Sword and Scale - Episode 145

Episode Date: September 1, 2019

The afternoon of January 13th, 2010, a Conyers Georgia police officer encounters an exasperated 16-year-old Tasmiyah Whitehead approaching his squad car in a gated community. The girl claims she and her identical twin arrived home from school to find their mother unconscious in the bathtub, the home destroyed by blood stains and broken furniture. The evidence investigators later find at this murder scene tells a sickening story.Preorder Yucca Harris' Book: The Untold StorySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sort and scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences Listener discretion is advised Hello, and welcome to season 6 episode 145 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the War Smotsters are real. So much to get to here, we really want to get you caught up on what's going on because there's so much. First of all, thank you to everyone who's already switched to plus. It's our new platform, as you've probably heard before a couple of times. We're getting off of Patreon. Patreon is a very scary place for anybody who creates content for a living because they ban people, just left and right for no reason whatsoever, even if they don't actually violate the terms of service.

We don't want to be in that boat, so we've created our own platform, you spent the last six months doing so. It's called Plus, and you can find it right now at swordandscale.com slash plus. A lot of people have already signed up, and by the way, some of the perks that we put out there to get people to join, such as the Enamel Pin, that's now gone. So you can't get it anymore. I'm sorry, it was only for early adopters. And if you're one of those early adopters, rest assured you will get your pin if you signed up before the deadline.

They go out after your 30 day trial period is over. And they go out and waves every week. So just look out for it in your mailbox. And yes, I did say 30 day free trial period. Everyone that signs up to plus gets the first 30 days for free. By the way, you still have time to get the collector's edition, metal, USB drive and case featuring the 2019 secret episode, which is all about this membermentment and we've been talking about for weeks. It's really cool and it's yours at the $25 level and higher. They ship again 30 days after your trial period is over. You have nothing to lose. Go sign up now

and get yours. Also we have a big announcement. It's the return of Monstro. Season 2 it's coming. 9, 1, 9, 1 1 9. Please help us out and join our kickstarter. Go to Monstropodcast.com and you'll get the whole season up front in early September before anyone else has heard it. And one more thing guys our customer service lately has been a little slow and that is because one of our valued employees, Daniel Kampur, is getting married this weekend. So apologies for that, but we wish her and her handsome groom the best of luck and all our well wishes.

With that, let's head in to episode 145 of Sword and Scale. scale. The brain of a teenager is often misunderstood and complex. Many of us have forgotten how formidable and confusing adolescence was, but it's essential to understand how deeply the raging hormones can affect the way teenagers behave. Ever actually follow through with running away from home when you were angry? I did. I yelled at my mom.

New I was right. Jumped on my BMX bike, and peddled as fast as I could. I had never even thought to pedal that fast, weaving from the sidewalk onto the street and back through parked cars, flying through an intersection without looking. I got away with it once, but on the second intersection, fate had a different plan for me. The vehicle that hit me, or I should say the vehicle I hit, was totaled by the impact of my 13-year-old body. Glass was broken, the door inside panels of the car were completely dented, and I think

I even took off the rear-view mirror. Of course, my shoulder blade was shattered in dozens of pieces, and I broke a rip. The lesson came harder and faster than it does to most teenagers. Around the beginning of high school teens are just starting to get a taste of the adult world, the responsibilities and stressors that begin to make themselves known. But they don't get any of the freedom adults have, which is what arguably makes this phase of life the most enraging. On top of these newfound realizations, teens start to feel the effects of social pressure

at school, low self-esteem and body image issues, and when family problems come into play, all of those other stressors seem that much more intense. Sometimes the feelings of hopelessness and anger that come with adolescence are just too much to control, and situations get out of hand quickly. That's precisely what happened in the story you're about to hear, and worst of all, a whole lot of wounded pride. The lesson was much more severe. It's the afternoon of January 13, 2010, in the town of Conjure's Georgia, a suburb of Metro Atlanta. The weather is chilly, about 45 degrees, but far warmer than what most other northern states experience in the winter months. There's little to no wind, and it's a sunny and beautiful day.

A Conier's police officer patrolling a development lined with quaint townhomes is driving down Apalusia Way, the street closest to the main entrance of this peaceful neighborhood. When he sees a young teenage girl flagging him down, waving her arms in a request for him to stop his car, she was distraught, crying, and explaining that she and her sister had arrived home from Rockdale County High School to find their mother unresponsive and bloody in the bathtub. The officer calls for backup, and they enter the house, finding 34-year-old Nikki Whitehead in the bathtub with multiple stab wounds.

