The Body in the Bathtub (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)
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Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. On the morning of January 13th, 2010, two twin girls nicknamed Taz and Jazz stood at the kitchen counter in their home in Conyers, Georgia, writing notes back and forth to each other inside of a little notebook, laughing the whole time.

The girls were late for school and they knew it, and so they were writing their messages back and forth instead of talking because they didn't want to wake their mom up and get yelled at for being late. Eventually, they finished their notes, closed the notebook, then began getting ready to leave. When they would return home from school that afternoon, they would find their quiet home in this gated community in Georgia soaked with blood and an unspeakable horror waiting for them in the master bathroom.

But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please hide a Bluetooth speaker in the follow buttons bedroom that plays cricket noises all night long. Okay, let's get into today's story.

My name is TJ Raphael. I'm the host of Liberty Lost, a new podcast about who gets to be a mother and the control of young women hidden behind the veil of faith. Binge all episodes of Liberty Lost ad-free right now on Wondery+.

On the evening of January 9th, 2010, 34-year-old Jarmeka Whitehead, whose friends all called her Nikki, spooned coleslaw onto a platter and watched as guests began to filter into her home, which was located just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, in a gated community. Standing by the front door, greeting the guests, were Nikki's 16-year-old twin daughters, Jazz and Taz. Nikki had been nervous about hosting this party tonight, but so far, everything was going well. She'd made a fish fry, and her whole family had come and brought even more food.

She had worked all day at the hair salon where she was a beautician, but she'd still had some time to decorate and hang up handwritten posters that read, "Taz and Jazz, welcome home. We love you." Now, Taz was here laughing it up with her family, and it made Nikki really happy. But as she looked around, she realized that Jazz was nowhere to be seen. Nikki frowned. This party was really supposed to be a celebration of forgiveness and new beginnings, but there was still a lot of hurt to get over in their little family.

Because for the last year and a half, Taz and Jazz had not been living at home with Nikki. Nikki had lost custody of her kids after the three of them got into a huge fight and Nikki called the police. She had thought that calling the police would just scare the girls into behaving better, but that's not what happened. Instead, a judge decided that Nikki was not a fit parent and sent the girls to go live with Nikki's grandmother, Della Frazier.

Nikki had been heartbroken. She herself had come from a tough background, and she had tried so hard to break the cycle for her kids. She had actually been raised by Della, who was her grandmother and so her daughter's great-grandmother, because when she was born, her own mom was in jail. And also, Nikki had gotten pregnant with the twin girls when she was just 18 years old.

But when the girls were born, Nikki had decided that she would not let them make the same mistakes that she had. Instead, Nikki had tried to raise them with strict rules and to focus on academics. And so Taz and Jazz became Girl Scouts, they did dance and music classes, and they made the honor roll at school. Until they became teenagers, everyone always said how sweet and well-behaved they were. But when they hit 13 years old, they began sneaking out and getting into fights, and nothing Nikki did seemed to rein them in.

When Nikki finally lost custody of her kids to her grandmother Della, she had worried she might never get her girls back. But she had done a lot of hard work, including enrolling in college classes, and finally she had regained custody and her girls were home, living with her and her boyfriend Robert Head. Now, everything was not perfect at this point. The girls were very clingy to each other, and they openly said they missed Della, their great-grandmother. But for tonight, Nikki felt like on the whole, things were pretty good.

Except that one of the girls, Jazz, seemed to have disappeared from the party already. Nikki went and found her best friend and asked her to go look for Jazz. Her friend nodded and then slipped away, and Nikki waited nervously by the food for her friend to come back. And only a few minutes later, the friend returned with some good news. She said that Jazz was in her bedroom and was a bit overwhelmed by everything, but they had had a nice conversation about how excited everybody was to have them home.

Nikki's friend said that both the girls seemed to be in good spirits, so Nikki should just relax and eat and enjoy the party. At this, Nikki felt a wave of relief wash over her. Then she went back to setting up the fish fry. Three nights later, on January 12th, at about 10.30 p.m., Nikki walked out of her evening class at the local college, where she was studying to be a fashion designer, and got into her car. It had been a bad day. All the happiness she had felt at the girls' welcome home party was now gone.

