20/20 - Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 6: Latasha Norman

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

Jackson State University junior Latasha Norman's promising future comes to a tragic end when she goes missing following an afternoon class, then she is found murdered in a wooded area in Jackson, Miss...issippi. Originally Aired: 02/22/24 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:43 a promising young accounting student from Jackson State University, who mysteriously disappeared after class one afternoon. Let's take a listen. Latasha, her dream was to go to Jackson State. To be able to go to HBCU, it's empowering. Twenty-year-old Latasha Norman was last seen leaving a class at Jackson State University. Sometimes I feel like if I had answered my phone, I possibly could have prevented something. He just disappeared.
Starting point is 00:01:28 You're supposed to feel safe when you're off to college. and for that to happen, you know, everyone was in fear. Because it had happened on a black college campus, it drew even more attention. That's the first time we knew that an incident had happened. Murder! It was murder! It looks so lifelike. All the memories just... All these are her trophies. This right here is when she was 10 years old. She was a girl scout and I kept it. I can never take back the show in town. You shouldn't come around here, baby.
Starting point is 00:02:56 Natasha Normans is my stepdaughter, but I consider her as my daughter because I raised her from a child. She was the only daughter I had, and I was very proud of her. Every picture she had, she always have that smile on her face. You never seen her angry. That's the type of person LaTosha normally was. LaTosha was born April 21, 1987, here in Greenville, Mississippi. We have a huge family. We are a very close-knit family.
Starting point is 00:03:48 I am ten years older than her, so she was more like my little sister. When we were younger, she started out wanting to be a teacher, because we played teachers a lot. But as Tasha got older, she switched to accounting, and I think that had a lot to do with following behind Keisha's footsteps. I taught her, whatever you do, don't never give up.
Starting point is 00:04:18 Do your best in everything you do, because you can always go up higher. And as she grew up, she did. She did her best. She didn't sell it for less. In high school, the first year, she was kind of shy. Latasha always followed in my footsteps. I played the flute, Tasha played the flute. I was a majorette, Tasha was a majorette. I was on the dance line, Tasha was on the dance line.
Starting point is 00:04:56 After she became a majorette, she really came out of her shell. She was that beacon of light that when she smiled, you smiled. She had that caring heart. There was nothing you couldn't ask Latasha to do for you that she wouldn't do. Latasha, her dream was to go to Jack State. And their name was known as Jackson State the Normans. My father played football at Jackson State. My uncles played football at Jackson State.
Starting point is 00:05:34 One of my uncles even went pro playing professional football. I knew that she wouldn't break the family tradition. I would tease her. I would call her Miss Jackson State. She had no problem being admitted there. Jackson State is an HBCU, which is a historically black college or university founded in 1877, so very long time ago, about 150 years. They say the world's art came from your right Well if that s*** is true, they ain't do it right Watch class get busy on this classical
Starting point is 00:06:17 Just put me in the book, that s*** turn magical I'm Olivia Welch, I was the managing editor for the Blue and White Flash, the student-led publication for the university. It's very humbling to be able to go to HBCU considering that many, many years ago the people who fought for us to have an HBCU weren't allowed to go to college. This being something that was made for us, it's exciting. It's empowering. I think that's one of the reasons that a lot of students come here generation after generation. A big part of J-Setting is stepping.
Starting point is 00:07:07 Part of the culture here at JSU. ["Hunter"] Spinning round, going up and down for them hunters. Busy working hard, going extra hard for that money. Jackson State, it's a place where you can feel home. You're like family there. ["Hunter"] We call each other the Tiger family and we're alumni.
Starting point is 00:07:27 We're just proud of our dear old college home. A lot of prominent people in the community went to Jackson State and graduated. Jackson is approximately an hour and a half from Greenville. Greenville, Mississippi is in what's called Mississippi Delta. And it's a very impoverished region of the country. It may be the most impoverished region of the country. There's not a lot of economic opportunities there. A lot of people from the Delta come to Jackson to build their careers. Because you have to get out of the Delta to really rise up and do something.
Starting point is 00:08:10 On orientation day, after we had moved her in, I know she was ready for us to go, but my wife wasn't ready to go. She wanted to mop, she wanted to wipe everything down, she wanted to make the bed. That was her excuse to linger around, you know. My wife had had a child before she graduated from high school. She had to work.
