20/20: The Barefoot Witness - Who was Lyntell Washington and what happened to her? Details revealed

ABC'S The Barefoot Witness is detailing a cold-blooded murder case of a mother, who fell in love with a married man, and it eventually ended in a tragic murder of her and her unborn child. In the summer of 2016, a three year old girl set off a chain of bizarre events that exposed a secret affair, an unwanted pregnancy and a cold-blooded murder. The victim was her mother, Lyntell Washington, a celebrated Baton Rouge educator whose life was cut short by the one man she had trusted most. ABC's 20/20 is now revisiting the case in an episode titled The Barefoot Witness, and the details are as heartbreaking as they are infuriating.

Lyntell Washington was a 40-year-old instructional specialist at Brookstown Middle Magnet Academy in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a generous educator who always worked to help her students and had been named Teacher of the Year for the 2014–2015 academic year. She was also a single mother and by most accounts, she was the kind of person a community rallies around, the teacher kids remember for decades.

After relocating from New Orleans to Baton Rouge to build a fresh start following the end of a troubled relationship, Washington threw herself into her work and her role as a mother. She was respected and loved but had no idea the man she was falling for at her own school would become her killer.

Washington met Robert Marks, an assistant principal at Brookstown, and the two began a relationship which was complicated from the start by the fact that Marks was already married. He fed her lies to keep things going and Washington's close friend Melissa Mason told 20/20 that Marks had claimed he and his wife were living separately in the same house while going through a divorce but it was a story built to buy time and maintain control.

Then came the revelation that changed everything: Washington was seven months pregnant with Marks' child when she disappeared. A co-worker told police that Washington had been carrying Marks' baby and had threatened to tell his wife about their affair. That threat, it seems, sealed her fate.

The devastating murder that The Barefoot Witness is about

Before you tune into The Barefoot Witness, here's what went down. On the morning of June 9, 2016, good Samaritan Leslie Parms found Washington's toddler daughter wandering alone and barefoot in a parking lot. Nearby sat Washington's car, its interior visibly stained with blood. Parms called 911, and while on the call, the little girl said something that would guide the entire investigation. The child was heard on the recording saying, "Mr. Robbie put the blood there," apparently referring to her mother's car. She was three years old, and she had just named the killer.

Investigators immediately zeroed in on Marks. He admitted to the affair and acknowledged meeting Washington the evening before she disappeared, but claimed he'd left and spent time at a local bar. His defense team offered no explanation for why he had recently purchased a firearm, why his cell phone records placed him near the site where Washington's body was eventually found, or why the little girl stated that "Mr. Robbie" had hurt her mother with a "boom" sound before abandoning her. The recordings are included in The Barefoot Witness.

Washington's body turned up a week after her disappearance, dumped in an irrigation ditch at a sugarcane field. She had been shot in the head as the coroner confirmed the cause of death. Medical examination further determined that the fetus might have survived had it received immediate care which means two lives were lost that night.

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The Barefoot Witness is available to watch on ABC.

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