The medical examiner would later determine that she was stabbed almost 80 times with a kitchen knife. Some of the gouges were shallow, a few were deep enough to puncture not one, but both lungs, and her jugular vein, and her spinal cord, which was almost entirely severed. which was almost entirely severed. Nikki's daughters, who are identical 16 year old twins, Tasmia and Jasmia, told police that they arrived home from school and didn't get a response from their mother who was supposed to be at the house. They said that Nikki usually kept her door locked at night

and her bedroom door was still locked when they arrived home. When girls had come home and found their mother deceased, locked at night, and her bedroom door was still locked when they arrived home. The conures Georgia area saw no shortage of violent crime, but a crime this bloody and gruesome was rare. Things were toppled over throughout the three bedroom townhome. Broken items were on the floor, and blood was splattered all over everything. The most spine tingling aspect of the scene was visible on the white carpet. Indications that a body had been dragged across the living room floor into the master bedroom,

and finally into the master bathroom where Nikki's body was found. She and the twins lived with her boyfriend, a much older man who worked as a long haul trucker. Obviously, he wasn't home. So Nikki kept a side piece on the back burner, of course. Jazz and Taz told the cops that she had been arguing on the phone with this other boyfriend the previous night

and got drunk. She got so drunk, in fact, that the two 16 year olds had to help their own mother get into bed. The next morning, the girls woke up late for school and missed the bus. They knocked on their mother's locked bedroom door and didn't get a response. So they said they walked to Rockdale County High School, which they claimed wasn't too far of a stroll, a little over a mile and a half to be exact.

They insisted they still arrived with enough time to get to their first class and went throughout their day before returning back to their home on 2020 Apalus away, only to discover the brutal scene displayed throughout almost every room of the house. The distraught girls were brought into the station by Conor's police. They rocked back and forth, trying to self-soothe and reassure each other. Yes, like, green or safe, and I look that way. I also like blood all over the floor. It was blood in front of the door.

It was like a lot of blood, I think, drank her in here. Because I thought, not blood, I don't need it. No, what the hell, move. It's the last thing I put on the news. I was born on November 27, 1993 to a very young Nikki Whitehead. Nikki herself was born in prison while her mother Linda was serving time for drug possession. She was raised by her grandmother, Della Frazier. Nikki was the oldest with two sisters and three brothers. When her mother got out of prison, Nikki remained

in the custody of her grandmother while her siblings were in the custody of her grandmother, while her siblings were in the custody of her mother. I'm Yaka Harris and what I do currently do now, I'm a salon manager at a salon. I've been working in the hair and beauty industry for the nine, I say the past nine years. Nikki and I, we became friends 22 years prior to her death. Nikki and I, we were childhood friends. And over the years, we became friends, we became the girlfriends,

and eventually and ultimately she became a sister I never had. Her and I, we met, of course, here in Atlanta, but it is a city that's called Decatur Georgia. We met in Decatur Georgia and it was a community of town homes that I lived in. Nikki was actually visiting her mother in our subdivision and Nikki, she knocked on my front door. She introduced herself and we became friends that day forward. Nikki had a lot of freedom growing up.

She didn't have to ask permission to go and do things with friends like many other children were expected to do. As Nikki got older, she blossomed into a beautiful woman and started to get the attention of older boys. Under the care of her grandmother, Della, Nikki was allowed to roam free, which, as you might expect, didn't result in Nikki partaking in wholesome activities in her adolescence. She seemed to have even more freedom than Yucca, despite the fact that Yucca was 14 and Nikki was about 12 when the two girls met and became friends.

A lot of people was attracted to Nikki because of the personality that she had. And like her very like last six months of her life, she definitely wanted to change her whole image. Nikki wasn't even her real name. Nikki was just a nickname that she made up for herself. Her real name is Jamaica. Her birth name is Jamaica. And I could just remember asking Nikki, you know, because she would let it be known how she used to be in love with prints, the artist.