But this time, it was not because of a fight she had had with the girls. Instead, it was because she and her boyfriend, Robert, had had a nasty argument that afternoon. Nikki and Robert had been together for a decade, and they really loved each other. But their relationship was a little unconventional. Part of it was that Robert was 30 years older than Nikki, and he worked as a long-haul trucker. So he was away from home for days or even weeks at a time. But none of that is what made their relationship truly unusual.

What made it really atypical was that their relationship was open, meaning Nikki was allowed to have other boyfriends besides Robert. And this was ultimately what their fight that day had been about. According to the rules they had set up for their relationship, when Robert was home, they were an exclusive couple. But when Robert was away working, Nikki could date anybody she wanted. But Nikki was not supposed to talk to Robert about her other boyfriends.

But this morning, she had taken a call from a man named Joe Carter, who she was dating, right in front of Robert. And Robert had been furious and insulted, and Nikki had left to come to class without resolving that fight.

Now, all she really wanted to do was go home and relax and just be by herself. And she knew Robert had left on a trucking trip and the girls were very likely asleep right now. But she couldn't just go home and do that. Because the reason her other boyfriend, Joe Carter, had called her that morning was to ask her to come over to his house after her class. So, Nikki shook off her exhaustion and drove to Joe's house and rang the bell, hoping that whatever Joe wanted, it would be quick. When Joe answered the door, he looked very serious.

He invited Nikki inside, but he seemed incredibly tense and awkward. Nikki had a bad feeling, and she asked Joe what was wrong. But at first, he wouldn't even answer her directly. He just kept talking about old fights they'd had. Nikki had already had a long and emotionally draining day, so she told Joe that whatever was on his mind, he just needed to spit it out. So, Joe told her. He wanted to break up. He was done being part of her open relationship.

Nikki was absolutely incredulous. Joe had made her come all the way out here late at night after class, after all this, just to break up with her? And also, just weeks after her daughters had finally come home? Like this is supposed to be a good time in her life and he's just crushing her? Nikki just stormed out of Joe's apartment and slammed the door behind her. The next day, January 13th, a little before 3.30pm, Nikki's twin daughters, Taz and Jazz, got home from school.

They walked down Appaloosa Way and turned into the walkway of their home. When they got to the door, Jazz took out her keys and unlocked it. She pushed the door open and stepped in ahead of Taz. And as Jazz did this, she began to scream. Because the entire entryway was covered with blood. There was a trail of it leading into the house. They screamed out for their mother, but they got no answer. And so perhaps against their better judgment, they decided to go in and check on her.

and so they followed the trail of blood that brought them all the way to the master bedroom and when they looked into the master bathroom they just stood there in silence before turning and bolting out of the house

Hey guys, Mr. Ballin here. You know how I tell strange, dark, and mysterious stories? Well, I've stumbled on some strange, dark, and mysterious medical stories that really are just as wild. Like there was a story about this woman who accidentally swallowed something that got lodged in her heart. There was a story about a guy where a tree grew in his lung. Or there was a story about this person who their skin turned bright blue. Or this town everybody started laughing uncontrollably that lasted for months. I mean, the list goes on.

And these are not urban legends. These are real mysteries that we dive into that have left doctors and scientists baffled sometimes for years. And so that's why I created Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, a totally separate show all about these wild mysteries of the human body. Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Want to listen to episodes early and ad-free? Well, join Wondery Plus or listen on Amazon Music with Prime.

For decades, he was untouchable. But now, it's all coming undone.

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A Rockdale County Sheriff's deputy was driving his cruiser down Appaloosa Way on his way back to the station after serving a warrant at one of the houses in the neighborhood when he saw two teenage girls sprinting towards his car at full speed.

The deputy slammed on his brakes as the girls reached his cruiser and began banging on the windows. They were completely hysterical and screaming incoherently, and when the deputy got out of his cruiser, it took him a second to get them to calm down enough to tell him what was going on. But when they finally did, he radioed back to the station to request backup.

