Latest / Crime Night / The Disappearance of Niqui McCown

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The Disappearance of Niqui McCown · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I want you to picture a muggy summer afternoon
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: in the Midwest. Oh yeah, it's Sunday, July twenty second,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: two thousand and one in Richmond, Indiana. You can practically
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: feel that heavy, humid air just pressing down on.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: You, absolutely stifling.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Right, and a young mother, a bride to be named
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Marilyn McCown, everyone calls her Nikki, is running a completely
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: mundane weekend errand she's wearing a casual pink top biker shorts,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and she's just doing laundry, just a normal Sunday exactly.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Imagine the rhythmic, hypnotic hum of the washing machines at
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: the Richmond Coin Laundry. It's an ordinary day until there's
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: this sudden, unsettling shift in the atmosphere. A group of
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: men in the laundromat start harassing her, well terrify it
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: will not leave her alone. She's creeped out, obviously, so
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: she leaves her clothes mid wash and retreats to her
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: mother's house, which is just a short drive away, which.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Makes total sense.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Get out of there, right, and her mom, seeing how
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: rattled she is, offers to let Nikki finish washing and
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: clothes right there at her place, but Nikki declines, She
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: drives back to the Richmond coin laundry, and she vanishes
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: into thin air.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: It is honestly the ultimate nightmare scenario. I mean, one
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: minute you are checking off a weekend chore and the
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: next you are the center of a quarter century old mystery.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's exactly what today's Deep dives about. We
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: are taking you straight into the heart of that mystery.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: We're looking at a massive stack of source materials today,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: investigative files, heavily redacted case reports, witness interviews.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: A lot of material, and it maps out a truly
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: baffling timeline.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: It really does. Our mission today is to guide you
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: through this tangled web of Nicki McCown's disappearance. We are
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: looking at a cast of suspects where, frankly, absolutely everyone
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: seems to be hiding something.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Right, So we want you to act as the jury.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Today, Yes, exactly, as we sift through the red herrings
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: and the buried secrets. We want you to weigh the evidence,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: see if you can untangle the lies.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Because it is startling how easily a normal Sunday can fracture.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: When investigators look at cases like this, they aren't just
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: tracing a timeline. They're attempting to decipher human behavior in
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: the chaotic immediate aftermath of a crisis, which brings us.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: To the initial police theory. In two thousand and one,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: they leaned heavily on that classic runaway bride trope.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Well, of course they did, right.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Nikki was just three weeks away from her wedding, so
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: investigators looked at her disappearance, noted the impending nuptials, and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: just made the assumption that she had cold feet.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: But her family wasn't buying it.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Not for a second. They pushed back immediately. They insisted
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: she would never ever abandon her nine year old daughter, Peyton,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: and they were highly suspicious of her fiance, Bobby Webster.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Well, and statistically speaking, as an investigator, you always focus
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: on the romantic.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Partner first, right, the husband or the boyfriend exactly.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: The grim reality of criminal investigation is that a significant
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: percentage of women who meet foul play are harmed by
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: an intimate partner. So investigators look for deviations in normal behavior.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: And Bobby's actions in those first few days were well,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: they were remarkably pragmatic, are very pragmatic. Within days of
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Niki vanishing. He contacted the community college she attended to
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: request a refund on her unused tuition. He went to
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: the jeweler to return her engagement ring.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: He even canceled their wedding reception venue to get the
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: deposit back.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: That is, that's fast, it is.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: But I mean I have to challenge the implication there
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: a bit. We are talking about a working class couple
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: living paycheck to paycheck. True, they were a two income household.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Suddenly half that income is gone. A person can be
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: absolutely terrified about how they are going to keep the
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: lights on and pay the mortgage. Going into financial survival
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: mode doesn't automatically equate to murder.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: No, you're right. Panic manifests differently in everyone, and financial
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: self preservation is actually a known trauma response exactly. However,
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: if you look at the files, there are darker behavioral anomalies.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: The police brought Bobby in for a polygraph examination, and
