Original subtitles

The day after the accident, there was an autopsy done.

The expectation was that the crash was the cause of her death.

That wasn't just a traditional car crash.

She didn't deserve that.

18 year old Bianca Roberson

is celebrating her high school graduation.

Bianca was a social butterfly, she loved to socialize.

If you were her friend...

you were a friend for life. She was just so caring.

I can't believe we're all gonna be in different states! I'm gonna miss y'all so much.

We had a nice graduation party for her and all her friends

and family showed up for her and you know, she got a lot of gifts.

Bianca was accepted to Jacksonville University in Florida.

She was going for criminal justice and psychology.

She wanted to be an FBI agent.

She wanted to go out here and try to save the world from bad people.

She was extremely excited, she couldn't wait, I mean

this girl was walking on air.

Watch out Florida, here I come!

I think at the graduation party I could just see

the difference in her, that she's just growing up now

she's not Mommy's little girl any more.

June 28, 2017, it was just like any other day.

We were going to the mall to get school supplies

and we ended up in different cars because I was at work, my mom was at work

and Bianca went and got her hair done earlier.

We got outside and we put all the bags in Bianca's car.

I wanted her to go straight home because I had ordered

a college dorm box which I was surprising her with.

What is it?

- You have to wait until you get home. - Okay.

- Drive safe, sweetheart. - You too.

- I love you. - Love you.

I told her I loved her.

And then she got in her car and she left.

When an accident is reported serious...

officers respond out, lights and sirens as quickly as they can

to run to anybody in the vehicle.

The car had gone off of the road lay down in an embankment

and then up a hill and then struck a number of trees in that area.

The responding officers described a fairly substantial

amount of blood in the interior of the vehicle.

The crash victim appeared to have a an injury to her head.

The thought was that the driv er's head

either struck the A-frame of the vehicle

or as she was traveling through the brush, a branch or tree came and struck her head.

It was apparent that the driver of the vehicle was deceased.

There were personal belongings in the vehicle, including her driver's license

and she was identified as Bianca Roberson.

I left the store and going home...

they were detouring you off the road, there was like this major accident

and I remember saying to myself... God, I hope that's not Bianca.

And then when I get into the driveway...

there's a cop.

We don't have cops in our neighborhood.

What in the world is going on?

Can I help you?

And he says to me...

"Are you Michelle Roberson?" I said "No, I'm her mother".

Then he says "We need to speak to her".

- Hello? - My mom, she was crying.

And I'm like "What's wrong?" and she says

"I don't know, the police are here and are asking for you".

And then when I got to the house...

The police officer comes to me and he asks me "Did I own a green Chevy Malibu"?

And he asked me who would be driving it.

I said, "My daughter."

And he said "Would that be Bianca Roberson?" and I said yes.

And he said "I'm sorry to inform you..."

I couldn't even let him say anything else after that.

The whole thing was like a haze, like it was somebody else's life.

I couldn't believe we were going through this again.

Just four years earlier, Michelle lost her eldest son,

22 year old Michael, to heart disease.

How can this be happening again?

How is my daughter dead?

And I remember just sitting in the house just crying, just crying.

At the crash site, investigators take witness statements.

One of the 911 callers saw Bianca Roberson's

vehicle traveling South on the 100 Spur

and a red pick-up truck traveling next to her vehicle.

She believes she saw the red pick-up truck impact Bianca Roberson's vehicle

right before the merger caused Bianca's vehicle to travel

off the roadway into the brush.

After she saw Bianca's vehicle go off the roadway and crash,

this red pick-up truck just took off at an accelerated speed.

It's clear to us that the reason this vehicle took off

is because somehow or another they were involved.

Detective Torres arrives on scene.

When you arrive at a scene like this...

tensions are high and people are distraught.

We have to conduct an investigation...

and sometimes it's difficult.

PennDOT which is the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation

has cameras that show roadways throughout the entire state of Pennsylvania.

