Speaker 1: Hello.
Speaker 2: I'm ConA Gallagher and I'm Ethan Flick. We're the husband
Speaker 2: and wife team behind the True Crime podcast And Then
Speaker 2: They Were Gone.
Speaker 3: We're a weekly show that covers unsolved missing persons cases.
Speaker 2: These are cases that you, the listener, can have an
Speaker 2: impact on. Some of the people you may have heard of,
Speaker 2: like Kristen Smart or Braceless Pisa, but we also bring
Speaker 2: you missing people of color into other cases that haven't
Speaker 2: gotten the mainstream attention that they deserve. You can find
Speaker 2: us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Good Pods, or your favorite
Speaker 2: podcast app.
Speaker 3: Dark Cast Network the best in indie podcasts. Check out
Speaker 3: all of the great dark Cast shows at darkcastnetwork dot com.
Speaker 3: Hey there, I'm Samantha and it's now time for Rainbow
Speaker 3: Crimes and hopefully some Unicorn justice.
Speaker 1: Hey there, guys, it's me CJ. I hope this minisod
Speaker 1: find you all healthy both physically and mentally. Wow, the
Speaker 1: week just flew by for me. I don't know about you, guys,
Speaker 1: but I keep myself so busy. I just don't know
Speaker 1: where the time goes. I did take a day last
Speaker 1: weekend to do nothing but veg out, and that was
Speaker 1: so nice. I need a few more days like that,
Speaker 1: I think. And since I was terribly busy this week,
Speaker 1: I knew I could either send this episode out late
Speaker 1: or I could make it into a minisode. And since
Speaker 1: we just wrapped up season nineteen, I decided to make
Speaker 1: it a minisode before we get into season twenty. I
Speaker 1: don't have too much to report here on the coast
Speaker 1: of Oregon. I guess that's good, So let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and get into this case. We are headed to the
Speaker 1: Tampa Bay area of Florida in two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: and we'll try to Atlanta, Georgia. Cheryl Miranda appeared to
Speaker 1: be a white woman, at least from the photo of
Speaker 1: her that I've seen. She was possibly a Portuguese or
Speaker 1: Spanish descent based on her last name of Miranda, and
Speaker 1: she was a fifty six year old Vietnam veteran living
Speaker 1: in Tampa Bay. Cheryl was single and coming out late
Speaker 1: in life at age fifty six. She thought she had
Speaker 1: found her soulmate in forty something year old Tanya Miller.
Speaker 1: Tanya is a black woman. Tanya has at least one child,
Speaker 1: a son who in twenty twenty four was in his
Speaker 1: late teens and named Jabbaris. The only reason I feel
Speaker 1: compelled to speak of their race is because of a
Speaker 1: reviewer who once asked why I don't cover more black people,
Speaker 1: and they said, because black people commit crimes too. So
Speaker 1: to that listener, this is for you to be honest.
Speaker 1: Their races don't really matter to me, but the crimes
Speaker 1: and the victims do.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: Cheryl was deeply in love, especially in the honeymoon New
Speaker 1: Phaced part of the relationship. Tawn and her son, Jabbaris,
Speaker 1: even moved into Cheryl's apartment with her. Jabbaris, at the
Speaker 1: time was around nineteen or twenty years old. It was
Speaker 1: a happy home at least for a while. Jabbaris, however,
Speaker 1: did not pull his weight around the apartment. He left messes.
Speaker 1: He was a bit defiant, and he definitely made himself
Speaker 1: right at home. Cheryl, with her military background, well, she
Speaker 1: was neat and orderly, contrary to how Jabbaris behaved. Jabaris
Speaker 1: apparently was also involved in gang activity, which really upset Cheryl,
Speaker 1: and these problems she was having with Jabaris became a
Speaker 1: huge point of contention between the couple of Cheryl and Tanya.
Speaker 1: As the weeks and months continued on the relation between
Speaker 1: the two women grew volatile. Now there were a number
Speaker 1: of allegations and complaints from Cheryl that she was being
Speaker 1: physically abused by her girlfriend Tanya. Most of this was
Speaker 1: because of the problem Cheryl was having with Jabbaris, and
Speaker 1: some of it was due to Cheryl feeling that Tanya
Speaker 1: and her son were leeching off of her. Cheryl had
Speaker 1: a nice apartment, she worked and maintained her steady employment
Speaker 1: and a paycheck. Tanya and Jabbaris, well, they seem more
Speaker 1: like freeloaders. In May of two thousand and four, Cheryl
Speaker 1: obtained two separate temporary restraining orders against Tanya. This would
Speaker 1: effectively have Tanya and her son removed from Cheryl's apartment.
