Angela Brooks & Nancy Cushman

In the early morning hours of November 25th, 2010, the bodies of two teenage girls would be found in an abandoned lot in Augusta, Georgia. The discovery prompted a widespread canvas and high-profile investigation, but public interest would quickly fade.

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In the Fall of 2010, Nancy Cushman and Angela Brooks - who were 17 and 19 years old, respectively - both lived in the area of Augusta, Georgia: a region I've discussed pretty extensively on this podcast in the past.

Augusta is a surprisingly large town that straddles the state line between Georgia and South Carolina, and encompasses a dozen or so surrounding towns and suburbs, including Aiken, South Carolina: another decent-sized town about 20 miles to the north, which is where at least one of the girls had grown up.

If you're familiar with this area at all, then you know that the difference between the numerous towns and suburbs is pretty negligible. The surrounding metro area (if it can even be called that) is spread out over dozens of miles, and everything kind-of blends into its surroundings. The Augusta metro area includes not only Augusta itself, but North Augusta, Aiken, and everything else over approximately 150 square miles.

This is the setting that Nancy and Angela found themselves in through 2010, when they started to become incredibly close with one another. Unfortunately, very little has been written about their relationships with one another in the years since - or, really, their relationships with anyone - which fits in with a trend I've picked up on.

You see, Nancy and Angela were black teenagers living in the southeast, and something I've noticed consistently in most reporting - especially when it comes to minority communities, such as the African American community - is that little is documented in regards to their personal lives... unless it includes some kind of involvement in gang or criminal activity. Neither of which is prevalent in Nancy or Angela's stories, thankfully, but as a result, very little information is out there about either of their lives... other than their fateful ending which happened in Augusta on Thanksgiving Day 2010.

This is the story of Angela Brooks and Nancy Cushman.

Angela Miesha Brooks was born on June 22nd, 1991, making her just a couple of years older than her eventual friend, Nancy. While there is very little public information available about Angela's life, we do know that she came from a broken home, and was raised in a single-parent household. The family lived together in Warrenville, South Carolina (located just outside of Aiken, SC; about 15 miles northeast of Augusta), and Angela would be close with her mother, Marilyn, as well as her two siblings: Darilyn and Steven.

Like I said, little information is available for who Angela was as a person, but her family describes her as a fiercely loving and hilarious person, who was always quick to make a joke and seems to have cared deeply for everyone around her; especially her nieces and nephews Darian, Dre, Raelin, and Zay. In the years to come, her family would describe her as:

"A grandchild, niece, cousin, friend and a child of God"

Eventually, Angela would end up becoming close friends with another young woman named Nancy, who was a little more than one year younger than her.

Nancy Lubell Cushman was born on December 27th, 1992. The daughter of Moses and Maxine Cushman, Nancy had one brother (Michael) and three sisters (Ervina, Peaches, and Jessica), as well as a large assortment of aunts, uncles, cousins, and other relatives (who all loved her as if she was their own child). As a teenager, she would give birth to a child of her own: a daughter named Faye, whom she doted upon.

Nancy had grown up in the area of Beech Island, South Carolina; a small unincorporated community in Aiken County, South Carolina, which was just east of Augusta. But as of 2010, she had moved closer to Aiken, to the town of Warrenville - which Angela also lived in. There, the two had somehow become close friends, and were reportedly inseparable through the latter half of the year.

I won't try and pretend to know the nuances of Angela and Nancy's friendship, nor pretend to know their origins together. The two had become close friends through 2010, and their fates would be forever intertwined due to the events that would unfold during that holiday season.

The intersection of Laney Walker Boulevard and Twiggs Street is located somewhat in-between the downtown Augusta region to the west and a similarly-sized industrial region to the east. While today this region is part of the ever-expanding Augusta downtown, back in 2010, it was considered much more run-down... a reminder of the Augusta that once was, when this area was a thriving industrial community decades ago.

It was here - in the early morning hours of November 25th, 2010 (Thanksgiving Day) - that a passer-by stumbled upon the bodies of two young African American women.

The bodies were found right across the street from a mini-mart, in a sparsely-wooded area located next to some abandoned railroad tracks. The individual who discovered the bodies had happened upon them at around 2:30 that holiday morning, discovering that each had been shot at least once and were undoubtedly deceased at their time of discovery. This passer-by then called 911, who dispatched a local officer to the scene.