Investigators request footage from highway surveillance cameras.

We wanted to look at that video to determine

if we can see Bianca Roberson's vehicle

and this red pick-up truck that witnesses were describing

and what, if anything, that video would capture

with regard to their interactions with each other.

The day after the crash there was an autopsy done on Bianca's body.

Everybody thought it was a car crash.

Bianca's car had swerved off the road and hit a tree

and the expectation was that was the cause of her death.

But during the course of the autopsy...

There was a bullet found in Bianca's skull.

The bullet is from a 40 caliber pistol.

Wasn't just a car crash, this is a homicide.

She was shot?

We were stunned.

Somebody in our community shot a gun, killed another driver on the road.

We didn't know if that was an individual who was going to harm other people.

Thanks for letting me know.

We have to do everything we can...

to find the person who committed this murder.

After the autopsy...

Myself and Detective Ben Martin went down to Bianca Roberson's home...

Hi, may we come in?

It was like, what else could be any worse than what we're already dealing with?

You might wanna sit down.

They told me that Bianca wasn't in a car accident.

She had been shot in the back of the head.

From being in a car accident to being murdered...

In less than a day and a half was way too much for me.

I lost it, I just started screaming.

After we broke the news...

it was important to get information from them to help us with our investigation.

In many homicides the offender is known to the victim.

We need to find out if someone had something against Bianca.

Do you know anyone who would have wanted to hurt her?

We didn't think Bianca knew anybody who owned a gun,

you know and so we never thought

that it was somebody that knew us or even knew Bianca.

So this becomes a really difficult investigation.

We have to look into Bianca's life.

What she was doing prior to the incident.

Can you take us through Bianca's movements yesterday?

Once we learned that Bianca had just

come from shopping, we went to the Walmart,

to look for video from inside the store.

We're trying to determine if this all initiated at the Walmart,

which was the last place she was seen alive.

Queue up the entrance camera for June 28th, around 4.20 PM.

Was there somebody following her? Was there an altercation?

Had something occurred during that time that would give us

insight into why she was murdered?

Pause it right there.

- That's Bianca. - We're able to identify Bianca by her clothing.

She was wearing the clothing she was wearing at the time of her murder.

And I'm also able to identify Michelle Roberson

and Bianca's grandmother Josie, as I see them on the video.

Switch the interior camera around 5:20 PM, just before they left the store.

Whoa, play that again.

Are they being followed?

We noticed that as Bianca and her family were leaving the Walmart

there was a male with a red shirt who was walking next to them...

This is something that we look at to determine

if this individual was somehow involved or

had an issue with Bianca and/or her family.

Let's see where he goes.

Rewind.

- False alarm. - As Bianca and her family were leaving the Walmart

the man with the red shirt actually passed them and left ahead of them

which led us to believe that he was not involved with what was about to occur.

Sometimes the most innocent encounters we tend to put under the microscope.

Pull up the exterior camera.

There's no interactions that are seen on video

that would lead us to believe that the shooting had anything to do with

anything that had occurred inside of the Walmart.

This looks like a normal day.

When we're watching the video...

it's sad, it's very sad.

They had no idea that their world was going to change so drastically as it did.

Back at the police department,

ootage from the highway surveillance cameras is in.

We start to look at the Penn DOT live feeds to see if we can

locate any video with Bianca Roberson's vehicle.

What've we got?

Unfortunately, the location of the murder,

that part of the roadway was not depicted on any video.

Bring up the video of the camera just North of the scenes, before the merge.

So what we then had to do was look at video from just prior to the scene.

Wait, pause it there.

That's the red truck and the green Chevy.

We were able to isolate video of the red pick-up truck and Bianca Roberson's vehicle.

They were both in their respective travel lanes,

but they were both approaching the merge

where it turns into one lane pretty quickly.

When we see those vehicles driving side by side,

we have to wonder is there was some sort of encounter between the operators of the vehicles.

