Being a mother is supposed to be the safest role a woman can have. It’s supposed to mean stability. Protection. A future. But sometimes… the person who’s supposed to protect you becomes the person you need protection from. In 2019, a young mother of two vanished without a trace. No goodbye. No packed bags. No explanation.
And for months… everyone believed she was still alive. Because someone was answering her texts. Someone was emailing her family. Someone was pretending to be her. What actually happened to her is one of the most disturbing cases of domestic betrayal in recent history. A case where there was no body…but a life sentence anyway.
[INTRO] Monica Day Moynan — nicknamed Moni — was just 22 years old at the time of this case. She was already a mom of two little girls, and by every outward appearance, she was doing her absolute best to build a stable, meaningful life for them. Her parents, Melanie and Curtis, had gotten divorced when Monica was younger, and her mom later married a man named Brandon Tucker.
Monica stayed close to both of her parents, and she even had a good relationship with her stepdad, which isn’t always the case in blended families. People who knew Monica described her as a powerful presence, but she was easy to talk to, endlessly friendly, and always smiling. She carried herself with this cheerful, optimistic beat that made people feel comfortable around her almost instantly.
And even though she was only 22 and already raising two young daughters, she was handling it the best way she knew how. She wasn’t perfect. She was tired. She was stretched thin. But she was trying. And she took motherhood seriously. One thing about Monica that everyone agreed on was this: she absolutely loved being a mom. Her girls came first. Every single time.
At the time of the case, Monica was working at a restaurant called Abbey Road Tavern and Grill in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina. On top of that, she was also building a small business on the side — something that was incredibly important to her, because she wanted long-term stability for her kids.
See, whenever her daughters would get sick, Monica didn’t always go the traditional medical route right away. She preferred starting with natural remedies — things like elderberry syrup and immune-boosting supplements. Over time, that interest turned into something bigger. Monica decided to create her own kid-friendly elderberry syrups and immune blends. She named her little business “Moni’s Magic.
” She promoted it mostly through Instagram, and while it wasn’t some viral success story, it was growing. Slowly, steadily, and organically. And that mattered to her. She was proud of it. It made her feel like she was building something real for her daughters. She was making enough money to contribute meaningfully to her household, and she was juggling her restaurant job, her business, and motherhood all at once.
It wasn’t easy, but she was doing it anyway. And if that wasn’t enough already, Monica had also enrolled in a training program to become a doula, which is someone who helps women out after they’ve just given birth — and that was scheduled to begin in late April of 2019. She knew that waiting tables wasn’t a forever job.
She wanted something more stable. Something that could grow into a career. Something that aligned with her love for motherhood and helping other women. She was thinking long-term, and she was planning ahead. Monica also loved expressing herself through her appearance. She dyed her hair all kinds of colors — sometimes light green, sometimes blue, sometimes platinum blonde, and at the time of the case, her hair was dyed a light green shade.
She felt the same way about her tattoos too, they were reflections of her personality, her beliefs, and her sense of identity. They weren’t just spur of the moment things, each design told a story – and she had essentially turned portions herself into a carefully curated art gallery. Monica was vibrant. Ambitious. Creative. And above all else, she was hardworking.
From the outside, Monica looked like a young mom who was grinding her way toward a better future. But behind the scenes…her life was already becoming dangerous. Because now we need to talk about the father of her children. And this is where things take a dark turn. Monica met a man named Brian Sluss when she was just 18 years old.
Brian was 20 years older than her. Yes. Twenty. Now, age gaps on their own aren’t automatically sinister. But what made this situation unsettling from the very beginning was the fact that Brian lied about his age when they first got together. He eventually admitted it. But by then, Monica was already emotionally involved.
Her parents found out about the lie and immediately tried to stop the relationship. They told Monica she wasn’t allowed to see him anymore. They warned her. They didn’t trust him. But she kept seeing Brian anyway. And the relationship quickly became physical. Before long, Monica became pregnant. She gave birth to her first daughter. Then, three years later, she welcomed her second child.
From the outside, it looked like a young family trying to make things work. But behind closed doors, their relationship was anything but stable. Everyone who knew them described Brian and Monica’s relationship as rocky. And that’s putting it lightly. Brian was manipulative. He was a habitual liar. And he was abusive toward Monica.
And as horrifying as this is to say… even his own children weren’t safe from his behavior either. Monica’s coworkers at the restaurant noticed it, too. They saw Brian show up unannounced. They saw the arguments. They saw how volatile things were between them. Monica even showed injuries to one of her coworkers. And she said something that would later feel like chilling foreshadowing.
