She Told Him It Was Over. Hours Later, Everything Changed

In 1988, something horrifying happened inside a Nashville apartment. An attack so brutal it would become one of the city’s most haunting murder cases. By the time anyone realized something was wrong, 29-year-old Angela Clay and her two daughters,  9-year-old Latoya and 6-year-old Lakesha, were already dead.

  What investigators discovered inside the home was brutal. In the hours that followed, detectives were left trying to understand who could have carried out such a violent act against an entire family,  and why. On this episode of Black Girl Gone, I tell the story of Angela Clay and her daughters, Latoya and Lakesha,  who were murdered inside their Nashville apartment in March 1988,  and how a complicated relationship would eventually lead investigators to the man accused of killing them.

Angela Clay’s life centered around her two daughters, and the people who knew her described her as family-oriented and deeply devoted to her children. Providing for them and creating stability for them was always the priority, and much of her life revolved around work, family, and caring for her girls. She lived in Nashville near her mother, Marie Bell, and her sister, Lynette, and the family remained closely connected.

Lynette regularly helped Angela with child care while she worked long afternoon and evening shifts at Vanderbilt Hospital. Most of her days followed a routine. Angela would leave for work in the afternoon and then return home later that night while the family helped care for Latoya and Lakesha. It was the kind of arrangement that a working mom needs the most.

 Everyone stayed involved in each other’s lives, and from the outside, life appeared relatively normal. But privately, Angela was trying to navigate a much more complicated chapter in her personal life. Her marriage was on the rocks, and her and her husband had decided to separate. And it seemed like for a moment, she wanted to move on.

Now, after separating from her husband and the father of her daughters, Benny Clay, Angela had started dating a man named Byron Lewis Black. But according to later court testimony, the situation between Angela Black and Benny was not entirely straightforward. At different points, Angela was still involved with both men, and despite the separation, there were indications that she and Benny were attempting to reconcile their marriage.

Now, exactly where things stood between them in the spring of 1988 is difficult to know, but what does seem clear is that Angela was navigating an emotionally complicated chapter in her life while trying to maintain normalcy for her daughters. And from the outside, much of that complexity remained private.

 To the people around them, life appeared to continue as usual. But the situation between Angela, Benny, and Byron Black had become increasingly strained. And by the end of 1986, the situation had already escalated into serious violence. In December of that year, Benny Clay and Byron Black became involved in a confrontation connected to Angela.

 Now, exactly what led up to that argument is unclear, but according to Benny’s later testimony, the encounter quickly turned dangerous. Now, as Benny walked back toward his car, Black allegedly pulled out a gun and opened fire. Multiple shots rang out. One bullet struck Benny’s vehicle. Another hit him in the foot.

 A third tore through his arm before lodging beneath his collarbone. And despite his injuries, Benny tried to escape. He later testified that he ran up the street while Byron Black chased after him, continuing to fire the gun as he fled. Eventually, Benny collapsed, unable to run any further. And according to his account, Byron Black stood over him while still armed.

 The confrontation only ending after Angela rushed toward the men and physically intervened. Angela reportedly pushed Byron away before helping Benny into the car and driving him to the hospital herself. Benny remained hospitalized for several days recovering from his injuries. And while the shooting itself was alarming, it also revealed just how volatile the situation surrounding Angela had become long before the murders ever took place.

Now, the shooting would eventually lead to criminal charges against Byron Black. He later pled guilty in connection with the attack on Benny Clay and was sentenced to serve time at the Davidson County Metropolitan Workhouse. But despite the seriousness of the shooting, Byron was not placed under maximum restrictions.

 His sentence included work release privileges as well as weekend furloughs, allowing him periods of time outside of custody. Now, what exactly happened between Angela and Byron Black in the months after the shooting is difficult to fully piece together. I mean, he was serving his sentence, but because he had been granted work release and weekend privileges, he was not completely gone from Angela’s life.

And despite the violence that had already taken place between Byron and Benny Clay, the relationship between all three of them appeared to remain complicated. By the spring of 1988, Angela was still focused on maintaining normalcy for her daughters and continuing the routines of her day-to-day life. And on Sunday, March 27th, nothing outwardly suggested that it would be the last day that anyone would see her alive.

