Adam Bonaparte apparently doesn’t want to talk to the press. He is the Mecklenburg County detective who has been assigned to the Andrew Douglas Tench case. After multiple calls and messages, Bonaparte still has not responded. Not once.
While the Charlotte Metro LGBTQ community is left shocked and confused, a young man’s family remains devastated over the loss of their son and brother. Now more than 40 days since his disappearance and nearly three weeks since the arrest of D’Shaun Montrell Robinson, details regarding the whereabouts of Andy Tench’s body remain a mystery.
First reported in QNotes in early April, Tench went missing on the late evening of March 24 or the early morning of March 25. His car was found abandoned in the morning hours of March 25 in Union County.
Robinson was later arrested and charged with multiple felony counts, including concealment of a death, identity theft, two charges of felony financial card theft, financial card fraud and larceny of a motor vehicle. He was also charged with three counts of misdemeanor financial card fraud.
Robinson has insisted that he did not kill Tench, and that he died during consensual sexual activity. In a state of panic, he said he disposed of the body in a dumpster behind a Charlotte area hotel.
While there has been no closure for Tench’s family, some information has trickled out that paints a broader picture of what CMPD has uncovered from a story that appeared in the Gaston County Gazette.
According to reports from that publication, search warrant documents filed by Detective Bonaparte confirm that after five days of no signal from Tench’s T-Mobile phone, the device pinged a cell tower that eventually led police to Robinson. Cell phone records also confirmed Tench’s phone had been moved to Robinson’s home at another location in Charlotte.
While searching that residence, police also found a machete. There’s no mention made of possible DNA discovered on the weapon, but Robinson was said to have told police he hoped Tench had not been “decapitated.”
Despite that curious statement, no additional charges have been filed against Robinson and detectives were unable to locate Tench’s body in the dumpster where Robinson said he had discarded it.
The company that routinely empties the dumpster, Waste Connections, told police no human remains had been discovered when the trash was sorted before transfer to a landfill in Anson County.
That doesn’t rule out the possibility that Waste Connections could have overlooked the remains and Tench could be buried under several week’s worth of additional landfill material.
Robinson has a public record dating back six years that shows an arrest for assault on a government official, breaking and entering a motor vehicle and charges related to the sale and manufacture of illegal substances. Given his questionable statement regarding Tench and his possession of the machete, the possibility remains he is not being entirely honest with authorities about Tench’s ultimate fate.
Meanwhile, Tench’s family continue to hold out hope that they will be able to bring him home for a proper burial, personal closure and answers to questions that remain. “I feel like if they find Andy’s body, they’re going to find the truth…” said Tracii Blanton, Tench’s mother.
Although Robinson has not been charged with Tench’s murder, Blanton is questioning Robinson’s admissions and why he could have done what he has confessed to.
“I don’t believe for a second his story that he’s telling,” she said in an earlier interview.
“Reading some of the court documents and what has been found is disturbing,” she has since posted on Facebook. “[Robinson] has shown no remorse whatsoever.”