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: according to the investigative reports, he failed a crucial question
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: regarding his knowledge of her disappearance.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, but polygraphs are notoriously tricky though. I mean, they
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: aren't actually light detectors, are they. They just measure stress.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. They measure physiological arousal, specifically changes in heart rate,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: blood pressure, respiration, and galvanic skin response.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Which is basically how much you sweat right.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Right exactly. The machine establishes a baseline, and then the
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: examiner asks target questions. The theory is that deception causes
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: a spike in anxiety, which the machine.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Records, But couldn't a grieving fiance also have a spike
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: in anxiety?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Absolutely? And Bobby later disputed his failure, claiming the question
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: was phrased in a way that triggered his guilt for
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: simply not being at the laundromat to protect.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Her, which is a totally fair point.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: It is he has a point. A polygraph cannot distinguish
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: between the stress of a guilty conscience for murder and
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: the intense survivor's guilt of a grieving fiance, But the.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Witness testimony in these files is much harder to dismiss
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: than a polygraph chart was not a doubt. Years after
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the disappearance, this woman came forward. She told police she
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: had been at the Richmond Coin laundry that Sunday to
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: use the payphone. She stated she saw Nieki at the
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: entrance arguing with a.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Man, and when investigators presented her with a photo lineup.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: She pointed directly to photo number six.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: It was Bobby Webster, which completely shatters the timeline Bobby
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: provided to police.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it does. His official alibi was that he went
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: to church, went to a mall to get fitted for tuxes,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: and drove past the laundromat twice, once around two point
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: one five pm and again around three point thirty or
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: three point four five Yeah, but he.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Claimed he noted her car was gone the second time.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: He never once mentioned stopping and arguing with her.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Never, and the anecdotal evidence from the people closest to
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: him is incredibly unsettling too. There's this detailed account in
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the files from a woman named Kim, a childhood friend
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: of Bobby's.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Right the story about the rings.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Yes, Kim reported that mere days after Niki vanished Bobby
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: he showed up at her door wearing Nikki's wedding bands
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: around his neck on a chain. And Kim had just
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: seen Niki wearing those exact rings at church the very
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: morning she disappeared.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: That is so eerie.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: When she questioned Bobby about them, he gave contradictory stories. First,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: he claimed Nikki took them off because they were too loose.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Then in a later conversation, he claimed she took them
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: off because she had gained weight and they were too tight.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: See the psychological indicators in Kim's account point to someone
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: attempting to control the narrative of the relationship. Posthumously, Bobby
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: started referring to Nikui as an angel very early in
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: the timeline.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Way too early, right, speaking.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: About her in the past tense, while search and rescue
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: teams were still operating under the assumption she might be alive.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: And when Kim finally asked Bobby point blank if he
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: killed Nikui, his reaction was highly anomalous.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: He didn't deny it, he didn't mount a defense. According
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: to Kim, he just stood there and broke down, crying.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Silence in the face of an accusation like that is heavy.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: It is an illegal confession, obviously, but behaviorally investigator's view
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: it as a massive red flag.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Right because innocent people typically react to murder accusations with
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: outrage or vehement denial, not passive weeping exactly. So fast
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: forward to early twenty twenty one, and the files document
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: a truly bizarre late in life development, Bobby calls Kim
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: out of the blue. They hadn't really maintained a close relationship,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: and this was.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: An eight hour phone call, right.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Eight hours, And in it he completely changes his story
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: about Nikki. He claims she was having an affair and
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: that he had been secretly stalking her.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: And shortly after making this chaotic, jealousy fueled confession, Bobby
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: suffered a fatal heart attack.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: It just leaves investigators in such a difficult position. Was
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Bobby a financially panicked fiance who is unfairly judged or
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: a jealous stalker who snapped at the laundromat?