We're not able to get anything specific about the vehicle to make it identifiable.

Detectives check the next available camera just after the crash site.

Rewind.

Pause it there.

We were able to isolate a red pick-up truck

now traveling Southbound on 202. The vehicles

not even traveling in the lane of travel.

It's on the shoulder as it's passing cars in the right lane of travel.

We believe the vehicle's fleeing the scene.

There is no doubt in our minds that this red pick-up truck

is being driven by the person who murdered Bianca Roberson.

The fact of the matter is, there's tons of red pick-up trucks in the region.

So unless we get more clear video which helps us

to specifically identify a particular truck,

we are looking for a needle in a haystack.

We then went to the next camera which would have been Westchester Pike

and we started looking at that surveillance video.

We were able to determine that the red pick-up truck never made it to Westchester Pike.

So it was apparent to us that the driver of that vehicle got off of Route 202...

at Paoli Pike.

We start knocking on every door to every house

and business along that exit.

In the hopes that we could find video that would be more clear, which would allow us

to at least get a make or model if not more information

relative to the red pick-up truck.

We also handed out fliers to the public about this red truck...

We were hoping that this would generate some information from

people who may know something

regarding the operator of this vehicle.

While officers canvas for further leads...

Detective Torres turns back to the 911 calls.

One of the witnesses who called 911 said that there was an Aqua vehicle

between this pick-up truck and Bianca Roberson's vehicle.

It's not uncommon that people who witness crashes just don't stop.

Aqua's a public utility water service company in this region.

So it would have been an employee of the company who would have witnessed the crash

so it was important for us to identify the operator of the vehicle.

We made phone calls to the Aqua corporation.

They've determined what driver was in the area and I reached out to him.

He was willing to come in for a recorded interview.

We were hoping, best case scenario, maybe he would

be able to recall a registration plate, a tag number.

We were excited that we had the possibility

of getting information that would help us solve this case.

Bianca Roberson's vehicle passed his vehicle on the right hand side

and then made a lane change to come back into the left

He did not realize it was as serious as it was.

We were not further along in the investigation after speaking with him.

It was very frustrating because without finding out

who owned this red pick-up truck there's no way we were

gonna be able to solve this case.

- Hi. - Hi detectives, come on in.

Thank you.

Myself and Detective Martin sat down with the Roberson family

I remember them saying that they had no license plate, no anything.

And I just knew that this case was just gonna be a cold case,

that they were never gonna find... the murderer.

I said, I promise you I will do everything I can

to find the person who did this...

To Bianca.

Detectives try to pick up the red truck on surveillance

cameras East of Paoli Pike.

The ultimate goal in trying to get as much surveillance videos as possible is

hoping we get lucky. Hope that we come across a surveillance system

that is clear enough to where you're able to get a registration.

Or you're able to see the operator of the vehicle.

We came across a business called Jersey Mike's

and when we found that surveillance video, we were excited.

We actually see a red pick-up coming down Paoli Pike towards Westchester borough.

This red pick-up truck passes Jersey Mike's about 5:31 PM, which is consistent

with everything else we know because the distance between

the scene of the murder and Jersey Mike's is not that far.

So we have what we think is the suspect's truck

at the right time heading West. We feel like we're closing in on something.

Finding that video was important because

that established a direction of travel for the vehicle.

We could now start tracking where the vehicle ultimately ended up.

Trying to get clear enough shots to get a tag off of it.

What's the next business along this stretch we have surveillance for?

Uh, Chestnutsquare Apartments.

There it is.

In reviewing the video we see

this red pick-up truck pass Chestnutsquare Apartments.

We now know, okay, the red truck is heading towards Westchester and so it helps

limit the area that we have to look into.

Having narrowed down the red truck's potential location,

investigators study it closely for identifying features.

Zoom in.

Was there anything unique about the trim package,

the rims, the bumpers, the windows... anything like that.

