Pregnant and Vanished - The Disappearance of Akia Eggleston

August 25, 2025

On this episode, Payton and Garrett uncover the chilling disappearance of Akia Eggleston, a young pregnant mother who vanished without a trace. As police dismiss the case, her desperate family and friends take matters into their own hands, launching a relentless fight for answers and justice.

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with My Husband. I'm Payton Moreland.

And I'm Garrett Moreland.

And he's the husband.

And I'm the husband.

We did not win the lottery.

Yeah. Um, sorry. I guess the sarcasm didn't come through on the audio.

I guess we can take blame for that. We didn't win the lottery. If we won the lottery, our social medias would be deleted. You would probably never get another episode from us.

That's not true.

From me?

No, I don't know about that. But yeah, no social medias. I'm sorry, we did not win the lottery. I wish I could give all of you $10,000. I would if I could.

Listen, Garrett and I always just manifest winning the lottery, so I think we're really used to just saying that we won the lottery.

Also, for those who don't know, we live in Utah. You can't play the lottery in Utah, so we can't even play the lottery here.

Yeah, we don't got a chance.

It's illegal, like it doesn't exist here.

You know what? That one's on us. I'm really, really sorry that we got your hopes up. For those who did DM me—sorry, didn't win.

Yeah, I felt bad. I felt bad, but we caused quite the havoc.

Yeah, a lot of you thought we were serious, and apologize for that. So, next time we win the lottery, we'll make sure to let you know that we actually did win.

Yeah, but if we say it before then, we didn't win.

Besides us not winning the lottery—update on my bagels.

Not a huge update on my vehicle, so nothing there. My update is that there's not really an update, but I am working towards it. I'm still figuring it out. I promise you, my goal for 2026 is opening a bagel shop. It's going to happen. I'm going to make it happen.

And Payton's going to have to be head baker at my bagel shop.

Baby, I'm not baking.

Payton's not baking. Pay will not support.

I'll go to the grand opening. I'll throw the grand opening.

Thanks, baby.

But I can't bake.

That's okay. I don't expect you to bake. Payton and I both aren't very big bakers or cookers.

I cook, just not in the kitchen and everything else in my life.

Exactly. That's funny.

That's what I got for my 10 seconds. So, let's hop into today's episode.

Our sources for this episode are cbsnews.com, meaww.com, blackandmissinginc.com, wm2news.com, oxygen.com, nbc.com, nbcnws.com, Facebook WBA.com, theturney.org, thehughcry.com, Charlie Project, missingpersoncenter.org, and Dline.

Getting pregnant is supposed to be one of the most magical times in a woman's life. For many, it's a pivotal chapter, a time when everything is about to change and hopefully for the better. It's a time to be showered with love, to be pampered, to rest and take care of yourself.

But it's also a time where a woman is at her most vulnerable. And I'm not just talking about the flood of hormones and emotions and changes to your body. I'm actually talking about in society, too.

According to a 2020 article in the American Journal of Public Health, pregnant and postpartum women had a 35% higher risk of being murdered than a non-pregnant woman.

Wait, what?

Yep. You're more at risk to be murdered while pregnant than not pregnant.

And I would assume that the statistic is based off of all murders, but yes—domestic.

Yeah, I was going to say I bet you majority of it is. So I bet off that statistic 90% of those are husbands or significant others.

The fact you just throw out percentages when you have no idea what you're talking about, for sure.

No, what I said—

You can say, “I feel like.”

No, no. What I said, I bet you, is very close to accurate.

Okay, what—90.78?

Sure. Garrett thinks the majority are domestic.

Oh, 90%. 90.78%. Correct.

But that's your opinion.

Correct.

Okay. And keep going here.

And the rates for this are even higher than that amongst Black women, which is why today I want to cover a really important case.

This is the true crime story of Akia Egleston.

So, let's dial back the clock—not too far honestly—but to May of 2017, when good old young Payton and Garrett were getting married.

This is true.

But as we are getting married in California, over in the city of Baltimore, Maryland is 22-year-old Akia Egleston.

Now, everyone who knew Akia said she was a fun, loving, warm-hearted person—the kind of woman who would do anything for the people that she cared about. She loved to dance. She was very into the arts, and she was very close with her family, particularly her stepfather, her aunt, and her grandmother.

She actually found herself leaning on them a lot that May of 2017 because Akia, at this point in her life, was 8 months pregnant, and she was raising her other child, a 2-year-old daughter named Emory, on her own.