Starting point is 00:08:41 Latasha was living her dream. And it was almost like my wife was living her dream through Latasha. Latasha was getting the opportunity to do a lot of things that my wife never had the opportunity to do. So we encouraged Latasha to excel. In her senior year in high school, she dated a guy older than LaTasha. Stanley was finished with high school and he wasn't, you know, in college or anything. And he wasn't, you know, in college or anything. He bought a life-size teddy bear and gave it to her. And I think he stole it hard that way. When Latasha decided to go to Jackson State,
Starting point is 00:09:37 she encouraged Stanley to go. I think she wanted to make something out of him. So she helped him get into school down there. She was taking up accounting and he was taking up criminal justice. I think Tasha just really pushed him to like his full potential in a lot of areas, including family, including school, just different things in his life. Don't misconstrual a skirt for a flirt cause I still hit him with herpes
Starting point is 00:10:11 dressed like a nurse, all white, I almost died twice. Latasha was extremely excited to be in college. She was excited to be on Jackson State campus. She was enjoying the campus life. She didn't go out much as far as she would tell me, you know. Latasha had plans for her and Keisha to open up an account firm back home once she finished college. She kept her grades up. She kept on being on the Dean list at Jackson State University. She kept on working. She kept on, you know, doing her.
Starting point is 00:10:52 She was thriving like a peacock. Ha ha ha. In the fall of 2007, her and Stanley had went their separate ways. Stanley had moved on and he was dating someone else. LaTosha started dating another guy. His name was Marquis. They seemed to be getting along pretty well. He looked out for her.
Starting point is 00:11:31 There was times when she was having problems with her car, and he was there. At this point in life, I would say that she was happy. She wanted us to meet Marquis. And so he brought her home to watch her baby brother play in the ballgame the 10th of November. He seemed to be alright, but they went back that night and that was the last time we saw her alive. The day after we had gotten a chance to meet Marquis, Latasha called me.
Starting point is 00:12:23 I can tell by the tone of her voice that something wasn't right. But when she called, I was busy at the time. And so I told I would give her a call back once I leave my meeting. I called her the next day and I didn't get an answer. Every night my wife would talk Natasha back to her dawn. This particular night, she couldn't get LaTasha. When we woke up November 14th, 2007, the phone rang.
Starting point is 00:13:26 There was a new boyfriend on the phone because my wife had called him, asked him, had he seen Tasha? And he said he hadn't seen her since the night before. And she had me on the phone and I talked to him. And he told me that her car was on campus and she was missing, he didn't know where she was. Immediately, I told my wife, get dressed, let's go. Something ain't right.
Starting point is 00:13:52 It's blood in the water. Love in the cut. Blood in the water. On the 13th of November, 2007, 20-year-old Latasha Norman was last seen. Latasha Norman was a junior business major at Jackson State University. The campus and city police say they have no suspects in her disappearance. Love in the cut You don't have to navigate these changes alone. If you owe back taxes or have unfiled returns, do not wait for the IRS letter to act. Turn it over to Tax Network USA. Tax Network USA has a strong relationship with the IRS.
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Starting point is 00:15:45 Scamanda premieres Thursday night January 30th on ABC and stream on Hulu. My mom called and she was like, have you talked to Tasha? She told me that my aunt and uncle were headed to Jackson because Latasha hadn't reported to class and they were worried. At that point, my heart dropped, because I knew, you know, something was going on with her because of the tone of her voice a couple of days before that. I get to grandma's house, and Kiesha was saying Tasha's missing.
Starting point is 00:16:46 Take me back to November 2007. Tell me what happened. You can skip that. I don't want to talk about it. By the time we got to Yazoo, Mississippi, I get another call from Marquis. And he says that he's with the campus police and he filed a missing person report. They did search the school at that time. The dorms and stuff.
Starting point is 00:17:31 When we got there, nobody knew, nobody seen anything. She just disappeared. A lot of burglaries, house burglaries, armed robberies, and several murders are in that neighborhood. Jackson State is a pretty accessible campus. You can drive in and out of the campus pretty easily. Latasha's vehicle was still on campus, and so we knew that she didn't leave in her vehicle. They didn't have a whole lot of evidence as to the whereabouts of where Latasha was. Some campus police departments have very limited resources, and the Jackson State Police Chief decided to reach out
Starting point is 00:18:26 to the Jackson Police Department for assistance. Investigators with the Jackson Police Department spoke to LaTasha's boyfriend, they spoke to her roommate. A month or so prior to her coming up missing, LaTasha's tires had been slashed on campus. Prior to her coming up missing, Latasha's tires had been slashed on campus. I told her to go to the campus police and report it, have it documented.