About 30 minutes later, around 4:00 p.m., Detective Ken Swift of the Conyers Police Department stood inside the master bathroom of Nikki Whitehead's home on Appaloosa Way, looking down at Nikki's dead body, partially submerged under the water in the jacuzzi-style tub. This was the bloodiest crime scene that Swift had ever been to. The whole house had a stifling metallic smell from the sheer amount of blood that was soaked into the carpets and smeared all over the walls.

Whatever had happened here, Swift could tell it had been long and very violent. The house was trashed. Chairs were tipped over, there were all these jagged pieces of something red and ceramic scattered in the living room, and the floor was littered with magazines that had been knocked off a coffee table. Now, Swift tried to count the number of stab wounds on his victim's body, but it was impossible. This level of brutality suggested pure rage, which meant that Nikki had very likely known her killer.

The fact that there was no sign of forced entry or anything stolen also supported this theory. Swift put on a pair of gloves and then bent down to gently touch Nikki's head. He could see lots of stab wounds in the back and front of her neck, and there was a strand of hair between her teeth. Swift asked a crime scene tech to take the hair for analysis. Then he stood up and followed the bloody drag marks back out of the bathroom and down the hallway. He found a bloody handprint on a doorframe of the master bedroom and also on the doorknob of the front door.

There were some bloody footprints of bare feet that officers had discovered outside that suggested that someone, very likely Nikki, had actually run out of the house during the attack, but had either turned around or, if it was Nikki, been dragged back inside. Swift stood at the front doorway looking out at those bloody footprints and also the sea of police vehicles with their flashing blue lights on.

He was hopeful that a neighborhood canvas would turn up witnesses. This was, after all, a very safe and very quiet area. Someone running outside covered in blood was sure to attract attention.

As he surveyed the scene, his eyes settled on two teenage girls standing on the front lawn with blankets draped over their backs. They were both visibly shaking with sobs and standing close together, and one of them had her arms up over her face. But as Swift watched, he realized that the girl with her arms up wasn't just crying. She was actually also biting her arm, with a look of pure anguish on her face.

Now, Swift knew these girls were the victims' daughters, and he also knew they were the ones who found the body. And so, based on what he was seeing, it seemed like they had to be in shock. He was about to walk over to them and offer some words of comfort when a police captain actually intercepted him and just let him know that he had already arranged for the girls to be transported to the station. And so, Swift decided he would talk to the girls there.

About an hour later, Detective Swift was standing in the police station looking at a TV monitor that showed a live feed of the conference room, where the captain had put Jazz and Taz Whitehead. The girls had calmed down a little bit, but they were still rocking back and forth and obviously crying. By now, the officers had finished canvassing Nikki Whitehead's neighborhood. And shockingly, no one had seen anything. One neighbor reported hearing his doorbell ring in the morning and someone yelling, but he hadn't gotten out of bed to answer it.

The only potentially useful information the police had gotten from neighbors was that they had seen a black car they didn't recognize parked on the street near Nikki's house around the time of the murder. But this was not a lot to go on. Until they got forensics back, Swift knew that Taz and Jazz Whitehead were his best hope for any leads. However, they were so distraught, he didn't know what he would get out of an interview. But when Swift walked into the conference room, the girls appeared to try to pull themselves together. And Taz told Jazz they had to be strong.

Swift put a box of tissues on the table and then gently asked the girls if they could walk him through what had happened. The girls took a minute to compose themselves and then they began to speak. They told the detective that the day before, their mother had gotten into a bad argument with her boyfriend Robert, but they hadn't really resolved it and then she had left for class and he had left for work. The girls said that night they stayed up late at their house, but they were in one of their bedrooms talking with each other, so when their mom came home, they didn't hear her.

And then that morning, they had overslept and missed the bus. But they ended up walking to school because when they knocked on their mother's door, she didn't answer. The girls said at the time, they hadn't thought much of it. And when they left the house, everything looked and seemed normal. They just hadn't seen their mom yet. But when they got home, of course, it had been a different story. The house was ransacked, there was blood everywhere. And when they tried to call out for their mother and she didn't call back, they wound up searching the house and they would ultimately find her dead inside the tub.