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Right? But the physical evidence forced the police to look
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: beyond Bobby and examine the geographic footprint of the case.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: We have to move the map forty five minutes east
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: to Dayton, Ohio.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's go to Dayton.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: It's November three, two thousand and one, So four months
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: after Niki disappeared. A Sheriff's deputy is patrolling the meadows
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: of Katalpa apartment complex in Dayton. The deputy spots in
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety Black and Gray gmc jimmy, one of the
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: doors is wide.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Open in the scene. Inside the vehicle is well, it's eerie.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: The ignition is damaged and the stereo is.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Missing, which initially suggests a routine auto.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Theft exactly, But in the back seat investigators find a
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: neatly folded basket of laundry she.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Had finished washing her clothes she did.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, the driver's seat is pulled as far forward as
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: the tracks allow, perfectly positioned for a petit driver like Niki.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Which indicates she might have driven herself to Dayton. And
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: this specific apartment complex is a massive focal point in
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the files. Niki used to live there, her ex boyfriends
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: still live there, but.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: The investigative reports point us towards suspect number.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Two right, a man who heavily frequented that complex named
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Tommy Swint.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: So Tommy Swint was a corrections officer who worked alongside
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Nieks at a date in prison, and the witness interviews
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: regarding their dynamic paint a very disturbing picture.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Extremely disturbing.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Some coworkers described him as a protective figure Shore, but
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: others outlined an escalation of classic stalker behavior.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the files detail some deeply concerning incidents Tommy actually
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: sent Laningerie to Niki's bridal.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Shower, which is wildly inappropriate.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Completely and her sister also reported walking in on a
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: situation years earlier where Tommy had Niki pinned against a chair.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: She was screaming for help, and Tommy tried to laugh
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: it off as a joke.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: See, from a psychological standpoint, pinning someone against a chair
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: isn't a joke. It is a test of physical dominance.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: It's terrifying, it is.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: It's a boundary probing behavior common in the obsess of individuals.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: They escalate their physical control to gauge what the victim
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: and the people around them will tolerate.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Ah.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: But initially police couldn't tie Tommy physically to the events
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: at the laundromat, so he faded from the primary investigation.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Until his own arrogance brought him back into the c
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: ross hares. It's like a criminal stepping on a rake
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: in the dark. In two thousand and seven, Tommy lands
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: a job as a police officer in Trotwood, Ohio.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: The Richmond Police Department catches wind of this and contacts
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Trotwood informing them, Hey, you just hired a person of
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: interest in a missing person case, So Tommy is forced
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: to resign.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: And instead of just keeping his head down, he.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Sues the Richmond td for defamation.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Which is such a massive mistake. That lawsuit generated intense
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: local media coverage, and that exposure prompted an anonymous tip
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: to the Dayton police urging them to look at Tommy
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: for a completely different cold case.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: The nineteen ninety one murder of a woman named Tina
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Marie Ivory.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Right advancements in forensic technology allowed the crime lab to
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: test preserved biological material from that nineteen ninety one crime
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: scene against Tommy's DNA, and.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: It was a conclusive match.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: It was they also lifted his fingerprint from the tape
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: used to bind the victim.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: So in twenty ten, law enforcement travels to Alabama, where
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Tommy had re located, to execute an arrest warrant for murder.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Before they can even breach the door, Tommy shoots himself. Yeah,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: he leaves behind a note explicitly denying responsibility for any deaths.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: But a suicide in the face of an arrest warrant
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: is often interpreted as a definitive admission of guilt. The
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: obsessive co worker with a violent hidden past is finally exposed.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: It seems like the logical conclusion to Niki's disappearance too.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: It does, but when you meticulously parse the timeline and
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: the logistics within the case files, the theory of Tommy
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Swin's acting as a lone wolf begins to fracture because
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: we have.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: A third player in this narrative. Her name is Darlene Williams.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: She was another coworker at the prison and she was
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Tommy Swin's mistress, and.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Her presence in the files completely upends the established timeline.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: For years, the working theory was that Niki vanish from
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: the laundromat around three zero zero pm.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: But phone records pulled by investigators revealed the last known
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: contact was actually a phone call Niki made to Darlene