Starting point is 00:18:57 The timing was awfully strange because particular crimes such as tire slashing, breaking out windows, those are usually more intimate type crimes. It's somebody that you know. Usually, if it's a stranger, they may break into your car and try to take something, but most of the time, they're not going to slash your tires
Starting point is 00:19:19 or break your windows out or anything like that. We had been there all that day on the 14th, and we hadn't got no answers. Twenty-year-old Latasha Norman was last seen leaving a class at Jackson State University. I thought I was in a nightmare, because you see things like this on TV all the time, but never in a million years would I have thought that,
Starting point is 00:19:46 hey, this is actually happening to someone in my family, like, missing. The next day, the cousins and the rest of the family decided, hey, we're going to go to Jackson on our own, and we're going to look for Tasha. We started formulating search teams. We put up flyers. We walked door to door, mainly in the area of where Jackson State was.
Starting point is 00:20:31 It was a big, big ordeal in the city of Jackson to find her, and everybody locally knew about the case. When I first appeared for help on the Jackson State campus, they set up where I could speak. The sheriff there did. And it was me to hear that from everywhere. I guess you can hear us. We want to let you know that we love you and that we're not going to stop until we know something.
Starting point is 00:21:07 Because it had happened on a black college campus, so it drew even more attention. But I'm not shy of the mic. Even before that happened, I had took a media class. It was almost like God had prepared me for this. I went on every talk show, radio show, TV show, news show, anybody that would listen to me. Tasha had a class at 1 o'clock, and she got out of class at 2 20,
Starting point is 00:21:36 and she just disappeared in thin air. She never made it back to her dorm, she never made it to her car. I was willing to be a man and stand up and fight for them, protect them. It's my job. I raised Latasha. And I told them when I first came here that I was not going to eat Jackson until I found my child. I miss Tasha.
Starting point is 00:22:00 My wife miss Tasha. And we hope to hear something from us real soon. We hadn't got no answers. The police, well they really want to accomplish much. Investigators decided to reach out to the FBI. The FBI is joining the search for a missing Mississippi college student. Latasha Norman disappeared last Tuesday. I was the case agent for the Latasha Norman case. When I first got assigned the case, the Jackson State Police Department and Jackson PD gave me the rundown of what
Starting point is 00:22:46 they had already attained and just where they were at that particular point, which was basically they didn't have a whole lot of evidence as to the whereabouts of where Latasha was. So we have to go back over the case because we may have missed something. case because we may have missed something. We decided to pull the Tasha Normans cell phone information. The initial cell phone data that I got from her phone showed that it was at Marquise's location where he lived and then it was traveling towards the direction of Jackson State University. And somewhere within that time frame, all activity ceased. She could have cut the phone off, it could have died, could have been on purpose,
Starting point is 00:23:41 but as far as I'm concerned, the college student her age would not leave her phone dead for over 30 minutes, you know, so let alone three days. In looking at LaTosha's life, there was nothing that would lead us to believe she would end up walking away from everything. They interviewed me, the investigators, and they wanted to know who we thought might have some involvement in it. I told them to check out our new bar friend.
Starting point is 00:24:14 After she became missing, I became very suspicious of him. I didn't trust him. He jumped the gun and filed a missing person report for if we can even get to town. I had told him I was on the way in. I was like, why you didn't give us an opportunity to get there and do this? It seemed like he was hiding something. He seemed like he was nervous.
Starting point is 00:24:44 When he brought her home, my baby son had a game that night. And so she come home to watch her baby brother play in the ball game, then he introduced her to a new boyfriend. And it was a little disagreement between him and Latasha's cousin after the game. He wanted to go back. So I thought maybe him and her got the organ or something on the way back home, and he might have tried to retaliate against her or whatever.
