Dateline NBC - Bad Blood

Episode Date: December 31, 2019

In this Dateline classic, Twin sisters Jasmiyah and Tasmiyah Whitehead discover their mother Nikki savagely murdered in their home. Keith Morrison reports. Originally aired on NBC on August 1, 2014.

I loved everything about Nikki. She was a phenomenal, amazing person. She loved those girls. Pretty much her pride and joy. It's hard for me to even... It's hard. It's really hard. These two beautiful 16 year old girls had come home from school and found their mother murdered. They were rocking back and forth. They were going in and out of fits of tears and crying, traumatized, disturbed. We were told by the twins that Nikki had a second boyfriend.

Two boyfriends? Two boyfriends. Jealousy or bad blood involved? That's what we immediately thought. The whole death may have been premeditated. The questions that go over and over in your head are like what? Everything about this goes against nature. I was shaking. Oh my god, oh my god. You can't even imagine. Once in a while in a complicated life, a woman can get lucky. Which is why you're looking at a sweet little town called Conyers, Georgia.

Antique downtown, ringed by gated communities, good schools, a sheen of newness. It was really pure luck that brought Nikki Whitehead to this house, in this quiet, safe neighborhood. Just far enough away from Atlanta, that capital of overheated ambition down the highway. Here in Conyers, she could give her beautiful twin daughters a better life than hers. But of course, luck, fortune, fate can go either way, sometimes in ways very hard to comprehend.

Everything about this goes against nature. How could somebody do that? It was definitely the bloodiest crime scene I've ever been to. In the next few minutes, you will learn what happened. But the real question is why. And the answer? That's complicated. But that's how Nikki Whitehead's life was.

I loved everything about Nikki. Yaka Harris grew up with Nikki, could see she was a wild child, and pretty and fun, irresistible. Nikki was, to me, she was a phenomenal, amazing person. Yes, and she was effervescent, said Nikki's mother, Linda, bigger than life. She was the kind of person that when she comes in a room, she just take over the space, you know, with her personality, her laughter. But when Nikki was 12, oh boy, a handful. Linda was a single mom with other kids at the time, so she agreed to let young Nikki move in with Della, Nikki's grandmother. Double was, said Yucca.

Della let the girl run wild. Boys, parties. We grew up kind of fast. And then later she became pregnant at the age of 18 or 19. So we moved kind of fast. Yeah. Yeah. Pregnant with identical twins, whom she named Jazmiah and Tazmiah.

Jaz and Taz, born in 1993. The twins' dad was around briefly, then gone. And their mother figure? Well, Nikki's grandmother, Della. Nikki's mother, Linda, didn't like that. I wanted Nikki to get her own place, establish her own life, and my mom would discourage that.

She would, you know, find ways to tell her, no, you're better off here. That's how it went for years. But Nikki had learned how to style hair and was doing well at it and eventually saw the possibility of independence. And then one day in 2000, Nicky was shopping at the mall and Robert Hadley just happened to be in exactly the right spot.

I was sitting on the fountain one afternoon about 6 o'clock and that walks Nicky coming into the mall. You're just, your eye caught? Yes, she was, I said, I just can't let her get away. That he was old enough to be her father? Didn't matter. Robert was in love. So he persuaded her to go to dinner that very night. He took her dancing. He bought her nice things, treated her like a lady. She was my movie star. That's what I call her, my movie star.

His movie star with two sweet daughters, he also soon loved as if they were his own. And that's how Nicky came here to safe, secure Conyers. This is Robert's house. And here they made a family. Unusual in some ways, as Conyers. This is Robert's house. And here they made a family. Unusual in some ways, as you will hear. But... It was nice. It was really nice.

Everything clicked just right. And she wanted her life to get even better. So, while she kept her job as a hairstylist, she enrolled in Atlanta's Botter College to study fashion design. That's when I actually learned that Nikki was a hairstylist. Rhonda Anderson taught a couple of Nikki's classes.