Officers with the Richmond County Sheriff's Office arrived at the scene quickly, due to their office being less than a mile away from the crime scene. They would be overseeing the investigation for the foreseeable future, and set out to canvas the surrounding area, hoping to learn as much about this double-murder as possible... which would make for the 36th and 37th homicides in Richmond County that year (2010).

Investigators were able to quickly identify the two victims, who were confirmed as being 19-year-old Angela Brooks and 17-year-old Nancy Cushman: both of whom lived a few miles north (in Warrenville, South Carolina) but had extensive ties to the Augusta region, including friends and extended family.

While police would originally remain mum on the wounds suffered by the two young women, they would later reveal that both had been shot at least once. In a later press conference, officials described that both girls had been killed "execution style" at the location where their bodies were found at around 2:30 AM (near the intersection of Laney Walker Blvd. and Twiggs St.).

Both girls had been seen in the area just a couple of hours before the discovery of their bodies, at around 12:30 AM that Thursday morning. They had been spotted about a mile east of the crime scene; along East Boundary Street, which is/was a more residential area. There, they had allegedly been spotted along with an unidentified black man, who was an unknown to even the girls closest friends.

Shawn Johnson, one of these friends, told local news station WAGT:

"You could see through the front of [Nancy's] Escalade. You could see the third person in the car. He was sitting behind Nancy. I don't know who it was."

This identity of this unknown man would remain an enigma for the foreseeable future, but the location of Nancy's vehicle would become known just a short time after the bodies of her and Angela were discovered.

Following their arrival at the crime scene just after 2:30 AM, officers with the Richmond County Sheriff's Office had begun canvassing the area, looking for any evidence or information they could find. During this canvas, they located Nancy's 1999 Cadillac Escalade, which was hard to miss. It was a unique-looking vehicle, which had a very distinctive brown-and-yellow paint job that made it stand out.

The Escalade was found near the intersection of Second and Telfair Streets, about a mile-and-a-half northeast of the crime scene (on the other side of the Richmond County Sheriff's Office building). This was about a block away from where the victims had last been seen alive, and based on evidence obtained by police, it was believed that the person (or persons) responsible for killing Nancy and Angela had driven the vehicle to this location after shooting and killing them.

Most of this information would start trickling out over the next several hours, as many were waking up to prepare their holiday meals. It was Thanksgiving Day, after all, and millions of Americans were celebrating their day off (in many cases, a long weekend) with parades, football games, and turkey dinners. The families of Angela Brooks and Nancy Cushman were unable to partake in these typically-joyful activities, as they had to prepare for their first holiday without the two teenagers; both of whom provided so much joy and positivity for their loved ones.

Nancy's family spoke with reporters later that day, and announced that they would have a hard time finding any solace in the holidays without her presence; especially since she had a 1-year-old daughter, who was too young to truly comprehend what it meant for her mother to be gone forever.

The families of both Nancy and Angela would spend the next few days grieving, before coming together three days later on Sunday to commiserate with one another. It was just a step in their grieving process, but a necessary one.

Both girls would be laid to rest in ceremonies over the next couple of weeks, while the investigation into their tragic deaths continued. Eventually, police would announce that they were on the lookout for a person-of-interest; a man that they believed had been seen with the two girls shortly before their deaths...

Travis Lorenzo Berrian was a 26-year-old man living in Augusta, who had been seen with Angela and Nancy shortly before their bodies were found.

Berrian had a scattered criminal history, dating back to the early 2000's. He had a number of arrests and convictions relating to burglary, disorderly conduct, and possession of marijuana, and had even been charged in 2004 for aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. His most recent and noteworthy conviction, though, came in 2008, when he was sentenced on a litany of charges including aggravated assault, second-degree criminal damage to property, and criminal use of an article with an altered identification mark. That February, he was sentenced to 5 years in prison and 6 years probation, but he was released from custody just a year or so later, ending up back on the streets of Augusta - where he had encountered both Angela Brooks and Nancy Cushman.

Following the murder of Angela and Nancy, police announced that they were on the lookout for Travis Berrian; who they insisted was not a suspect in the murder, but rather, a POI (someone who might have information vital to the investigation). It was stated that he had potentially seen both girls within the vital two hour window between them last being seen alive and the discovery of their bodies, which could help shed light on what kind of activities they had been engaged in at the time of their deaths (or at least whom they had been with that night).

The day that the girls' bodies were found, police announced that Berrian was wanted for questioning. Leading into the holiday weekend, police emphasized that he was not a suspect, but that would change over time, as he became harder to locate. Wherever he was, he seemed to have gone-to-ground, and was proving tough for police to track down.

