Bad Romance: A Special Edition of 20/20 season 2 episode 4 will take a look at the murder of Lyntell Washington at the hands of Robert Marks. Lyntell and Robert, who was married at the time, were having an affair at the time. It is also worth noting that Robert Marks was involved in another relationship apart from Lyntell.
The affair with Lyntell is believed to be one of the reasons why Marks killed her. Another reason was that Lyntell was pregnant with Robert Marks' baby and was planning on revealing their affair to his wife. However, he killed her before she could talk to his wife.
While the murder was a shock to the community of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, what made it even more shocking was that Lyntell's three-year-old daughter was found abandoned in a parking lot. The toddler was able to help police identify Robert Marks as her mother's killer.
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After his arrest and subsequent trial, Marks was given a prison sentence and remains incarcerated for the crime today.
The case will be covered in Bad Romance: A Special Edition of 20/20 season 2 episode 4, which is set to premiere on Tuesday, April 15, 2025, at 10:01 pm EST. The logline for the episode reads:
"When a passerby finds a 3-year-old girl with blood on her feet wandering alone in a parking lot, authorities embark on a multiday search for her missing mother: Lyntell Washington, a beloved Baton Rouge educator who was voted Teacher of the Year."
The synopsis continues:
"When law enforcement finds the pregnant teacher shot in the head, they are also given a cryptic clue from her toddler. As investigators dig deeper, they learn Lyntell had a secret affair with a co-worker — a man whose own secrets and carefully constructed alibi raise even more disturbing questions."
What did Robert Marks do?
In June 2016, a passerby, Leslie Parms, noticed a 3-year-old child abandoned in a parking lot in Louisiana. She called authorities to the scene and they were able to confirm that the child was Lyntell Washington's daughter. Lyntell was assumed missing.
However, the three-year-old had already told Leslie that her mother was asleep by a lake and described hearing a "boom." She said that Mr. Robbie had hurt her mother before dropping her at the parking lot.
Investigators found Lyntell Washington's body in a ditch in Iberville Parish, Louisiana. She seemed to have been shot in the head, indicating that her three-year-old had possibly seen someone kill her mother.
On investigation, the police figured out that Mr. Robbie was Robert Marks. He was the assistant principal at Brookstown Middle Magnet Academy in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Lyntell also worked.
Washington's friend revealed that she was having an affair with Mark, who had told her that he was getting divorced from his wife. He had also gotten Lyntell pregnant. Shortly before her death, Lyntell found out that Robert Marks was not getting a divorce, instead, he was taking a cruise with his wife. Furious with this revelation, she sent text messages to Marks demanding that he tell the truth to his wife.
When Marks was questioned, he admitted to the affair and claimed that he met Lyntell the night before she went missing. Investigators discovered that Robert Marks was having an affair with yet another woman, Tramica Jackson. She later confirmed that he had asked her to pick him up on the night of the murder from around the parking lot where Lyntell's daughter was abandoned.
This revelation led to the police to arrest Robert Marks in connection with Lyntell Washington's murder.
Where is Robert Marks now?
During Marks' trial, his legal team argued that the evidence the police had against him was all circumstantial. However, the jury found him guilty of Lyntell's murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
He remains incarcerated at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, West Feliciana Parish, as per reports.
The upcoming episode of 20/20 will cover this case in more detail. Stay tuned for more updates.