That evening, Angela worked her usual shift at Vanderbilt Hospital from 1:30 p.m. until 10:00 that evening. While she was at work, her daughters stayed with Angela’s sister, Lynette, who had also borrowed Angela’s car that day. Now, later that night, Lynette drove to Vanderbilt Hospital to pick Angela up after her shift ended, but when she arrived, Byron was already there waiting for her.

Now, Latoya and Laquisha decided that they wanted to ride with their mother and Byron instead, and so the four of them left the hospital together. According to later testimony, Byron drove Angela and the girls to the home of Angela’s mother, Marie Bell. And after arriving, Black eventually left in his own vehicle while Angela and her daughters later drove away in Angela’s car.

But not long after leaving, Angela returned to her mother’s home around 11:00 that night after realizing that she had forgotten to borrow an iron. It would be the last time that Marie ever saw her daughter alive. A short time later, around 11:20 p.m., after arriving back home, Angela called her sister, Lynette.

And after that call ended, no one in the family would ever speak to Angela again. Now, according to early reporting from The Tennessean, Angela gave some indication during that final conversation with her sister that things between her and Byron Black had changed. By that point, it appeared Angela had made up her mind about the direction that she wanted her life to go in.

Reports suggested that she was hoping to reconcile with Benny Clay and intended to end her relationship with Byron. He had come over to her apartment shortly after she arrived, and what exactly was said between the two that night is unclear, but according to those early reports, Angela told her sister that she had told him she wanted to end the relationship and that he became upset.

 Angela reportedly told him to leave, and according to her, he did. At that point, nothing seemed outwardly alarming enough to suggest the danger that the family may have been in. It was late. The girls were home, and from the outside, it likely appeared to be the end of a tense conversation and nothing more. But sometime after that phone call with her sister ended, something happened inside Angela Clay’s apartment.

Now, the next morning, small things began to feel unusual. After Angela had come back to borrow the iron the night before, her mother expected her to return the following day, but when she didn’t hear from Angela that morning, she tried calling her at her apartment, and there was no answer. As the day went on, she continued trying to reach her daughter, but no one ever picked up the phone.

And as the hours passed, concern slowly began to grow. Eventually, another one of her sisters drove over to Angela’s apartment to check on the family in person, but when she arrived, no one answered the door. Still unable to reach Angela, Marie continued making calls trying to figure out where her daughter might be.

But after still no word from Angela, she and Lynette went together to the apartment themselves. And again, no one answered the knocks. The shades were drawn and Angela’s car was still parked outside. And despite repeated attempts to contact someone inside the apartment, there was only silence. And at that point, the family knew that something was wrong.

And so, they called the police. Now, police arrived at Angela’s apartment around 9:30 on the evening of March 28th. From the outside, there were were no immediate signs of a struggle. The door was locked. Nothing appeared broken or forced open. But after repeated attempts to get someone inside to respond, officers made the decision to enter the apartment themselves.

One officer removed the screen from a bedroom window and managed to pry that window open. Inside the apartment was dark. All the lights were off. And as the officer shined his flashlight into one of the bedrooms, he immediately saw blood on the bed. And then, the body of a small child lying on the floor nearby.

The officer backed out of the room and the apartment was secured as a homicide scene. Inside the master bedroom, investigators found Angela Clay and her 9-year-old daughter Latoya. Angela was still in bed beneath the covers. According to the medical examiner, she had been shot in the head at close range while she was likely asleep.

The wound would have rendered her unconscious almost instantly. Latoya found partially on the bed, she was also wedged between the bed and a nearby dresser. Evidence suggested that she had also been lying in bed beneath the covers when she was shot. But unlike her mother, Latoya likely survived for several minutes after the gunfire.

In the second bedroom, investigators found 6-year-old Lakeisha lying face down beside her bed. She had been shot twice. Evidence at the scene suggested that after being wounded, Lakeisha had tried to move away from the bed. Investigators also noted injuries to her arm that indicated that she may have attempted to shield herself during the attack.

