‘He isn’t a piece of trash’: A man admitted to dumping the body, so why can’t police find it?
When Andy Tench left his Belmont home at 12:07 a.m. on March 25, he looked forward to celebrating his 31st birthday with a night of karaoke at The Bar at 316, a LGBTQ+ friendly bar on Rensselaer Ave in uptown Charlotte.
But the night went horribly wrong.
At the bar, he met 26-year-old D’Shaun Robinson. What happened next is unclear, but Tench is presumed dead and Robinson told police he threw Tench in a dumpster.
Tench’s body hasn’t been found. Robinson hasn’t been charged with murder. Police haven’t searched the landfill where Tench might be. And police aren’t commenting on what’s going on.
That’s why Tracie Blanton, Tench’s mother, is publicly sharing her concerns about the police investigation.
“I don’t think Charlotte cares about Andy,” she told The Charlotte Observer. “I’m no longer just going along with the program that they want me to. The lead detective and the district attorney have barely called and aren’t searching for his body. Without a body, we can never feel peace.”
Blanton wants the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department to get answers. She started a petition demanding CMPD search an Anson County landfill for her son’s body.
“We want Andy home. I know he is no longer with us, but he doesn’t deserve to be buried under 20 feet of Charlotte’s trash,” Blanton said. “They aren’t going to let us into the landfill and set out a blanket and flowers so that me, his sister, brothers, aunts and uncles can all honor him. We want answers.”
A night gone wrong
Tench left home that March night expecting it to be a turning point. He had just moved back home from Colorado, was getting ready to start a new job, and had escaped a yearslong abusive relationship, according to Blanton.
Instead, he is believed to be dead, according to Blanton.
Investigators got a lead when surveillance footage surfaced, showing Robinson using Tench’s Chime credit card to go on a shopping spree on the morning of March 25 at Dick’s Sporting Goods and Target in Matthews. Robinson was also seen on video behind the wheel of Tench’s 2010 Hyundai Elantra leaving the Target parking lot.
That car was found days later abandoned in Monroe with receipts from March 25 inside.
A breakthrough came when Tench’s T-Mobile phone, which had been inactive from March 26 to April 1, suddenly pinged a cell tower, pinpointing a home east of Charlotte where Robinson lived, according to a CMPD search warrant.
Around 9 a.m. on April 11, detectives arrived in the pouring rain at Robinson’s house armed with a search warrant. During their search, they uncovered a machete-style knife. CMPD says in its search warrant, Robinson said something to the effect of “I hope he is not decapitated,” while in the vicinity of the knife.
The search warrant provided no further context for that statement.
CMPD arrested him April 11 in connection with Tench’s disappearance:
Felony concealment of a death
Felony identity theft
Felony financial card theft (2 counts)
Felony financial card fraud
Felony larceny of a motor vehicle
Financial card fraud (3 counts)
The search warrant said that “based on these facts, it is believed that there is probable cause that the crime of murder and identify theft were committed.”
Robinson hasn’t been charged with murder. CMPD and the district attorney would not say why or if they are looking at other suspects.
“Our office is ethically prohibited from commenting on pending cases,” said Michael Stolp, a spokesperson for Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather.
During a police interview, Robinson recounted a tale of a night gone awry. He claimed the two men left the bar to go have sex —during which Tench died. Robinson says he “panicked” and threw Tench’s body in a dumpster behind a Charlotte-area hotel, about a 15-minute drive from The Bar at 316.
Yet, when Robinson led police to that dumpster, authorities were met with more questions than answers — the dumpster was empty.
Police contacted the Anson County Landfill, the next stop for the dumpster’s contents, and were told that landfill employees would have seen a body, but it had not been uncovered.
Police have not searched the landfill.
CMPD said they won’t discuss its reasoning.
A grieving mother
While most people mourn the death of their loved ones in a graveyard or by sprinkling their ashes, Blanton hasn’t had the chance.
“I hate what happened to Andy. I hate that his body is still out there somewhere,” Blanton said with tears in her eyes. “He was my best friend. He would always bring me flowers even when money was tight. All I want is justice for my son. But how can there be justice without even finding him?”
Without a body, Tench’s family has struggled to find closure.
“Even though we know he’s gone, any time we are driving on the road and see someone who might look like Andy, we are breaking our necks to look just to hope maybe it’s him,” Blanton said. “Every day that goes by without answers is another day that we suffer and are imprisoned.”
For almost two months, Blanton was not able to speak about Tench because of the grief it gave her. She feels responsible for his death.
“He asked me to go with him that night,” Blanton said about celebrating his birthday. “Maybe if I were there, he’d still be alive, and I can never forgive myself for that.”
Blanton’s petition has gained nearly 900 signatures in a week so far. The idea of searching a landfill, while rarely successful, isn’t out of the blue either. For example, South Carolina authorities found the body of Nevaeh Adams in a Sumter County landfill in 2019.
Even so, CMPD says it is not “viable” to search the area identified, according to Blanton.
“The manager has already figured the exact plot he would be at and said it was viable to recover his body,” Blanton said. “It’s just a hard job to do.”
For their part, CMPD spokesperson Jonnelle Berry said “we are aware of the petition,” but, “at this time, we cannot release more information on this active missing person investigation.”
Blanton said if the petition reaches 1,000 signatures, she will present it to the mayor and CMPD, with hopes of finally being able to say goodbye.
“It’s hard enough losing your child,” she said. “The least the city could do is dig and maybe it brings justice to his killer and peace to our lives.”
