In Loving Memory of Lyntell Washington-There are people who leave a mark on the world quietly, through kindness, patience, and love. Lyntell Washington was one of those people. She wasn’t famous. She didn’t have a platform or a following. She was a teacher, a mother, a twin sister, and a daughter who showed up every single day to pour herself into the lives of the children she taught and the little girl she was raising on her own.
But in June 2016, everything was taken from her in one of the most shocking and heartbreaking crimes Louisiana had seen in years. The Lyntell Washington obituary isn’t just a record of death. It’s a story about a life that mattered deeply, a community that loved her, and a legacy that refuses to be forgotten.
Who Was Lyntell Washington?
A Life Rooted in Louisiana
Lyntell Trinese Washington was born on October 28, 1975, in Louisiana. She grew up surrounded by family and community, shaped by the kind of Southern warmth that leaves a person with deep roots. She was the daughter of Calvin and Margie Washington, and from the very beginning, she was never alone in the world.
She had her twin.
The Twin Bond: Lyntell and Cyntell Washington
Lyntell and her twin sister Cyntell were inseparable growing up. They weren’t just sisters. They were each other’s best friends, mirrors of each other, each walking through life knowing someone else understood exactly what it felt like to be them. That bond would become painfully important when the worst happened in 2016.
The Washington twins were the only children of Calvin and Margie, which made their connection even deeper. People who knew Lyntell often mentioned Cyntell in the same breath. You didn’t talk about one without the other.
From New Orleans to Baton Rouge: A Fresh Start
Lyntell’s path in adulthood wasn’t without its challenges. She had a relationship with a man named Darren Glasper after the two met at a barbecue in Louisiana. The relationship brought her the greatest joy of her life, a daughter, but it eventually ended when Darren’s struggles became too much to build a future around.
With her daughter in her arms, Lyntell made a decision that tells you everything you need to know about who she was. She picked herself up, relocated from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, and started over. No complaints. No bitterness. Just a woman determined to build a good life for her little girl.
That’s who Lyntell Washington was. She didn’t run from hard things. She walked straight through them.
A Dedicated Educator Loved by Her Community
Her Career at Brookstown Middle Magnet Academy
By the time Lyntell landed at Brookstown Middle Magnet Academy in Baton Rouge, she had already built a reputation as an exceptional educator. She worked as an instructional specialist and teacher, the kind of professional who doesn’t just teach the curriculum but genuinely invests in her students’ futures.
She was known in the hallways. Known by name. Students didn’t dread her class. They looked forward to it.
What Made Lyntell Washington Special as a Teacher
Her colleagues described her as generous and loyal. She had a way of meeting students where they were, not where she expected them to be. That’s a rare quality in any person, let alone an educator stretched thin by all the demands of a public school classroom.
She made time. She made space. And she made kids feel seen.
Friends who spoke about her after her passing consistently said the same things: that she was warm, dependable, and real. She didn’t wear a professional mask at work. She brought herself fully into every room she entered.
The Moment She Was Named Teacher of the Year
Before joining Brookstown, Lyntell had already been recognized formally for the impact she was making. She was named Teacher of the Year at a previous school, one of the highest honors a classroom educator can receive. It wasn’t a surprise to anyone who had watched her work.
That recognition meant the world to her. Not because she needed the validation, but because it confirmed that what she was doing was working. That her students were growing. That she was making a difference.
She carried that award and that responsibility into every school year that followed.
A Mother First: Lyntell’s Life at Home
Her Daughter: The Light of Her Life
Everything Lyntell did professionally was powered by something personal: her little girl. Her daughter, who was just three years old in the summer of 2016, was the center of her universe. Friends say Lyntell talked about her constantly. Proudly. The way mothers do when they can’t help but brag, not because they want to boast but because they genuinely can’t believe something that wonderful belongs to them.
She was raising that little girl alone, and she was doing it beautifully.
