DETROIT – It's been six long years of pain and heartbreak for the mother of Bianca Jones, but she refuses to give up.
The Local 4 Defenders have uncovered new clues in Bianca's case, while a key witness believes she is still alive despite prosecutors and police saying otherwise.
D'Andre Lane is serving a life sentence for the murder of his daughter, but his ex-fiancee said police pressured her to lie to the jury about what happened to Bianca the night before she disappeared.
"It's been very hard," said Banika Jones, Bianca's mother. "It's like a nightmare. No one expects this to happen."
She drove street-by-street, searching for her daughter, who was 2 years old when she disappeared.
"Please bring Bianca home," Jones said. "No one is looking for you. No one is trying to persecute you. I just want my baby back. I want my Bianca to come home. We miss her."
Bianca was never found. Police and prosecutors didn't believe Lane's story that he was carjacked and the attackers took off with Bianca still inside her car. They turned to Anjali Lyons, Lane's fiancee, to prove it.
"He spanked her, and I didn't hear anything else after that," Lyons said.
Bianca was spending the night at Lane's house the night before she went missing. Lyons testified in court that Lane was disciplining Bianca with a stick for wetting her pants. Lyons, who was in another room, told the jury she heard Bianca crying and then heard nothing at all. Now she said she lied to the jury.
"I don't think he killed her," Lyons said.
Lyons claimed she heard Bianca and her father talking after the spanking.
"This is what happened," Lyons said. "She cried and then he started asking the question, 'Are you supposed to pee pee in the potty?'"
She said police bullied her into making Lane look guilty.
"The FBI was putting a lot of stuff in my head, as far as take the rose lenses off," Lyons said.
She signed a statement saying the baby went silent, and when she told police, she wanted to change her story. They told her she could go to jail.
"They were like, 'You know, if you change it now, you know, it's perjury,'" Lyons said. "If you commit perjury, then that means you'll be in jail."
Lyons claims officials told her she could lose custody of her child if she went to jail.
"(They said), 'Where's she going to go?'" Lyons said. "I was, like, 'Wait, you're going to take my daughter from me?'"
She said she lied to the jury, and Lane was sentenced to life in prison.
"I'm the reason why he's locked up, and I'm sad about it," Lyons said. "I've apologized for it."
She said she worries police will retaliate for her going public, but she insisted she owes it to Bianca.
"I think she's still out there, and I think that we didn't look like enough," Lyons said.
Police and prosecutors who worked the case said Lyons was never pressured or bullied into lying on the stand. They said Bianca is dead and that Lane killed her.
Tune into Local 4 News at 5 on Tuesday to hear from authorities, and also three witnesses who said they saw Bianca alive.