Not to mention, Akia was still recovering from the loss of her mother, who had died 2 years earlier of breast cancer. It was something that seemed to weigh heavy on Akia, especially as she was about to have her second child.

At the end of April 2017, Akia even posted about it on her Facebook page, writing, "I really wish my mother was here."

Now, according to Akia's stepdad, she had never really been the same since the passing of her mother. Things had gotten a lot tougher on her ever since, as she had to become more independent. She had to take on a lot of responsibility for the family. It kind of seems that after her mother passed, Akia became more introverted, a bit more private.

The one thing, though, that did bring her some peace was volunteering and staying close with her community. But even that got a lot harder to do towards the end of Akia's second pregnancy.

Now, Akia's pregnancy was considered high risk, so her doctor recommended she get as much rest as she could. That meant no driving, no long walks, nothing strenuous. But Akia seemed to have a solution for that.

At the time, she and her current boyfriend—this is the father of her unborn baby, 35-year-old Michael Robertson—were planning on moving into a new place together before the baby arrived. This was a boy, by the way, who they had already picked out the name Anubis for.

So, Akia and Michael had known each other for years before getting pregnant. In fact, Michael's grandmother used to be Akia's babysitter when she was younger. So, the families were presumably really close, but the two reconnected in the middle of 2016 when they saw each other at a mutual friend's birthday party. Shortly after that, they began dating. Akia got pregnant, and now they were planning a future together.

This was something that Akia was really excited about. On May 3rd, 2017, Akia even took out money from the bank to pay for a deposit on their new place. And four days after that, on May 7th, Akia had arranged a beautiful baby shower for herself. She had organized it all on her own, spending close to a grand on the location and decorations.

That afternoon, everything was set up by the party planner and ready to go. So, the guests started trickling in one by one to her baby shower, placing their gifts for baby Anubis down on a designated table. But as the clock ticked on and the appetizers were served, one thing was missing from the baby shower—Akia, the pregnant mother.

That's horrible.

Okay, now everyone knows that Akia was 8 months pregnant, and those closest to her knew she was deemed a high-risk pregnancy. So, of course, everyone's first thought is maybe she's at the hospital with a complication. Maybe she's already in labor.

Problem is, Akia is not answering her phone as everyone is showing up to her party. So, the next person her family calls is actually a guy named Stefan. Now, this is one of Akia's best friends in the entire world. He was the one who was supposed to pick her up that day and drive her to her own shower since she wasn't supposed to be driving herself.

And since Akia's family knew that plan, they contacted Stefan to ask if the two of them were together. He says no. Akia told him she would call when she was ready, but he hadn't heard from her that day, so he just figured she was running late.

And that's when Stefan and a few other party guests decide to rush over to Akia's apartment to check on her. Only when they get there, there's no sign of her either.

Even weirder, a lot of her stuff is missing. And not just money and jewelry—heavy pieces of furniture have been removed from the house. Her dresser was gone, and most of her closet had been emptied. This is obviously something Akia definitely didn't do on her own at 8 months pregnant.

Now, remember how I said after her mother's death, Akia had gotten a lot more private about her life? Apparently, that included the details of her relationship with Michael, because a lot of people didn't even know the two were planning to move in together. In fact, it seems like most people thought that they were on the outs by the time the baby shower rolled around.

And I don't know if anyone called Michael that day to ask if he knew where Akia was. I'm sure they did, but Michael said he hadn't seen her in almost a week. He says, "I haven't seen her since May 1st."

So, at this point, the family calls 911 and they follow it up with a trip to the police station to file a missing person's report. That day, police pay a visit to Akia's apartment, but they don't walk away with any evidence of note. To them, it just looks like someone was starting their move out of the apartment.

Meanwhile, the family begins scouring the park near Akia's place, hoping to maybe find her or a sign of her. They find nothing. And once it's confirmed that Akia isn't at any local hospitals, the police start working to put together a timeline of what may have happened, because this means there is an 8-month pregnant mother missing.

That's so horrible. She plans this whole baby shower and… I'm already mad.

So, police realize Akia, who was an avid social media user, hadn't actually posted anything online since May 3rd.

And to do the time for you, this is four days before she didn't show up to her baby shower—which her family found strange, considering she was constantly updating her followers about her pregnancy journey online. The last known post was that afternoon on May 3rd, when Akia uploaded a picture of her sonogram.