Her exact words were: “When something happens to me, I don’t know what will happen to my kids.” “Notice how she didn’t say ‘If’ she said ‘when’, Monica knew it was only a matter of time. To make matters worse, Brian couldn’t keep a job to save his life. He bounced from one place to another.
And when money got tight, he would resort to theft. So just picture this for a moment. On one side, you have Monica — working a restaurant job, running a small business, training to become a doula, raising two children, and trying to build a future. And on the other side… you have Brian — a forty-something grown man who can’t hold down a job and keeps dragging her into chaos. The contrast couldn’t be clearer.
At one point, Monica finally worked up the courage and reported the abuse. She got a domestic violence protective order against Brian, and the two officially broke up. For a brief moment, it looked like she might finally be free. She refocused on her business. She focused on her doula training. She focused on her daughters, and out Brian clear out of her life.
But Brian didn’t let her go. He continued stalking her. And then… one day… Monica disappeared. And no one would ever hear from her again. MONICA IS MISSING No one had physically seen Monica since March 2019. She was last seen by her apartment manager in March, and that was it. But, up until July 23rd, even though no one saw Monica in the flesh, they continued to talk to her via texts and emails.
First, her apartment manager noticed that after March, Monica would only contact her via text and short emails. Then, Monica’s family also noticed the same. It had been a long time since she had met up with her mom, but that was actually quite ordinary. Monica was a busy working mom. Her schedule was packed, and she made plans to meet up with her family after weeks and even months at times.
So, it wasn’t all that alarming, and this is why her case went on for as long as it did. Monica’s mom, Melanie, did try to meet up with her daughter every week, but after March, Monica just had no time on her hands. She would text her mom excuses whenever Melanie tried to make plans. Her workplace also hadn’t seen her or heard her voice since March 17th.
She even texted her boss and coworkers that she wouldn’t be coming in for work for various reasons. Sometimes, it would be the flu; other times, it would be her car breaking down. This carried on for four weeks. This was also very strange for the restaurant employees, but they didn’t think too much of it.
They remembered Monica as a great employee who was always on time and never missed work. So, maybe this was one of those weeks when she just couldn’t make it to work. Concerns started to rise when Melanie, as well as her apartment manager, hadn’t seen Monica for quite some time.
It was July now, so it had been multiple months since anyone had last seen her in person. So, Monica’s mom called the police and asked them to check up on her at her apartment, and she reported her daughter missing. On July 23rd, the Holly Springs Police Department dispatched officers to Monica’s apartment, and when they arrived, they didn’t find Monica, but they did find Brian—Monica’s ex-boyfriend.
He was living in that apartment with his and Monica’s two young daughters, and he was also seen driving Monica’s car. The apartment manager also remembered seeing Brian at the apartment with his daughters, but Monica was nowhere to be found. So, the police decided to talk to Brian.
They asked him when he had last seen Monica, and he told the police that he had seen her on June 20th. Remember, her friends, family, and apartment manager hadn’t seen her since March, but Brian was the last person to see her recently in June. What was going on? Where was Monica? THE INVESTIGATION So, according to Brian, he and Monica weren’t in a relationship anymore, but he would frequently visit the kids to help her out while she worked.
Brian then went into some interesting details about how she was before she went missing. According to Brian, once Monica started working at the restaurant in Fuquay-Varina, she became addicted to illegal substances. Now, we don’t know if this is really true or not; it’s mainly just Brian’s version of events.
But it was mid-June by that point, and Brian came up with the neat idea of trying something called “home rehab.” Basically, he would keep Monica in the house, not allow her to go to work or anywhere else, and hope that she would get clean—without any medical or professional help. I honestly don’t know if it works or not, but hey – you gotta try something.
Brian decided not to involve Monica’s family or let them in the loop about what Monica was going through, because he didn’t want them to worry or get shocked by this news and possibly make things worse. But Brian’s brilliant home rehab plan apparently backfired because one day, on June 20th, Monica texted Brian a picture of their kids, and below it was a message that read: I can’t do this anymore.
Then, Brian didn’t hear from Monica ever again. He went home and found Monica gone, having left her kids, belongings, and even her phone behind. Brian didn’t think about filing a missing person’s report back in June because he thought that Monica would come back. She clearly didn’t. This story was not convincing to the police at all, but right now, they couldn’t really do anything.
They didn’t have concrete evidence against Brian, and they had to dig a little deeper to find that crack that would change everything. Well, that would take some time. The police started by asking people around who knew Brian, Monica, and their relationship. That was when the nature of the couple’s relationship was revealed to the police—that Brian was the aggressor in the relationship.