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: between three point three and six to row zero pm
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: that evening, right, And I want you, the listener, to
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: follow the logic with me here, because there is a
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: logistical puzzle in the files regarding this timeline that is
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: impossible to ignore. It's some serious back of a napkin math.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Oh the gas math. Yeah, this is fascinating.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, So Niki called Darlene about picking up some hair
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: and nail vitamins. The working theory is that Niki might
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: have decided to drive the forty five minutes to Dayton
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: to get them. But let's look at the fuel. Okay,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: think about how far a quarter tank of gas gets
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: you in your own car. Now, imagine trying to stretch
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: that in a heavy gas guzzling nineteen ninety GMC Jimmy
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: with a thirty one gallon tank. Bobby explicitly told police
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the vehicle only had a quarter of a tank when
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Niki left.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: The house, and the documentation of the vehicle recovery is
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: crucial here. When the GMC jimmy was found abandoned in
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Dayton four months later, the gauge read half a tank. Right.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: To get a thirty one gallon tank from a quarter
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: to a half, you were putting in roughly seven to
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: eight gallars of fuel. Based on average prices in the
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: summer of two thousand and one, that would cost between
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: twelve and sixteen dollars.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: And Bobby told police he only handed Nikki ten dollars
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: and fifty cents.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: That day exactly. The laundromat machines cost about six dollars,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: so she had four dollars and fifty cents to her name.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Where did the fuel come from? Did she have a
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: secret credit card, or did someone else intercept her, refuel
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: the vehicle and drive it to Dan.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: It points strongly to the involvement of a second person
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: managing the logistics of the crime scene. We have to
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: look at the alibis for the day after Niki disappeared
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: July twenty third, both Tommy and Darlene called out of
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: work at the prison.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: When investigators asked them about this absence, they both claimed
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: they drove down to Richmond to help Niki's family search.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: For her, but investigators verified this with Niki's family. The
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: family stated unequivocally that neither Tommy nor Darlene ever showed.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Up to help search, which brings us to a highly
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: cinematic and tense encounter documented in the case files. Detectives
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: began running deep background checks, pulling driving records for Tommy
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and Darlene. They discovered a speeding ticket Tommy received a
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: few months after Niki vanished, and they trace.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: The vehicle he was driving to an auto leasing company
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: address in Dayton.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: An address that was located exactly one mile away from
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: the meadows. Of Catalpa apartments where Niki's abandoned GMC was found.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: So detectives drove to this address expecting a commercial business,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: but arrived at a residential home.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Right They knock on the front door, and large dogs
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: immediately charge at the front window, barking aggressively. The detectives persist.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Eventually a woman cracks the door open just a few inches.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: She's defensive, refusing to speak with them and demanding to know.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Who they are, So the detectives explain they're working a
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: homicide investigation. She shuts them down completely. They leave a
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: business card and start walking back to their vehicle. Suddenly,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: the front door opens and she calls them back. When
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: they step inside the house, the atmosphere shifts completely. The
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: dogs are gone. It is dead silent. The house is
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: pitch dark.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Take something out of a movie, it really is.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: The woman retreats into the shadows of her kitchen, where
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: they can barely make out.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Her silhouette, and from the dark, she asks why they
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: are there. They mentioned Tommy Swintz and the auto leasing
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: company address tied to his speeding ticket. The police report
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: notes a sudden intense physical reaction.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: She starts panicking yes.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: She paces in the shadows, rubbing her head, repeating, you're
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: looking at driving records, You're looking at driving records.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: And the detective, standing in this dark, silent house, finally
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: asks who are you, and from the shadows she answers,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I'm Darlene Williams.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: The detective hadn't realized he was at Darlene's house because
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: he had only ever seen a po box or a
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: different address in her employment files. The mistress of Tommy
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Swint lived exactly one mile away from where Nieki's car
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: was dumped.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: The lead detective explicitly wrote in his case notes that
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: he theorized Darlene Williams drove the GMC to the apartment
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: complex and that Tommy Swint assisted her in disposing of Nikki.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: The behavioral evidence support it's a deep complicity between them.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, right before Tommy pulled the trigger in Alabama,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the final phone call he made wasn't to his.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Wife, No, it was to Darlene.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: These date and connections, they operate like a corrupted hard drive.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: The truth the core data is clearly in there somewhere,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: but the directory pathways, the alibis, the timelines, the locations