At this point, the girls began to break down and start crying again, like they were reliving the moment they found their mother. And to Swift, this made sense. But really what he was thinking about was the part of the story where the girls referenced a fight between Nikki and her boyfriend Robert. The police had been trying to reach Robert ever since they found Nikki's body, but he was on the road in his semi-truck and they hadn't yet been able to track him down. And in a murder investigation, the victim's romantic partner was always the first suspect,

especially when they were not getting along, and according to the girls, that's exactly what was happening right before Nikki had died. However, when Swift asked the girls if Robert and their mom fought often, Taz and Jazz were adamant that they didn't. They said they loved Robert, and so did their mom. Their biological father had not been in their lives, and Robert had really helped to raise them, taking them for rides in his truck and out to eat at McDonald's. He was great.

So, Swift asked the twins if there was anybody else they could think of in their mother's life who maybe she wasn't getting along with or who might have wanted to do her harm. And it was at this point that Taz and Jazz brought up Joe Carter. The girls said their mom did really love Robert, but she talked to a lot of other men. And the one name the girls had been hearing a lot recently was Joe Carter, who was their mother's other boyfriend.

Now, the way Taz and Jazz brought up this other boyfriend was very casual, like it was totally normal in their lives. But when Swift heard it, he immediately knew he had a compelling motive for Nikki's murder by either Robert or Joe, a love triangle. Detective Swift left the twins in the conference room and walked out of the police station to his cruiser.

He couldn't question Nikki's primary boyfriend, Robert, until he could find him. But the twins had told him that Nikki's secondary boyfriend, Joe Carter, worked at a barbershop right next to Nikki's salon. And that was only about a 20-minute drive away from the station. Swift figured that if he hurried, he could catch Joe before his shop closed up for the day. He drove over, and when he stepped into the barbershop, a little bell on the door jingled. Everyone inside the shop reflexively glanced to see who had come in, and Swift cleared his throat and asked if a Joe Carter was around.

When one of the barbers gestured that that was him, Swift asked him to step outside. Swift studied Joe's face carefully as he made this request, looking for any sign of nervousness. But Joe just looked confused. He told the customer whose hair he was cutting that he'd be right back, and then followed Swift out onto the sidewalk. Once they were outside, Joe immediately took out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Swift. But Swift shook his head and said no. Joe seemed relaxed and friendly, and like he had genuinely no idea why Swift might be there.

So, based on that, Swift decided to just be direct. He told Joe that he had some terrible news. His girlfriend, Nikki Whitehead, had been murdered that morning, and so he needed to know where Joe had been last night. Immediately, Joe began to weep so hard he couldn't even answer the question. And then when he caught his breath, he just tried to light a cigarette, but his hands were shaking too hard to make the lighter even work.

And then eventually he told Swift that he just couldn't believe it. He said he had actually seen Nikki the night before, and she was fine. He admitted they had been having some problems — in fact, he had broken up with her the night before — because Nikki had another relationship with another man, Robert. And this caught Swift totally off guard.

Joe's reaction definitely seemed sincere, but what he was saying, that he had broken up with the victim less than 12 hours before her murder, essentially because he was jealous of another man, was incredibly incriminating.

So, Swift told Joe to show him his arms. The detective knew that a knife attack often caused injuries to the attacker as well as the victim, and he wanted to see if Joe had any wounds on his hands or arms. Swift felt a surge of adrenaline as Joe began to roll up his sleeves. But when Joe held out his arms and turned his hands up and then down again to show both sides, his skin was completely uninjured. Now, this was not proof that he was innocent, but it certainly did not make him a stronger suspect either.

Joe told Swift he did have an alibi, at least for today. He said he'd been right here at work, which was 15 miles away from Nikki's house. All day long, this is where he was, and his co-workers and clients would all confirm it. With this, Swift was getting a sinking feeling that Joe might not be his guy. But to be thorough, he told him he was going to check on the video and also speak to his co-workers to confirm his alibi, and that Joe would have to come to the station to take a polygraph test. And Joe agreed.

Then, right before Swift turned to leave, he remembered a detail from the canvas of Nikki's neighborhood: the unfamiliar black car one neighbor had seen right outside of Nikki's house. And so Swift paused for a second, and then he asked Joe what kind of car he drove. And Joe said he drove a black Toyota. Swift nodded and thanked Joe, and then walked back to his car to drive back to the station.