We think we have an older model, four door,

or at least extended cab pick-up truck.

Potentially a GMC, Chevrolet type of vehicle.

But beyond that, we couldn't come up with anything specific.

Let's get this video enhanced. Might be something we're not seeing.

We believe that if we take our efforts and focus in the Westchester borough area

that we may have success finding the operator of the vehicle.

On June 30th, two days after the murder of Bianca Roberson

- A witness comes forward. - Thank you for coming in.

And tells us that she was traveling South on Route 202

when this red pick-up truck passed her on the shoulder

and got off at Paoli Pike.

She then told us that the red pick-up truck went Eastbound.

Not Westbound.

Are you sure?

Detectives have been following the wrong truck.

Whenever you're following a lead and it fizzles out it could be a bit frustrating

but that's put aside by the excitement of having

more accurate, better information to follow up on.

- Did you happen to see license tag? - No, I didn't.

- I did see the driver. - You did?

Can you describe them?

She described the driver of the red pick-up truck

as white male having blondish, brownish hair,

some stubble, facial hair and specifically described

his eyes as being bugged eyes.

We asked her if she'd be willing to do a composite sketch.

Of course.

We release the images of the composite sketch to the media

in the hopes, that again, we get someone to come forward

to say they know who this person may be.

We know now that the operator of the vehicle is a white male.

We know that Bianca Roberson is an African-American female.

It's important for us to do everything we can to determine

if whether or not this was a racially-motivated murder,

because it then leads you to believe that this isn't an isolated incident.

This individual is capable of targeting any person who may have a minority status

which makes him even more dangerous.

They showed us the sketch and knowing that it was a white man that killed my daughter...

The motive I believe was due to the fact that my daughter was... black.

It's really painful because Bianca had no hate in her heart.

Knowing that he was still out there...

it was slowly killing me.

Detectives now turn their focus to finding surveillance

footage East of Paoli Pike.

We start tasking investigators with knocking on every single door.

For every home

and every business along Paoli Pike heading in an Eastbound direction.

Hi there, West Goshen PD. We're investigating a homicide.

We found a resident that was several hundred yards from the exit that had video footage.

Can you queue it up to June 28th, around 5:30 PM?

That was exciting for us because we were hoping to get better images of this truck...

and confirm that in fact, it was traveling Eastbound.

There.

That's our red truck.

At 5:31 we see the red truck passing the residence on Paoli Pike.

This fit in with the timeline of the truck traveling from the crime scene.

Pause it there.

Can you zoom in on the wheels?

We were able to determine that the red pick-up truck had after market rims.

It was an extended cab.

What we are unable to see in the video is the driver of the vehicle.

We're not able to see the registration plate.

So we still need to continue our search in hopes that each video...

reveals some additional information.

I think you need to have a look at this.

Footage from a residential security system

down on Middletown road in Delaware County that was in high definition.

We're excited because the cameras themselves are closer to the roadway.

The pick-up truck that we're looking for

passes through the video.

Zoom in on the window.

There was a decal on the window of the rear part

of the passenger compartment on the extended cab.

We see damage to the hood, where the hood

is slightly buckled, above the front right fender...

and we see a vertical dent on the passenger side door.

Those characteristics make this a very specific vehicle that we are looking for.

We felt like okay, finally we are getting a break.

Detectives release the new pictures to the media

with a 5000 dollar reward for information.

We were confident that when people see these images

from this video, someone's going to know

who that particular vehicle belonged to.

The community really rallied around me and my family.

Someone threw a vigil in our backyard and it was just filled with so many people.

Seeing all those people were like...

letting me know how much people really did love Bianca.

How much her friends really did love her.

It showed how important she was.

Not only to me but to the community.

I think it touched so many mothers

because Bianca was so young it could have been anybody's child.

On July 1st...

around 11 o'clock at night...

I ended up leaving work and...

I get a phone call from my lieutenant

who says you need to get back to work.

