-[♪ ominous music playing] -[distant quiet chatter]
[narrator] Do you have a picture with your favorite teacher?
The one that changed your life?
Many students at Wilde Lake High
are lucky enough to have one with their fave,
31-year-old Laura Wallen.
She just lit up the room.
[narrator] And she loves to capture every moment.
Every interaction, every smile, memory,
she captures in a photo or a text,
especially on the first day of school.
First day of class, Ms. Wallen was at the door,
and I'm like, "Yeah, this gon' be different, bro."
[school bell ringing]
[narrator] So, when the school bell rings
on September 5, 2017,
and she doesn't make it to class,
dark secrets bubble to the surface.
-[♪ tense music playing] -[texts beeping]
I was like, "Why are we bringing up Antwan?"
Like, he knows something.
[narrator] Her students and community won't rest
until the truth is revealed.
I ain't never gonna give up. I ain't never gonna give up.
[narrator] And when mounting suspicion points to photo evidence,
Laura's final message unveils a killer too close to home.
That was a defining moment. We knew this is exactly how he killed her.
I know what that devil looked like when he walked in, man.
[♪ tense crescendo]
[speaker 1] She solved her own murder from beyond the grave.
[speaker 2] The fitness app on the phone.
It was overwhelming evidence.
♪ I've been haunted by the visions ♪
♪ That I've seen with my own eyes ♪
♪ And the only way to find you ♪
♪ Is to go beneath the lies ♪
[speaker 3] She did help catch this killer.
[♪ energetic music playing]
[narrator] Just west of Baltimore lies Columbia, Maryland,
a family-friendly suburb known for its great sense of community.
It's the end of summer, and teachers at Wilde Lake High
prep for the first day of school.
No one is more excited
than 31-year-old social studies teacher Laura Wallen,
a passionate educator who goes above and beyond for everyone.
So, when Laura doesn't show up on the first day of school,
it sets off alarm bells with her students.
[Saquan Maxwell] My name's Saquan Maxwell, and I'm a former student of Laura Wallen.
[echoing clap]
I graduated from Wilde Lake High School in May of 2017,
so I'm a year removed at this point.
And I'm getting these messages like,
"Yo, there's word that Ms. Wallen's missing, bro."
Like, it's all over Snapchat. Like, all the kids, they're posting it.
I'm like...
"Huh? I just talked to Ms. Wallen, like, two days ago, bro.
She's missing?"
[narrator] This isn't like Laura at all.
Her ghosting raises eyebrows outside the school
and for her fellow teachers inside, too.
[Jessica Nichols] My name is Jessica Nichols,
and I was a coworker of Laura Wallen
for the entire time she was at Wilde Lake High School.
I remember just walking past her classroom,
and I noticed the kids were outside.
Wallen was never late on the first day of school,
and so I sent her a text. I was like, "Hey, girl, are you okay?"
Didn't hear anything.
[narrator] Minutes pass, and then hours.
And even though her class is covered by a sub,
the sense of dread swells.
[Saquan] And I'm like, "This is weird."
Ms. Wallen stayed in contact with me after graduation.
I call her, and I text her, like, "Ms. Wallen, I need you.
I need to talk to you about something." I made it like it was a important message.
♪♪
She never responded.
[Jessica] If Laura Wallen wasn't physically there,
something had to have happened to her.
Something was desperately wrong.
[♪ somber music playing]
[narrator] It's not just the teachers and students at Wilde Lake High
who feel something is wrong.
Laura's sister, Jen, hasn't heard from her in over 24 hours,
and she calls the police.
♪♪
[Paul Reese] My name is Detective Sergeant Paul Reese
with Montgomery County Police.
[narrator] Investigators learn from Laura's family
that she lives in a condo in Olney, Maryland,
about 20 minutes from the school.
We were given access to the house by the Wallen family.
One of my detectives went to the house, did a quick look around.
There was nothing that was out of play.