She thought Nikki had a sense of purpose, whether it was about her kids, her fashion, or other people's hair. I came into class early one day, as I normally do, and she looked up at me and she said, Mr. Anderson, what's going on with your hair? And I said, what, excuse me? And then she asked me this question. Do you have a hairstylist?

And does she know you have your hair looking like that today? And I said, yes and no. She said, Ms. Anderson, I'm giving her one more chance. One more chance. If it's not right, I'm taking over. Rhonda loved Nikki, and Nikki loved her girls. She put the twins in dance and music classes. At school, they won awards.

Their teachers described them as almost angelic, sweet, and happy and engaged. And there's pictures of them, you know, one on each of Nikki's arms. NBC's Katie Beck covered the story when she was a reporter at our affiliate WXIA in Atlanta. Teachers described them that way, that they had a sweet demeanor in their classrooms and with their classmates, and they were almost timid. And then, as they reached their teens, they changed somehow, in the ways children often do, in the way Nikki herself once did. And just like Nikki, the twins were sent to live for a couple of years

with the rather permissive family matriarch, Della. Until 2010, when Nikki welcomed Taz and Jazz back, all together again in Robert's house. A fresh start. And Nikki turned up at school beaming. Yeah, she was in a very good mood.

She looked great. She had, you know, a new look with her hair. And she had braids in, and she was happy. As if the braids in her hair were kind of an announcement. Her girls were back. They were pretty much her pride and joy. Oh, you started thinking about her? It was hard. It was really hard.

It was January 13, 2010. A sheriff's deputy happened to be in the neighborhood. The girls had just come home from school. The deputy saw a look of horror on their faces, heard their screams as they came pounding on his car. One of the twins ran up and literally beat on the side of his car and told him that they had come home from school and found their mother murdered. They were going in and out of fits of tears and crying, traumatized, disturbed. Exactly what had happened.

Two distraught daughters are about to reveal a clue. We were told by the twins that Nikki had a second boyfriend. Two boyfriends? Two boyfriends. Two boyfriends. Wednesday afternoon, January 13th, 2010. A gated community in the town of Conyers, just east of Atlanta. Sixteen-year-old twins Jasmia and Tasmia arrived home from school, walked in the front door, followed a bloody trail, and there she was. In the bathtub. Their mother, 34-year-old Nikki Whitehead. As we walked in...

The mess that greeted arriving Conyers police detective Chris Moon told a terrible story. This was a long, drawn-out fight. Nikki was fighting for her life for several minutes. This was not a quick attack and over with. She fought here.

She was struck in the back of the head. She had a laceration to the back of her head. There was blood on the door, on the door handle, as if She had a laceration to the back of her head. There was blood on the door, on the door handle as if somebody tried to get out. And then along this wall you could see a bloody imprint of hair braids, which Nikki

had her hair in braids where she fell, slid down the wall. The most severe blows came when she was face down in this area. This is clearly where the assailant got on top of her from behind and started stabbing the base of her neck. And a huge amount of blood here. Yes, this was the largest pool of blood in this area right here.

She was dead or near dead when her assailant dragged her to the bathroom. And that's where she was, in a tub of water, what her daughters saw before they ran to the street, screaming. As we get there, you have these two beautiful young 16-year-old girls that discover their mother murdered. Conyers police captain Jackie Dunn wanted to get Jazz and Taz away from the house, and that's when he noticed they were hurting themselves. One of them was biting their arm, and we're like, hey, why are you biting your arm?

And she said, I'm just so upset I do that when I'm upset. This was the worst kind of case. Detectives need information fast. But how do you get it from children who have just left their dead mother? They were going in and out of fits of tears. dead mother. They were going in and out of fits of tears and crying. Asking for their mom.

They both seemed to be rocking back and forth contemplative, traumatized, disturbed. Are you okay? Oh, Grandma. Are you okay? I can remember thinking, man, I hope there is a suitable family member to adopt these girls. Because they really need somebody to reach out and be good parents for them. Word spread through the late afternoon gloom.