At 5:22 p.m., she sent a Facebook message to a friend inviting them to come to the future baby shower—the one she would not appear at. And then after that, it seems like Akia goes silent.

Police also realize May 3rd was the last time anyone saw Akia alive. So, as soon as she's reported missing and they start talking to everyone, they realize that they are already four days behind from the last time anyone knew or heard from her.

Four days is so long.

It's interesting, because before the podcast, I don't think I would ever have realized how long four days is. I'm like, "Oh, that's fine, that's not a big deal." But honestly, anything longer than 12 hours now is like—

Yeah.

Like it's just not looking good, sadly.

Yeah. I can't imagine, you know, you have this family member who's super private and chooses to be private, but you're still supporting her in the ways that she would like. So, you show up to the shower only to discover once police begin looking into her disappearance that it's been four days. That has to be so devastating.

Yeah.

So, May 3rd—she was caught on security footage at a local bank withdrawing money for her new apartment. The 4-foot-1 Akia was spotted wearing a green t-shirt and black joggers. A friend had actually driven her that day to the bank, and they said they dropped her back off at her place around 2 or 3:00 p.m.

Now, this coincided with the fact that one of the last cell phone pings from Akia's phone, outside of her apartment, was at a tower right near that bank. But after that, it was like Akia had vanished into thin air.

So after May 3rd, there were no more social media posts, no more Facebook messages, no more bank withdrawals or cell phone activity. And what's even scarier is that as this investigation goes on, they keep searching, they keep looking—and eventually Akia's due date comes and goes.

Oh my gosh.

They have no idea, and there is still no sign of her, or even any evidence pointing to where she might have gone or what might have happened to her and her son. And you also have to remember there is a 2-year-old little girl wondering what has happened to her mother, because she did have another baby.

But it seems like it takes the police some time to bring in the one person they probably should have spoken to immediately, and that was Akia's current boyfriend, 35-year-old Michael Robertson.

Now, to be fair, it seems like Michael was being pretty sly with police throughout the investigation. According to one statement police released, Michael “notably has displayed a consistent pattern of hiding or avoiding police contact for weeks or months at a time between interviews.”

And because they can't arrest him, you kind of have to have someone who's willing to cooperate with you in order to continue these interrogations.

So, I do know that when they get him to sit down on June 15th, a month after her disappearance, he tells them this: the last time he saw Akia was two days before she was last seen or heard from—on May 1st. This is obviously a little different than what he had originally told her family back on the day she disappeared.

But he continues to tell police that he stopped by her place that day, left, and then went to work. And when he went back, he said all of his stuff was packed in a box. And he said he took that not as a sign that they were moving in together like they planned, but as a sign that she was over him and they were breaking up.

Now, besides that, he really doesn't give the police much to work with. Though, by the following month—July 2017—police feel pretty confident that foul play was involved in Akia's disappearance. And they're pretty sure Michael Robertson might have had something to do with it.

Especially when they learn a few other shady things about Michael—like the fact that he got a new phone and phone number a day before the baby shower. And they learned that Michael had an entire other family on the side, like with kids and everything.

Holy crap.

So, it turns out that 35-year-old Michael was also in a relationship with another 22-year-old woman named Haley. And the two of them had their own children together.

Holy—how do you hide that? Like, how is that possible?

In fact, Haley gave birth to her second child with Michael in August of 2016, and then Akia got pregnant the following month. So, he had a child with Haley, and the following month he and Akia were pregnant.

I'm— I just have so much going through my mind, because I'm trying to figure out: how did he see his other kids? How did he see his other girlfriend? Like, how is he doing all this?

Also, the mom's just at home with a newborn and you're getting another girl pregnant.

Yeah, this is crazy. Disrespectful.

Oh my gosh. Now, to be honest, I'm not sure if Haley knew about Akia at first, but it seemed Akia did know about Haley and Michael's two other children. I'm not saying that she knew they were currently in contact or that Haley was under the assumption they were together. He might have just said, "This is my ex and I have two children with her."

We don't actually know what he told Akia, but we do know that she was aware he had other kids with Haley.

Okay.

And I can also say that around April 2017, a few months before Akia disappeared, Michael and Haley were actually evicted from the apartment they shared—which was when Michael began staying at Akia's place regularly.

Michael told detectives he wasn't even sure at first if the baby was his, because he was under the impression that he and Akia were open and not exclusive at the time.