There was no signs of a struggle whatsoever.
[narrator] The responding police officers take note
that Laura's black SUV is not in the driveway,
and her apartment looks untouched.
What they do find are many photos of Laura
surrounded by friends and loved ones,
evidence of a woman who captures special moments
with those she cares for.
Laura Wallen had a beautiful family.
That included her dad, and her mom,
and her wonderful sister.
On her social media, she posted inspirational things,
and you could clearly see how much Laura loved her family.
[narrator] Aside from capturing moments with her family and friends,
the other thing that brings Laura pure joy is teaching.
It was at Wilde Lake, she got to, she used to say,
"Live the dream of being a high school teacher."
[Gregory Drinan-Bowes] My name is Gregory Drinan-Bowes,
and I am a student and a friend of Laura Wallen.
Laura Wallen was a young, hip teacher
who knew all the slang terms that we were using.
She was emotionally invested in her work,
and she just lit up the room.
Laura could spot kids, uh, in school
that were obviously having trouble.
And I was one of those kids.
[narrator] Laura goes out of her way
to give extra care to students who need it most.
♪ You should be scared ♪
[Saquan] I grew up in West Baltimore, like the roughest part,
and I was expelled from every school in Baltimore City.
I didn't think I was gonna graduate from Wilde Lake.
Ms. Wallen would just talk to me, like, this high-pitched, like,
soothing voice and just, like, just remind us that it's school, bro,
and there's a lot more to come after this.
Ms. Wallen helped me find out who I am.
[narrator] Laura stays in touch with many students
after they've left Wilde Lake,
and they know she's always just a text away.
But on this day, Laura isn't responding to anyone.
-And when the dismissal bell rings... -[bell rings]
...there's still no sign of her.
The day was over, and everybody left.
And I got a phone call from my student aide,
and she was like,
"Her parents reported her missing."
And it was like the air got sucked out of my lungs.
[police radio chatter]
[narrator] When word gets out that police
are now investigating Laura's disappearance,
her students begin their own search effort.
[Saquan] I walked over to the UPS store.
I literally asked, like, if you can front us a couple flyers,
and then we'd come back and pay you, like...
So, they gave us 100 for free, and we went out that day.
We start calling everybody we know. "Yo, meet us at Wilde Lake."
[narrator] While Saquan and his friends hit the pavement,
-detectives retrace Laura's steps. -[phone ringing]
The last time anyone heard from her was this past weekend.
Laura was out with her boyfriend, Tyler.
Laura and Tyler had this on-again, off-again relationship.
♪♪
They would do the country rodeo thing together,
and Laura loved it.
She called him her cowboy.
[narrator] Tyler had a job transporting cows
for local cattle farmers, so the title fits.
But now, they're even more excited about an upcoming arrival.
♪♪
She had announced to the department that she was having a baby,
and we were all like, "Oh, my God, that's great!"
[laughs] You know, because we all just thought
this kid is getting the best mom on the planet.
[narrator] Laura is four months pregnant,
and she's already named her baby, a boy.
We were all so excited for her.
[narrator] But that excitement has turned to worry.
Laura's sister, Jen, shows investigators a text exchange
between her and Laura from Saturday,
when Laura was on a date with Tyler.
[texts whooshing]
[Paul] Jen and Laura were extremely close.
And there was never a day they did not speak.
On the night of Saturday, September 2nd,
the text messages from Laura were extremely happy.
But then, on Monday,
these text messages became completely dark.
♪♪
Laura was making references to a person by the name of Antwan.
[text dings]
The text message alluded to the fact that she was pregnant
and that her boyfriend at the time, Tyler, was not the father of the baby.
[♪ dramatic music playing]
[narrator] Has Laura left an unearthed clue?
A hidden meaning or a final message
that will lead investigators to her whereabouts?
What does Laura mean by "living a lie"?
And who is Antwan?
As the Wilde Lake community forges ahead on their search,
they'll uncover more secrets and more lies,
until they unlock the biggest secret of all.