And she told me, you know, like when we were teenagers that she changed her own name, that became her trademark. Nikki was her name. She actually got Nikki from the the song, darling Nikki. And it took for me to like listen to the lyrics. And I'm like, how do somebody of age because that like purple rain, we had to kind of sneak and watch. For those who are unfamiliar with the film Purple Rain. And by the way, shame on you. of age because that, like, purple rain, we had to kind of sneak in and watch. For those who are unfamiliar with the film Purple Rain, and by the way, shame on you. The notorious song from my youth called Darling Nikki starts off with the words, she was a sex fiend. I met her in a hotel lobby masturbating with a magazine. Gotta love Prince. Anyway, this movie and this song in particular must have made an impression

on Nikki Whitehead, enough of an impression that she wanted to change her name to Nikki. And she did. Nikki was pretty much, she was able to do what she wanted to do. Like I say when she knocked on my door, I was the age of 14. I still had to get permission, still had a curfew. I came from a structure home, nicotine come from that. nicotine was pretty much she was able to do, she was able to roam, you know, freely. She didn't have to ask for permission. She, you know She indulged in pretty much, you know, then she was smoking cigarettes. She loved a very fast life. She pretty much did things that I wasn't able to do at that age. So, and she introduced me to a lot of things when it came to, you know, being more sure and it came to me. And he always attracted older men. She ran with that. She knew what that can lead to.

Della was pretty much open to that and I think it was more so that Della kind of encouraged that. You know, it was almost like you get what you can get out of a man and Nikki knew that at the age of 12. It was pretty much what Nikki can bring to the table at the age of 12 and it was no discipline there. Nikki and Yaka didn't attend a high school together but remained close friends throughout their teen years. Nikki was a singer and attended a performing arts school in Atlanta in hopes of cultivating this talent. The girls were inseparable from the day

Nikki rang Yaka's doorbell and introduced herself. So we didn't have to attend the same school, but we did keep in touch because like I say in that subdivision, her mom lived there so she was constantly visiting her siblings and her mom. So we was standing touch that way as well. Although Nikki didn't graduate from high school, she did get her GED. Soon out there, she got our GED. What ended up happening is the fact that her night, like I say, she was 18,

here it is, I'm a tad bit older than her. We were out here at that point. We were kind of living the whole Atlanta lifestyle, we was partying. So her and I, we would venture out and go to like these clubs. And one particular club we ventured out to, it was like a reggae club, like a gym making spot. And that was the time that she met this particular guy.

And her and I, at the time, Nicky had the twins, we were roommates. So at that time, yeah, she was 18, I think 18, 19, she became pregnant and she didn't really know she was having a set of twins. She didn't know that she was actually having twins until she went into labor. When Nicky gave birth to her twins at such a young age, she wasn't ready to care for them on her own, and she had very limited support from the father of the babies.

One expected infant is enough stress, but two was a shock for anyone. During the labor process, Nikki went into cardiac arrest, legally died, and had to be revived by the medical team. The stress of the situation didn't end there. The twins' father had skeletons in his closet, and those came to light very shortly after the twins were born. Now, he was in the picture for a very short period of time. He felt like at the point that the relationship was such a

short relationship, it was impossible that he could be the father. So when she mentioned that she was pregnant, he did deny the fact that he was the father for some time, and we didn't know the biological father at the time was married. He was a married man, and it took for Niki to meet his wife in a local grocery store. The wife is the one that told Niki that Niki newborn babies resimpered her girls when they were babies. It wasn't uncommon for Niki to be approached in public about the twins. They were perfectly identical, beautiful, and they stood out. This particular day, a Jamaican woman came up to Nikki in the grocery store, totally at random, to compliment the beauty of her twin babies and mention that they resembled

her own girls as infants. And that is how the secret came out. And what a unique way for it to reveal itself. But those kids, he eventually came around. And like I say, he was supportive, but it was a very short relationship that they had because he also went to prison. He spent 14 years of the kids' life in prison. And he went to prison for, you know,

records here in and money laundering. Like I say, he was from another country. So he came over here. We found out the club that we were clubbing at on so many, we know we were fricking every, you know, other weekend or whatever. He actually owned the club, but he got caught up and like I say,

he did like federal time and he did some time. So he wasn't really around, but Nikki did have a relationship when he went to prison. And the girls did visit him ever so often in prison. Jazz and Taz, who were living with both Nikki and their great-grandmother, Delafrazier, into their pre-ilessent years,

were honor role students. They were beloved by teachers and enjoyed being active girl scouts. Anyone you ask will tell you how sweet the twin girls were and will recall their numerous talents. The great-grandmother, Dele, enrolled both the twins in dance classes, tennis, and music lessons. All seemed to be going smoothly, despite the in-and-out relationship the girls had with their transient mother, Nikki.

Yucca remembers that at the early age of six or seven, both of the girls were quick to remember their yes-mams. Something rarely heard exiting a child's mouth in the present day. Both jazz and taz were extremely affectionate towards friends and family in their lives, and keen on giving out hugs on a whim. They were, you know, to themselves. I don't think they were very sociable when it came to having a lot of friends because they had each other. They were each other best friends. I mean, I can't remember or recall a time where you would be like, okay, where is one?