Speaker 1: But Tanya she must not have thought the restraining orders
Speaker 1: applied to her. She went against the orders and she
Speaker 1: broke into Cheryl's apartment through a glass sliding door. Tanya
Speaker 1: accosted and assaulted Cheryl. She threatened to beat, stab, and
Speaker 1: kill Cheryl before playing the apartment. Cheryl's sworn petitions claimed
Speaker 1: Tanya had broken into her home through a sliding door,
Speaker 1: struck her in the back, and Tanya had frequently threatened
Speaker 1: to stab her, beat her In January of two thousand
Speaker 1: and five, Cheryl would call a good friend and she
Speaker 1: asked the friend to pick her up at a club.
Speaker 1: When the friend arrived, Cheryl had a bruised and bloody face,
Speaker 1: broken glasses, a swollen lip, and a missing tooth. She
Speaker 1: told her friend she had been in a fight with Tanya.
Speaker 1: It seemed that this relationship between the women was on again,
Speaker 1: off again, as we see so often in intimate abuse connections.
Speaker 1: Cheryl must have agreed to go with Tanya to a
Speaker 1: club and that's where the fight broke out between them.
Speaker 1: Tanya was arrested for breaking the restraining order in for
Speaker 1: the assault of Cheryl, but other than Tanya's arrest, it
Speaker 1: didn't seem our justice system when doing much justice for Cheryl.
Speaker 1: I can't see any jail time Tanya might have served
Speaker 1: for these offenses, but I do know situations that are
Speaker 1: on again, off again, where restraining orders are applied and
Speaker 1: then lifted, they can get pretty tricky. Within a week
Speaker 1: or so, Cheryl was hoping to move out of Florida.
Speaker 1: She wanted to look into Alabama to see if that
Speaker 1: might be a good place for her to get a
Speaker 1: fresh start on a new chapter. Of her life. Tanya
Speaker 1: caught wind of Cheryl's move and she was not happy
Speaker 1: about it, but she did ask Cheryl if her and
Speaker 1: Jabbaris could get a ride with Cheryl to Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: on Cheryl's way to Alabama. Cheryl was kind enough to
Speaker 1: agree to it, although in all honesty, I personally think
Speaker 1: she was somehow coerced into taking the two. On February
Speaker 1: twenty seventh, two thousand and five, the trio set off
Speaker 1: on their road trip from Tampa Bay. Although Tanya had
Speaker 1: a couple of sisters living in Atlanta, the motive behind
Speaker 1: her and Jabbaris catching a ride with Cheryl was not
Speaker 1: to see her sisters, but rather a much more sinister purpose.
Speaker 1: On February twenty eight, two thousand and five, cell phone
Speaker 1: towers tracked Cheryl's cell phone as it traveled from Tampa
Speaker 1: to Atlanta. During that time, Jabbaris placed dozens of calls
Speaker 1: from Cheryl's cell phone to his friends and relatives in Georgia.
Speaker 1: One such call was made to a cousin explaining that
Speaker 1: he had run out of gas in Fort Valley, Georgia,
Speaker 1: and he asked her to bring him some money so
Speaker 1: they could complete their trip to Atlanta. During this conversation,
Speaker 1: the cousin overheard Tanya's voice in the background reiterating the
Speaker 1: requests for gas money. On March first, two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: Tanya and Jabbaris unexpectedly appeared in an apartment complex on
Speaker 1: Welcome All Road in Atlanta. The apartment was rented by
Speaker 1: one of Tanya's sisters. Jabbaris drove himself and Tanya there
Speaker 1: in Cheryl's white Nissan pickup truck, and the truck remained
Speaker 1: in the apartment parking lot for the next few days
Speaker 1: with the bed of the truck covered up. Jabbaris told
Speaker 1: a cousin that he had gotten into an argument with
Speaker 1: a woman in Florida, but he did not want to
Speaker 1: elaborate on the argument. Several days later, in the very
Speaker 1: early morning of March fourth, two thousand and five, Cheryl's
Speaker 1: white Nissan truck was found by a patrol officer. The
Speaker 1: truck was engulfed in flames off the side of a
Speaker 1: road less than a mile from the same apartment complex,
Speaker 1: near a wooded area. An accelerant had been used to
Speaker 1: start the fire. When the fire department extinguished the fire,
Speaker 1: they found a body in the bed of the smoldering truck.