Investigators recovered bullet fragments throughout the apartment, and based on the wounds and evidence at the scene, authorities believed that the victims had been killed with a large-caliber revolver. And as investigators continued processing the apartment, they began noticing details that suggested that whoever carried out the attack may have been familiar with the family and the layout of the home.

Now, there were no signs of forced entry, and inside the apartment, telephones appeared  to have been moved from room to room. The receiver from the kitchen phone was found in the  master bedroom, while another phone had been left in the hallway between the two bedrooms. >>  >> What investigators found inside that apartment was horrifying.

Not only because  of the violence itself, but because of who the victims were. A mother, two young daughters, an  entire family wiped out in a single night. For Angela’s family, the shock was overwhelming. Less than 24  hours earlier, everything had seemed normal. Angela had gone to work, stopped by her mother’s  house, and spoken with her sister on the phone.

There had been no warnings that those ordinary moments >>  >> would become their family’s final memories of her. Now, instead of preparing  for another normal day, the Bell family was being forced to process an  unimaginable loss. Angela was gone. Latoya was gone. Lakeisha was gone. And as investigators began looking more closely at  the people connected to Angela, they quickly realized something unsettling.

>>  >> This was not the first time that violence had erupted around her. >>  >> And before long, detectives would uncover evidence that pointed directly  towards someone Angela knew well. In the early morning hours of March 28th, 1988,  29-year-old Angela Clay and her daughters, Latoya  and Lakeisha, were found shot to death inside their Nashville apartment.

In the aftermath, police quickly  began focusing in on their suspect. Now, as investigators began processing the apartment and speaking with neighbors, they started building a timeline of what may have happened during the early morning hours of March 28th. Angela’s upstairs neighbor and her 19-year-old daughter later told investigators that sometime between 1:00 and 1:30 that morning, they were suddenly awakened by a series of loud noises coming from the apartment below.

The sounds came in two quick bursts followed by a brief pause and then two more loud bangs. Both women later described the noise as sounding like someone repeatedly striking a countertop with a hammer. But the sounds were loud enough and unusual enough that they both got out of bed and looked outside to see if they could figure out where the noise had come from.

They say they saw nothing, but both women believe that the sound had come from Angela’s apartment beneath them. As they continued speaking with neighbors and people close to Angela, they began learning more about the tensions surrounding her relationship with Byron Black. Her neighbor also told investigators that back in October 1987, Black had allegedly kicked Angela’s front door in after she refused to let him inside the apartment.

According to her later testimony, Byron also later made chilling statements to Angela telling her, “Quote, if I can’t have you, won’t nobody have you.” And there had apparently been even more recent incidents as well. About 3 weeks before the murders, the neighbor recalled hearing Byron outside Angela’s apartment knocking on the door and windows while threatening to kick the door in again.

Then, only a few days before the killings, witnesses reported seeing Angela and Byron arguing. Now, as detectives pieced together those incidents alongside the violent history between Byron Black and Benny Clay, the investigation began moving in a very specific direction. With the investigation beginning to focus on Byron Black, detectives went to the Davidson County Metropolitan Workhouse around midnight on the night that the bodies were discovered to question him about Angela’s murder.

And when detectives informed him that Angela and her daughters had been found dead inside the apartment, they say that he initially appeared shocked and emotional. According to investigators, Byron became visibly upset and began crying. But, detectives noted that when additional officers entered the room, his demeanor suddenly changed.

 The crying stopped and investigators described him as becoming noticeably flat and emotionless. Uh during the interview, Byron told police that the last time he seen Angela was around 10:00 on Sunday night when he dropped her off at her mother’s house after picking her up from work. He claimed that afterward he went to the home of a woman he knew where he ate dinner with friends before leaving around 11:30 that night and going to his mother’s apartment to sleep.

Byron also cooperated with investigators and voluntarily handed over what he described as his {quote} only gun, a .22 caliber Ruger pistol, the same weapon that he said had been used in the earlier shooting involving Benny Clay. But, as detectives continued checking Byron’s account of the evening, problems quickly began to emerge.