That's such a cowardly thing to say.

But he said he was willing to take a paternity test once the baby arrived. And he said if the baby was his, then he would happily take on the role of father.

So gracious of him.

But he also says Akia was insistent he was the father. So when she began asking him to come to doctor's appointments and sonograms, and he said no because he wanted the paternity test, that's when they began to fight. And that's why he said on May 1st Akia had packed up his stuff and left it at her apartment.

He said he went there, and when he saw it all packed, he waited for her to come home so they could talk. But she never showed. So, he figured things were really done between the two of them and didn't show up to the baby shower, and he hadn't heard from her after that.

I don't believe any of this at all.

He tells the police he is genuinely worried. He insists he's not involved at all, but he does point to one person that he is suspicious of.

So, police are like, "Hey, if not you, then who?"

And he says, "Oh, Akia's best friend, Stefan."

Now, remember, Stefan was the one who was supposed to pick Akia up on the day of her baby shower and drive her there. But Michael tells police that Stefan's feelings for Akia went well beyond friendship.

According to him, Stefan was supposedly obsessed with her. If she needed a ride, he dropped everything. If she needed rent, he offered her money—no questions asked.

And when investigators start looking into Stefan, they do learn the two were really close, to the point where Akia even trusted him enough to give him her passwords to Gmail and Facebook, along with a key to her apartment. And so they're looking into him because of what Michael said.

And they learn he also owns a gun. So they realize maybe let's bring him in for questioning. And so they do.

And Stefan tells them something that makes him look even more suspicious. He says that a day or so before the baby shower, he was supposed to meet up with Akia because he was going to loan her $200. And when he didn't hear from her about it, he got a bit worried and went over to the house to check on her.

Remember, he has a key. And that's when he noticed a lot of her stuff was gone—her clothes, her baby's new crib. He also said he noticed holes in the wall of the apartment.

Remember, this is days before the baby shower, when the rest of her family discovered the apartment, the state of it, and that Akia wasn't there. And yet, Stefan, her supposed best friend, didn't report her missing. She wasn't answering him. He didn't report any of this to police.

He also didn't seem to mention it when everyone realized Akia was missing. So, when they call him and they're like, "Hey, have you picked her up?" he's like, "No, I've just been waiting to hear from her."

He doesn't say, "Actually, I haven't heard from her. SOS. This is what I saw when I went to her house."

So police think, okay, this just is not adding up.

When asked if he and Akia ever dated, Stefan says, "Well, sort of, but it didn't really last long."

But when they look over their Facebook messages to one another, they find really intimate conversations that indicate they were sleeping together—maybe on and off for what seemed to be a while. And while Stefan was head over heels for Akia, she just wasn't really feeling the same. She saw it more as like a friends-with-benefits type thing—a situationship, if you will.

Okay.

Now, police think this could definitely be motive.

Yeah, definitely motive to lead to a crime of passion. And it does make a little bit more sense why Michael was insisting on a paternity test. I said I didn't believe him, but now I think I might.

So, police are like, "We've got a sticky situation here." So they ask him, "Stefan, why did you not call the police the first day that you couldn't get a hold of Akia, and you went to her house and noticed that her stuff was missing?"

And he said, well, he just didn't find it all that alarming yet. He figured he'd just give it until Akia's baby shower to see if he heard from her. And when he didn't, that was when he worried like everyone else—because he knew she wouldn't miss that.

Yeah.

He also had been super cooperative with the investigation and was posting online about trying to find Akia. He wrote things that felt serious, like, "If I have to move effing mountains or take a life, I will find you."

Okay?

And when he's asked where he was on the night Akia was last seen—May 3rd, the time they think she went missing—he says he was at work. And once police confirm his alibi, they realize Stefan is likely not their guy.

Yeah, I was going to say he sounds like he's telling the truth.

So, they decide to turn to a new person of interest, someone who likely did not like Akia if she knew about her, and that was Michael's other girlfriend, Haley Pommeroy.

Okay.

Now, as I mentioned, Haley and Michael had two children together already. And while it seems Akia knew about Haley, I'm not sure how much Haley knew about Akia, at least at first. Police have to investigate, and they look into it and discover that when Haley did find out Michael had been seeing Akia, she supposedly lost it. Which said a lot, because Haley was described by everyone as very volatile.

And she was clearly mad—like, really mad—about the affair, because she had been posting on Facebook all about how Akia was a homewrecker. But then, when Akia posted a 3D sonogram of her baby just three weeks before she disappeared and Haley saw that, she kind of—

Oh no.