I was extremely shocked, looking at the picture
and trying to match the picture up.
Like, my heart just, like, sunk.
[♪ dramatic crescendo]
[♪ mysterious music playing]
[narrator] Popular high school teacher and mother-to-be Laura Wallen
has the entire community on pins and needles
when she doesn't show up for the first day of school.
I think everybody's state at that point was just pure confusion.
Like, everybody was confused.
[text dings]
[narrator] There's no time to waste, so investigators start unpacking
a series of concerning text messages
sent from Laura to her sister, Jen, over the Labor Day weekend.
♪♪
[Katie Leggett] My name is Katie Leggett,
and I'm a detective in Montgomery County, Maryland,
and I'm assigned to the Cold Case/Missing Person Unit.
On Labor Day weekend, there was a text message
that Laura sent to her sister, Jen,
and raised Jen's suspicions
that something was wrong.
[narrator] The text suggests Laura's boyfriend,
Tyler Tessier, is not the father of her baby.
[Paul] I called Tyler Tessier to come to the office
to tell us exactly what was going on with his girlfriend.
He came in very quickly, um,
and wanted to give up as much information as he possibly could.
[narrator] Tyler makes it clear that his relationship with Laura
isn't so picture-perfect.
[♪ ominous music playing]
[Katie] They were having problems prior to her finding out she was pregnant.
In fact, they had broken up.
And when she found out she was pregnant,
Tyler assured her he was in for the long haul.
♪♪
[narrator] Tyler says with a baby on the way,
he and Laura are committed to working things out.
And over the Labor Day weekend,
they went out to explore the vast countryside,
envisioning a perfect spot for their future dream home.
[narrator] That Saturday night, Tyler had big plans,
-but the baby had other ideas. -[texts dinging]
Laura had morning sickness.
He had mentioned that he was going to propose that night,
but when she became ill,
he decided to put that off.
They stopped at the Safeway in Olney
to buy some seltzer water for her that she liked,
I guess to calm her stomach.
Then, they went back to the condo.
[narrator] The following day, when Laura was feeling better,
Tyler says he presented her with a diamond engagement ring.
Tyler thought that Laura would be happy,
but she wasn't.
[Paul] He was very confused
about why she didn't wanna be married to him.
♪♪
[narrator] Tyler says he got in touch with Laura later that evening,
and they made a plan to talk things over on Monday.
He was gonna meet with her on Monday, Labor Day,
at the cafe inside of Columbia Mall.
But she never showed up.
[narrator] That same morning,
Laura sent the troubling texts to her sister,
and that was the last time anyone heard from her.
Did Laura spurn Tyler's proposal
because someone else is the father of the baby?
Someone by the name of Antwan?
[text dings]
I asked him, "Is there a possibility you're not the father?"
[♪ tense music playing]
Tyler said she does not have any boyfriends
that he knows about, and he never said the name Antwan.
[narrator] Tyler may not know who Antwan is,
but now that investigators know more
about his last interaction with Laura this past weekend,
they can further dial in on their search.
Tyler had mentioned that they had been at the Safeway in Olney that night.
One of the detectives from our unit
watched footage
and, in fact, did find them on the footage,
and they had bought exactly what Tyler said they had bought.
♪♪
[narrator] It's been 48 hours since anyone heard from Laura,
and investigators turn their attention
to the mysterious Antwan.
-Laura's texts suggest the unthinkable. -[text dings]
Did she get too close to one of her students
and cross the line?
We met with the principal and met with a school resource officer,
and we started going through records.
[♪ tense crescendo]
And there was a student named Antwan.
We ended up finding a student who was very young,
with braces, and sweet, and quiet
and absolutely was not having an affair with a teacher.
[echoing footsteps]
♪ I can't live without you, so where do I begin ♪
♪♪
♪ I can't go back ♪
Maybe one of them knows about another Antwan,
someone Laura was dating outside of school.