When I arrived at work I was told that we received a phone call from an attorney

who said he had a client...

who wanted to turn himself in.

There was a sense of relief to a certain point, and a sense of curiosity.

Who is this guy? What caused him to do this? What is he gonna tell us?

What is he gonna be like?

There was also a part of me that's worried... is this going to be

somebody who's making something up or trying to get

attention because this was so talked about in the community.

His name was David Desper.

His attorney told us that his client was going to invoke

his right and not provide a statement.

But told us that his client owned a red pick-up truck,

told us where the pick-up truck was

and gave us consent to search David Desper's bedroom.

That information's great.

But we still have the burden of proving that David Desper committed this murder.

We sent a team of investigators to where

we were told we would find the red pick-up truck.

When we looked at the red pick-up truck...

we could see the stickers on the windows.

We were able to confirm the after-market rims.

We saw the damage to the vehicle.

There was no doubt that this was the vehicle

we were tracking.

When we look at the registration plate on the vehicle,

the vehicle's registered to David Desper.

So there's no doubt the owner of the vehicle is the person who is turning himself in.

As our investigators searched David Desper's room...

they found a Smith&Wesson 40 caliber pistol.

That's important because the bullet that was recovered during the autopsy

was a 40 caliber bullet fired from a Smith&Wesson handgun.

We found him. We found him.

We were gonna get justice for Bianca.

On July 2nd, 2017,

David Desper was charged with first degree murder,

third degree murder, possessing an instrument

of crime and reckless endangerment to another person.

We know who the murderer of Bianca Roberson is, but

we still aren't clear about what his motive was.

One thing we had to explore is that David Desper is a white male

and Bianca is an African-American female

and so we had to look into, is this racially motivated?

Can that be a explanation for why he did this?

We left no stone unturned when it came to talking to people,

and digging through social media platforms...

We weren't able to find any social media activity

or individual to testify that David Desper was a racist.

It meant that we were not allowed to present it in trial.

Hi, can we get a search warrant on Desper's cellphone?

One thing we were able to determine in the analysis of David Desper's phone records

was that within minutes of murdering someone

he made a phone call to his best friend.

We asked him if he'd be willing to talk to us.

It was a conversation about car racing and vehicle parts.

David Desper did nothing or said nothing that would lead his best friend of many years

to believe that he just committed a murder.

It was amazing that he was able to murder someone

and show no remorse, no concern and ultimately

didn't surrender himself until he knew

we were about to knock on his door.

With Desper refusing to offer an explanation why he shot Bianca

the prosecution can only speculate.

On June 28th, 2017 David Desper was driving on Route 100

in his red pick-up truck.

Something happened with Bianca's car.

She tried to merge... and he got angry.

Instead of simply letting her pass...

David Desper decided to grab his handgun

pointed out his passenger window at Bianca Roberson and pulled the trigger.

He was mad about his place and line in traffic

and that's something that I can't imagine accepting

as the explanation for why your daughter's dead.

David Desper pleads guilty to third degree murder

and is sentenced to a minimum of 20 years behind bars.

It's a tragedy... and it is one of the saddest cases I've ever had in my entire career.

I never met Bianca but I got to know her so well through

all the people who cared about her and loved her.

To hold Desper accountable, it doesn't bring Bianca back.

But it feels like it was the only thing we could do.

This has truly destroyed me.

I was already grieving the loss of my son...

and she was the last thing that I had...

to keep me going.

Michelle started a foundation in Bianca's name.

It's called Merge With Mercy.

And every year she gives a scholarship to a child

that is graduating from their Boston high school.

We also help families that have been impacted by gun violence.

It was important that I created this foundation...

for me to have a purpose in life and

a way to keep Bianca alive.

Sometimes I feel both her and Michael's presence with me.

That's where my strength comes from.

I feel like they're my angels...

that keep saying "Go Mom, keep going Mom".

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