Starting point is 00:25:19 We didn't know much about him. Of course, our minds wondered, had he done something to her? Natasha went missing. It was a very dark spot for everyone. I had a few friends and classmates who attended Jackson State during that time. You're supposed to feel safe when you're off to college, and for that to happen, you know, everyone was in fear. I can recall one of my friends calling and texting me every day. She would always say, like, Nikki, this can't be real. We're all on this college campus. That could have been one of us. We decided to interview Latasha's current boyfriend, Marquis Smith, because usually when you're dealing with a
Starting point is 00:26:44 mission person, oftentimes it's that person in an intimate relationship with that individual that has something to do with the whereabouts of that individual. Marquis was a little older. He had a job, he had a car, he had his own place. We also wanted to check his cell phone ping information. Back then it was fairly new.
Starting point is 00:27:09 Most people didn't know that we could use that to help corroborate certain stories they told us. Time, dates, and things of that nature that he gave us, they seemed to match up just fine. He mentioned that the night prior to her missing, Latosso spent the night at his house, and he probably was one of the last people to see her. Marquees was telling me that the FBI was questioning him, and I told him I knew, and me and him had some trough words.
Starting point is 00:27:47 And I told him if I found out that he had something to do with it, it wasn't gonna be that nice. Our relationship really kind of ended right then. Stanley Cole came across my radar from Marquis Smith. So the first two and a half years of Tasha being at Jackson State, she dated Stanley. They dated on and off. By the time Latasha Norman went missing,
Starting point is 00:28:16 Stanley and her were not dating at that time. Latasha was dating Marquis Smith. We went to Jackson State. We checked out his records, and we found out that he wasrew from school a week or two before us checking into him, which I thought was strange. Talking to LaTasha's friends, we learned that LaTasha's friend
Starting point is 00:28:38 kind of suspected him of slashing her tires. We also found out that their relationship had gotten physical at times. They started learning evidence about the incident that happened in Pearl, Mississippi, which is just a suburb of Jackson. On October 9, which is about a month before Latasha went missing, she takes Stanley Cole to get his paycheck.
Starting point is 00:29:07 Latasha sometimes helps Stanley out with stuff, like giving him a ride. She was on the phone with Marquis Smith, who was her boyfriend at the time. Stanley got mad and lunged at her and actually broke her phone. She also reported that to the campus police as well. That's the first time we knew that an incident had happened. That she had filed this report against Mr. Cole. So she never did tell us. I mean, I cried. I was hurt. I couldn't believe it.
Starting point is 00:30:12 When Latasha was, you know, dating Stanley, she told me that he had slapped her. I had went through domestic violence. So I told Latasha, I said, because what happened with me, I'm just going to let you know if he did it once, he would do it again. It's time for you to let him go. You know, you move on, let him move on. And I just kept it between us. After she went missing, that was the first time that my family knew that he had placed his hands on her before, because I had never said anything to anyone about the first incident. The women that are the victims of these crimes generally do not like to tell anybody because they're embarrassed about it.
Starting point is 00:31:03 At that time, we thought she had broken the relationship off of him because she had found out that he had another young lady pregnant. I was shocked that Stanley had put his hands on Latasha again. I just couldn't believe that Latasha didn't come to me and tell me. But I kind of understood at the same time the reason why she didn't tell me. After they had called it quits, I
Starting point is 00:31:40 told Stanley if I found out that he put his hands on her again, he was going to see me and Jackson. He promised that he wouldn't bother her. He would cut all ties and communications. He was out of her life to our knowledge. I just hate that I reacted the way I did, that I made Latasha afraid to come to me the next time. But I was proud of her at the same time. I was proud of Latasha, that she did step up
Starting point is 00:32:14 and take other actions when Stanley placed his hands on her again. We learned that this was not a normal ex-boyfriend, ex-girlfriend relationship. They are having some physical altercations that are occurring that could lead to deadly altercations. Hey, guys, it's George Cephanopoulos here. Hey, everybody, it's Michael Strahan here. Wake up with Good Morning America. Robin, George, Michael, GMA, America's favorite number-one morning show. The morning's first breaking news, exclusive interviews,
Starting point is 00:32:55 what everyone will be talking about that day. Put some good in your morning and start your day with GMA. Good morning, America! Put the good in your morning. GMA. Good morning America. Put the good in your morning. GMA 7A on ABC. We had hope. We had faith, we had belief. We was determined to stay in Jackson until we find her.