My principal goes, "Hey, we need you in the conference room."
And there's a bunch of police officers.
They asked me, "Well, what do you know about Antwan?"
And I was like... "Antwan?
You mean the, the guy that she was dating, like, years ago?"
♪ Why am I never satisfied? ♪
I didn't really know Antwan at all.
I just remember Laura telling me
that this wasn't gonna work out,
and then, like, Antwan just...
faded into the ether 'cause he moved away.
[text dings]
[narrator] Could it be that this is the same Antwan
who is somehow back in Laura's life?
The problem for investigators
is that no one knows where Antwan lives
or his full name.
We had detectives looking into where he was located,
but we needed time to figure out Antwan's last name.
[narrator] By now, word of Laura's disappearance
is all over the local news,
and everyone from Wilde Lake High
to the Columbia lakefront are on the lookout.
[Jessica] The kids were making appeals on social media.
[texts whooshing, phone keys clacking]
They knocked on doors. They passed out flyers.
They had to fight for Ms. Wallen.
♪♪
If you care about something and you believe in what that is--
Like, people plant flowers and grow gardens all the time.
Like, I'm waking up every day,
pouring water on this seed, on this soil.
Ms. Wallen had that. She had that. We was her garden.
We was all doing this in hopes of still finding Ms. Wallen.
[narrator] Then, three days after Laura went missing,
investigators receive a phone call that changes everything.
On September 7th, a call comes in
from the Gramercy Apartments in Columbia.
And it's the grounds manager
saying that he had found Laura's driver's license by a dumpster.
[♪ curious music playing]
We scrambled many detectives and officers
from Montgomery County to the apartment complex.
[narrator] The location is just across the street
from Wilde Lake High School.
And when officers arrive, they make a shocking discovery.
We located Laura's car in the parking lot, near the dumpster.
♪♪
That was probably the first "Oh, my God" moment that we had.
♪♪
Your gut can tell you something's wrong,
and we, at that point, know something bad is coming.
[narrator] Will this new bombshell discovery
lead the investigators closer to Laura?
Will the teacher who has captivated the minds and hearts
of those young and old be found?
As investigators read between the lines and inch closer to the truth,
what they find will rock the dreams and fears
of everyone involved.
[♪ tense music playing]
[narrator] Three days after Laura Wallen's disappearance,
investigators are called to an apartment complex
close to the high school where she teaches.
In the parking lot, they find Laura's black SUV.
[shutter snaps, flash whirring]
There was no blood. There was no evidence of a struggle.
There was no damage on the car.
But the front license plate was removed.
[narrator] A cleverly concealed car?
A conveniently removed license plate?
Did someone take Laura's car
and move it here, hoping it's never found?
We believed at that point foul play was involved
and that this was gonna start leaning towards a homicide.
[♪ tense sting]
[narrator] By nightfall, word quickly spreads.
Laura's car has been found, but not Laura.
♪ Let me take you back ♪
[students chattering]
[Kareem Press] When we were hearing, like, on the news when they had found her car,
not even that far away from the school,
we knew that Ms. Wallen was in danger.
When I found out, ugh, like, my heart just, like, sunk.
It was just, it was complete shift of energy.
I know I saw teachers who were bawling their eyes out.
Like, it was just crazy because I've never seen teachers react so much.
Hearing that news, it was completely devastating.
♪♪
[narrator] Laura's car doesn't give up any clues about her whereabouts.
And investigators still don't know the identity
of her mysterious ex, Antwan.
-[texts dinging] -Could Laura have run away with him?
Or did Antwan do something to her when he found out about the baby?
We kinda went down the rabbit hole of looking for this man named Antwan.
[narrator] As detectives hunt for the elusive Antwan,
a tip from Laura's brother-in-law, John,
sends the investigation in a new direction.
-[phone ringing] -I got a call, and John Kadi said to me,
"Are you aware of Tyler's other girlfriend?"