And you know, the other one wasn't there. Or you know, you have some siblings may have a friend and that one particular sibling may go out with a friend and then here go this sibling is home with mom That never happened you didn't see that so that it was like, you know, they had each other They never been Confrontational that I ever recall I've never seen them in an argument never seen them in a fight We had one that was so into the whole girl the girl With her hair, you know, being combed straight.

And she had to look gloss on her lips and she was into the fashion. Then you had one that was more so just into, you know, her sports. Her, I don't know, it was almost like she was, you know, she was the one that wanted more of a, I don't know, like a structure-like type. You know, you had one that was kind of like a light bright and then you had another one that was, I don't know, she was a little dark. Things started to change as the girls hit puberty and became interested in boys and risky activities. When Nikki didn't know what to do, she called up the girl's father in Jamaica and considered

sending them to live with him for a while in Kingston, just so they could see that the grass isn't always greener on the other side. That never happened, but maybe it could have given Jazz and Taz a different perspective and shaped up their behavior. Linda Whitehead, jazz and Taz's grandmother, and daughter of Delafrasia, was concerned about the way Delah was raising the girls. She wanted her own daughter, Nikki, to take some responsibility and whip her life into shape so that she could take back full custody of the twins and have them move into her

new boyfriend's house with her. Nikki was also worried about the lack of rules the girls had at Delas House, which allowed them to do some of the same CD things Nikki was involved with at their age. Nikki didn't want that for the girls. Like many parents, she wanted them to avoid the mistakes she herself had made. But like I said, at the very end of her life, she wanted to change, she wanted to change her whole image. And she no longer wanted to go by Nikki.

She wanted to go by her biological name. She wanted to go by Jamaica. And she wanted to, she wanted to be more than just a hair stylist. She felt like at this point, she wanted to be more than just a hairstylist. She felt like at this point she wanted to be an image consultant. She attended Board of College, which was a fashion merchandise college here in Atlanta, and she did. She entered it, and she became really, really good at what she was striving to do. She wanted to not change for herself, but she did. She wanted to kind of prove for the kids,

and she wanted to prove to her grandmother pretty much everybody that, you know, she can be this bigger person and she wants to be better. And she wanted to do this for the kids. Jazz and Taz's behavioral problems became the most apparent when Nikki moved them away from their great-grandmother's house to live with Nikki and her new boyfriend and conures, Georgia. The girls were about 13 years old when they were uprooted from their lives and enrolled in

the Rockdale County school district. To the twins, it seemed like this woman who hadn't been responsible enough to raise them exclusively from the beginning was now trying to step in and pretend to be a parent. It's obvious how this could irritate children, especially of that age, so used to having their freedom. As soon as they moved in with their mother Nikki in Conjure's Georgia, she realized that the twins had changed. They weren't innocent anymore, and after having been given ultimate freedom for so long by Dele Frazier, they were acting like little fly-by-night adults. Nikki soon found her hands full. The dynamic between the trio erupting into a regular pattern of utter chaos.

She accused the girls of being sexually active, using drugs and lying to her. On more than one occasion, one or both of the twins was caught stealing money from their great grandmother, Della, and it wasn't a measly $20 bill here and there. They were taking hundreds of dollars at a time from the elderly woman's purse. Jazz and Taz saw their mother as a flat-out hypocrite. Witnessing her do the same things she preached against, promiscuity, and embracing the party lifestyle, fights became more frequent as the girls pushed against what they thought were strict rules that didn't make any sense.

I think once they got into middle school, it became more of, you know, the interest were in boys, one of the girls with they no older guy. Nikki felt like, you know, she can handle the kids better, being from under her grandmother's roof. And she, you know, wanted to discipline them. And so I don't think the kids, I don't think they they took that well because it was almost like, you know, Nikki would she would tell me that she would tell them do

what I say and not as I do because she felt like they were doing things that she had done in the past. And then when she mentioned it to them, they would look at her like, how can you? How can you tell me no? How can you tell me to do this when I know that you've done this, you know, to their mom? So that's where it is start happening. As far as the whole, I think the attitude, you know, Nikki was like they wasn't really good with accepting the word no and you can't and whatnot. Because I think it had always been a given