Starting point is 00:33:30 As time started to dwindle down and we continued to hear bits and pieces that Latasha had been physically abused by Stanley, you go from being hopeful to like, well, it's not looking good. Latasha was last seen leaving class last Tuesday afternoon around two o'clock. My aunt took it really hard to see her not being able to eat and not being able to sleep. It was heartbreaking. When one family member hurts, all of us hurt. It was Thanksgiving. We received a call from a car dealer. A car salesman in Jackson calls the police and says that this car, this 1998 Dodge Neon, is really suspicious.
Starting point is 00:34:49 The carpet in the trunk was cut out, which is not something normally somebody does when you trade in a car. The fact that a car salesman would call the police about something being strange in a car was pretty odd. We checked the tag in the van and found that it belonged to a young lady that we found to be Stanley Cole's girlfriend, Simone. We found out that Simone was pregnant
Starting point is 00:35:17 and Stanley was the father. And that they lived in an apartment building in North Jackson. If you were to do a mental checklist, you have a young lady missing. She was possibly in a volatile relationship with her ex-boyfriend who just dropped out of the same school that she was going to, and his current girlfriend was selling her car. The timing was awfully strange.
Starting point is 00:35:47 Some things that we can't act on as far as getting arrest warrants, but we were definitely able to get search warrants for the vehicle. The FBI Evidence Recovery Unit discovered quite a bit of blood splatter in the trunk. Just the thought of them finding blood in the trunk of the car, my heart dropped. It was like I was reliving that nightmare
Starting point is 00:36:18 from the very first day she went missing on November 14th of 2007. They positively identified the blood in the trunk of the car to the DNA of Latasha Norman. So they realized that she was in the trunk of that car. Jackson Police Department, as well as the FBI and Jackson State, decided to subpoena Stanley Cole's cell phone records. After the investigators recovered Stanley's cell phone records and realized that he was at Jackson State that day and they found him at a wooded area off of Brown Street. They decided to go up to Greenville
Starting point is 00:37:07 to see if they could speak to Simone Harris. Simone came, and to my surprise, Stanley came. I kind of ignored Stanley, acted like I didn't really know who he was, shook his hand, and I took Simone back. We asked her about the phone records. She was very forthwith. She told us that this was one particular time
Starting point is 00:37:36 that Stanley was supposed to go out and empty the trash. He did, but he took 40 minutes to do it. The interview lasted 20, 30 minutes, and we decided that we wanted to talk to Stanley next. His demeanor was very, very nonchalant, la-too nonchalant. He kind of slid back in his chair and put his arm back up on the chair. He said, all the girls from Jackson love all the guys from Greenville.
Starting point is 00:38:11 And it was the way he said it. It was almost adversarial, right? And you would think that if I'm trying to find out where your ex-girlfriend is, that you wouldn't be my adversary. Basically, the test question for me is, what do you think should happen to the person that did something to Latasha? And Stanley answered, I don't really know.
Starting point is 00:38:41 Most people minimize their punishment. So I knew then he had done something. We knew that Stanley most likely knew where LaTosha was. I have daughters and I wouldn't want my daughter to be laid in some field or somewhere, you know, where they're dead or alive by themselves. So I kind of, I told Stanley that we need to find Latasha. Can you help us find Latasha? He hesitated. His eyes started watering, and he just kind of stared off for a little while.
Starting point is 00:39:20 He shook his head and he said, if I tell you where she is, will you let me see my mom? Stanley's mother was in the lobby. He said, let me see her before I tell you where Latasha is. Her partner said, OK. She went in the room and spoke about two minutes. She opened the door. And she said, is my son under arrest?
Starting point is 00:39:57 And I said, no, ma'am. She said, well, we'll be leaving. Well, we'll be leaving. The fact that Stanley's mother, rather than her helping and assisting, she started looking out for her son, that Stone. It became more personal at that point. We set out to go ahead and get an arrest warrant for Mr. Stanley Cole. Stanley Cole was arrested on November 29th of 2007. Throughout that time that Tasha was missing, Stanley was looking or acting as he was looking
Starting point is 00:40:48 for her. People thought that he was genuinely concerned. I know I did. There's media everywhere. They're all outside police headquarters. There's detectives and the chief in this interview room looking through the two-way glass. It is literally a show. Then as soon as I opened the door, I started in on Stanley.
