - Lieutenant Johnson had the phone. He knew exactly where these videos were. He just couldn't get into it because the screen had been severely damaged. The moment that phone is fixed, detectives waste no time watching those videos and what they find changes everything. - Video number one is at 1131 PM. Terrell is taking the video on his phone and Amanda has just come up the stairs into the bedroom. She has one of those longer lighters in her hand and then she has the knife in her other hand. - You go stab me. - I'm gonna defend myself. - Defend yourself from what? - You act in value, there you go. - She had a knife in her hand that's not in dispute, but she was never close enough to him to harm him with it. She's not making any threats at any time. If anything, she had the knife for the reason that she said to defend herself. She then makes a move towards Terrell. Like she starts walking towards him. She puts the knife down on the ledge of the stairs prior to walking towards Terrell. So to us, the fact that she put that knife down is huge. - Video two is only like one or two seconds long. Again, Terrell is holding the camera. The camera is facing the bed and you hear Amanda say something about what are you doing with those covers referring to the bed. - What you did, some scum. - And then the video stops. - Video number three, which is the final video. It's at 11.38 pm. - When you watch the third video, it is hard to see. It's a lot of movement. It's moving around as Amanda is moving around. - You hear them screaming at each other. - No, you. - Oh. - Tell out, tell out, tell out, tell out, tell out, you know what. - At some point, you see Terrell over by Amanda's side of the bed. - She comes and she grabs the phone from Terrell and she takes it. - Amanda hits the phone with, we weren't sure if it was the big lighter or the butt of the knife, but you hear her hitting the phone. - She's saying some things on it, but it's not threatening towards Terrell. Meanwhile, you've got Terrell on the other side of the room yelling at her. And then you hear six shots. - You know what? (gun shots) - The phone drops, here's some other noises, and then the video stops. - So I want to tell you about something really big happening here at Long Crime. If you haven't checked it out yet, we have the Long Crime Plus app. And this is where you can stream your favorite Long Crime and Core TV shows, completely commercial free. And now, Long Crime Plus subscribers, they can watch new episodes of Prime Crime a week early before they premiere on YouTube. And right now, we've got a special offer with my promo code PrimeFall. You get your first three months of Long Crime Plus for just $299 a month. That is 50% off the regular monthly price. So with that in mind, subscribe today. The only thing that I saw was full of chaos, it felt toxic. - You never hear Terrell warning her that he has a gun. You never hear anything that would suggest that Amanda even knew he had it. - We know she puts the knife down. So where is the threat to him? There isn't one. How is she holding you hostage when the knife is on the ledge, not in her hand anymore? And again, why aren't you leaving? Because you had no intention of leaving. That's why. - At that point, I'm very confident it's not self-defense. There was blood spatter on Terrell's sweat pants around the crotch area and on his slipper. There was like a chase lounge pretty close to where Amanda had fallen. No blood there. That to us was pointing towards he was initially far away. And then at some point came and stood over her and continued to shoot. - He made these videos on purpose, which to me means he started them on purpose and he stopped them on purpose. In his effort to have a justification to use deadly force on his fiancee. You did not see a stabbing happen. You know that from Terrell's injuries or lack thereof, he actually wasn't stabbed. When you see this and you know he shot her six times, he's got some explaining to do. - Once we got the videos in conjunction with the evidence from the medical examiner's office, we had enough to present the case to a grand jury. - A grand jury indicted him with counts of aggravated murder. He was charged with two separate counts of murder. The first being purposeful killing of another person. The second being the killing of someone during the course of a violent felony of the second degree, specifically Filonius Assault. He was also then charged with two counts of Filonius Assault and one count of domestic violence. - And arrest warrant is issued for Terrell and he ends up turning himself in without putting up a fight. - When I finally heard that Terrell was arrested, I was excited and I was just looking forward to getting to the trial to see what was going to happen. - When we go into trial, we take nothing for granted. This is a domestic violence homicide which really knows no bounds when it comes to intimate partner violence. We still need to prove exactly what happened to Amanda Williams and that Terrell Edwards is the one who did it. So we hold nothing back. - I was confident when a prosecutor started talking and going through what he was showing everyone in the case. I think I got more upset when I heard the dish. defense go above and beyond to say how to realize that this is self-defense, a man to initiate it. - We knew he was going to argue self-defense. If somebody's going to argue self-defense, they pretty much have to take the stand. - And maybe as everyone expected, Torell takes the stand, ready to hand this jury another version of what happened that night. - She's coming out of my closet with a whole bunch of clothes and