Raising a Child on Her Own With Grace and Strength
Single parenthood is hard. Anyone who’s done it knows. You’re the provider, the comforter, the decision-maker, the bedtime story reader, the everything. And you do all of it while also holding down a career and trying to maintain your own sense of self.
Lyntell did all of that without complaint. She built a routine for her daughter. She created stability out of circumstances that could have easily produced chaos. She showed up as a mother the same way she showed up as a teacher: fully, consistently, and with love.
That little girl was safe, warm, and loved. Right up until the night everything fell apart.
The Night Everything Changed: June 8-9, 2016
A Three-Year-Old Found Alone in a Parking Lot
It was the kind of scene that stops you cold. On the morning of June 9, 2016, a man named Leslie Parms spotted a small girl wandering alone in a Baton Rouge parking lot. She wasn’t wearing shoes. Her feet were speckled with dried blood. She was three years old, standing near a car, clearly distressed, clearly alone.
Parms stayed calm. He crouched down, spoke to her gently, and called 911. He asked her where her mommy was. She pointed to the car beside her.
That car, it turned out, was covered in blood.
A Blood-Stained Car and a Community in Shock
Investigators arrived quickly. The car belonged to Lyntell Washington, a teacher at Brookstown Middle Magnet Academy. Lyntell was nowhere to be found. Her phone wasn’t reachable. No one had heard from her. The blood inside that vehicle made it clear that wherever she was, she hadn’t gone willingly.
Baton Rouge went into a state of quiet dread. People who knew Lyntell couldn’t process it. A Teacher of the Year. A dedicated mother. Gone, just like that.
The Search for Lyntell Washington
Multi-agency search teams deployed immediately. They combed the air, land, and waterways across south Louisiana, including areas in Baker, Zachary, Baton Rouge, St. Francisville, and Ramah. The search stretched across days. The silence stretched even longer.
Five days passed before there was any answer.
The Investigation That Shook Baton Rouge
What the Little Girl Told Police
The most devastating and pivotal moment in the investigation didn’t come from a detective or a database. It came from a three-year-old girl sitting across from a trained forensic interviewer.
In that session, Lyntell’s daughter spoke about someone she called “Mr. Robbie.” She said she heard a “boom.” She said her mommy was “sleeping by a lake.” She said Mr. Robbie tried to clean up the blood in the car.
Out of the mouth of a baby came the truth that broke the case wide open.
“Mr. Robbie,” it turned out, was what the little girl called Robert Marks, the assistant principal at Brookstown Middle Magnet Academy. The same school where her mother worked. The same man who had been secretly carrying on an affair with Lyntell Washington.
The Secret Affair With Robert Marks
Robert Marks was no stranger to Lyntell. They worked together. He was a married assistant principal who, according to close friend Melissa Mason, had told Lyntell that he and his wife were essentially separated, living in different parts of the same house, working toward a divorce.
Whether that was true, Lyntell had no way to verify.
What she did know, about a week before she disappeared, was that she was pregnant. Seven months pregnant, in fact, with Marks’ child. She confided this to a close friend and fellow assistant principal, Jamicia Pink-Fisher. That revelation, and what it would have meant for Marks’ marriage, his career, and his reputation, set the stage for what came next.
Cell Phone Records and the Evidence That Broke the Case
Police pulled cell phone records for both Marks and Washington. What they found was damning. On the night of June 8, 2016, both phones traveled together from Baton Rouge into Iberville Parish, arriving in the Ramah area around 9:45 p.m. Both phones stayed in that location for approximately 15 minutes. Then, only one phone returned to Baton Rouge.
Marks told detectives he’d last seen Lyntell at a Walmart in Baker at 8 or 8:30 that evening. The phone records told a different story.
DNA evidence further confirmed what the investigation had already pointed to: Robert Marks was the father of Lyntell’s unborn child.
When police brought Marks in for questioning, the lead detective described his demeanor in a way that has stayed with everyone who heard it: “No words. No emotion. No nothing. Just a blank stare.”