[narrator] Investigators are stunned.
Apparently, there's another woman in Tyler's life,
and her name is Chrissy.
All John Kadi knew about Chrissy was that she may be a teacher
and that maybe they were still in a relationship.
♪♪
[narrator] Could a love triangle be at the core
of Laura's disappearance?
Investigators quickly track down Tyler's other woman.
One of my detectives, I sent to a, a middle school
in Gaithersburg, Maryland, where Chrissy was working at.
Asked the principal to bring Chrissy in for an interview
in one of their conference rooms.
So, then I called Tyler and I said,
"Tyler, I need to speak to you right away."
And Tyler went white as a ghost.
He knew at that point we knew who Chrissy was,
and that's when he admitted that, yes, he was with Chrissy.
But he told us that we just didn't understand, though,
because he was in love with Laura.
He knew she was pregnant.
He wanted to be the father of the baby. He wanted a life with her.
But he just couldn't be with Chrissy anymore.
[narrator] Little does Tyler know,
investigators are getting Chrissy's side of the story
at the exact same time.
I received a text message from my detective that stated,
"I'm sitting with Chrissy. She's got a ring on.
They're engaged, and they live together."
♪♪
Chrissy told my detective that basically
Laura was someone who was after her boyfriend
and that Laura was crazy.
[narrator] During Chrissy's interview across town,
she says she received an unexpected DM on Facebook
just a few days before Laura went missing.
Laura found Chrissy's profile,
and she wanted to talk woman-to-woman.
-[message dings] -[♪ tense music playing]
[Katie] Laura reached out to Chrissy,
asking, "Hey, we need to get together."
[narrator] Chrissy tells police she never responded
because she was afraid of Laura.
According to Chrissy,
Tyler had some pretty nasty things to say about Laura.
Due to the fact that there was this love triangle that we had uncovered,
Chrissy having some involvement
was a theory that had to be run out like everything else.
[narrator] When asked about her whereabouts Labor Day weekend,
Chrissy says she was gearing up for a big day.
[Katie] Chrissy said she was dress shopping
with her bridal party in Pennsylvania
on the weekend that Laura disappeared, for her and Tyler's upcoming wedding.
[narrator] Tyler insists that Laura
is the only one he's actually in love with,
and he has no idea where she is.
But the detectives aren't buying it.
We don't have any evidence that Tyler
had done anything to Laura at that particular point,
um, except for, again, the lies about his girlfriend.
That's when the case took a complete 180,
and we took a different approach
to how we were gonna handle Mr. Tessier.
[school bell ringing]
[narrator] Detectives come up with a plan to put Tyler under the spotlight.
Katie Leggett put together a press conference with our media section.
[♪ dramatic music playing]
If I ask Tyler to do a press conference and he says no,
he's gonna assume that we think he's guilty.
If I ask him to do a press conference and he says yes,
we're gonna get something good. It's worth a shot.
♪♪
[narrator] It's now seven days after Laura's disappearance.
Once transfixed by her encrypted text messages,
investigators now find themselves on the edge of their seats.
Face-to-face in front of the cameras
and with the eyes of the community upon him,
will Tyler reveal anything about Laura's fate?
Or will this entire ruse be all for nothing?
[♪ dramatic crescendo]
[♪ solemn music playing]
[narrator] Laura Wallen has been missing for seven days,
and her boyfriend, Tyler, stands face-to-face with the media
during a cleverly orchestrated press conference.
[♪ tense music playing]
[narrator] Detectives believe that Tyler knows something
about Laura's disappearance, so they staged the press conference
to see how he responds to questions about Laura.
[♪ tense crescendo]
[Katie] He took a deep breath,
and he completely did not answer the question.
He knew something.
So, for me, it was just one extra layer of evidence
to try to get, in case he decided he was gonna stop talking to us.
♪♪
[narrator] Tyler may not have incriminated himself,
but the press conference produces an unexpected ally:
Tyler's fiancée, Chrissy.