The woman he said he went to see and several other witnesses later told investigators that Byron had come to her house much earlier in the evening, around 8:30 p.m., and had left approximately an hour later. According to those witnesses, he never returned that night. In the days that followed, police continued questioning Byron Black and his version of events began to change.

In his first taped statement, he claimed that after dropping Angela and the girls off Sunday night, he went directly to his mother’s house and then stayed there for the rest of the evening. But only a few hours later, during a second taped interview conducted with his attorney present, Byron Black gave investigators a completely different account.

This time, he admitted that he had gone back to Angela’s apartment later that night. He claimed that he could not remember exactly what time it was, but said that when he first arrived, Angela was not there. Now, according to Byron, he sat outside for a short time before leaving and then later returned again.

Now, during that second visit, he said he saw Angela’s car parked outside and noticed that the apartment door was open. Byron told detectives that he went inside and found Angela, Latoya, and Lakesha dead inside the apartment. According to his statement, all three victims were lying in their beds beneath the covers.

He claimed that he panicked after discovering the bodies and admitted that he may have touched one of the phones inside the apartment. He also acknowledged noticing that the phones had been moved and said that he specifically remembered being afraid to touch them because he did not want to leave his fingerprints behind.

But what disturbed investigators even more was what Byron Black said he did next. Despite claiming that he had just discovered his girlfriend and her two young daughters murdered inside their home. Byron Black never called police. He never called for help. He never told Angela’s family what he had allegedly seen.

Instead, according to his own statement, he locked the apartment door, left the scene, returned to his mother’s house, and went to sleep. Investigators also noticed additional inconsistencies involving the gun that Byron claimed to own. Initially, he told police that the weapon he had used in the earlier shooting of Benny Clay was a .

22 caliber pistol. But, after detectives informed him that they would be able to determine the caliber of the weapon used in that shooting, Byron changed his story again. This time, claiming that he actually used a .357 Magnum and had thrown the gun into the Cumberland River. By now, detectives were no longer just dealing with a witness whose timeline didn’t add up.

 They were dealing with a man whose story kept changing every time investigators challenged him. Now, although the investigation was increasingly viewing Byron as their primary suspect, the case against him was still largely circumstantial. Detectives had inconsistencies in his statement. They had evidence of prior violence and threats.

 And they had his fingerprints inside the apartment on the telephones that had been moved around after the murders. But, on their own, those details were not enough to definitively place the murder weapon in Byron Black’s hands. And for investigators, the weapon itself became one of the most important pieces of the case. Now, early on, Byron had attempted to distance himself from the type of gun used in the murders.

He had initially told the detective that the gun he used in the earlier shooting of Benny Clay was a .22 caliber pistol, but the evidence from the crime scene was telling them that there was a different story here. Now, the weapon used to kill Angela, Latoya, and Lakesha appeared to have been a large-caliber revolver.

Specifically, investigators believed that the victims had been killed with a .44-caliber weapon. And so, detectives now faced a critical question. Could they connect Byron Black to a gun matching the caliber used in the murders? Investigators knew that Byron had shot Benny Clay, and what they still needed to prove was whether the same type of weapon connected to that shooting could also be connected to the murder of Angela and her girls.

But, there was a problem. The one bullet that they still had from the 1986 shooting had lodged beneath Benny’s collarbone, and had remained there ever since. And because the bullet had never been removed, investigators had not been able to properly examine it or determine exactly what caliber weapon had been used during that attack.

And so, detectives came up with a plan. If the bullet could be surgically removed from Benny’s body, forensic examiners might finally be able to compare it to the bullets and fragments recovered from the Clay family murder scene. And so, investigators approached Benny and asked if he would undergo surgery so doctors could remove the bullet that had been lodged inside him for more than a year.

And Benny agreed. Benny underwent the procedure, and after the bullet was surgically removed, investigators finally had the opportunity to examine it. Now, Benny later testified that the gun that Byron Black had used to shoot him looked like a large caliber revolver. And when forensic testing was completed, investigators learned that the bullet removed from Benny’s body was a .

44 caliber bullet. The discovery was significant on its own, but what came next was even more damaging for Byron Black. According to firearms experts with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the .44 caliber bullet removed from Benny Clay’s collarbone matched the same weapon that fired the bullet recovered from Latoya’s pillow.