The Heartbreaking Discovery
How Lyntell Washington Was Found
On June 14, 2016, five days after her daughter was found alone in that parking lot, a farmer in Rosedale, Iberville Parish, discovered a body in an irrigation ditch near a sugarcane field. It was Lyntell.
Her remains were badly decomposed. Officials needed DNA samples to make a positive identification. The East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner’s Office later confirmed her identity through dental records.
She was 40 years old. She was seven months pregnant. And she had been murdered.
Cause of Death: What the Autopsy Revealed
The autopsy conducted by the East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner’s Office determined that Lyntell Washington died from a gunshot wound to the head. Her death was ruled a homicide. The coroner confirmed that her unborn child also died as a result, though there was no trauma found directly to the fetus.
Two lives. Taken in one night.
A Community and a School System in Mourning
The East Baton Rouge Parish School System released a statement that captured what many were feeling. Superintendent Warren Drake described Lyntell as “a treasured member of our team” who would “be remembered for the impact she had on the many lives she touched through her work in our district.”
Students who had sat in her classroom were told that their teacher wasn’t coming back. Colleagues who had laughed with her in the hallways had to find a way to keep showing up to the job she loved.
It was devastating. The kind of grief that settles into a place and doesn’t leave quickly.
Justice for Lyntell: The Trial of Robert Marks
The Charges Robert Marks Faced
Robert Marks was initially arrested on June 9, 2016 on child kidnapping and child desertion charges related to Lyntell’s daughter. Murder charges came shortly after. Over time, as the investigation deepened and jurisdiction shifted from East Baton Rouge Parish to the 18th Judicial District in Iberville Parish, the charge sheet grew substantially. Marks ultimately faced:
- Second-degree murder
- First-degree feticide
- Aggravated kidnapping
- Second-degree kidnapping
- Obstruction of justice
- Carjacking
- Four counts of using a firearm during the commission of a violent act
It was a sweeping list of charges that reflected the full scope of what he had done.
The 35-Minute Verdict That Sent Shockwaves
The trial began in December 2021. Opening statements were heated on both sides. Testimony ranged from powerful to gruesome. Crime scene photographs of Lyntell’s skeletal remains were shown to the jury. So were images of her unborn child’s remains. Several jurors covered their mouths in visible distress.
At one point, the lead detective was asked directly by District Attorney Tony Clayton whether anyone other than Robert Marks could have killed Lyntell Washington.
The detective said no.
After the state and defense both rested their cases, the jury deliberated for just 35 minutes. They came back with a verdict: guilty on all charges.
“This was a smart jury,” District Attorney Clayton said afterward. “They went through the facts, they deliberated swiftly, and they gave him the same swift justice that he deserved.”
Life in Prison Without Parole: The Sentence
On February 10, 2022, Robert Marks was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was a former Marine with a doctorate in education. He had built a career in public school administration. And he ended it all in 15 minutes on the night of June 8, 2016.
Justice had been served. It couldn’t bring Lyntell back. But it gave her family, her daughter, and her community something to hold onto.
Remembering Lyntell Washington’s Legacy
The Impact She Left on Students and Colleagues
Lyntell Washington’s memorial isn’t made of marble. It lives in the students who still carry something she taught them, even if they can’t name exactly what it was. It lives in the colleagues who still talk about her, still mourn her, still wish she could walk back through those school hallways.
She was a Teacher of the Year who didn’t need the award to prove her value. She was a mother who didn’t need a perfect situation to be a perfect parent. She was a woman who built herself back up every time life knocked her down.
That’s a legacy worth honoring. It doesn’t fade just because she’s gone.
Her Story on ABC 20/20’s “The Barefoot Witness”
Lyntell’s story reached a national audience when ABC News’ “20/20” featured her case in an episode titled “The Barefoot Witness,” later revisited as part of the “Bad Romance” limited true crime series. The episode aired in 2022 and again in April 2025, bringing renewed attention to her life, her death, and the little girl who inadvertently helped bring her killer to justice.
