Struck by an SUV and left for dead during the dark overnight hours in a small South Carolina community, Brent Tessnear — whose murder is highlighted in Snapped, airing Sundays at 7/6c — succumbed to severe internal injuries after being transported to the hospital. 

But Tessnear’s death left investigators with a question: Was he the victim of a random hit-and-run accident… or did someone intentionally run him down? To find their answer, police turned to Tessnear’s friends and family, including his estranged wife and eventual convicted killer — a woman who initially portrayed herself as a heartbroken survivor to the local TV news. 

The hit-and-run murder of Brent Tessnear 

In the early morning hours of Dec. 27, 2015, Brent Tessnear, a well-known local musician and father to six children, was struck by a vehicle while walking on a rural road in his hometown of Cowpens, South Carolina. One officer responding to the scene quickly recognized Tessnear as the victim, having already seen him hours earlier at a local convenience store. 

Though Tessnear was fatally injured in the hit-and-run, his body bore no gunshots or additional suggestions of foul play. But with no sign of a driver to connect to the incident, they had to at least consider the possibility that someone had intentionally run him down. 

When police informed Angelita Wright, Tessnear’s wife, of her husband’s accident, her immediate response seemed appropriate. “Angelita states that, yes, she’s related to him; that she’s his wife, and asks, ‘Oh my gosh, is he okay?’” recalled prosecutor Kinli Abee on Snapped. “She just loses it. Extremely upset.”

With no obvious leads and few clues at the scene, investigators reached out to the small and close-knit community for help. Angelita herself agreed to appear on a local TV news broadcast beseeching any witnesses to come forward, but something about her behavior, only a short time after learning of her husband’s death, seemed off to bystanders. 

“I was like, ‘Something’s off about her,’” recalled Brent’s cousin Amy Padgett.

“Her demeanor didn’t really match up with, you know, the emotions that she should be having,” added Abee. “It was pretty bizarre.”

A hidden murder motive: Rage over “revenge porn” 

“Angelita very much looked like she was hiding something,” affirmed state assistant Attorney General Joel Kozak of her strange behavior in the tragedy’s immediate aftermath.

As investigators hit early dead ends and eliminated potential suspects — including a pair of local brothers who had recently quarreled with Tessnear — they also took a deeper look at Angelita’s marriage to her late husband. What they found was a possible motive for Angelita to want Brent Tessnear dead. “Angelita had provided information to law enforcement that she and Brent were still amicable with one another. What law enforcement starts to find out is that that is the exact opposite,” said Abee. 

After adding three children to their family through five years of marriage, Brent and Angelita had reached an impasse in their relationship. With Brent at the center of the local music scene, both he and Angelita had developed a past reputation for sometimes pushing their partying lifestyle to excess — a trait Brent had recently determined to change so that he could raise their children responsibly. 

“He told her, ‘Look, I bought us a house; let’s get away from everybody, and let’s raise our kids,’” said Padgett. “And then she would not stop partying. So he was like, ‘I’ll do it by myself.’ He was fighting for custody of the kids, because she might pop in, take a picture — ‘Oh, I love you guys!’ — and then back out the door she went.”

Investigators learned the marital standoff had convinced Brent to divorce Angelita — and that their recent squabbles had spilled over onto social media. Shortly before his death, Brent had shared racy images on Facebook that seemed to suggest Angelita wasn’t measuring up as a parent — and, “whether they were Angelita or not, he was trying to insinuate that it was her or send some kind of message to her,” said Kozak. 

“Both of them had their problems, and their marriage was very volatile,” reflected former Spartanburg County sheriff’s investigator Tom Clark. “It was revenge porn — I mean, that’s what it is.”

Securing a murder conviction: “It was a progression that day”

Enraged over her husband’s online gesture, Angelita reportedly began making sinister threats. “Angelita is telling Brent, you know, ‘You better take this down; take it down now, or I’m going to come over to Cowpens and I’m going to kill you,’” said Abee. 

Acquaintances told police that Angelita had been spotted with a younger local man named Brandon Blackwood on the night that Brent Tessnear was struck and killed. Angelita had a driver’s license, but didn’t own her own car, and witnesses reported that she and Blackwood had been seen hopping between party spots together in Blackwood’s white pickup truck. 

Police noted possible signs of a collision on the truck when they found Blackwood at his grandparents’ house and questioned him about the night’s events. Though the damage to Blackwood’s vehicle couldn’t be definitively linked to the hit-and-run, investigators discovered Angelita’s driver’s license was left behind in the driver’s side door pocket of Blackwood’s truck. 

Blackwood eventually told police that he and Angelita drank together on the night of Brent Tessnear’s death, and that Angelita was indeed enraged about Tessnear’s unflattering Facebook pictures. After a full day of drinking, Blackwood said he let Angelita drive his truck that evening  — and that he recalled her seizing the opportunity to run Tessnear over when they encountered him walking late at night along the road. 

“He tells her to be careful; that someone’s walking, and she turns on the brights, realizes that it’s Brent Tessnear, and she floors it,” said Abee. “She runs him over. Brandon starts to freak out, tells her to go back, and she goes, ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be fine’ — and she drives off.”

Police arrested Angelita and began preparing to try her in court, even as Blackwood’s testimony wavered during the run up to her scheduled court date. He nevertheless took the witness stand at Angelita’s 2017 trial, where a jury agreed with prosecutors’ account of her involvement and found her guilty of murder. 

“It was a progression that day,” said Kozak of Brent Tessnear’s last day of life. “She was running around drinking alcohol with Brandon. She progressively kept getting angrier and angrier. I think eventually the alcohol, and what he had done [online] that day, drove her to run him over with a truck.”

Angelita Wright is serving a 30-year sentence for the murder of Brent Tessnear, with no eligibility for parole. Her projected release date comes in 2046, when she will be 56 years old. Blackwood pleaded guilty to an obstruction of justice charge in connection with Tessnear’s death, and has since served his full sentence under the South Carolina Youthful Offender Act.