Now, by this point, Joe was not his number one suspect anymore. But Joe had a black car. And also, he didn't have an alibi for the night before when he saw Nikki until he showed up at the barbershop the next morning. There was a gap. And so, Swift obviously could not rule him out. The following day was Thursday, January 14th. And Swift began the day at his desk, drinking a lukewarm cup of coffee and reading through a stack of papers.

So far, he had one good theory about a love triangle that he thought was viable, but he also knew he wanted to keep an open mind about other possible ideas and suspects while he chased down the love triangle angle. The first packet of papers he was looking at were court documents from the ongoing custody case of Taz and Jazz over the last few years.

From looking them over, Swift was quite interested to learn that the twins' great-grandmother, Della Fraser, who at one point had looked after the girls, had been very upset when Nikki had regained custody. At least in part, because it meant Della would no longer receive money from the state for their care.

Custody disputes and money were both reasons people killed each other. Swift knew this. But Della was 75 years old. Nikki's attacker would have had to be very strong with good stamina to stab Nikki that many times. So it didn't feel promising that Della was behind the murder. The second packet of papers that Swift was looking over that morning was the autopsy report. Nikki had been stabbed somewhere between 50 and 80 times, and her spinal cord had been severed.

However, while that did give some information, it didn't really give Swift much more than he already knew. I mean, he just looked at the crime scene and knew this was a vicious attack, and the autopsy basically confirmed that.

Finally, Swift had a few reports from the uniformed officers who had done the neighborhood canvas. They talked about the mysterious black car that had been spotted, that at this point Swift was thinking might belong to Joe Carter, the second boyfriend. But the uniformed officers also listed information about another mysterious car neighbors had seen.

This one was a red sedan, specifically a Dodge Avenger, that had a white hood and missing hubcaps, and apparently it had shown up in the early afternoon outside of Nikki's house. No one saw the driver, and it only stayed for a few minutes. As Swift mulled over all this information he was taking in, the phone on his desk rang. When he answered, he was pleasantly surprised to hear the voice of Nikki's live-in boyfriend, Robert Head, the guy nobody could find.

Robert apologized profusely for being so hard to reach and then asked, you know, what's going on? When Swift told him that his girlfriend had been murdered, Robert let out this awful anguished scream and then he said he would head home right away. But Swift told him, no, just come to the police station. Before Robert hung up, he said he had one more question. How were Taz and Jazz?

To Swift, Robert's reaction to the news was fairly genuine. And his immediate concern for the girls did sound fatherly, which was how the girls had described him. But Swift also knew the man could be acting. When Robert arrived at the police station, Swift had him put in an interrogation room, where he watched for a few minutes on the surveillance camera before going inside himself. When Swift looked at Robert up close, he looked like a broken man. He was 64 years old and thin, and he was slumped in a seat looking absolutely miserable.

When Swift sat down across from him, he could almost feel Robert's grief from the other side of the table. Robert would turn out to be a very easy interview. He answered all of Swift's questions clearly and fully and didn't shy away from pretty embarrassing details. He said he knew about Joe Carter, and he didn't mind that Nikki was seeing him. Nikki was young and beautiful and outgoing, and Robert felt lucky that she even wanted to be with him at all. He said he was crazy about Nikki and about her girls, and really he just wanted her to be happy.

He admitted to fighting with her the day before she was murdered, over her phone call she took from Joe Carter right in front of him, sort of breaking one of their rules. But he said that as soon as he had left and hit the road in his truck, his anger had faded and he had considered their issue closed. And then when Swift told Robert to show him his arms, they were uninjured, just like Joe's. Finally, Robert's truck itself contained proof that he really could not have been the killer.

because it had a GPS tracker inside, which put him a full day's drive away from the home by the time Nikki was killed. Swift ultimately left that interview feeling totally deflated. In a matter of just 24 hours, he'd identified two seemingly very good suspects in Robert and Joe. But now, both of those cases seem to be falling apart. Today is the worst day of Abby's life.