Chrissy was with all of her coworkers when this news broke,
and she's watching the press conference
and learns at the same time as the rest of the country
that Tyler's girlfriend is pregnant.
After the press conference, Chrissy did fully cooperate
with detectives in this case.
[narrator] Little by little, Tyler's world crashes down around him,
and after the press conference, detectives apply more pressure,
and they bring him in for another interview.
By this time, state prosecutors are following the case closely.
[Donna Fenton] My name is Donna Fenton, and I am one of the prosecutors
who handled the case against Tyler Tessier.
[echoing clap]
From a prosecutorial standpoint,
we want Tyler Tessier to keep talking as much as possible,
because following the press conference,
the story changed minute to minute.
-[indistinct chatter] -[narrator] Investigators ask Tyler
to clear up some discrepancies in his earlier statements.
Tyler advised us at that time that he was gonna meet with Laura
on Monday, Labor Day, at the Columbia Mall.
[♪ tense music playing]
But she never showed up.
[narrator] But surveillance video shows that Tyler was not there waiting for her
like he claims.
[narrator] Then, hours into the interview,
Tyler offers up a completely new version of events.
He's saying that Laura was asking for a fresh start,
and he was helping her so she could go start a new life
with the baby's real dad.
It was garbage from the start, and everybody knew it,
because Laura would never leave her family.
Laura would never leave her school.
Tyler got more specific
with his allegations of not being the father.
♪♪
[narrator] This is the first time
that Tyler has admitted to knowing the name Antwan.
However, Tyler is unaware that the police have finally caught up
with the only person connected to Laura by that name.
One of my detectives tracked down her ex-boyfriend, named Antwan.
♪♪
We found out he was in the Army,
and we learned that Antwan was in Massachusetts
during the time of Laura's disappearance.
[narrator] The holes in Tyler's story keep growing,
but he keeps doubling down.
He now claims that Laura told him
to send the text about Antwan from her phone.
He just kept talking.
He just kept digging himself in deeper and deeper.
[narrator] Tyler's statements are incriminating,
but he still won't admit if he knows where Laura is.
So, the detectives dig deeper into the last known interaction
Tyler had with her.
They look back at one of their first pieces of evidence:
Laura's texts to her sister, Jen, over Labor Day weekend.
Laura had been texting with her sister
through Saturday evening.
At that time, Jen thought that they were so unusual,
because Laura was telling Jen
that, "Tyler has me in a field."
[♪ dramatic music playing]
[narrator] So unusual, that Jen asked Laura to prove it.
In typical Laura style,
she captures the moment and snaps a picture.
-[text dings] -[Donna] Laura Wallen snapped a photo
with her phone of the area that she was with Tyler.
Tyler told Laura that, "This is the property I'm gonna buy for you,
so we can build a house and start our life together."
[♪ dramatic sting]
[narrator] Tyler said that they were near a town called Frederick at the time,
but police can't trust anything Tyler says.
They also don't have Laura's phone
to reveal location coordinates from the photo.
That field could have been anywhere in the state of Maryland.
We learned that Tyler worked at a farm in Damascus, Maryland.
So, we started to come up with a theory to look
in Damascus where he worked.
♪♪
[narrator] Tyler works part-time at a meat processing facility
located on a huge sprawling farm with wide open spaces.
So, on September 13th,
wrote a search warrant to search the farm.
[narrator] In a far corner of the property,
an officer finds a tree line
that matches Laura's photo perfectly.
When they got to this back field,
they observed what they believed to be...
tracks from machinery, and that was very unusual.
-[twigs snapping] -[quiet chatter]
[narrator] As officers move closer, something catches their eye.
[Paul] An officer noticed a patch of dirt that looked a little fresh
and saw a small, dollar-bill-sized piece of purple clothing
protruding from the dirt.
We found Laura Wallen's body in a shallow grave.
