A killer who shot his pregnant girlfriend 11 times in the head before dumping her body and going on the run for four years has been jailed for life.
Justin Smith murdered 21-year-old Dianna Brice, who was 14 weeks pregnant with his baby, before trying to destroy evidence by setting fire to his car.
The young mum’s body was found wrapped in rubbish bags in a pile of debris on an abandoned lot six days after she disappeared.
READ MORE: Furniture swept down roads as buildings COLLAPSE in heavy floods
Smith then spent years on the run before he was finally caught following a police stop hundreds of miles away.
He has now been sentenced to mandatory life without parole plus a further 40 to 80 years after being convicted of first-degree murder and third-degree murder of an unborn child, as reported by Need To Know.
Dianna was last seen crying as she left a laundromat in Smith’s car in March 2021.
Prosecutors said Smith killed his girlfriend inside the vehicle before enlisting the help of his best friend, Tylydia Garnett, to dispose of her body.
Phone records traced the pair to a garage, where Garnett was captured going to a petrol station to buy a canister of fuel.
Surveillance footage later showed Smith and Garnett loading a heavy object into the back of her car, according to prosecutors.
Dianna’s blood was subsequently discovered in the boot.
The pair then dumped her body before Smith torched his own car in an attempt to destroy evidence.
Investigators later found cartridge casings in the burned-out vehicle which matched a casing discovered in Dianna’s clothing.
Smith and Garnett fled to Miami on the same day as the killing.
Smith remained a fugitive until March 2025, when he was arrested after being stopped by police in Atlanta, Georgia.
Garnett previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit arson, tampering with evidence, hindering apprehension and abuse of a corpse.
She has already been sentenced and is on probation.
A jury convicted Smith of murder as well as arson, conspiracy to commit arson, firearms offences, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse.
Dianna was already mum to a four-year-old boy, AJ, when she was killed.
Her devastated family launched a fundraiser following her death to pay for her funeral, with remaining donations earmarked for her son’s college fund.
Her aunt Melanie Passarella wrote at the time: “My niece Dianna Brice went missing and then was found murdered. We are devastated.”
The fundraiser raised more than $12,800 from 215 donations.
Dianna’s mum Betty Cellini said following Smith’s conviction: “I can’t believe that it has been five years since he took my daughter and my unborn grandchild and left my grandson, who was four at the time, without a mother.”
She thanked prosecutors, police and investigators who “never let this case go and fought for Dianna and our family.”
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner described the killings as a “heinous crime”.
He said: “Justin Smith may have thought he got away with it, but he will now spend the rest of his life thinking about his actions.”
READ MORE: Female footballer 14, found dead by river after four-day hunt