Starting point is 00:41:16 Just technique, playing chess. I was going to make him angry at me. So angry that he would just forget to lower you up, so to speak. It wasn't hard to get angry. I said a few curse words and threw my notepad. He was upset, I was upset, I stormed out. Stay right there.
Starting point is 00:41:42 He had liked one of the female investigators that had interviewed him before I had, from Jackson Police Department. I ran upstairs and got the investigator. I said, hey, you're on. I want him to maybe find solace in this young lady, and maybe she would be the one to get him to tell her where Latasha was.
Starting point is 00:42:05 I wasn't sure if that would work. It was a gamble. She started out far away. She moved in close. He starts to tell us they got an argument in Simone's car. And he was sitting in the driver's seat and he struck her with a back fist to her nose area. And I realized I hit her two eyes.
Starting point is 00:42:37 She wasn't breathing. Just panicked and just put in the trunk and just rolled around trying to figure out what what I was gonna do at this point. He went and met up with a friend of his and his girlfriend, and then they picked up Simone Harris. And they ended up eating at Garfield's restaurant in Jackson. And all the while during this time,
Starting point is 00:43:02 where they're going back and forth between people's houses Where they're picking friends up from classes and They're eating dinner Latasha Norman is in the trunk of that Dodge neon For him to drive around with her in that trunk, that stood out. For me, it stood out. He starts to tell us where she is. I just called her up, I just dropped off, and it just ran. I never said nothing to anybody. How he's explaining it, he's got to show us. So we decided to take him to the scene.
Starting point is 00:43:52 We had this long caravan of police cars and news cars behind us. Stanley led us to the area. led us to the area. Within 10 minutes, we were able to recover LaTosha Norman's body. She was partially closed. The upper torso of her body, including her face, was covered with a piece of cardboard. Unfortunately her body had been pretty badly decomposed. In order to identify LaTasha we needed to have her dental records checked and they were able to give us a positive match. All we could do then was just come home. Because there was nothing else in Jackson that we could do.
Starting point is 00:45:28 I would have never in a million years thought that Stanley would take her life. Like, that was the last thought on my mind. If I'm sorry. Sometimes I feel like if I sent something to her to avoid what Stanley had done. I just hate that I reacted the way I did. The first time that I had learned that he hit her, I felt like she didn't want to put me in any danger.
Starting point is 00:46:29 I hate to this day that she got tangled up with this young man. My wife was so broken. I was just disappointed. I have to be honest with you, I wasn't pleasant. It didn't take much to make me go off. I was just disappointed. I have to be honest with you, I wasn't pleasant. It didn't take much to make me go off. And that wasn't nice, I thought that was ugly. I had to ask God to take this bitterness, anger from me.
Starting point is 00:47:25 Because I mean, his explanation was that he hit her. I hit her too hard and knocked her out. After a couple of hours, I took down her. It was no close. And if you see Stanley Cole, he's a 140-pound man. I don't know that his blow would have caused death to Miss Norman. It just didn't seem likely to any of us. I mean, I think it's a good thing that he's not dead. I think it's a good thing that he's not dead. I think it's a good thing, he's a 140-pound man. I don't know that his blow would have caused death to Ms. Norman. It just didn't seem likely to any of us.
Starting point is 00:47:50 Not to mention that if she was bleeding so much out of her nose, as he said, we should have found some blood in the front seat. Once Latasha Norman's body is at the medical examiner, we discover a slight jagged nick to the inside of her rib cage. The portion of that rib was missing. Due to the jaggedness of it, it looked like it could have been a metal device or even a knife. But unfortunately, we weren't able to tell if she received any damage internally from her organs because she was so badly decomposed. So we did send that bone to a forensics expert as well. And they were able to tell us that it appeared to be possibly
Starting point is 00:48:48 a stab wound. The body of a missing college student from Mississippi has been found, and her ex-boyfriend is charged with murder. Mr. Cole was still trying to say it was an accident. I kind of felt, you know, he was a bit strange or whatever, but I didn't actually expect anything like that to happen. So you hear about things like that everywhere else, but no one ever actually expects, you
Starting point is 00:49:17 know, trouble to be at their doorstep. We had a community that was really aching from this crime because it happened at Jackson State, which is just a beloved university in the city. And then her family. And if you meet her dad or stepfather, Danny Bolden, you can see how much this man loved his daughter. And they were there every day rooting us on. That made us really, really wanna go in there and win this case. Did you know that defendant Cole
Starting point is 00:50:03 had been violent towards Latasha? No, because I warned Mr. Cole from the beginning that I was the type of gentleman that I did not tolerate that type of stuff. Latasha, she never exposed that to us. She kept it to her. I think she was ashamed of it. It was hard to keep your composure, so there were times that, you know, I had to step out. And then even listening to his attorney, right, try to clear him of that, it's really surreal. Does it make it burn? The evidence only shows this is manslaughter. We the jury found the defendant guilty of murder. You have caused her parents, other family members, and friends enormous grief. As punishment for this murder, you are hereby automatically sentenced to life in prison. It's the only time I've seen him show emotion. And them big crocodile tears come down.