[♪ somber music playing]
[narrator] Laura is the victim
of an apparent gunshot wound to the back of the head.
If she hadn't sent her sister the photo of the field,
her body would have never been found.
♪ Hit the ground ♪
Across town in Columbia,
students and faculty gather for a moment of solidarity...
♪ The dark is comin' after you ♪
[narrator] ...only to have their hearts crushed with breaking news.
♪ You hear that voice ♪
[Saquan] September 13th, we was hosting a candlelight vigil
at the Wilde Lake Interfaith Center right across from the high school.
And someone in the crowd went,
"Yo, they just tweeted that they found Ms. Wallen's body!"
♪ No hope left ♪
♪ This is where it ends ♪
It sucked the air out of it,
and it just turned from, like, confusion and upset, to, like, anger.
Like, I never felt momentum shift like that.
Like, "Not Ms. Wallen." That's what you were hearing in the crowd,
like, "Not Ms. Wallen. Ms. Wallen not dead. Y'all tripping."
Like, you hearing kids getting mad, you hearing parents crying,
and it was like so many emotions going on, and I'm just standing there, stuck.
[♪ somber sting]
[hushed chatter]
It was devastating. It was traumatic.
And we got a notification on our phones, the press release from the police.
"Tyler Tessier has been charged with the murder of Laura Wallen."
[♪ dramatic music playing]
[narrator] With Tyler now under arrest,
it's time for the investigators to confront him one final time.
[Katie] I had been good cop up until that point,
but I've really had enough of this crap.
I need answers.
♪♪
[Paul] So, Detective Katie Leggett
interviewed him at headquarters.
He was shown multiple pictures of Laura while she was alive,
and then they showed pictures of her in the grave.
[narrator] Buckling under the pressure, Tyler finally reveals
his last captured memory of Laura's fate.
Tyler says he was kidnapped with Laura.
[narrator] And it's unbelievable.
He said, "I cried like a bitch and was able to beg for my life."
There's truth in every lie, and that was another "oh, my God" moment.
[♪ tense music playing]
[♪ grim music playing]
[narrator] After eight days of searching,
the race to find Laura Wallen,
beloved teacher, friend, and expectant mother,
ends in tragedy.
Laura's photo that she sent to her sister over Labor Day weekend
leads the investigators to her body,
buried in a shallow grave on a rural property
where her boyfriend Tyler works.
Based on what the people on the scene were seeing once they got her out,
we knew that she was shot in the back of the head.
[narrator] With Tyler in custody,
detectives confront him with the evidence,
hoping for a full confession.
Instead, Tyler has a brand-new tale to tell.
Tyler had said that he was kidnapped with Laura
by three masked men and brought to the farm in Damascus.
[Katie] Tyler said they shot her in the back of the head...
-[gunshot] -[♪ dramatic music playing]
...and makes him watch, but they spare him.
He said, "I cried like a bitch and was able to beg for my life."
♪♪
[Katie] There's truth in every lie, because when he said
they shot her in the back of the head, that's exactly what he did.
That was a defining moment where we knew this is exactly how he killed her.
[♪ tense music playing]
[Paul] His stories were so crazy that they didn't make sense.
None of the stories were even close to what had really taken place that day.
[narrator] But investigators have enough evidence to reconstruct the murder.
Tyler Tessier was essentially lying to both of these women.
Tyler would tell Chrissy that Laura was stalking him.
He then also told Laura that Chrissy was the exact same thing.
[narrator] The catalyst for the murder
was Laura contacting Chrissy through Facebook
a week before Laura went missing.
[Katie] Laura was asking, "Hey, woman-to-woman,
we need to get together."
[phone dings]
Now, the thought was that she was gonna tell Chrissy about the baby.
[♪ tense crescendo]
[narrator] Believing this was more stalker behavior,
Chrissy shows the message to Tyler.
If there was any chance that Laura was gonna tell Chrissy
that she was pregnant with Tyler's baby,
his entire cover was gonna be blown.