where Nikki was pretty much giving, giving, giving to because she wasn't so much around. So it was almost like a guilty pleasure. Let me just give them this because I wasn't there for that. Fights between teenage girls and their mothers are far from uncommon. In fact, if you didn't fight with your mother as a teenage girl, that's pretty rare. Battles between mother and daughter often escalate to the point of screaming, but rarely become

physical. That line was crossed on more than one occasion by Jasmine and Tasmia. Even though jazz and taz lived with their mother in her boyfriend Robert's house, he wasn't around enough to play a part in disciplining the girls or intervening in many of the fights that ensued. He wasn't interested in getting involved either. He was almost three decades older than Nikki, and he had already raised his children. Robert was not about to raise a second set

of children, that part of physical fight that we know of broke out in the home between the three women. Police was called. They told me that she tried to take a cell phone from one of the girls. It went from taking a cell phone to where they both fought her. She was left with bruises. She was left with a black guy. She called the police.

Of course, Nikki had the bruises to prove that she was harmed. Both girls had ganged up against their mother and beat her for attempting to discipline them. Both jazz and Tas were charged with battery and a court ordered the twins to be temporarily placed back with their great-grandmother. Jazz, Tas and Nikki were all required to complete counseling sessions to repair their relationship and ultimately improve their conflict resolution skills. And see, at first, Nikki was the victim. The girls were so manipulative when it came to the courts.

They knew how to speak. They spoke proper language. See, they was able to kind of pretty much override what Nikki was saying, because Nikki was the type of person you had to know that she was like a fast-talker. She almost had anxiety attacks when she get very upset. It's kind of hard to even understand what she's saying. So that's what I got from the fact that when she was in court, it was almost like they were so impatient with her to where it was almost they'd cut her off to

listen directly to the kids. So the thing is it was like you know the kids were more favorable and they were more believable because of that The here it is they can't understand what Nikki saying because she's too upset because she's trying to get our point across And no one is listening so that's what happened like 2008 she became she was a victim when they fought her And then she became a Devilent and sold it the Tade those shoes on the other foot. So now Nikki had to be to want to do the drug testing and you know our report to court, but they forgot all about the fact that they fought her from the very beginning.

While the girls were back in custody of De La Frazier, they began missing counseling appointments. The grades were rapidly plummeting and they seemed to lose all interest, and all of the extracurricular activities their mother had previously enrolled them in. At one point, one of the girls claimed to have been raped, confided in their mother Nikki about the situation, but she didn't believe them. It seemed to Nikki that her grandmother Della was filling the girl's heads with negative feelings towards her. Nikki had been afraid of this. Jasmine was angry at her mother during the entire time she was in the custody of Della.

Meanwhile, Tasmia appeared to be warming up to the idea of moving back in with her mother. But in between that time that they were apart, one of the girls started coming around. One started coming around and Nikki, you know, because it wasn't never a time that she couldn't have contact with them. So one of the girls, and this is the one that was a girly girl, I think she really, really loved, you know, her mom, and I think she really hate the fact that it ended up happening the way it happened. But I think she was so that fun and that relationship she had with her sister, it was almost like she had shown more loyalty to her sister than she did

with her mom. But she eventually came around and Niki allowed her to come around because she just felt like that was such a good look and then she thought maybe the other one would eventually come around if she saw that relationship. Taz began seeing her mother more frequently, even participating as a model in a charity fashion show for Nikki's school. Whenever Nikki brought Taz something, she made sure to buy a second one for Taz to bring home to her sister, Jazz. For the girl's 16th birthday, Nikki planned and threw a huge lavish party for the twins. She ordered a meticulously decorated cake in the shape of a one and a six and bought the girl's matching Tiffany bracelets.

On the day of the party, Della Frazier only brought Taz with her. Jazz was nowhere to be seen. She had skipped out on the huge birthday party her mother had thrown for. This was understandably heartbreaking for Nikki. The 13th was her day that she was found murdered that Saturday, which she was on and That Saturday, which it was on a, and I never forget, because it was on a Wednesday that, 2010, January 13th, was on a Wednesday. I got a phone call that Saturday, and she had the keys in her custody.

Even prior to that, she had called to let me know that she was summoned to go to court, but she had no idea what she was going to court for. And to be honest, Nikki actually thought she was going to court for the UI. Nikki had just got a DUI prior to. She thought that someone was dealing with the DUI, but she didn't know when she entered the court.