Further digging led the police to the protective order Monica had against Brian and the assault reports. Then, the police did another thorough search of Monica’s apartment, and that was when they found a couple of weird things. Well, the first thing isn’t exactly weird, but it was a clue nonetheless.
It was a positive pregnancy test left in the bathroom. Monica is not only missing, but she might also be pregnant. We don’t know how old the pregnancy test was, so there’s no telling when she took it, but it was something regardless. Then, in August, the police swabbed Monica’s apartment, and in the kitchen, they found Monica’s DNA in between the cracks of the tiles.
They also managed to find out that someone had used bleach to clean the kitchen floor. This was not a good sign. Then, the police went to Bluefield, Virginia, where Brian’s parents lived, and they took samples of the soil outside the house and even searched the surrounding areas for any evidence. Later on, a witness came forward and claimed that they saw Brian between 2 and 3 am around the time Monica disappeared, and he was carrying three black plastic bags and was taking them to the dumpster.
Then, the police checked Monica’s digital activity, and it was radio silent… as well as bizarre. Until March and April, Monica’s search history mainly consisted of doula training and resources. But then, out of nowhere, Monica’s search history became more explicit and inappropriate—mainly searches of adult content and websites… What was going on here? THE SUSPECT From all of these findings, the police and anyone really could only come to one conclusion, and it was that someone else was using Monica’s phone. To further confirm this,
the police checked the messages that “Monica” had sent to different people between April and June—basically after she was not seen by anyone in the flesh. The messages looked really promising and convincing, but there was still a different tone to them.
Monica addressed her kids as “ladies” in some texts, and she never did that. She always called them “kids” or addressed them by their names or nicknames. The only person who called the little girls “ladies” was none other than Brian, and his Facebook posts and captions were proof of that. The police were now certain that Brian had been using Monica’s phone—which she conveniently left behind after “abandoning her kids”, according to Brian—and he was now a person of interest in Monica’s case, which was honestly taking a very devastating turn.
Monica had been missing since April, and she hadn’t reached out to anyone during that time. Combining that with the evidence found in the shared home of Monica and Brian in Hollywood Hills and the witness reports of seeing Brian with black trash bags… things weren’t looking good. So much time had already passed, and now finding Monica alive was going to be very hard.
In May 2020, less than a year into Monica’s disappearance, Brian Sluss was arrested and charged with first-degree murder of his ex-girlfriend. The investigators didn’t have a body yet, but the evidence was enough for them to take Brian to court and at least attempt to convict him. But as everyone was waiting for Brian to stand trial, the case came back into the news all over again.
Detectives had made another arrest in connection with Monica’s murder… and it was none other than Brian’s ex-wife. SOMEONE ELSE IS INVOLVED TOO? Before Brian and Monica were together, Brian had been married before – to a woman named Jarlyn, and they had children together as well. But what made the police arrest this woman? And did she have a hand in whatever happened to Monica? Well, on the same day Brian was charged with murder, May 12th, 2020, Jarlyn Sluss was also arrested and charged with accessory after the fact to first-degree
murder and obstruction of justice. See, the police had uncovered Brian’s phone records, and he had been in constant contact with Jarlyn ever since Monica disappeared. Jarlyn allegedly even took part in Brian’s plans and pretended to be Monica over a phone conversation with her apartment manager.
She also allegedly helped Brian “flee the area” following Monica’s disappearance, but he did eventually return to the apartment, so I don’t know what that was for. We also don’t know the full extent of Jarlyn’s involvement in the crime, but what is inarguable is the fact that Jarlyn knew that Brian had done something bad to Monica.
Even if she didn’t have a hand in the crime, she knew something happened, and she should’ve called the police right then. But she didn’t. Instead, she sided with Brian and helped him keep up the ruse for as long as it was. It is just unbelievable. To think that not only Brian but also his ex-wife was involved in a way makes this case even more frightening.
Instead of siding with the truth, and helping Monica’s family get the answers they needed, Jarlyn made the decision to help a criminal, just so he could get away with what he did to a defenseless and young woman for a few more months. But now, finally, both of them were in custody, and Jarlyn not only pleaded not guilty to her charges but also agreed to testify against Brian at trial. The look on Brian’s face must’ve been priceless.
THE SENTENCING Brian’s trial was held in April 2022 in Raleigh, North Carolina. The prosecution needed to do everything in their power to convince the jury that Brian was guilty, because they were missing a huge chunk of evidence—Monica herself. This is probably one of the most difficult cases to try in court, because there was no body—which means that a lot of details were unclear and unknown to everyone.
