Search warrants shed light on Belmont man's disappearance

Kara Fohner, Gaston Gazette
Andy Tench, pictured with his mother, Tracie, was reported missing in late March. A man he met in Charlotte told police he abandoned Tench's body in a dumpster after Tench died while the two were together.
Andy Tench, pictured with his mother, Tracie, was reported missing in late March. A man he met in Charlotte told police he abandoned Tench's body in a dumpster after Tench died while the two were together.

Police still have not found the remains of 31-year-old Andy Tench, who was reported missing March 26 after he did not return home from a night out in Charlotte, according to search warrant documents filed by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Detective A. Bonaparte at the Gaston County Courthouse.

Tench went out in the early morning hours of March 25 to celebrate his birthday at The Bar at 316, an LGBTQ-friendly bar, according to his family.

He didn't return home, and his loved ones have been left to piece together what little they know of his final hours. The fact that his body is still missing is a glaring absence in the case.

"I feel like if they find Andy's body, they're going to find the truth of what that guy did to him," his mother, Tracie Blanton, said in a previous interview. "I don't believe for a second his story that he's telling… I just feel it down in the core of me."

The search warrant documents filed by Bonaparte explain what police do know about Tench's disappearance – and what they don't.

Bonaparte wrote that CMPD met with Gaston County Police Department detectives on April 3. By then, they had been investigating Tench's disappearance for a week.

Tench was reported missing March 26, and his vehicle was found shortly thereafter in Monroe. Inside the vehicle was a receipt that showed Tench's Chime bank card had been used, according to Bonaparte.

The receipt was dated March 25, the day Tench went missing, and it was from a Target in Matthews.

Gaston County police requested Tench's phone records from T-Mobile, but from March 25 until April 1, the phone did not communicate with cell phone towers. That changed April 1, when the phone pinged towers that indicated its location was near Bent Creek Court. It is not clear from the search warrants which city this address was in, as the closest Bent Creek Court address is in Greensboro, but there is a street named Bent Creek Circle in Charlotte.

Regardless, at the address where the cell phone pinged from, detectives found Robinson, who had been seen on surveillance footage using Tench's card at Target.

Robinson told police that he met Tench and they had sex somewhere in Charlotte, but that Tench died during sex and he put Tench's body in a dumpster.

Cell phone records indicated that Tench's phone was taken to Robinson's home on Rust Wood Place in Charlotte. During a search of his home on April 11, police found a machete, and Robinson told police that he hoped Tench "is not decapitated."

Andy Tench, pictured with his cat, Benji, thought of his two cats as his children, his mother, Tracie Blanton, said. She knew something was wrong when he didn't contact her March 25 asking her to care of his cats.
Andy Tench, pictured with his cat, Benji, thought of his two cats as his children, his mother, Tracie Blanton, said. She knew something was wrong when he didn't contact her March 25 asking her to care of his cats.

Detectives went to the dumpster where Robinson said he had left Tench's body and found that it was empty. They spoke to people from a waste management company, Waste Connections, who told them that Tench's body likely would have been found when the trash was sorted before its final transfer to the Anson County landfill.

Tench's body was not recovered, but he is believed to be dead, Bonaparte wrote.

Robinson was arrested on a variety of charges, including identity theft, larceny of a motor vehicle and concealing a death.

This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: Search warrants shed light on Belmont man's disappearance

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