A friend called Yaka Harris. She had asked me when was the last time I talked to Nikki, and I said, well, I talked to Nikki Saturday. She had told me that you may want to go over to her house because she said the helicopters were there and the news reporters. Tell me, when you heard that, what did you think? I don't know. It was like tunnel vision. I was just, it was slow motion.

Yaka called Nikki's mother, Linda, told her something bad was going on over at Nikki's. I was so nervous. I didn't know what to do. I was like, oh, my God, oh, my God. I was just shaking. I could hardly drive. Linda pulled into her daughter's neighborhood and saw a police officer. He said, ma'am, can you pull over there?

I said, no, I need to go to my daughter's house. He said, ma'am, will you just pull over there, please? I pulled to the side. I said, what is going on? I said, ma'am, the only thing I can tell you is your daughter has expired. There is no getting over news like that. As Nikki's family tried to take it in, investigators set to work figuring out who did this. The girls said their mother was still in her room with the door locked when they left the house

for school at 7 30. We missed the bus so we had to walk. Perhaps the crime scene would yield more clues than the girls could. Lieutenant Chris Moon headed back there. We were looking for cell phones, computers, indications, you know, typically victims are going to have called or spoken with their assailants just before the murder or around the time of their murder. The attack did not look random. It was not rape, but it was so violent. That suggested rage, And when you look at a rage murder, it's usually somebody very, very close to the deceased. So naturally, the first person they wanted to talk to was the man of the house, Robert Head, Nikki's boyfriend. But Robert wasn't around. When's the last time you saw Robert? Yesterday. He left.

He came in on Sunday. He stayed for a day. He left. Here's the thing. Robert was a long-haul truck driver, which explained his absence, but not where he was, especially when Nikki was murdered. We had to find Robert and we had to check on his GPS. That takes a while, right?

Yes, sir. Meanwhile, detectives spread out through the neighborhood, knocking on doors. Had anyone seen anything unusual? A couple of neighbors said they saw a red car in Nikki's driveway that afternoon, a car they had never seen before, and a black car on the street, too. They asked the girls, who could have been there? Okay, does your mom have any other friends or anybody else that come over that you know of? A lot of men, but the only one I've been here to talk to lately is Joe.

Joe? Who was Joe? We were also told by the twins that Nikki had a second boyfriend, Joe Carter. Two boyfriends? Two boyfriends. Now that got the investigators' attention. Time to dig a little deeper into the life of Nikki Whitehead. Two boyfriends.

Two possible suspects? That was my... about a half. She was gone. I wanted them to find a half, and she was gone. I wanted them to find the killer, and I wanted them to know that it wasn't me. Detective's in Conyers, Georgia, were getting a crash course in the short life of Nikki Whitehead.

Found stabbed to death in the home she shared with her live-in boyfriend, Robert, and her twin teenage daughters, Jazz and Taz, who at least had each other for support. The girls put their arms around each other and, it's going to be okay. We're going to find out who did this. They were clearly relying on each other to get through this. But they were able to convey some real information.

Any idea who she was talking to? It was Joe. It was Joe. Their mother had a second boyfriend, a man named Joe Carter, a local barber whose shop was right next to Nicky's salon. Love triangle? Sounded to veteran homicide detectives like a potential recipe for murder. First, they talked to Robert, boyfriend number one, who was on the road in his long-haul truck. How did he react to the news? He was devastated.

It was easy enough to check on Robert. GPS records put him a full day's drive away when Nicky was murdered. And when they met him, as we did, they could plainly see his grief was real. Because that was my... about a half that she was gone, you know. It's a hard thing. This was how detectives discovered the unusual nature of Robert and Nikki's relationship.

