Jurors rejected Justin Smith’s claim that Dianna Brice died accidentally and convicted him of murdering her and their unborn child.

PHILADELPHIA, Penn. — A Philadelphia man who spent nearly four years as a fugitive has been sentenced to life in prison without parole after a jury found that he murdered his 21-year-old pregnant girlfriend, disposed of her body and helped burn his car in an effort to conceal evidence. Justin Smith, 28, was convicted in the 2021 killing of Dianna Brice and the death of the unborn son she was carrying.

The verdict closed a case that began with a missing-person report in Delaware County and eventually stretched from Philadelphia to Florida and Georgia. Prosecutors said Smith intentionally killed Brice, who was 14 weeks pregnant, before turning to his friend Tylydia Garnett for help concealing what had happened. Smith testified that the shooting occurred accidentally during a struggle over a handgun. Jurors rejected that account after hearing medical, forensic, cellphone and surveillance evidence. Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony Kyriakakis imposed the mandatory punishment of life without parole for first-degree murder and another 40 to 80 years for Smith’s remaining convictions.

Smith was found guilty of first-degree murder in Brice’s death and third-degree murder of an unborn child. Jurors also convicted him of arson, conspiracy to commit arson, possession of a firearm while prohibited, carrying a firearm without a license, evidence tampering and abuse of a corpse. Prosecutors argued that the crimes committed after Brice died were important because they showed a continuing effort to hide the killing. The defense did not dispute that Smith made serious criminal decisions afterward. Instead, his lawyer asked jurors to separate the concealment from the disputed question of whether Smith meant to kill Brice in the first place.

Brice disappeared March 30, 2021. Authorities said she was last seen leaving a laundromat in Upper Darby with Smith, her boyfriend. Testimony at trial showed that the couple had been arguing. Brice had recently learned that she had tested positive for herpes and believed Smith had transmitted the infection to her. Smith later acknowledged the argument when he took the witness stand. Prosecutors did not rely on the dispute alone as evidence of intent, but they presented it as part of the timeline leading to Brice’s death that day.

Smith told jurors that the argument escalated inside his Ford Fusion and that Brice had a handgun. He testified that she pointed the weapon toward him and later toward herself. According to Smith, he grabbed for the gun and it discharged during the struggle. He said the firearm had been altered with a device capable of producing extremely rapid fire. That explanation was central to the defense because Brice suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Smith maintained that he did not deliberately pull the trigger to kill her.

The medical evidence became one of the prosecution’s main answers to that claim. The medical examiner testified that Brice had been shot 11 times in the head and once in the shoulder. Assistant District Attorney Lauren Crump argued that the location and concentration of the wounds were inconsistent with the uncontrolled struggle Smith described. Prosecutors also asked jurors to look beyond the instant of the shooting and consider Smith’s conduct immediately afterward. He did not call 911 or seek emergency medical assistance, authorities said. Instead, the prosecution argued, he quickly began taking steps to conceal Brice’s death.

Smith acknowledged on the witness stand that he did not summon police or paramedics. He also admitted participating in the disposal of Brice’s body and the destruction of his car. The defense characterized those actions as panicked decisions made by a man who believed authorities would never accept an accidental-shooting explanation. Prosecutors said the evidence showed something more deliberate. In closing arguments, Crump argued that the sequence of moving the body, destroying evidence and leaving Pennsylvania was consistent with consciousness of guilt after an intentional killing.

Investigators reconstructed much of that sequence through surveillance footage and cellphone information. A cell-site expert testified that Brice’s and Smith’s phones traveled together during the day she disappeared. Brice’s phone eventually stopped transmitting location information. Video evidence later showed Smith and Garnett around a garage in Philadelphia’s Kensington section. Other footage showed Garnett carrying trash bags and later showed her and Smith moving what appeared to be a heavy object into a Hyundai connected to Garnett, according to evidence presented at trial.

Investigators later found Brice’s blood in that Hyundai, prosecutors said. Surveillance evidence also showed Garnett obtaining gasoline before Smith’s Ford Fusion was set on fire near Cobbs Creek. The burned vehicle still yielded evidence. According to the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, investigators recovered a fired cartridge casing from the vehicle and matched it to a casing found with Brice. Prosecutors used that connection, along with the blood evidence and video, to argue that the attempt to destroy the Ford had failed to erase the trail linking Smith to the killing.

Brice’s body was found April 5, 2021, in an abandoned area of Southwest Philadelphia, six days after she disappeared. Authorities said her body had been placed in trash bags. The discovery transformed a search for a missing pregnant woman into a homicide investigation. By then, detectives were also examining the burned Ford and tracking the movements of people and vehicles connected to Smith. Philadelphia authorities obtained an arrest warrant for him on April 9.

Garnett was arrested that month and eventually pleaded guilty to crimes connected to helping conceal Brice’s death and destroy evidence. She later became an important prosecution witness at Smith’s trial. Garnett testified that Smith told her he had shot Brice and described her own role in helping him afterward. Defense attorney Samuel Stretton challenged her reliability and argued that her involvement in the case gave her a reason to provide testimony favorable to prosecutors. Jurors therefore had to assess her account alongside evidence that did not depend on her testimony, including video, cellphone records and forensic findings.

Smith, meanwhile, had left Pennsylvania. Prosecutors said he and Garnett traveled to Miami after Brice’s death. Evidence at trial indicated that Smith hoped to reach Cuba but did not do so. He later made his way to the Atlanta area. In August 2023, federal authorities obtained a warrant charging him with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. The FBI worked with police and federal offices in several states to locate him as the years passed without a trial.

The search finally ended March 8, 2025, after Atlanta police encountered Smith during a traffic stop. Reporting on the arrest said officers stopped a vehicle over an expired registration and that Smith provided a false identity before fleeing. Police eventually caught him after a pursuit. Once officers established who he was, authorities connected him to the Philadelphia homicide warrant. The FBI publicly announced his capture several days later, nearly four years after Brice’s killing.

His arrest allowed Philadelphia prosecutors to move forward with the murder case. By the time the trial began in August 2026, investigators had assembled evidence spanning the hours before Brice disappeared, the handling of her body, the burning of Smith’s vehicle and his flight from Pennsylvania. The defense sought to narrow the jury’s attention to the shooting itself, arguing that Smith’s admitted criminal behavior afterward did not prove he intended to kill Brice. Prosecutors urged jurors to view the entire sequence as a connected series of acts.

The jury accepted the prosecution’s account and found Smith guilty of intentional first-degree murder. That distinction carried the mandatory life-without-parole sentence imposed by Kyriakakis. The court added 40 to 80 years for the remaining offenses, making Smith’s punishment substantially longer than the life term alone.

Brice’s family waited more than five years for the case to reach that point. Her mother, Betty Cellini, said Smith’s actions had taken both her daughter and unborn grandchild and left Brice’s older son without his mother. She thanked law enforcement officials and prosecutors who continued pursuing the case while Smith remained outside Pennsylvania.

Brice had worked as a caregiver and hoped to become a dialysis technician, according to published accounts. Her family was also preparing for another milestone. A gender-reveal celebration had been planned, and Brice had not yet learned the result. She was expecting another boy. The detail became part of her family’s account of the future she did not get to experience.

District Attorney Larry Krasner said after the conviction that Smith would spend the rest of his life behind bars. With the verdict and sentence now entered, a case once defined by a missing woman, a burned car and a fugitive search has reached its final trial judgment in Philadelphia.

Author note: Last updated October 17, 2026.