Starting point is 00:51:37 He apologized to us, but the damage had been done. Stanley will be held accountable for it. It was just a sense of relief. In 2012, the Court of Appeals overturned the case. Cole's attorney claims extensive media attention prevented him from receiving a fair trial. Now he suggests a lesser charge to be considered. We went before the state Supreme Court. God has granted us this victory two years ago. We have faith and we believe that he won't reverse it.
Starting point is 00:52:29 And they ruled in his favor, saying that it was a misfoul because the judge had put consideration for manslaughter on the table for the jury to choose from. It wasn't not a man's fault. It was murder. It was murder. Stanley Cole was offered a free trial. So me and my wife had to go back to Jackson and meet the DA. We just wanted justice, but we didn't want to go back
Starting point is 00:53:12 through the trial. She didn't want to go back through it, and I didn't either. And on the way down there, we had this conversation. We're going to offer him a 40-year plea. No parole, no probation. And he accepted it, because he was better than the deal he had at first. And I realized I had to forgive him. I had to release him in order to release myself.
Starting point is 00:53:50 You forgive and you move on. You don't forget it, but you move on. It's only a day past that I don't think about Tasha. But I know God, through him, he give me grace. It ain't all been bad. A lot of good has come out of this, man. But you got to take the building with the sweet. I would want another parent to have to live and go through what we went through.
Starting point is 00:54:23 No bad. through what we went through. Nobody. God want to use the litosha light, the shining light on teams in domestic violence. Domestic violence is nothing new. See for so long this is like a taboo in our community. People don't like to talk about it, but we have to talk about it. People don't like to talk about it, but we have to talk about it. Don't stay silent, just speak out and tell someone. Because it is hip out there at Jackson State. In honor of our daughter, Latasha Norman.
Starting point is 00:55:07 They have this domestic violence ceiling in the honor of her. For Jackson State University to step up and name the Latasha Norman Counseling Center, that was amazing. Her picture's on the wall there and her story is written there too. So students actually get a chance to learn who she was, why she's so important, and why domestic violence is not okay and it never will be okay. It lets people know the signs to look for and giving them the proper materials and tools to actually have someone to talk to that is a professional. Well, after her death, they wanted to do a walk in her name. We've done it for the last 15 years.
Starting point is 00:56:01 All the proceeds go back into the Latasha Norman Center. It keeps her name alive on campus. I talk to my kids about her. My daughter, I tell her, you have an open line of community. There's nothing you can't come to me or be afraid to say to me. After losing her, I went back to school to get my master's in counseling, just to bring like awareness and be that safe person for people to talk to. She just inspired me to want to be that voice and help others so we can save some people.
Starting point is 00:57:09 Life has had a great impact. Her legacy live on, man. She was an angel god. She's one of his angels. This is Deborah Roberts. That does it for season two of Death in the Dorms. Death in the Dorms was produced by ABC News Studios with the Intellectual Property Corporation and, yes, like a river for Hulu originals. You can find the whole series streaming on Hulu. Next week we begin season four of Wild Crime. Eleven Skulls follows the FBI's investigation of Israel Keyes, an elusive survivalist and
Starting point is 00:57:54 serial killer whose hunting ground ranged from Alaska to Vermont. And be sure to tune in to ABC Friday nights at 9 for all new broadcast episodes of 2020. As always, thanks for listening.

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