Authorities recovered the charred remains of a young Georgia mom stuffed in a suitcase nearly two months after she was last seen alive.
Briana Winston, 23, vanished March 16, from the Clayton County, Georgia, apartment she shared with her married boyfriend, Michale Edwards, also 23. The couple shared a 4-year-old child.
On April 1, loved ones reported Briana missing after not hearing from her for several weeks.
An examination of Briana's bleach-soaked apartment led authorities to believe she was "the victim of a crime that left her incapacitated in some way," Clayton County police said last month. They were operating under the presumption the victim was dead.
Edwards and his wife, Brienna Phillips-Edwards, were considered persons of interest early on in the case, after police accused him of cleaning out the apartment he shared with Briana.
On Thursday, Edwards was formally charged with Briana's murder.
During a court appearance Friday, authorities alleged Edwards choked Briana to death in their apartment following an argument about another man, WANF-TV and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
"You then traveled to Gates, Tennessee, with the body of the victim concealed in a suitcase; and with the help of a co-defendant, proceeded to burn the suitcase in a barrel," Clayton County Judge Betrice Scott accused, according to WSB-TV.
The co-defendant was not identified.
"We have closure," Briana's cousin, Jasmine Walker, told the station Friday. "That's about all we can say right now."