Robert told them he knew about the other boyfriend. It wasn't a secret. He didn't mind. He said he wanted Nikki to be happy when he was away on the road. He's a truck driver. When he was home, he expected for her and him to be a couple. And when he was away, he realized that she was going to have other relationships. But what about Joe? How did he feel about that? He was upset about something, said the twins. Night before the

murder, they said Joe and Nikki had a nasty, loud argument on the phone. All she told Joe was that he couldn't come over there last night. Obviously, he was an immediate person of interest. So he was. And remember, a neighbor spotted a black car near Nikki's house the day she was killed. Joe's car, perhaps? You know what Joe drives? No. I know the black car in that driveway, and it's a black car. Rockdale County District Attorney Richard Reed. We needed to look at Joe Carter,

especially since Nikki and Joe had been in an argument. It wasn't hard to track Joe down. He was in the barbershop where he worked. It was around closing time. We was ready to pack up and get out of there. And they approached me and my friends. Then they basically said that she's passed away. I mean, she's dead.

I was shocked. I was just in shock. How did he react when he came to see you? He immediately started weeping. He didn't know about the, or claimed not to know? He claimed not to know. But reactions don't always tell the real story. But they was basically asking about me and her relationship, when the last time I seen her. And I started to realize I was a suspect. Detective Moon did what any good detective would do. He looked for the sort of marks

Nikki might have left on her assailant's body. Looked at his hands, looked at his arms, he took off his shirt. But Joe was clean. Not a suspicious scratch on him. And detectives learned that black car outside Nikki's house didn't belong to him. Still, they brought him in for questioning, hooked him up to a polygraph,

and asked him point blank if he killed Nicky. And the polygrapher determined that he was not deceptive in answering questions. I wanted him to find the killer, and I wanted him to know that it wasn't me. So that's it for Joe. It appeared that Joe was not involved in the death of Nicky Whitehead. So, two boyfriends and two dead ends. You know, in addition to Robert Head and Joe Carter,

could have been a stranger, could have been another... Did you look into that possibility? We did. Yes, and they still wanted to know who owned another car, a red one, that was also seen in Nikki's driveway the day of the killing. It didn't take long to find out. It belonged not to a murderer at all, but a friend.

Nikki had missed a hair appointment with this friend, and a friend had come by, knocked on the door, and not been able to make contact with Nikki and left. Imagine had she opened that door. Such a grisly scene, so full of rage and passion. So, who killed Nikki? Someone close? Then, as they struggled to figure it out, investigators encountered, in their own police files, something rather stunning.

I just woke up and my daughter is gone. Your daughter was abducted? I don't know, ma'am. She's gone. Family secrets. There were a few yet to be revealed. It turned into a fight. A physical fight. A physical fight.

And she contacted police. The investigation into the murder of Nikki Whitehead was not offering up any usual suspects. The two men in her life, Robert Head and Joe Carter, had been eliminated, and a home invasion seemed very unlikely in her gated community. There's no histories of any peeping toms, no histories of assaults in the neighborhood, so we just kept coming up to dead ends. The thing is, they felt sure this had to be a rage murder. So violent, so protracted. Which made it very likely it was someone Mickey knew. Even possibly a family member.

So we started getting into some of the family dynamics. And that's when they turned up in police files. This remarkable incident back in 2007. One brief snippet of family history, but an event that changed everything that came after it. Tanya's number one. Yes, ma'am. I just woke up and my daughter is gone at the house. That was the voice of Nikki Whitehead. Meaning your daughter was abducted?

I don't know, ma'am. I woke up, the door was unlocked and she's gone. I have twin girls. One of them is gone. How old is your daughter? Oh, Lord, 13. You can hear her terror. But a few hours later, Nikki learned that her daughters did do stuff like that. Jazz had not been kidnapped. She'd snuck out to fool around with a boy. Up until that day, I believe in Nikki's mind, she had perfect girls. Nikki realized that they weren't necessarily the girls that she thought they were. Nikki was determined to help her girls avoid the mistakes she made at their age.

So she cracked down on curfew, on boys, on cell phone use. The following months would be familiar to many parents of teenagers. Screaming, slam doors, stony silences. And then one summer night in 2008, a year after Jazz sneaked out of the house. A big argument and it turned into a fight. A physical fight. A physical fight. It was Taz and Jazz against their mother. And at that time, I think she felt fearful and she contacted police. Was it the right decision to call the police? That ensured the family ended up in juvenile court, Nikki asking the judge to help her teach her daughters a lesson.