 The bullet removed from Lakeisha’s body and even a fragment recovered from Benny’s car from the night that he had been shot in 1986. Investigators now believe that they had connected a single weapon to two separate acts of violence involving Byron Black. The same gun had been used to shoot Benny, and now they believe that that weapon had been used to murder Angela and her daughters.

With the ballistic evidence now tying that same gun to both shootings, investigators believed that they finally had enough to move forward. On April 13th, 1988, Byron Lewis Black was arrested and charged with the murders of Angela Clay and her two daughters. Nearly a year later, in March of 1989, Byron Lewis Black went to trial.

Now, because of the brutality of the killings and the fact that two of the victims were children, the Davidson County District Attorney announced plans to seek the death penalty. Before the trial began, Byron Black’s defense team had attempted to argue that he was not mentally competent to stand trial. But after reviewing the case, the judge rejected that argument and ruled that the trial would move forward.

Now, during the trial, prosecutors argued that Byron Black had been driven by jealousy and anger over Angela’s efforts to reconcile with Benny Clay. According to the state, the murders were deliberate and calculated, carried out after Angela attempted to end her relationship with him. To support that theory, prosecutors linked heavily on forensic evidence and ballistic testing, particularly the connection between the .

44 caliber bullet removed from Benny Clay and the bullets linked to the murders. Investigators also used the physical evidence inside the apartment and Byron Black’s shifting statements to argue that the killings had been premeditated. Byron’s defense attorney attempted to challenge the state’s timeline and the largely circumstantial nature of the case.

But, Black also continued to maintain his innocence and he never admitted to the murders. Now, after hearing the evidence, the jury found Byron Lewis Black guilty of the murders of Angela Clay, Latoya Clay, and Lakesha Clay. He was subsequently sentenced to death. But, even with the conviction, the loss itself was impossible to undo.

Angela was gone. Her daughters were gone. And an entire family had been permanently shattered by a single night of violence. Now, what followed Byron Black’s conviction was decades of legal appeals centered largely around his mental condition and whether he was eligible for execution. Over the years, Byron Black’s attorneys argued that he suffered from significant intellectual disabilities and severe brain damage, pointing to evaluations that placed his IQ below 70.

After the 2002 Supreme Court decision in Atkins versus Virginia prohibited the execution of intellectually disabled inmates, Byron Black’s legal team repeatedly attempted to have his death sentence overturned. But despite years of appeals, the courts ultimately allowed the sentence stand. And then in August 2025, more than 37 years after Angela Clay and her daughters were murdered, Byron Lewis Black was executed by the state of Tennessee.

More than three  decades passed between the night that Angela and her daughters were murdered and Byron  was executed. But for the people who loved Angela, Latoya, and Lakesha, the passage of time could never undo what was taken from them inside  that apartment in March of 1988. Angela was remembered as a mother trying to build a life  for her children.

Latoya and Lakesha were little girls who should have had the chance to grow up, to experience lives far beyond the bedroom where they spent their final  moments. Instead, their lives became part of one of Nashville’s most devastating  family murder cases. An act of violence fueled by control, anger, and obsession.

And even all these years later, what happened to the Clay family remains difficult to comprehend. Three people  murdered in the place where they should have been safe. A family forced to live  with unimaginable loss. And a case that serves as a reminder of how  quickly escalating violence can become deadly.

Because long before Angela  and her daughters were killed, there had already been warning signs, threats, violence, fear. And by the time that violence reached its final horrifying conclusion, it was far too late  to save them. May Angela, Latoya, and Lakeisha rest in peace. A lot of you have asked where I share my thoughts after  the episode ends.

And that happens on Afterthoughts, our audio-only companion show where my  husband Jason and I unpack the cases, talk through what didn’t sit right, and answer your questions. Think of it as part two of select episodes  where you hear my unfiltered thoughts about the case. If you listen on Apple Podcast or Spotify,  search Black Girl Gone Afterthoughts and follow the show so new episodes show up automatically.

 If you want to know  what I really think, join us.