she's throwing them all over the floor, telling me to get out. Her eyes was blue, shot red. Something just wasn't right to me with her. So I took the Bible and I put it into her chest and said, "Hey, calm down, calm down." She pushed the Bible away from me. She went and sat on the bed, on my side of the bed. But then she told me, okay, if you do stay here tonight, you're going to have to sleep with one eye open. So then it's like when she said that, she made a gesture that she was reaching towards my nicety. So I'd go over there because I had my firearms in nicety. So I went over there, I grabbed the firearms and I went downstairs to my car, put the firearms in my vehicle. - And why'd you do that? - 'Cause she had told me to sleep with one eye open, that kind of alerted me that she might do something during the night to me. So I took my phone out and I started recording. I zoomed in 'cause I was so far away from her, I couldn't tell what she had in her hand. So when I noticed it was a knife, I said, "Would you go get a knife for her?" I'm just trying to leave, I'm about to leave. - But to your recollection, she comes up then with the knife. You start taping her, what happens? - I asked her, would you go get a knife for her? And she said, "To defend myself." So I asked her, defend yourself from what? - And then what happens? - She like charged at me. Like she got so close to me with the knife when she snatched the phone, it made me jump up and I jumped over the bed. - You jumped to her side of the bed, what is she doing? - She asked that, the phone with the knife. She's like coming towards me on her side of the bed. - And what are you trying to do? - Get away from her. - Why did you shoot her? - Because she was coming at me with the knife. - Did you have any reason that you would want it to shoot Amanda? - No, I did not. - Did you have any plan to shoot Amanda that night? - No, I did not. - Do you regret it? - Yes, I regret it, yes I do. - When you moved your guns to your car, you knew there was a third gun in the room, didn't you? - Not a dead time, I did not. - So when, during all of this, did you realize there was a third gun in the room? - Once I had failed off the bed on her side of the bed. - So you're telling this jury, you thought ahead enough to take your two guns out of the house. And it's just sheer luck that you were on that side of the bed during video free. That you grabbed that gun and used it to defend yourself. - Did your testimony hear that the time between video one and video free, she was holding you hostage in that room that whole time. - Yes, I believe so, yes. - And she's got the knife to you that whole time? - Yes. - She does, yes. - Play video one here real fast. - You know that? - I'm going to defend myself. - I hope the thing has nothing to do with it. - You make a man, do you live? - I was right there at eight seconds. - That's Amanda, right? - Yes. - Did you see her put something on the ledge before she started walking towards you? - No, I didn't. No, I did not. - It's right there. - Why didn't? - She's got in her left hand the green lighter, right? - Yeah, I can see now, yes. - And she's got in her right hand the knife, correct? - Yes. Which hand leaves something on this ledge when she starts walking towards you? - It looked like her right hand. - Right hand. - Did you left the knife on the ledge when she started walking towards you? - I didn't know that. - It's a pretty crucial fact, wouldn't you agree? If you're saying to this jury, she held you hostage for seven minutes. How can she, if she doesn't have the knife in her hand? - I stopped because she scared me. - She scared you from all the way over there? - I don't know what she would defend her as their friend. We hadn't fought, we hadn't did anything. - Really? - We did not fight. Is she supposed to just forget her entire relationship with you? - And right here, in this moment, the prosecution finally gets the opening that they have been waiting for to show this jury who to rel Edwards really is. - Mr. Edwards, you know exactly why she wanted to defend herself, don't you? (dramatic music) Have you ever hurt her before? - I wouldn't say it hurt her. - You've never hurt Amanda intentionally? Is that your testimony? - Yes, sir. - Have you ever done anything to make her feel like a battered woman? - I think about Amanda. Amanda, she's not gonna go for me in a battered woman. She's not that type of woman. - So she wouldn't have used those words with you? And you wouldn't have said you were sorry for doing that to her? - No, not that night, no. - I'm talking ever, Mr. Edwards. Let's go specifically November of 2020. Do you remember doing anything that caused Amanda to tell you she felt like a battered woman? - Yes, and that means this does not remember. - Okay, so when you testified earlier, you've never been violent with Amanda Williams, that wasn't exactly accurate, was it? - I wouldn't call it being violent. Would you consider picking someone in the face of violent act? - In that situation, it was not a violent act. It wasn't intentionally a violent act, no. - Wasn't the violent act, Mr. Edwards, and Amanda had to go to the hospital after that happened? I recalled the next day she told me that she had went to the hospital, yes. - When people act in abusive ways, they always can find a way to make it like, "Oh, that wasn't a big deal." Minimizing, rationalizing, it's all part of the pathology when somebody acts in abusive ways. - When we were able to question him about that, that actually gave the jury some context as to what may have been going through Amanda's mind. - Why not let Tyler go to her mother and