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: have been deliberately scrambled by multiple bad actors.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly every thread leads back to the meadows of Katalpa apartments.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: And we also have to acknowledge a bizarre coincidence in
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: the files.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, this is wild.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly one year prior to Nicki McCown's disappearance, a young
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: woman named Kelly D Wilson was murdered at that exact
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: same apartment complex. Kelly was a local DJ, her on
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: air persona Nikki with an I.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: It is an eerie parallel that just adds another layer
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: of noise to the investigation. The files are dense with
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: these wild diversions.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Like the anonymous letter.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, two years into the case, investigators received an anonymous
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: letter claiming the prison warning was having a secret affair
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: with Nikki and orchestrated her disappearance to prevent the wedding.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: And the letter wasn't signed with the name, but with
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: the numbers six, three, four, five, seven, eight nine.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Anyone who knows their classic soul music recognizes that as
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: the title of a Wilson pick a song, a song
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: specifically about a phone number you call when you want
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: someone to come over.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: It is a deliberately constructed red herring, someone with inside
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: knowledge of the investigation was attempting to fracture the focus
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: and send law enforcement chasing ghosts.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: But despite all this misdirection, the most tangible physical lead
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: in this entire twenty five year saga didn't materialize until
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Right, more than two decades later.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: More than two decades after Miki vanished, investigators finally secured
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: and executed a search warrant on Darlene's property. They brought
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: in cadabor dogs, which are specially trained to detect the
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: scent of human remains, and the.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Dogs alerted on an area with dense underbrush.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Right, this wasn't directly in Darlene's manicured yard, but in
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: a sprawling wooded lot directly behind her property.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Now, it's important to note cadaver dogs do not smell bones.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: They detect the chemical byproducts of human decomposition, volatile organic
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: compounds that seep into the soil and vegetation.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: And those can stick around for a long time decades.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: These compounds could persist for decades. The dogs alerted to
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: a scent profile in the exact geographical overlap between Darlene's
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: home and the location where Niki's vehicle was abandoned.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: They also brought in ground penetrating radar to map the area.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: How does that actually work. It's not taking an underground photograph,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: is it?
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. It sends electromagnetic pulses into the
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: earth and measures the signals that bounce back. It basically
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: looks for anomalies in soil density. If someone digs a
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: grave and refills it, that disturbed soil is permanently less
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: compact than the surrounding earth. Okay, I say the radar
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: detects that disruption.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: But despite the dogs alerting and the radar scanning the area,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: no physical remains have been recovered yet. The case report
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: ends on a truly haunting cliffhanger.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: The lead investigator wrote a single frustrating sentence, this case
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: has been suspended until further information surfaces.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: It places the family in an agonizing state of limbo.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: When you strip away the failed polygraphs, the speeding tickets,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: and the corrupted timelines, you are left with the human
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: element exactly.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Nicki McCown was a mother. Her daughter Peyton, was only
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: nine years old when her mom never came home from
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: doing the laundry.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: And Peyton is an adult now. She has made it
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: clear she isn't even looking for vengeance at this point.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: She just wants answers.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: She wants a physical place to go and talk to
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: her mother, rather than having to speak to her memory
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: through a faded missing person's flyer.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: We dissect these investigative files in these deep dives to
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: keep the focus on the unresolved truth. This case presents
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: a terrifying reality. Someone's entire existence, their future, their motherhood
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: can be violently erased and hidden within a one mile
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: radius of an Ohio apartment complex, obscured by the people
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: they interacted with every day.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: It leaves you with a chilling final thought tom all
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: over life. Long after we close these files today, think
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: about the interconnected lies of fiance's friends and secret lovers
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: that have successfully hidden the truth for a quarter of
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: a century.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: It really does make you
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Wonder how well do you ever truly know the people
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: closest to you when their darkest secrets can stay buried
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: in the underbrush for twenty five years.