She's like, No, no, no. For sure Michael is the father of Akia's baby.

And Michael's like, I don't know, we haven't taken a paternity test.

And she's like, No, no, no. My Michael is the father of that baby on the sonogram.

So Haley was outraged by the whole thing. And police wondered if this could also be motive.

So Haley comes in for questioning, and she does not deny hating Akia for coming between her and Michael. She says, "Yeah, my feelings are hurt," but she insists she would never do anything to her. And she also says she doesn't have a car, so it's not like she can just get up and drive anywhere. It's kind of difficult.

Haley gets so emotional during this interview that they let her keep talking, thinking if she's just emotional and talking it might lead to something.

Yeah.

But she denies any involvement the entire time. So they subpoena her phone records to see if they find anything. But from what I can tell, everything kind of lines up with what Haley was saying. She has nothing to do with Akia's disappearance.

Which means we're kind of now back to square one.

Yeah, it's got to be Michael. Like—it has to be.

I mean, we'll see, but I'm at this point leaning towards Michael.

Okay, so—year 2017. Months pass, and there are no new developments in Akia's case. So, her family starts taking matters into their own hands. They reach out to the press, hoping they can make Akia's story more public, maybe apply some pressure to local law enforcement to really try and prioritize her case.

This is really at the beginning of when we see this strategy kind of start being used in social media. But despite reaching out to several different outlets, no one wants to share Akia's story. Her family even says one outlet told them that her case wasn't “newsworthy enough.”

That's wild.

Yeah, that's pretty messed up.

So this is when they feel they have to reach out to the Black and Missing Foundation. It’s a nonprofit dedicated to bringing more awareness to missing persons of color. So they help the family with spreading the word about Akia.

And four months after her disappearance, it kind of starts to catch on. By September of 2017, Akia's story was finally being told all over Baltimore, and then nationally, and then online. Suddenly, people were talking about Akia.

Okay, good.

And they were demanding answers for her and her family.

Good.

Which is why in November of that year, after media had to cover the case, the FBI finally joins the investigation. The Baltimore field office even offered at this point a reward of $25,000 to anyone who had valuable information about Akia's whereabouts.

I'm just really surprised that there's been nothing about her, just because it's pretty dang difficult to discard a body and nobody see, nobody know, nobody find out. Especially in today's age. Like, it's not something that's just—

They're also heavy. Like, there's so much to it.

Also, like, can we just remember in our minds right now?

Yeah.

I can't—I don't—I hate thinking about it, because this is heartbreaking.

You would think it would be the opposite statistic from what I shared.

True.

Yeah.

Because how can you do that?

You would hope so.

So around this same time, an interesting clue emerged. That fall, a bunch of Akia's family and friends had gathered in front of her apartment to hold a vigil and prayer circle for her and her baby.

And as they were cleaning up and getting ready to leave, one of Akia's friends spotted something in the shrubs near her front door at her apartment.

Okay.

It was Akia's debit card.

It's been sitting there the whole time.

Yep. And the strangest part about it was it appeared to look brand new—even though, if this happened the day she went missing or the last time she was even known to be at this apartment, it should have been sitting there for months and months.

Like I said—confused.

Okay. How is this sitting here for months and months and no one finds it? And then they do find it this night and it looks brand new?

And police also said they had searched every square inch in and around Akia's apartment initially, and they didn’t notice the debit card. Which made them think someone had recently placed this here.

Now, I do want to say this debit card thing doesn't lead to any groundbreaking discoveries, but it is a weird detail that only solidifies the theory further—that foul play was involved. And chances are, it was someone Akia knew.

So, the police circle back to the best evidence they have right now, and that is her cell phone data. Based on her cell phone data, police feel confident that something happened to Akia around 5:22 p.m. on the afternoon of May 3rd, which is very specific.

And they think this because she was mid-conversation on social media, and then everything stops.

Now, Stefan's alibi at this time clears him as a person of interest. And they find that at this specific time Haley was with her mother, who was helping take care of her two kids. Which leaves them with one more person whose location they can't confirm at this exact time—the father of Akia's unborn child, their very first suspect, Michael Robertson.

Yeah.

And the more they zone in on Michael at this time, the less things add up.