try to help her? - They want Tyler to be trampled to this. She kept trying to get over that. I didn't know her to see her, no? - So it was for you to decide when Amanda Williams was dead and whether her daughter would be able to hold her in her dying moments? That was for you to decide? - I see how I didn't want Tyler to see her in my own life. - I think everyone was sitting there in disbelief, because the tutorial we met, we never thought that we would go from family gatherings to seeing him sit with a defense attorney on the other side of the courtroom. - After days of gut wrenching testimony and mounting evidence, the prosecution and the defense are ready to make their closing arguments. - Now let's talk about self-defense because that's what this case comes down to, right? Amanda put the knife down. The only force she ever used again was on that phone. The force she used to break the phone. She does not escalate the situation. When she's standing there at the top of the stairs, he says, "What are you going to stab me?" Listen to his intonation. Is that somebody who's scared or somebody that's maybe enticing her? - The state wants to say this somehow was planned. Like he somehow knew that was going to happen. What happens in that room is unmistakably him trying to get away from her. You see it on the video, everything confirms it. And he shoots at the moment he feels he has no other choice. And I believe that he is not guilty because self-defense applies here. - The first close is what Ms. Graham did on behalf of the state. And that's to make the jury understand someone's guilty. What I get up there, it's called the bubble close. And in my opinion, that's when you have to make the jury feel that someone's guilty. - History is written by the winners. What do we know about Amanda Williams' death? We know what the defendant has allowed us to know. What he wants us to know. Who shoots someone they love? Six times. It doesn't check on them. It preserves the scene for the police to see. Making sure that person's own daughter can't touch her or hold her or try to save her life. Who does that? [BLANK_AUDIO] A monster does that. After roughly a day of deliberations, the jury finally reaches a verdict. Before it forms in this case, count 1. The verdict greens we, the jury in this case, being doing panel and sworn. Do find the defendant Torell Edwards not guilty of aggravated murder? Juries are instructed that they must look at every count as a separate and distinct event. So I could see how this jury may have felt that Torell Edwards acted purposely, but maybe he didn't plan it exactly. Count 2, the verdict reads, we did during this case find the defendant Torell Edwards guilty of murder. Count 3, charge of murder, guilty of murder. Count 4, felonies assault, guilty of felonies assault. Count 5, charge of felonies assault. We did during this case do find Torell Edwards guilty of felonies assault. Finally count 6, the verdict form reads, we did during do find defendant Torell Edwards guilty of domestic violence. Just 7 days after the verdict comes down, the case heads into sentencing. Sentencing was a very emotional day, and that was Amanda's day. I said it did everything in writing life, but running across Torell. I've been around him a lot. He a wolf and sheep clothing, a little wolf. Please give him what you gotta go or every answer what you can give him. He didn't give her nose. How could you kill that woman like that Torell? Tell me, man, how did you do that to her, man? I just can't stomach the fact that I have to live the rest of my life without my mom. My daughter has to live the rest of her life without her grandma. Because a coward wanted to take her life, my mom did not deserve this at all. And you tell me never wanted me to be traumatized. I was traumatized the moment I walked into the end of the room and see my mom lying there. You're missing my beautiful kind hearted mother. That he just took a beautiful spirit away. She can't even finish her life. It is gone out in time, in terms of years. Anywhere you're meant to do, or will ever equate to the loss of Amanda's life and to do so or try to do so. Really it's disrespectful to her now. The sentence will be a life sentence with moral eligibility. The murder charge is 15 years to life in prison. He also was convicted of firearm specifications, so his total sentence was 24 years to life. Meaning he'll be eligible for parole after he serves 24 years. A domestic violence homicide. Those can be some of the saddest cases that we deal with here. The thing that we have to remember is people who are in abusive relationships are afraid. They worry about their safety. They worry about retaliation. Domestic violence is about wanting power and wanting control. And when someone who has perpetrator like behaviors does not feel in control, he will take it to any level that they can to get what they want. That's what domestic violence is. And while Amanda's family and friends find some measure of relief knowing that Terrell Edwards is finally behind bars, one fact remains unchanged and unbearable. Amanda is still gone. He just tore a hole in everybody's soul. Her kids have to continue living without a mother. She can't see her grandchild grow up. She has a new grandbaby. She will never meet. Amanda's cousin made these buttons for everyone to wear doing the court case and just to wear for support and everything, so this is an important button to me. If Amanda were here today, she would still be building her business, building her brand, loving her grandkids, and being there for her family. It just hasn't been the same since she's been gone. [MUSIC]