Speaker 1: The body had been bound at the wrists and the ankles,
Speaker 1: essentially hogtied. It had been choked, stoutbed in the neck
Speaker 1: and head, and beaten to death, then doused with charcoal
Speaker 1: lighter fluid and set on fire. The medical examiner suggested
Speaker 1: that this was a crime of passion, as extreme overkill
Speaker 1: had been the method of the victim's death. Forensic evidence
Speaker 1: established that death had occurred two to four days earlier.
Speaker 1: As well. The medical examiner was able to determine that
Speaker 1: the body had been dead before the fire because there
Speaker 1: was no smoke in the victim's lungs or nasal passages.
Speaker 1: But law enforcement and the medical examiner had no idea
Speaker 1: who their Jane Doe was. They were in a situation
Speaker 1: with the face of the body being unrecognizable, and the
Speaker 1: body was so badly charred third degree burns over ninety
Speaker 1: five percent of it, it seemed nearly impossible to make
Speaker 1: an identification as to who this body had belonged to.
Speaker 1: As luck would have it, however, there was one finger
Speaker 1: still intact and they were able to lift a print
Speaker 1: from it, and that one print was all they needed
Speaker 1: to identify the remains as Cheryl Miranda. Once investigators received
Speaker 1: the information on who the deceased was, they were ready
Speaker 1: to take the next steps, and this was to find
Speaker 1: out who the people closest to Cheryl were. Investigators obtained
Speaker 1: a court order for Cheryl's phone records, and since Jabbaris
Speaker 1: had been using Cheryl's phone to make a number of calls,
Speaker 1: this led detectives to Tanya and Jabbaris's relatives, although they
Speaker 1: weren't sure at first the correlation between the phone numbers
Speaker 1: of these people in Atlanta and Cheryl. The Atlanta police
Speaker 1: also made a call to Tampa Bay and they had
Speaker 1: Tampa Bay Police officers go to Cheryl's apartment to see
Speaker 1: if they could find any clues there. They thought maybe
Speaker 1: Cheryl was murdered in her apartment in Tampa and then
Speaker 1: driven to Atlanta to be disposed of. They were hoping
Speaker 1: the police would possibly find a sign of a struggle,
Speaker 1: but nothing seemed to be disturbed in Cheryl's apartment and
Speaker 1: it turned out to offer nada for the investigation. With
Speaker 1: the phone court order, detectives were able to speak to
Speaker 1: many of Cheryl's friends, both in Florida and in other
Speaker 1: states that she had lived in Tanya Miller. Her son,
Speaker 1: Jabbaris's name kept coming up in their interviews, so detectives
Speaker 1: began researching Tanya and Jabbaris, and they found that the
Speaker 1: mother and son had relatives in the Atlanta area, including
Speaker 1: some in a nearby apartment complex where Cheryl's burning truck
Speaker 1: was located. As detectives come through the phone calls made
Speaker 1: from Cheryl's phone, the Georgia phone numbers were of great
Speaker 1: interest to them. One belonged to a woman named Martina.
Speaker 1: This was one of Tanya's sisters. It was actually the
Speaker 1: sister who lived in the apartment complex where Cheryl's truck
Speaker 1: was found burnt. Martina lived there with her small baby,
Speaker 1: and she told the police that Tanya and Jabbaris had
Speaker 1: been acting strangely since they had shown up. They kept
Speaker 1: asking for ride's places, and she finally told them, why
Speaker 1: don't you take the white truck you showed up in
Speaker 1: and have had parked out in my complex for days.
Speaker 1: Tanya and Jabbaris told Martina that they weren't allowed to
Speaker 1: drive it, and then on March fourth, Martina woke up
Speaker 1: around three a m. To feed her infant. She noticed
Speaker 1: Jabaris wasn't sleeping on her couch like he had been.
