Angela Fuller, a 56-year-old woman from Columbia, South Carolina, vanished after she was last known to be out on August 29, 2025. She was Black. When her family could not reach her, a relative reported her missing to the Columbia Police Department on the evening of August 31, and the case was quickly pushed from a missing-person search into a high-stakes investigation as days passed without a trace.
In the first stretch, investigators cast a wide net across the city, chasing down tips and checking places where someone could be hidden or hurt. Police tracked leads tied to Fuller’s movements and her vehicle, and they reviewed extensive surveillance as the picture of her final hours began to narrow instead of widen. As the search intensified, authorities said they were working from evidence and timelines that pointed to violence rather than an unexplained disappearance.
That narrowing focus centered on the last person police said she was seen with: her boyfriend, Anthony Reese. Investigators were alerted that Fuller’s vehicle had been spotted in a parking lot near the Beltline and Covenant Road area, and around that same time, officers began looking for Reese’s vehicle as well. When police attempted to stop him in the Broad River Road area, authorities said he fled, triggering a pursuit that ran into Lexington County and ended with a crash in the Town of Lexington. In the aftermath of that chase, Reese was taken into custody on charges tied to fleeing, a plate not issued to the vehicle, and gun-related violations, and he was held at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center.
Nearly two weeks after Fuller disappeared, the search ended in a wooded area along Shakespeare Road/Lane in northeast Richland County. Human remains were discovered on September 11, 2025, and the Richland County Coroner publicly identified the remains the next day as Fuller. The scene—described in reports as behind a beauty supply store near the Shakespeare Lane block—closed the door on hope of a rescue, replacing it with the grim work of proving what happened and who was responsible.
Investigators said the evidence they gathered began to lock together: blood found inside Fuller’s vehicle was tested and confirmed as hers through DNA analysis, and a firearm recovered from Reese’s vehicle after the chase was determined to be the murder weapon. Authorities said the coroner concluded Fuller was fatally shot in the upper body, and police stated they believed she was killed sometime between when she was last seen on August 29 and when she was reported missing on August 31. The allegation wasn’t only that she was killed, but that her body was then moved—an accusation reflected in the charges that followed.
On September 18, 2025, Columbia police announced Reese had been charged in Fuller’s death, naming him as the suspect in what they described as the shooting of his girlfriend. The listed charges included murder, unauthorized removal of a dead body, possession of a weapon during a violent crime, and possession of a stolen pistol, with authorities also noting he faced federal prosecution for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. Reports also described investigators saying Reese had not been cooperative and that his motive was unclear at the time, while he remained jailed as the case shifted from search-and-rescue urgency into the long, formal grind of criminal court proceedings.