The walls were starting to close in.
I think at that point, he thinks-- he decided that, you know,
that he was gonna end Laura's life because he didn't wanna lose Chrissy.
[narrator] Tyler knew Chrissy was going to be on a shopping trip
with her bridesmaids over the Labor Day weekend.
He knew his employer, who owned the farm
where Laura's body was found, was also going to be away.
And he knew where the guns were kept.
The gun that was used in her murder
was found in a barn
that was used by the farm to put down animals.
Tyler used that rifle to basically kill Laura.
[muffled gunshot]
[narrator] The evidence suggests that Tyler
planned to kill Laura on Saturday evening,
around the time Laura was texting with her sister, Jen.
Her sister said, "Send me a picture."
And that's when she sent the picture of the tree line.
Now, that is, I believe, when she told Tyler,
"I'm texting with my sister."
That spoiled his plan.
But I think he brought her back there on Sunday morning.
[narrator] Tyler lured Laura in with the promises of the perfect family
and the wedding of her dreams.
I truly believe she thought
he would have a surprise for her and that she was going to get engaged.
I don't believe she saw it coming.
[muffled gunshot]
He's a coward.
[narrator] After killing Laura,
Tyler used her phone to text her sister Jen.
[texts dinging]
Tyler's attempts to confuse investigators worked briefly,
but ultimately failed.
In the end, the picture Laura sent to her sister
was the key piece of evidence that solved the case.
[♪ somber music playing]
One year after Laura's murder,
Tyler Tessier's trial is set to begin.
My phone rang at a little after 5:15 that morning,
and it was Detective Frank Colbert,
who told me Tyler Tessier just hung himself
at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility.
I was absolutely flabbergasted.
[Jessica] I was so angry,
because Tyler stole Laura from us the first time.
[♪ indistinct soft singing]
And he stole from us when he decided to end his life
instead of facing up to what he did.
He's just a thief.
[Gregory] I was glad that he was dead and gone,
but completely diminished any justice
that we were ever gonna get from the situation.
Before I became a police officer, I was a teacher. I taught third grade.
I know how attached I got to my kids,
as well as the kids being attached to me.
I know how those kids must have felt when their teacher was gone.
♪ I'm already off the ground ♪
It was truly devastating.
[narrator] In the wake of the tragedy,
Laura's family fights to preserve her legacy
and that of Laura's unborn son, Reid.
♪ I am strong enough ♪
Laura Wallen's family worked tirelessly
in the Maryland legislature to enact Laura and Reid's Law.
♪ I can get through it all ♪
If the state can prove that the perpetrator
knew that the woman was pregnant,
an additional 10 years can be added to that sentence.
[narrator] Laura Wallen's greatest legacy
is the one carried on by her former students,
like Saquan, who's now a youth advocate in Baltimore City.
I find myself talking to Ms. Wallen, like, "I know you with me."
Like, "Tell me what this boy needs, Ms. Wallen,
"and I'ma keep your dream alive.
Like, I'ma keep your dream of keeping all these children going."
Like, whatever it is that I felt like Ms. Wallen would do,
[clicks tongue] that's what we doing.
[narrator] Laura also inspired her former student Gregory to pay it forward.
I'm now a young adult peer mentor for 16 through 22-year-olds,
and I try to be a Laura Wallen
to every client that I have.
The world lost a lot of light when she was taken from us.
[narrator] Laura Wallen went above and beyond in every sense of the word.
When she disappeared,
an entire community sprung into action to find her.
Her endless devotion,
her willingness to stay in touch,
and one simple photo became the driving force
that caught her killer.
♪♪
♪ I don't know where my head is lately ♪
♪ Have I lost my mind? ♪
♪♪
[exhale]
♪ But I know that I have a secret ♪
♪ And it's only mine ♪
[♪ vocalizing]
♪ And the only way to find me ♪
♪ Is to go beneath the lies ♪