By the following Monday - November 29th, 2010, four days after Angela and Nancy were killed - Berrian was publicly outed as a suspect by law enforcement. During a press conference, Richmond County Sheriff's Captain Scott Peebles described a "on-again, off-again" relationship that Berrian had recently had with one of the victims, 17-year-old Nancy Cushman:

"They had had some significant issues leading up to Thanksgiving morning that I cannot get into."

In addition, it was announced that multiple witnesses had spotted Berrian with Angela and Nancy earlier that night, and the two girls had apparently made a concerted effort to visit him just hours before they were killed (for a reason that has never been disclosed). This would make Travis Berrian one of the last known people to have seen the girls alive, and based off of his relationship with Nancy (which police described vaguely as strained), this would have given him some kind of motive to commit the crime.

At the same press conference, Captain Peebles shied away from implicating Berrian as their prime suspect, but stated:

"We have speculation, right now, and we have ideas on motive. We have many theories floating at this point."

As police continued their search for Travis Berrian - one of the last people seen with the two victims - they also continued their investigation into other aspects of the case.

During the November 29th press conference, the Richmond County Sheriff's Office released more information about the case to the public, including new details about the murders themselves and who investigators believed might be responsible. According to detectives, Nancy and Angela had been killed by at least two men, who had led them into the small patch of woods where their bodies were found.

Police also disclosed the detail that each young woman had been shot once in the back of the head; which they described as an "execution style" double murder. More specifically, Captain Peebles told those assembled for the press conference:

"At some point after being led there (the victims) were placed side-by-side and shot execution style at that position.

"They were at least kneeling, possibly lying on the ground."

Following the shooting, the killer (or likely killers) had likely fled in Nancy's SUV. According to Captain Peebles:

"It is believed the suspects then drove the victim's vehicle from the scene to the location on 2nd Street where it was abandoned."

Perhaps the most intriguing piece of evidence released by police during the press conference came in the form of a short video, which was security footage from a convenience store located along Wrightsboro Road (approximately 5 miles away from the eventual crime scene) that had been taken at around 12:20 AM (just before the girls had supposedly last been seen alive).

The security footage did not show either of the two girls, but showed Nancy's 1999 Cadillac Escalade pulling into the parking lot of a convenience store, and two African American men getting out of the SUV to walk into the store. At least one stepped out from the back seat, and he was identified by police at the time as Travis Berrian, although that prove to be incorrect (it was someone else entirely).

Police were unsure whether or not Angela and Nancy were even in the vehicle at the time, as the driver of the SUV could not be made out in the footage, and neither girl could be spotted inside. It is possible that they were both in the Escalade at that time, but without a time machine, there is no way to know for sure.

Within hours of the press conference, police were eventually able to identify the two men seen in the security footage. Both were brought in for questioning later that day (Monday, Nov. 29th) and were eventually cleared of any involvement; neither were believed to have participated in or have knowledge of the double-murder, and police would refuse to publicly name the two men. However, they would definitively state that neither were Travis Berrian... the 26-year-old Augusta native who remained the #1 suspect in this case.

From this point forward, the story would enter a long period of static. I'm not just talking about there being days or weeks of inactivity; but rather months - if not years - where nothing of importance was reported upon. These was essentially no movement in the case at all over the next few years, other than a brief mention here or there in the local newspapers. Police would state that the case was still actively being worked on, but police could not disclose the name of any suspects or what they were actually doing to help solve this double-murder.

Travis Lorenzo Berrian would remain the only named suspect in this case, and was considered - at the very least - a person of interest moving forward.

Police would eventually track down Berrian, detain him, and bring him in for an interview, but he was released shortly thereafter. Police never released a statement explaining how or why he had been released, but he was never cleared of involvement - at least, not publicly, with many believing him to still have knowledge of what unfolded early that morning back in November of 2010.

As I mentioned earlier, Travis Berrian had an extensive criminal history spanning over a decade. He had been arrested and charged with numerous crimes, but wasn't noted for any violent behavior until 2003, when the Richmond County Sheriff's Office filed a warrant for his arrest. He had been accused of firing a rifle at a vehicle and apartment, and a subsequent search of his home unveiled a stash of weapons (at least one of which had been stolen). He was later indicted in December of 2004 for aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, which really put him on police radar.

Then, just a few years later - in February 2008 - he was sentenced to 5 years in prison and 6 years probation for an assortment of charges, including aggravated assault and possessing a firearm in the commission of a crime. The presiding judge in that case, Judge Carl C. Brown Jr. had also ordered Berrian to undergo counseling and random drug testing, as well as having to earn his GED (according to Augusta Chronicle reporter Travis Highfield, who detailed Berrian's exploits in a 2013 article).