Instead, it seemed to Linda the judge was blaming Nikki. I guess the judge thought they were too cute and too smart. Nah, they couldn't be doing, you know. He did not take it serious. What did he decide to do? Well, he asked my daughter, he said, do you want your kids to come back home? And she said, no, Your Honor, not unless they understand that I'm not going to tolerate that kind of behavior. And so he was like, you mean to tell me you don't want your kids to come home?

What Nikki wanted was a court-sanctioned demand that her daughters obey the rules. But that is not what she got. Instead, the juvenile court judge sent the girls to live with Della, their great-grandmother. What were they doing while they were at Della's house? Pretty much whatever they want. They kind of ran wild. And got in trouble, repeatedly, in school and out. Shoplifting, smoking marijuana, seeing the wrong type of boys.

Well, she didn't want that. She knew, you know, she was going back to when she was their age in her grandmother's custody. She didn't want that. She knew, you know, she was going back to when she was their age in her grandmother custody. She didn't want that for her kids. Seemed to Nikki that Della was undermining her and had somehow stolen away the daughters who mattered to her more than anything else in her life. She really wanted them back. Really wanted them back. How did you know this? How did she express that? She said it every day. I want my girls. I'm going to fight for my girls.

And in January 2010, Nikki finally won. The judge ordered the girls back to Nikki's. And Jazz and Taz did not like it, not one bit. So they start screaming and hollering, I don't want to go back with her. Why would you make us go back? In court they were doing this? Yeah. Nikki told her mother not to worry? In court, they were doing this? Yeah.

Nikki told her mother not to worry. She said, I'll be fine. They'll mill out. They'll, you know, they'll come around. A few days after the court's decision, on a Saturday night, Nikki put on a welcome home party for the girls. They hugged me. You know, they kissed me.

And that was the last time Yucca saw Nikki. Four nights later, there they were, Jazz and Taz answering the increasingly pointed questions of a couple of detectives. Can you tell them what happened when you got home today? It seemed a little odd that the girls were still wearing outdoor gloves. The detective asked, could you take them off, please? This is procedures.

Since you're in there, I need to see did that, we did see a cut on one of them's hands. We saw bruising on the knuckles and skin marks and bite marks. Bite marks? And we asked them to explain those. The bite marks could have been self-inflicted. Remember the girls were so upset on their way to the station? They were biting themselves.

And the other cuts and scratches? The twins told the cops they had been fighting with each other. It was as they told their story, Detective Dunn took a good look at Jazz and Taz, and a disturbing idea settled down somewhere in his brain. I haven't made up my mind, but I'm suspicious. Suspicious? Were there reasons to be suspicious?

We watched the high school video surveillance, and you see the twins showing up about two and a half hours after they should have for school. What were the girls doing the morning of the murder? There's a look, a way of talking, that suggests a thing the spoken words most certainly do not say. As Nikki Whitehead's petite teenage daughters told their story, how they discovered their mother's body, how horrified they were, the detectives watched their eyes, their tearless sobs, saw their bruises and cuts, and just knew.

They're not behaving consistent with somebody that found their mother murdered. Mind you, there's a hurdle a person has to overcome to imagine that these two sweet teenagers might have been involved somehow in what could only be called a slaughter. Though Nikki's mother, Linda, remembered clearly how angry the twins were just a week earlier when the court sent them back to Nikki. When Jazz came out, she looked over at my daughter and she said, if I got to go back home with you, I'm going to kill you. You heard this? I heard this and it stunned me. But teenagers sometimes do talk that way. Doesn't

mean they actually do anything about it. So the detective set about fact-checking the twins' version of events on the day of their mother's death, starting with their claim that they had to walk to school that morning. They told us that they had overslept a little bit, that they had missed the bus and had walked to school. It was a rush, said the girls, but they did get to school on time. You made all your classes today? Yes. So, cops did what the cops do. They checked surveillance tape from businesses along the route to school.