It was the kid standing before her. And that's when the whole ordeal, as far as you know, the court had ordered for her to have them within when the whole ordeal as far as you know the court had ordered for her to have them within a two-week trial period. That's when they found out that you know the graze had drops. They were unruly even with and grandmother custody and one of the kids indicated in the court that if they they go back with their, they were gonna kill her. The court had ordered the girls to move back in with their mother for two weeks, while everyone's behavior was monitored closely to make sure some progress had been made during

their time apart. This was a trial period, so to speak. Both Jazz and Taz balked at that situation. Yes, so she called me that Saturday, and she was like, yuck a girl. She was like, I'm here at this salon, and she was like, Yaka girl, she was like, I'm here at the salon and she was like, I got the toins with me and I was like, what Nikki, how's everything going? And so she was like, Yaka, she was like,

it's just so different and she was just like, girl, if anything, happen to me, the key is did. And I was like, you know, Nikki, why would you say that? I was like, no, we know, I'm taught like that. She was like, yeah, she said, they just act and that's when she went and kind of opened up to me as far as really how she felt like

they was acting she felt like they was possessed and I said why would you feel like she was like you're gonna tell and she was like they get in that room and this was the room that her and I had fixed up it's not like they was in separate rooms they gathered in this one room and it was tasked room the cutest room that I've thought and And she was like, you and bleed, they don't told this room up. And I was like, you allow them to set a room up. I was she like, well, I can't really do nothing with them. She's a girl. They they talked to me, call me her thing, but a child of God. And I'm like, really? So she was asking me to where I had actually called my mom because she wants to know if my mom, I don't know, but need I wanted to know if

my mom knew of a exorcist. She really felt something, she saw something, but like I tell anybody, I didn't really just walk, Nikki walk, you know what I mean? I was that listening here. I was that friend that I supported her every decision. So I wasn't just there to experience what she had experienced, but it was something.

And this was what really got me up out of my bed. I got dressed and I went to the salon. I saw for my own eyes what Nikki was speaking of because they were sitting over there in the corner. They were very pale. She said they weren't eating. She was like, they're hygiene had went down. She said it wasn't pushing their teeth. They wasn't showering. She was like, they wasn't combing their hair. And one thing about Nikki, Nikki definitely had these girls

up to par when it came to their looks. So for me to see that, I was like, oh wow. So she was trying to force them to speak to me. And I told her, Nikki, I said no, because she had told me prior to I got there. She was like, and they sit in the corner. They want to force them to speak to me. And I told her, Nikki, I said no, because she had told me prior to I got there, she was like, and they sit in the corner, they won't say nothing to nobody. She said, they won't speak.

And that was so out of the ordinary because like I say, in the past, they would come to you, you know? As Yuka finished up her hair appointment with Nikki and was sitting underneath the hair dryer, Taz came up to her and asked her if she had eaten yet. When Yuka responded that no she hadn't, Taz told her that they were a bit hungry and could stand to get a meal. Yuka, who happily obliged, let the girls in the back of her car and drove off to get some

food. Yeah, we didn't car, but I didn't notice that jazz wasn't speaking too much. It was more one was talking for the other. Tas was talking more so for jazz, like it was almost like she would say a sentence. And then jazz would finish it. And then it was almost like, Tas was just speaking for her. And that was something unusual. I had never experienced.

But we got back to the salon because we got the food to go. It was a carry out. We got back to the salon. we got the food to go. It was a carryout. We got back to the salon. We went into Nikki's break home. And that's when I had this conversation with them. And I was just explaining them what they mom meant to me as far as like we've been friends for like forever and a day. And they knew our relationship.

And I was just like, just letting them know that, you know, disrespect to her, I just couldn't get with it, you know. And I was just asking them, what's really, really, really the problem? What is the deep issue here? And Taz and I, I mean, we cried, we laughed. It was just more so jazz. Jazz wasn't feeling it.

She was like stone cold face. And the only thing I got out of her was just more so. She said she wasn't ready to go back home to her mom. She felt like everybody had failed her. She felt like the court system had failed her. She felt like the counseling sessions had failed her. She just felt like everything had, you know, was just coming down on her to go back home with her mom. A letter jazz wrote to her boyfriend at the time reiterated the feelings she entrusted to Yaka. The letter read,

with her. It's a lot more to work before I'm ready to live here. Love, Jasmine. The first night police began to question the twin girls. They became suspicious almost immediately. The information the twins were giving investigators conflicted with the evidence they were finding. He didn't see it all as one when you left to go school because she locked her door She got a lot of kids here. They have a key to it If you like to do it night one time, did y'all leave the house? We missed the bus. We hit the wall You walked all the way around there? That the close you were school day. They are your classes today. Yes We're gonna have to teach you guys

You read the crime scene. Jazz and Taz claimed to have walked to school from the house about a half hour walk and arrived on time. Police in the meantime recovered surveillance footage from both the girls high school and a nearby gas station. The footage from the gas station showed the twins hitching a ride from someone to school. That was their first lie. They didn't walk there the whole way. Surveillance footage from the school showed the twins strolling in through the doors no less than two hours late.