Now remember, as I mentioned, he changed his cell phone number just three days after Akia vanished. He didn't join in on the search for her, even though she was pregnant with his child. And while he claimed Akia broke up with him days before the baby shower and he hadn't seen her since, everyone who knew Akia said this didn’t seem to be the case.

In fact, just days before the baby shower, she told some friends about how excited she was to be moving in with Michael. Plus, on the 3rd she was clearly taking money out of the bank for the deposit on their new place together.

Yep.

And once they get Michael's phone records, it tells a completely different story than the one Michael was offering—because it shows that on May 2nd, Michael sent pictures of the inside of an apartment. Which means clearly that they were still looking and still talking about moving in the day she vanished.

And then on the 3rd, the last outgoing call from Akia's phone was at 3:44 p.m., and it was made to Michael Robertson. They also learned that at 4:00 p.m., 20 minutes later, shortly after that call, Michael took a Lyft—and it was one that was ordered by Akia's phone. The Lyft was from his place to her current location at her apartment.

Okay.

And Michael's cell data showed he was in the area near her apartment from at least 5:35 to 6:18 p.m. that day. But later, around 6:57 p.m., a telemarketer tried calling Akia's phone. At the time, both her phone and Michael's phone were actually in downtown Baltimore.

Though right after that call came through, Akia's phone was either shut off or disabled—meaning possibly that call triggered whoever had the phone downtown to realize it was still on. So they shut it off or disabled it, and it was never turned back on after that. Which made the whole thing even sketchier for the police.

But what made this entire thing even sketchier, if possible, was the fact that after that evening, Michael had done several Google searches on his home computer.

Can you guess what these Google searches were?

Yes, I can. How to dispose of a body, how to get away with murder, how—any of the above.

D, all of the above.

“How to dispose and hide a body,” along with 18 different searches on trash pickup, where the dumpster trash goes, and where landfills are all around Baltimore.

Blows my mind that people still search this stuff.

So, yeah. ’Cause this is like 2017. Oh, the other day when we were talking about the insurance stuff—remember last case, I did search “what’s the average time people call insurance after…” Which does make me look guilty, but also—I’m alive.

You're alive.

So, you know.

Yeah. This is just—I mean, this is horrible.

Yeah.

So, at this point, the investigation is at a crossroads. They have plenty of digital data that suggests Michael Robertson did something to Akia Egleston and her unborn son. But they want to find the body. They don't have any DNA. They don't have a confession. They don't have a body.

They do have a theory, though. They think that on the afternoon of the 3rd, Michael took that Lyft to Akia's house.

That maybe he went there to plan to break up with her or tell her he was just going to stay with Haley. Whatever the catalyst was, something sparked a fight between the two of them, according to police. Police think it got physical.

Michael ended up killing Akia—whether intentional or by accident—and then wrapped her in a blanket that was missing from her bed. Then they think he placed her in the dresser that was in her room.

Oh my gosh.

’Cause remember, that was also missing. And moved her out of the apartment in it, which would explain the many holes in the wall both Stefan and the family saw.

He then placed the dresser—or just Akia—in a nearby dumpster, likely one that was only 30 feet from her apartment. But let me tell you the most frustrating part of this: it takes years for the Baltimore police and the FBI to move on this theory.

And I have no idea why. I know that a case without a body is always hard to prosecute. And oftentimes prosecutors will wait in hopes of finding a body.

Yeah. Because I think the biggest thing nowadays is, you know, double jeopardy. Because if they're just hopeful and they think that more information will come out—but once you prosecute, if the jury decides not guilty, I mean, you're done. The case is over with.

So I guess I get both sides, because I feel like this happens in a lot of cases we cover, where all of a sudden it's like they wait ten years to—

Yeah. I mean, you have your suspect, you have all kinds of evidence pointing to them, just no body or DNA. And they're just like, "Well, what do we do?" I mean, that's Josh Powell and Susan Powell.

Yeah.

Yep.

I will say it’s not until February of 2022 that they finally bring Michael Robertson back in for questioning, hoping to just get a confession out of him. At this point, by 2022, Michael has ironed things out with Haley. They've both moved to Michigan. They have had two more children together.

But they still confront him with the evidence they have. They say, "Hey, we know that you saw Akia two days after you told us you last saw her." And they have the Lyft driver, who they’ve talked to, and confirm that he did bring Michael over to Akia's house that night.

So—you lied.

And it's during this interrogation that Michael says, "Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did lie. We did see each other the night she went missing, and we did get in a fight."