And what do you know? Law enforcement had observed the girls walking down the roadway next to the gas station a little after 10 a.m. that morning. Nowhere near on time, as the school surveillance camera confirmed. We watched the high school video surveillance and you see the twins showing up about two and a half hours after they should have for school. So the twins were caught in a lie and it was a big one. But it wasn't proof of murder. They flatly denied any involvement in that. Even when they were put in separate rooms, they presented a united twin front. They wouldn't sway. There was never any disloyalty to each other. They never said a negative comment to each other. They never said

a negative comment about each other. Getting one to flip on the other was not going to happen. No. After those interviews, they released the girls. The juvenile court farmed them out to family and friends. And the police sent their DNA and photos of their injuries, like those apparently self-inflicted bite marks, off to the lab. And then they waited. Pretty sure science would tell them that these sweet little girls were anything but. Do they appear manipulative to you? Absolutely.

I'll give you a for instance. Jasmine is in one room. Tasmia is taken to a smaller interview room. It's apparent that Tasmia knows there's a camera and there's a recording system in that room. And she starts to pray. I really want them to catch this person. Please, God. She knew at some point in time somebody would watch that video and they would see a young, innocent, sweet girl asking God to help law enforcement find the person who did this. And meanwhile, at the glacial pace these things occur, the crime lab worked on the DNA and

poured over those photos of the bite marks. One on Taz's arm was the impression of a big, ugly bite. They compared the contours of that bite to a mold of Nikki's mouth. The similarity was uncanny. Nikki was most likely source. Had their mother bitten them trying to fight off an attack? The bite mark on Taz's arm would be consistent as if she had her mother in a chokehold from behind and that her mother, Nikki, is biting her trying to get away.

And when detectives saw the twins biting themselves right after the murder, maybe that was an attempt to cover up evidence. Then the DNA results came back. They knew they'd find Nikki's blood, but remember, one of the twins had fresh cuts on her hand. And sure enough, in a smear of Nikki's blood mixed with her likely assailants, a match. It belonged to one of the twins. But which one? They were identical twins.

They have identical DNA, so we don't know, couldn't tell for sure which twin the blood came from. By this time, the twins had been out in the world without a word from the police for five months. I think those months built their confidence, built almost an arrogance that we're going to get away with this. So you can only imagine how it was May 21st, 2010, just after school. How did they react to being arrested?

Shocked. They thought it was over with. It had been five months since they'd heard from us. The arrest was big news in Atlanta. Two sweet little girls charged with the murder of their mother. Who would have thought? I mean, people were riveted by the story. Oh, yes, they were. And when the twins finally told their version of events that cold morning in January, the city was riveted all over again.

Threatening us, we all are going to die today. The fatal struggle. Did their mom start it all? I just like charged for it. I kept telling her to stop. Just stop. To stop. It's a complicated thing. Lots to do if you're a prosecutor preparing a murder case against pretty twin teenagers. And so D.A. Richard Reed was interested when one day defense attorneys suggested they wanted to make a deal. My response is, it's great to hear it from you, but I want to hear it from them.

And so I'd like to talk to your clients. I'd like to ask them questions. And that's how D.A. Reed met the 19-year-old Jazz and Taz and heard them confess they did kill their mother. But was it a confession, really? In fact, said the twins, it wasn't their fault. She started it. She started cursing his death. I think she was mad about us being late. That morning they said Nikki was furious that they were late for school and picked up a pot in the kitchen, they said, and swung it at them. She still called us whores and sluts and everything like that and stupid and everything like that.

And she threatened us with, you know, we all going to die today. That's Jazz. Then Taz picked up the story. So you took the pot away from your mom. What happened then? She was, like, kind of just, like, charged for it. I didn't need her, I had Jazz. Now Nikki had a knife, said the girls.