Classes were well underway, and both girls missed several of them. That was their second lie. And both girls missed several of them. That was their second lie. Why lie about trivial things like this if you have nothing to hide? It hadn't been that long, so it wasn't their memory doing a disservice to them. These were intentional lies. Another thing police discovered that further their suspicions were the gloves and long sleeves the girls were both wearing indoors. They asked Jasmine tasked to remove their gloves and roll up

their sleeves. Let me see your hands. The gloves. I've got a little fight. I've got a fight with her. Jazz indicated she got into a fight with her sister as the marks on her arms were revealed by the investigator. Both of the girls had clear bite marks on their hands and arms, one specifically on Taz's left arm and deep scratches on

their hands and fingers. The investigators decided it would be best to question the girls separately so they'd have less time to corroborate stories During the course of the interrogation Investigators were finding evidence that the girls had attempted to clean up the scene of the crime. They smelled bleach in the carpet, an obvious attempt to clean up blood or any physical evidence that the twins had been involved. The crime scene investigators also found bloody clothes in the washing machine, along with other clothing items and shoes the girls had tried to throw away. The bite marks and scratches that appeared to be wounds related to a fight were explained

away by Jazz as self-inflicted. Both she and her sister claimed that Jazz had a habit of biting herself when she was in stressful situations, and Jazz went as far as to bite her own hand on camera to back the claim up. Tasmia in the other interrogation, made direct eye contact with the surveillance camera, mounted in the corner of a small space and began to talk to herself. In case you missed it, Tasaz says dramatically, can't eat mom's dead, stupid scratch. Gonna blame this whole thing on me over a stupid scratch.

Please God, I'm really hoping they catch this person. The police did not have enough evidence to keep the girls at the station. They weren't under arrest, so they went home with their grandmother, Della, that night. I didn't hear from Nikki at all. Until Wednesday, I got a phone call, and when I got a phone call, it was from the defects. Department of Family Surgeon Services called my phone, and it was this girl that we knew through a mutual friend that worked for that particular Department of Family Church of Services in that county she knew Nicky and she had Nicky case when it was transferred back into Nicky custody

So she called me and she Had asked me one was the last time I spoke with Nikki, and I said, not having. I said, the last time I spoke to her was Saturday. And she was like, I don't know, you may want to go check on her. And I'm like, why? I mean, what happened? And she was like, well, they found Nikki unconscious. So that's when it hit me, and I'm like unconscious. But I did think, I was thinking at that time, like, I didn't think,

no, I didn't think that. I didn't think, you know, that I would go over there and it would just be on different scenery. I felt like, you know, okay, unconscious. I felt like Nikki made overdose or something. Yeah, I just felt like I was like, oh, wow, I wonder if they got to her to where she took too many pills or did she do something where she overdosed? That's exactly what I was thinking. Yaka learned that her friend had not overdosed as soon as she pulled up to the gated community where Nikki lived with Robert.

The area was swarming with police cars and a CSI van. The cop immediately came up to Yakaca and seemed to know who she was before she even revealed her name. And that's when I was asked, do I know anybody that had wanted to harm Nikki? And I was like harm her. He was like yeah, he was like, oh, you know, she was found in the bathtub.

And I was like the bathtub. I mean, I just really had to be like strong just to give them the answer that they were seeking. I was like, well, the last time I talked to her, she told me if anything happened to it, the kids did it. Over the next few months, Conor's police began to build a case against the girls, based on the evidence they did have. They couldn't pull a confession out of them, but by the end of spring, they had enough evidence to hopefully get a conviction.

There was no forced entry into the home, and no signs of sexual assault. It was clear that the brawl had ensued throughout several rooms of the townhome, indicated by a passionate fight to the death. It was unlikely that this had been done by a stranger. Though Jazz and Taz mentioned their mother fighting on the phone the previous night with one of her two boyfriends, both men were cleared by means of DNA testing, phone, and GPS records. Robert Head was out of state on a job during the time the crime occurred. A forensic dentist confirmed that the bite marks on one of the twins' arms virtually matched Nikki's bite pattern.