Even though Monica was tragically declared deceased by the time the investigation was underway and the trial commenced, without a body and crucial evidence like cause of death, injuries, and DNA, it was going to be hard to pin the crime on Brian. But the prosecution still went ahead because they thought that they had enough evidence to convince the jury.
On the other side, the defense was ready to throw each and every argument of the prosecution into the circumstantial bin. They were feeling pretty confident about the trial, and it was clear from the beginning… it was going to be a rollercoaster. The prosecution went first and laid out the entire relationship history of Brian and Monica, and this was their game card—I’ll explain a little more later.
According to the prosecution, Monica was in an abusive relationship with Brian, and he was just terrible to her. There was evidence of this, and the prosecution also showed the protective order Monica had taken out against Brian. There were also witness testimonies from Monica’s workplace that backed this argument. So, basically, Monica wanted out of the relationship, and she was ready to move on.
But Brian continued to stalk her, visit their apartment, and try to get back together with her by using the kids. He was seen at the apartment by the apartment manager, so there was no doubt that Brian wasn’t letting up. Sometime later, Brian came up with the plan to deal with Monica permanently, and he planned to attack her and even came up with an elaborate story of her addiction and him trying to help her get clean via home rehab. This hinted at premeditation.
The prosecution believed that Monica lost her life at the hands of Brian somewhere between the night of April 6th and the morning of April 7th, 2019. Before this time window, Monica was actively using her phone and social media and was seen and heard from. Her internet search history, as well as social media usage and activity, was very much in line with what she usually did.
But after this time window, calls from Monica became next to none; she was only communicating via texts and emails, she skipped work, and her internet search history took a very sharp turn. The prosecution believes the attack took place in the kitchen, where DNA evidence was eventually found, and then Brian disposed of her body in one way or another.
We don’t know what those black trash bags were filled with, but it is concerning nonetheless. It might have been evidence of a cleanup, or it could’ve been something else, we don’t know for sure. After this, Brian went on about his life and pretended to be Monica, keeping in touch with her parents, friends, and other people, trying to talk like her but being safe enough to evade plans of a meetup. This went on for months.
This was when Jarlyn also joined the plan, and she allegedly pretended to be Monica on a call with her apartment manager. Then, the prosecution shed some light on Brian’s behavior with his own daughters with Monica, which was anything but fatherly and highly concerning, and they presented evidence in the form of nanny cam footage. But speaking of evidence, the pregnancy test was also discussed at the trial.
Even though we don’t know how old the pregnancy test was, since Monica hasn’t been found, she was likely pregnant at the time of her disappearance and the child was Brian’s. Perhaps this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Perhaps Brian didn’t want the responsibility of another child, and this was what led to the argument.
We don’t know for sure, because only Brian and Monica knew what went down that fateful night, and now one of them is not here. But what is certain is that Brian wasn’t just responsible for Monica’s passing. His unborn child also passed away because of him. The prosecution painted Brian as manipulative, volatile, and angry. But according to Brian’s attorney, it was Monica who abandoned her kids and Brian for her addiction.
Supposedly, Brian was a constant and stable figure in Monica’s and their kids’ lives, and they called him whenever she was in trouble. Well, later on, Brian did come clean about using Monica’s phone pretending to be her, but he claimed he only did that so as not to make Monica’s family worry about her. The defense also talked about the pregnancy test, and according to Brian’s attorney, it was Monica who fled in a panic after finding out she was pregnant.
It was Monica who didn’t want the responsibility of another child. Well, after all was said and done… it was time for the jury to reach a verdict… And Brian… was found guilty of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and one of the things that led the prosecution to victory in this case—without a body—was Britny’s law.
According to Britny’s law, the defendant can be convicted for first-degree murder if they have a previous history and conviction of domestic violence against the same victim. It is one of the first cases in North Carolina to successfully convict a suspect of charges under the provisions of this law, which makes this case so unique. When the verdict was announced, you could literally feel the relief on Monica’s loved ones’ faces.
They silently cheered and hugged each other, and it was a very moving moment, whereas Brian maintained his stone-faced expression the entire time. Justice was finally served, but Monica… still hasn’t been found to this day. Her family wants to bring her back home and give her one last goodbye so that they can try to move on from this immeasurable loss, but as of yet, they are still stuck in this weird limbo of emotions.
Brian, being the manipulative bother that he is… refuses to give her family that relief, and will not speak a single word about Monica, or the location of her remains. I just hope that, some day, the Moynan family can finally find that peace that they’ve been longing for.