Speaker 1: She looked out of her window into the parking lot
Speaker 1: and she saw that the white truck was gone. Come
Speaker 1: later that day, she saw in the news the truck
Speaker 1: fire with a burnt body in the bed of the
Speaker 1: truck near her apartment, and she was able to put
Speaker 1: two and two together again. She confronted Tanya and Jabbaris,
Speaker 1: and she told them, I don't know what's going on
Speaker 1: with you, but you can't stay here anymore. You've got
Speaker 1: to go. That's when Tanya and Jabbaris went to stay
Speaker 1: with another of Tnya's sisters, Tamala Gibbons. Jabbaris was found
Speaker 1: by detectives at the home of Tamala. He was arrested
Speaker 1: at the home and taken in for questioning. Tamala had
Speaker 1: identified certain luggage at her home to belong to Jabbaris
Speaker 1: and Tonya. Inside one of the suitcases was Cheryl's phone,
Speaker 1: Cheryl's credit cards, and some pawn shop tickets in Cheryl's name,
Speaker 1: plus hundreds of documents Cheryl had been carrying with her.
Speaker 1: At the police station, Jabbaris was mirandized and he signed
Speaker 1: a waiver to not have an attorney present during questioning.
Speaker 1: While he was being interviewed, Jabbaris admitted to taking custody
Speaker 1: of Cheryl's truck in Florida and that he drove it
Speaker 1: all the way to Atlanta to his aunt's apartment. He
Speaker 1: said he discovered Cheryl's body in the bed of the
Speaker 1: truck a few days later. Oh g Jabaris, I wonder
Speaker 1: how I magically appeared there, all hogtied and shit, and
Speaker 1: he admitted to taking the truck, pouring lighter fluid over it,
Speaker 1: and lighting it on fire. Tanya was arrested several days
Speaker 1: later at her sister's place and taken to the police station.
Speaker 1: She too had her Miranda rights read, which is kind
Speaker 1: of ironic seeing Cheryl's last name was Miranda, and Tanya
Speaker 1: too waved her rights to an attorney. Tanya told detectives
Speaker 1: that she and Cheryl had been roommates since Cheryl had
Speaker 1: locked her out of their apartment, and then Cheryl went
Speaker 1: and pawned off all her furniture and some other personal items.
Speaker 1: Also found in Tanya's luggage were two ornamental items that
Speaker 1: belonged to Cheryl, and they had been displayed on Cheryl's
Speaker 1: mantle in her Florida home. One was a knife and
Speaker 1: the other was nunchuk. Forensic evidence established that these two
Speaker 1: items could have been the fatal weapons used in Cheryl's murder.
Speaker 1: Both Jabaris and Tanya were charged for the murder and
Speaker 1: concealment of Cheryl Miranda in two thousand and eight. Tanya
Speaker 1: would be found guilty of malice, murder, belany murder, aggravated
Speaker 1: assault in concealing the death of another. She was sentenced
Speaker 1: to life in prison with another ten years tacked on
Speaker 1: for the concealment. Jabbaris was also found guilty of the
Speaker 1: same with arson applied as well. He was sentenced to
Speaker 1: life in prison with another twenty years tacked on for
Speaker 1: the concealment and the arson. Both Tanya and Jabbaris would
Speaker 1: appeal their sentences, because of course they did. After the appeals,
Speaker 1: Jabbaris's sentence remained the same, but Tanya she was given
Speaker 1: another trial in twenty thirteen due to inadmissible hearsay evidence
Speaker 1: that was presented at her original trial. At her second trial,
Speaker 1: she was still found guilty. She again received a life
Speaker 1: sentence with the extra ten years for concealment. Ah, what
Speaker 1: a waste of taxpayers money? Am I right? How twisted?
Speaker 1: Do you and your devil spawn have to be to
Speaker 1: essentially kidnap your ex girlfriend, beat her, torture her, murder her,
Speaker 1: then set her body ablaze. I'd say pretty fucking twisted.
Speaker 1: Poor Cheryl just wanted to start fresh in a different
Speaker 1: state without the ups and the downs of her relationship
Speaker 1: with Tanya. Why couldn't Tania just let her go and
Speaker 1: be happy? Because Tanya was a jealous control freak and
Speaker 1: her apple didn't fall far from her tree. That's the
Speaker 1: best I can come up with. Rest in power, Cheryl.
Speaker 1: I love you guys, and you matter so very much.
Speaker 1: Remember it's not a crime to be gay or to
Speaker 1: live your truth, unless you're a murderer.