The 17-year-old cradles her newborn son in her arms. They all saw how much I loved him. They didn't have to take him from me. Between 1945 and the early 1970s, families shipped their pregnant teenage daughters to maternity homes.

and force them to secretly place their babies for adoption. In hidden corners across America, it's still happening. My parents had me locked up in the godparent home against my will. They worked with them to manipulate me and to steal my son away from me. The godparent home is the brainchild of controversial preacher Jerry Falwell,

the father of the modern evangelical right and the founder of Liberty University, where powerful men emboldened by their faith determine who gets to be a parent and who must give their child away. Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey listeners, big news for true crime lovers. You can now enjoy this podcast ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership. Listen to all episodes of my podcasts, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries and Mr. Ballin's Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories, along with a huge collection of top true crime podcasts completely ad-free. No more wading through cliffhangers or dealing with ads, because let's be honest, ads shouldn't be the most nerve-wracking part of true crime.

To start your ad-free listening journey, download the Amazon Music app for free or head to amazon.com slash ballin. That's amazon.com slash b-a-l-l-e-n. Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today. Over the next few days, Swift tracked down every lead he could, but every lead he had seemed to hit a dead end. The crime scene unit hadn't found the murder weapon, and the crime scene itself was so bloody that forensic DNA evidence would take months to process.

Joe Carter, who was Nikki's second boyfriend, passed his lie detector test, which included discussions around his whereabouts the night before the murder after he had broken up with Nikki at his house. Also, his co-workers the next day at the barbershop confirmed that he had been there all day that day. And on top of that, you know, given the strength of his alibi now, the black car that was seen outside of Nikki's basically couldn't have been his. So Joe was ruled out.

Swift interviewed the twins' great-grandmother, Della Frazier, who had been very upset about giving the girls back to Nikki, but even though he didn't think that she literally committed the murder, she did in fact have an alibi for the day of the murder, so she was ruled out as well. Swift even tracked down that red Dodge Avenger with the white hood and missing hubcaps, only to find that it belonged to a hairdressing client of Nikki's who had stopped by Nikki's house after Nikki had missed her appointment. The woman had left when Nikki didn't answer the door.

As the days turned to weeks, the case began to go cold. Meanwhile, Nikki was buried, and the people in the gated community where she had lived began locking their doors at night. The twins, Taz and Jazz, were living with Della again, and Nikki's whole family was pressing the police to come up with an answer. What happened to Nikki? But Swift, despite his best efforts, was running out of ideas.

But finally, one day in mid-May of 2010, so almost four full months after Nikki's murder, Swift got his first piece of good news. He'd walked into the police station that morning to work on a different case altogether, but when he sat down at his desk, he found the forensic reports from Nikki's crime scene. All the blood that had been soaked into the carpet and smeared on the walls had finally been tested for DNA. So had the hair that Swift had found inside of Nikki's mouth. And the results were shocking.

When Swift finished reading them, he stood up, walked out of the station, and drove his cruiser to a gas station that was right up the street from Nikki's house. He knew police had not pulled surveillance video from this station because it was too far from the crime scene to be useful, or so they thought. But now, based on the DNA evidence Swift had, he knew that this gas station might be his very best hope to solve the case. When he pulled into the gas station parking lot, he went inside and asked the attendant to speak to the manager.

The teenager behind the counter ducked into a back room and then motioned Swift to follow him. Once inside, Swift could barely contain his eagerness as he introduced himself to the manager and then quickly asked if he still had the surveillance footage from the morning of January 13th. This was critical. Swift knew that even if the gas station did have working cameras, the odds of the footage being stored for months were low. But the owner sat down at his computer, clicked around a few files, then turned to Swift and grinned.

He hadn't gotten around to wiping the footage, so everything Swift needed was still here right in his files. Swift told the manager what specific time frame to search for in the file, and then once the manager had done that, he hit play. And when Swift watched the footage, he knew exactly who had killed Nikki.

Based on DNA evidence, surveillance footage, and interviews collected over the course of a four-month investigation, the following is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Nikki Whitehead on the morning of January 13, 2010. Nikki's killer was waiting for her in her own kitchen. Nikki heard the killer moving around from inside her bedroom and walked down the hallway to come see who it was.