Berrian had gotten lucky the following year, when he was let out of prison ahead of his release date at some point in 2009. Eventually, he would end up becoming a suspect (or at least a highly-sought person-of-interest) in the double-murder of Angela Brooks and Nancy Cushman: one of whom he was romantically involved with, and the other he was loosely-related to (as a distant cousin).

Like I said, he was never charged in this crime, but would remain implicated for the time being. Police had detained and questioned him, but never pressed charges - or spoke about his potential involvement.

In 2012, Berrian had gotten into legal trouble yet again, when he was charged with hindering the apprehension of a felon alongside two acquaintances. All three had allegedly helped shelter two men that had shot and killed another man named Charlie Jones III in Augusta, Georgia. Like the other crimes he had been arrested for, Travis Berrian was somehow able to eeke his way out of any long-lasting trouble, and would find himself free and clear for the time being.

This leads us to the summer of 2013... roughly two-and-a-half years after the murders of Angela Brooks and Nancy Cushman. That was when an unrelated story began to play out in Statesboro, Georgia... about 80 miles southeast of Augusta.

On June 30th, 2013, a pastor named Michael Anthony Riley was shot and killed inside his home in Statesboro, Georgia. While the crime was originally labelled a mysterious home invasion, police would quickly begin to untangle a complicated web of deceit which implicated Riley's wife - as well as her daughter and daughter's boyfriend: Katrina Ledford and Tarell Momon, respectively. The latter, who - in a plot twist - was incarcerated at the time.

You see, Tarell Momom was an inmate at Dooly State Prison who had become romantically involved with Katrina Ledford: the victim's stepdaughter. He eventually learned that his girlfriend's mom was looking for a way out of her marriage, and - using a contraband cell phone he had in his prison cell - he was able to ensnare some associates into the plot he was cooking up: one of which was Travis Lorenzo Berrian.

In the weeks after Michael Rileys murder, police would discover this plot, and seemed to figure out who all was involved: this included Travis Berrian. A warrant was issued for his arrest - unbeknownst to him - and he seemed to carry on with his life as if nothing had happened, returning to Augusta, GA.

On Tuesday July 23rd, 2013 - roughly three weeks after the murder of Michael Riley - Berrian was called into a local Augusta-area probation office for a check-in. It was just after 4:00 PM when the now-29-year-old Berrian showed up, and police moved in to take him into custody. Berrian was unwilling to go down peacefully, though, and he reportedly pulled out a gun that he had been hiding on his person, engaging in a brief struggle with female Probation Officer Latasha Warren (who had been with the department for over seven years).

In the ensuing seconds, both Berrian and Officer Warren would be shot, with their scuffle ending just moments later. Backup arrived and attempted to stabilize the two wounded individuals, with Officer Warren having been shot in the abdomen once. Travis Berrian's wound seemed to be much more dire, and both were rushed to the nearby Georgia Regents Medical Center, where Officer Warren was quickly stabilized. Travis Berrian, though, was dead within the hour; being pronounced dead at 4:53 PM.

A subsequent investigation of the shooting revealed that Berrian had indeed been carrying a concealed weapon; which, as a former felon, was illegal in and of itself. Berrian was still believed to have been involved in the plot to murder Michael Anthony Riley (over in Statesboro, Georgia), having been one of the two gunmen that rushed inside and shot him. An arrest warrant had been issued just prior to his death, but his death meant that the investigation into him as a suspect essentially came to an end (since it is virtually impossible to convict a dead man).

We already know that Berrian had ties to criminal acts; he was, by definition, a convicted felon whose crimes (and alleged crimes) spanned the gamut from property crimes to simple drug possession to violent crime (including aggravated assault and alleged murder). He was tied to the 2013 hit of Statesboro pastor Michael Anthony Riley, and was only able to escape justice in that case because he had died during an altercation with police as they attempted to bring him into custody. In fact, he had shot at and wounded a police officer in that scuffle; which, by itself, would have been worthy of life imprisonment (or capital punishment, had the arresting officer been killed).

In the shooting death of Michael Riley, Berrian was alleged to have been one of the gunmen; alongside another man named Terrance Ray Griswould, who was also from the Augusta area and billed himself as a 30-year-old music producer. Griswould was actually acquitted for Riley's death in 2014, after telling police that he had lent Berrian his cell phone, which was the incriminating evidence proving he had traveled to and from Augusta and Statesboro at the exact time of the murders. As far as we know, Griswould is and was totally innocent, but his innocence rests upon the assumed guilt of Berrian... who was never able to stand trial.

