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ABC's Bad Romance: A Special Edition of 20/20 is set to cover the brutal murder of Lyntell Washington, a beloved teacher from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The case was also solved after a three-year-old child became the biggest clue to cracking it open.
The 40-year-old was seven months pregnant at the time of her death and was found shot in the head in a ditch in Louisiana. Her three-year-old daughter was found wandering on her own, and helped police identify her mother's killer and the way it happened.
This case will be the subject of Bad Romance: A Special Edition of 20/20 season 2 episode 4, which premieres on Tuesday, April 15, 2025. The synopsis for the episode, as revealed by ABC News' Press Release, reads:
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"When a passerby finds a 3-year-old girl with blood on her feet wandering alone in a parking lot, authorities embark on a multiday search for her missing mother: Lyntell Washington, a beloved Baton Rouge educator who was voted Teacher of the Year."
It continues:
"When law enforcement finds the pregnant teacher shot in the head, they are also given a cryptic clue from her toddler. As investigators dig deeper, they learn Lyntell had a secret affair with a co-worker — a man whose own secrets and carefully constructed alibi raise even more disturbing questions."
Ahead of this episode on ABC, let us go over who Lyntell Washington was and what happened to her.
Who was Lyntell Washington, and what happened to her?
Lyntell Washington was an instructional specialist at Brookstown Middle Magnet Academy in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The 40-year-old was widely regarded as an exceptional teacher and was also named Teacher of the Year one year before she was killed. She was also a caring and responsible mother to her three-year-old daughter.
At the time of this incident, she was reportedly seven months pregnant. Things reportedly seemed to go well for Lyntell until June 2016, when Leslie Parms found a three-year-old on her own in a parking lot. The car, near where the toddler was found, was splattered with blood.
Leslie called authorities, who discovered that the young girl was Lyntell Washington's daughter. They also realized that Lyntell was missing and when they spoke to the three-year-old, she said that a "Mr. Robbie" had dropped her at the parking lot.
When she was taken to the police station, she said that Mr. Robbie had made the blood as well. She told a child forensic interviewer that Mr. Robbie had hurt her mother, who was asleep by a lake. The girl also said that she had heard a "boom."
The three-year-old's statements led police to a lake where they found Washington's body in a ditch in Iberville Parish, Louisiana, on June 14, 2016.
Who was behind the murder of Lyntell Washington?
Lyntell's daughter had named the person behind the murder, and authorities soon figured out that Mr. Robbie was Robert Jovantie Marks. He was the assistant principal in the school where Washington worked.
They also discovered that Lyntell and Robert were having an affair and she was pregnant with his child. Robert had reportedly lied to Lyntell and claimed that he was divorcing his wife as Lyntell was pressuring him to tell his wife about their affair or figure things out with her.
Ultimately, thanks to Lyntell Washington's 3-year-old daughter, the case was cracked, and Marks was sent to prison for life.
The upcoming episode of Bad Romance will cover this in more detail.