When she first saw the killer, who was there with an accomplice, Nikki actually was not afraid. She was just annoyed. She told the killer and their accomplice to explain themselves. Then, when they refused, she told them to get out of the house. And it was at that point that they attacked. They leapt onto Nikki's back and began to punch her over and over again. Nikki fought back, biting them, and in the struggle, she bit down on a strand of one of their hairs, which got caught in her teeth.

The fight moved from the kitchen to the living room, where Nikki briefly broke free, but the killer picked up a red ceramic vase and threw it at Nikki's head. The vase shattered and Nikki staggered, and that's when the killer grabbed a steak knife from a block on the kitchen counter, and they lunged. It began stabbing Nikki over and over as Nikki screamed,

Panicked and now severely injured, Nikki made one final desperate run for safety. She bolted out the front door of her house. And she made it out the front door and down her walkway all the way over to a neighbor's front door where she rang the bell and began shouting out for help. But her neighbor didn't come. And before she could run to the next house, the killer and their accomplice rushed up behind her and dragged Nikki back inside of her own house without being seen.

Back inside, the killer and the accomplice slammed the door shut and threw Nikki up against a wall, where Nikki's braids left a bloody print. Nikki stood for a moment and then crumpled to the floor. And without hesitating, the killer jumped on Nikki and stabbed her again, over and over, until she was dead. After that, the killer and the accomplice dragged Nikki's lifeless body down the hallway and into the bathroom. They ran the water in the tub and then heaved Nikki's body up and over the edge. It was done.

They stood there for a minute, just staring down at their work. After that, they cleaned themselves up and then put on their backpacks, slipped out the front door, and began their walk to school. And one of the first buildings they would have to pass on their walk to school was the gas station. And that gas station would have a surveillance camera that would capture them walking two full hours later than what they would tell police. It would turn out Nikki's killers were her own 16-year-old twin daughters, Taz and Jazz Whitehead.

The twins had told police that they didn't see their mother that morning. But that was a lie. They had gotten up late, and instead of going to school, they had been writing notes to each other and laughing in the kitchen when Nikki had woken up, come in, and asked why they weren't at school.

Taz and Jazz were already furious to be back home. They didn't want to be there. They resented their mother and all her strict rules. And for whatever reason, that morning when their mom confronted them, it just felt like the final straw. And so they stabbed her to death and then went to school like it was just another day.

When they got home, they put on this big act of being distraught and horrified by the violent scene they themselves had created and then ran outside to go tell police. But what the twins didn't realize was that during the vicious attack, one of them got a strand of their hair caught in Nikki's teeth and then also their own blood mingled with Nikki's. Because Taz and Jazz were identical twins, the police were never actually able to pinpoint which of them did what, but it was very clear they were directly involved in the killing.

Also, after this DNA report came back and Swift read it, it prompted him to go to that gas station which he knew would have been along the walk to the girls' school. And he quickly discovered they had lied to him about what time they had actually walked to school. Also, it was later determined that some of those bite marks on the girls' bodies that police had originally assumed the girls had made themselves out of grief were actually made by their mother during the attack.

But the final and perhaps most cold-blooded piece of evidence were the notes the girls had written to each other in their notebook on the morning of the murder. Literally, they wrote these right before they killed their mom. One twin wrote on the last page of the notebook, quote, she don't care. She's selfish. She needs to go. And the other twin wrote their response, which was, quote, that's what I think also. She gotta go ASAP. On May 21st, 2010, Taz and Jazz Whitehead were arrested for the murder of their mother, Nikki.

They ultimately pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and were sentenced to 30 years in prison. Both twins blamed Nikki for starting the fight and said that she actually attacked them. However, officials do not believe this account. A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios' podcasts. There's this one, the Mr. Ballin Podcast, as well as Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, Run Fool, Redacted, Late Nights with Nexpo, and A Twist of History. All you have to do is search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts.

To watch hundreds more stories just like this one, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya.

Hey, it's Mr. Ballin here. If you haven't discovered redacted declassified mysteries yet, well, you're in for a fascinating journey through history's hidden files. As a fellow military veteran, I can tell you that the host of the show, Luke LaManna, brings a very unique insider perspective to these wild stories.

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