They tumbled room to room trying to get it away from her before she cut one of them. And in fact, said Taz, that's how her finger got cut. I kept telling her to stop. Just stop, just stop, just stop. But she didn't, they said. I thought, I'm trying to punch her right there. And I think theyaz stabbed her. Taz stabbed her.

And... At this point in time, how many times did Taz stab her? That was once. At some point, exhausted, the twins said they all called a truce. It didn't last long. They both described mom lunges for the knife. And when she does, it's on again Finally said the girls They overpowered their mother

Who stopped struggling And moaned that she was cold So they put her in a warm tub Tried to soothe her Even though they said she was still spitting mad And threatening them Kill me now I'll kill y'all.

Eventually, they said, she stopped talking, drifted off in the warm water and died. Did you believe them? Did you believe everything they said? No. Still don't. The idea that Nikki launched an attack on her own daughters? Difficult to believe, said the DA.

Sheer nonsense is what Nikki's mother called it. My daughter never have hit her kids. They never had them spanking, more or less. Anybody that know Nikki know that wasn't her behavior. It was very clear, said the detectives who worked the case, that in fact Nikki was the victim of an unprovoked attack. She had at least 45 stab wounds. Her spinal cord was almost severed. Nikki fought for her life. We think she fought defensively.

You can see where she's on her back some of the time fighting off people that are attacking her from above with knives. As for the girls' claim that they put their dying mother in the tub to keep her warm as they watched her fade away, fiction through and through, said the police. We think she was dead before she was placed in the tub or she would have bled into the water and the water would have been bloody.

They were putting her in the water trying to wash off the crime scene, wash off the evidence. In truth, said the detectives, these girls were remorseless, defiant, brilliant little actresses. Remember how they sounded just after their mother's death? Oh, my mommy. And I really wanted to catch this person. And thank God. Listen to the little darlings when they didn't know they were playing for the cameras. This was recorded in the back of a squad car just after their arrest.

Sweet little girls? Hardly. They are aggressive. They are angry. They are combative. Oh, and one more thing. Tucked away in one of the girls' bedrooms, police found this journal. Inside, in childish handwriting, a death sentence. They were notes to each other, said the DA, written just before the killing. She don't care. She's selfish. We gotta get rid of her.

To which the other twin responds. That's what I think also. She gotta go. ASAP. It may be the most telling piece of evidence that the whole death of mom may have been premeditated. Still, D.A. worried maybe a good defense attorney could spin the family's turbulent history, the juvie court drama, Nikki's two boyfriends,

and somehow sell a jury on self-defense. It would have been an ugly trial. And I think to some extent it would have been a misrepresentation of Nikki's life. So he didn't like it much, but he let them plead guilty to the lesser charge, voluntary manslaughter, 30 years for each. Not enough, said Nikki's mother, Linda. These children have killed my child brutally, and you're going to get them 30 years? They shouldn't even be able to walk the street. I

know these are my grandkids, but come on now. I mean, if they can do this to their mom, God help us all. And the questions that go over and over in your head are like what? How everything about this goes against nature. How the person that provides for you and raises you and loves you and gives birth to you, how you could watch that person die in a bathtub and lie about it. It was Katie Beck's reports that brought the story to an Atlanta both horrified and fascinated. She who first secured access to all those police videotapes, exposing those pretty little liars for all the world to see. It suddenly becomes clear that these girls have multiple personalities, that they can be whoever they need to be for their own purposes,

that they can morph between a fragile, disturbed, innocent teenager into sort of this demonized criminal. Those girls you knew, those sweet little girls. Yeah. What happened to them? It's hard for me to even... I don't know. And Nikki's mom, Linda Whitehead, carries the helpless grief with her every day,

every sleepless night, without her daughter, without the granddaughters she thought she knew. I was so proud of them, and I knew. And they would talk about what college they wanted to go to. I'm sorry. It's OK. So I'm sitting here and everybody gone, you know.

It's an awful tough road. You can't even imagine. Because every morning I wake up, I think about my daughter and my grandkids. It's just a tragedy. What about a mother who dared dream that her sweet Gemini twins would surpass her, who instead became their victim.