Many viewers who had never heard of Lyntell Washington found themselves crying over a woman they’d never met. That’s the power of who she was. Her story translates across distance and time because it’s not really about crime. It’s about love, betrayal, and the courage it takes to start over, even when starting over ultimately costs you everything.
What Her Case Taught the World About Trust and Danger
Lyntell’s case has become a painful but necessary conversation in discussions about intimate partner violence, the dangers of secret relationships, and the vulnerability that comes with trusting the wrong person. She didn’t ask for what happened to her. She was living her life, raising her child, doing her job, and navigating a complicated relationship the way most people do: with hope.
Her story isn’t a cautionary tale about bad choices. It’s a reminder that good people can be placed in devastating situations by the dangerous choices of others.
She deserved better. She deserved to raise her daughter, to meet her unborn child, to keep teaching, to keep growing. What happened to her was not her fault.
Where Is Lyntell Washington’s Family Today?
Her Daughter: Growing Up Without Her Mother
Lyntell’s daughter, who was just three years old the morning she was found alone in that parking lot, is now growing up in Louisiana with her father, Darren Glasper. He has spoken about raising her in the shadow of that trauma, about the moments when she says she misses her mommy.
Glasper has said that she’s doing well, that she’s being taken care of, and that she’s surrounded by love. That’s what Lyntell would have wanted. She might not be there to hold her daughter herself, but the people around that little girl are making sure she knows who her mother was and why she mattered.
Her Twin Sister Cyntell Washington Today
Cyntell Washington, Lyntell’s twin sister, testified during the murder trial of Robert Marks. Her presence in that courtroom was a statement: that Lyntell was not just a victim in a case file, she was a sister, a beloved twin, a whole person whose absence left a gaping hole.
Since the trial, Cyntell has kept a relatively private life. She’s believed to be living in Houston, Texas. She carries her sister with her every day in the way that only a twin can, someone who grew up alongside you, who shared your childhood, your parents, your history. Losing that is losing a piece of yourself.
Cyntell’s quiet resilience is its own form of tribute.
Frequently Asked Questions About Lyntell Washington
Who was Lyntell Washington?
Lyntell Washington was a 40-year-old middle school teacher and single mother from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She worked at Brookstown Middle Magnet Academy and was known as a dedicated, beloved educator who had previously been named Teacher of the Year.
How did Lyntell Washington die?
Lyntell Washington died from a gunshot wound to the head. Her body was discovered on June 14, 2016 in an irrigation ditch in Rosedale, Iberville Parish, Louisiana. She was seven months pregnant at the time of her death.
Who killed Lyntell Washington?
Robert Marks, the assistant principal at the school where Lyntell worked, was convicted of her murder. DNA evidence confirmed he was the father of her unborn child. He was found guilty on all charges in December 2021 after the jury deliberated for just 35 minutes.
What happened to Robert Marks?
Robert Marks was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on February 10, 2022. He was convicted of second-degree murder, first-degree feticide, aggravated kidnapping, obstruction of justice, carjacking, and multiple weapons charges.
What is the “Barefoot Witness” story?
“The Barefoot Witness” refers to the ABC News 20/20 episode that covered Lyntell Washington’s case. The title comes from the discovery of her three-year-old daughter, who was found barefoot with dried blood on her feet in a Baton Rouge parking lot. The little girl’s statements to police became a key part of the investigation and trial.
Where is Lyntell Washington’s daughter now?
Lyntell’s daughter lives in Louisiana with her father, Darren Glasper. She was three years old when her mother was killed and is now a young girl navigating life with the love and support of her father and extended family.
Where is Lyntell Washington’s twin sister Cyntell now?
Cyntell Washington, Lyntell’s twin sister, is believed to be living in Houston, Texas. She testified during Robert Marks’ murder trial and has since maintained a private life.
Was Lyntell Washington pregnant when she was murdered?
Yes. Lyntell Washington was seven months pregnant at the time of her death. Her unborn child, fathered by Robert Marks, also died as a result of the crime. Marks was charged with first-degree feticide in addition to second-degree murder.