At the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves... why was Travis Berrian so willing to resist arrest that he was ready to shoot and potentially kill a member of law enforcement? He had to have known that pulling a gun while being arrested was always going to be a bad move, and would be a life-altering decision that would almost undoubtedly result in serious jail-time. He was even possibly throwing away the rest of his life in doing so, and why? The reason is hard to comprehend for me years after the fact... unless we just assume that he was guilty of at least one violent murder.

Police have long suspected that Angela Brooks and Nancy Cushman had been killed by at least two men, due to them likely being killed at the same time and them kneeling or laying side-by-side, as officials noted in their press conference back in November of 2010. Berrian was implicated by police as potentially being involved, not only because of his personal connection to both victims, but because he had a checkered past (which included violence) as well as being one of the last known people to have seen Angela and Nancy.

Then, less than three years later, we have Travis Berrian implicated in yet another violent crime; this time, the arranged hit of Michael Anthony Riley, where he seems to have acted alongside another gunmen.

Maybe I'm just crazy for pointing out this obvious pattern, but we have at least two murders in as many years, where at least two gunmen had acted in-tandem to murder someone. And in both cases, we have Travis Berrian - a convicted felon with a violent criminal history - at the center of it all.

Unfortunately, because he died in July of 2013, Travis Berrian went to the grave with the secrets he possessed... secrets that the loved ones of both Angela Brooks and Nancy Cushman will never know.

The Thanksgiving day murder of Angela Brooks and Nancy Cushman remains unsolved to this day, with none of their friends or family receiving any kind of resolution.

While researching this episode, I learned that when police discovered Nancy's Cadillac Escalade about a mile away from the crime scene, they discovered a baseball cap that might have been worn by the killer (or one of the killers). Someone I spoke to believes that police were able to recover DNA from the hat, but this DNA has not matched up with anyone in local or regional databases.

With advancements in DNA testing, that could change any day now. Hopefully - if this DNA does exist - Richmond County has been able to carefully protect it and are willing to have it tested. With all of the recent advancements in crime-fighting technology, they'd be crazy not to... if only to help two families find justice years after the fact.

This story is tragically not one that gets a lot of attention. In fact, outside of some news articles published in the immediate aftermath of the murders, there has been surprisingly little coverage of the case. Angela and Nancy quickly became footnotes in the nearly-unending chronicle of Richmond County's list of homicides, and other than a 2015 article published in the Augusta Chronicle (which detailed the status of the case five years later), there has been no mention of the girls in any sort of medium: print, broadcast, or even podcast journalism.

That is, of course, not mentioning the random post here and there on the Facebook page set up by Angela's family members, in which her loved ones remember her life on her birthday and the anniversary of her death... posts which often go un-liked and unnoticed by virtually everyone.

In 2015, Richmond County Sheriff's Sergeant Brandon Beckman, who was one of the main officers overseeing the investigation, spoke to Augusta Chronicle reporter Bianca Cain Johnson. In the same article I mentioned just a moment ago, he spoke about the current status of the case:

"They were young... and it was two females. That doesn't happen often. Usually when females are involved, it's some sort of domestic, but that doesn't appear to be the case here."

"We've had several leads on it, but it's led to nothing solid."

If you were to ask me my opinion, I would tell you that police likely identified their suspect early on (in the form of Travis Berrian), but never had enough evidence to charge or arrest him. Based off of his actions both before and after the crime, I think it's possible that he was involved in some capacity, but due to his unfortunately-timed demise, we will never know the truth of it.

Because of that, the stories of Angela Brooks and Nancy Cushman remain unresolved.

Episode Information

Written, hosted, and produced by Micheal Whelan

Producers: Maggyjames, Ben Krokum, Roberta Janson, Matthew Brock, Quil Carter, Peggy Belarde, Evan White, Laura Hannan, Katherine Vatalaro, Damion Moore, Astrid Kneier, Amy Hampton Miller, Scott Meesey, Steven Wilson, Scott Patzold, Marie Vanglund, Emily McMehen, Lori Rodriguez, Jessica Yount, Aimee McGregor, Danny Williams, Brian Rollins, Sue Kirk, Sara Moscaritolo, Lauren Harris, and Thomas Ahearn

Published on October 20th, 2019