He says Akia had gotten out of the shower and caught him texting Haley. And that's when Akia told Michael that he had to choose—it was either Haley or her. And when he told her Haley, Akia told him it was over between the two of them.

He said that's when the fight got even more heated. He claims nothing physical happened. He keeps saying this over and over: nothing happened. So any hope of getting a confession out of Michael at this point to the murder seems to be lost.

And you—I'm surprised he still goes in for questioning at this point.

Right. But now that they had him admitting that he had seen her that night, and is probably the last person to have seen her, and that the last person that saw her also had a huge blowout fight with her, they actually finally feel that that might be enough to sway a jury—because it's from his own mouth.

Yeah.

So, they place the now 41-year-old Michael Robertson under arrest. Michael was finally charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

Okay.

Now, there were several searches for Akia and her unborn son over the years, including in a landfill in Northern Virginia where police believed the contents of the dumpster they think was used ended up. But the bodies were never found.

This is something prosecutors know will make their case harder in court, because there's no fingerprints, no DNA, no eyewitnesses. Which meant the only real evidence they had was digital phone records, Google searches, and one admission—that Michael fought with her in the last moments Akia was heard from.

I feel like I don't do this very often, but I don't think they have a good enough case.

Really?

Yeah, because even the digital evidence is like, well, you lied about not seeing her. But there's nothing like—you threatened her over text. There's no security cameras of him dragging anything weird. I mean, literally, it's as easy as his defense saying he left and someone came in and killed her.

Yeah. Like, they could just say he lied—he was scared, or he would admit he was obviously already cheating on both parties. Like, he's just a liar. But it doesn't mean he's a murderer.

I'm not saying he's innocent, because I think he's guilty, and I guess we'll find out at the end of this case. But just considering a lot of the cases we cover, it surprises me. It also first surprises me if a jury says yes, and second surprises me that they took it to court, ’cause there's not much.

But I also want him to get caught. You know what I'm saying? I'm just thinking out loud here.

So there's actually—it’s interesting—one of the most compelling pieces for the jurors, according to them, was the way that Akia and Michael's phones both left the apartment together and moved downtown that night, and then her phone was turned off downtown.

Yeah.

I mean, I guess that's pretty incriminating, because that definitely would make it so he can't say, "Well, I just left and someone else killed her," because their phones were together after he left the apartment. You know what I mean?

This is the one piece of evidence that Michael also doesn't give an excuse for. He doesn't try to come up with a reason why this would happen in court.

And so, after three and a half weeks of testimony and two days of deliberations, the jury was back with a verdict. Michael Robertson was guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. He was given two consecutive life sentences for his crimes.

Now, unfortunately, this doesn't bring Akia's family any sense of relief, really, because Akia and Anubis' bodies are still out there. They weren't given a proper burial, and their family wasn't able to say goodbye. And putting Michael Robertson behind bars wasn't going to change that.

Yeah.

Since then, Akia's family has been fighting to make something of this tragedy. They have been pushing for a measure they created called the Akia Alert—basically an Amber Alert for missing pregnant women.

Now, that's smart.

Akia's aunt, Senobia Wilson, has been spearheading this effort, and while she's been brushed off by many lawmakers, she is not giving up. She said in an interview, "I am asking for safety for a vulnerable population, which should not be a problem, and it's just not being taken serious at all. I guess it doesn't matter. Maybe I'm the wrong color, but I'm not going to stop until it actually goes into law."

So, for Akia's family, her case is no longer about justice. It's about making sure that no other woman disappears without a trace and no other family is left to fight it alone.

And that is the case of Akia Egleston.

Heartbreaking. I was thinking about it—the fact… I mean, all these cases are bad, but I don't know. Not that one is worse than the other, but I guess the ones that stick with me more than others are child cases, and then pregnant women.

I think, considering that the statistics factually back up that women—it's insane to me. It shocks me even more that their suggestion to make a specific alert for pregnant women hasn't been passed, because it obviously makes sense.

It does make sense that there would be protocols, like if a pregnant woman is missing, immediately needing to be allowed into houses—just certain things, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

It really shocks me. You would think that pregnant women, like you said, would be on the other end of the statistic.

Yeah, you would.

Here we are. But you know what? There are just people out there still killing—the elderly, pregnant women, children. Honestly, it's disgusting.

All right, you guys. That is our case, and we will see you next time with another one.

I love it.

And I hate it. Goodbye.

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