Even more damning, the twins' blood was found inside the townhome on several items, a pair of shoes, a vase that had been used to strike Nikki over the head, and a few items of clothing. All of this was enough to allow the police to arrest both Jasmine and Tasmia Whitehead on the last day of school in May of 2010. The audio you're about to hear is from the back of the police car Jazz and Tas were being transported in. It's hard to understand, but listen closely.

Try to recall the way their voices sounded in their initial police interview as they cried for their mother. Some of them felt like more. They said they can't go to the chief from all over. But I'm going to give you all the stuff you have to hide and hide you. We can do the same to you, but I'm not going to present it for something. Please do it. Please, I'm going to be in the room. Thank you. The girls angrily discussed how bad they thought the police's evidence against them was.

One of the girls can be heard saying, they're talking about those damn bite marks. They're saying, I have mama's teeth on my arm. Tasmia says, I'm not going down for something I did not do. Jazz can clearly be heard agreeing. One of them says, please find a murder weapon, and then it'd be different. Thank you. As they sit in the police car,

looking over at a group of cops, their commentary becomes even more nasty. Listen, as they yell, what the fuck is y'all waiting for? They have their fucking coffee and donuts and they're having a jolly old time. They don't care. Because of course years had went by that they were arrested. Of course we know that they let them finish school, they attended school to the very last day. That's when it was publicized of their arrest and everybody knew about the arrest.

And of course, I was told from the DA, they had to cross their teeth and dot their eyes because they were considered, you know, being 16, they had to make sure that they did what they had to do. But I was around when they released the house to Robert because of course the forensics went in and kind of took over when he got the house back. Of course, they had like over like hundreds of pages of like forensic evidence that they found throughout the house. Barianne her was, it was, I don't know if that was something really like different for

me, but I had to be, you know, strong for that just to know that, you know, she deserved that, you know, a proper barrier. But, you know, just trying to get her out of bed, she was just, she was really bad. She was really bad, a bad condition, you know, we try to get her hair, it's like, you know, she's, and that's when I really learned the whole definition of defensive wounds because that's when I was told that I had to put gloves on our hands because she had these defensive wounds on our hand and that's when I just went into a whole zone like, gosh, Niki never been into a fight. So I can only, really, I couldn't imagine what all she endured doing at home, you know, it didn't even like a cut.

She get a, a, a, there's her cut, our paper cut, she would talk about that cut for days. So I could just only imagine, you know, the whole ordeal that she had to go through. During the time the girls were living with their grandmother prior to their arrest, they had the opportunity to attend their mother's funeral. Police were called to the burial site when an altercation broke loose as a result of the accusations. People close to and within the family knew the girls had killed their mother. People who weren't as close to the family still viewed the situation as a murder mystery. The tension between family members during the service was palpable.

During their arrest, the twins waved a formal arrangement and were held at two different juvenile detention centers in preparation for a trial. Nearly four years went by after the death of Nikki Whitehead, and just before she was scheduled to begin trial, Tasmae pleaded guilty to the murder of her mother, and both twins gave a taped confession and agreed to a 30-year sentence for manslaughter. The twins told a different story now, saying they had woken up late for school again, and Nikki was very angry. So I guess she tried to get up with the pot, you know, she just threatened us and everything. Mom's yelling. We all yelling. Everybody's yelling.

We all made a head to the pot from her. This was she had put it back, and I kind of tried it when she said, get back. But she didn't keep in her head. My mom was just waiting at that bell with the knife or whatever. So I think I'm a lot. You know, I can look for it. She beat me to my chest. I can't say I'm not at the beef, so she beat me, she let it.

So I'm trying to get it off and be good at her. I'm trying to punch her out here. Something to stay up to. She's to stay up to me. Jasmine says that after Taz grabbed the knife from her mother and stabbed her. Jazz herself grabbed an old sports metal she had won and began choking Nikki with the ribbon. The stabbing and beating continues.

We knew they had cleaned up the house. We knew that Nikki was, you know, they dragged her on the carpet. We were told that it's possibility they tried to put her in the attic, but she was too heavy, so that's why they did the whole tough thing. It was just so much. We knew that she got away, but then somehow they drug her back into the house, because she actually went to the neighbor house Bar and actually was knocking on his door. It's just so happened. He had a dog that was barking The dog was barking to where he didn't hear Nicky knock But it took for her neighbor apparently was a guy say his girlfriend came and that's when the girlfriend saw the blood Later of course later saw the blood on his door, but Nikki had made it to his house

and they came out the house and brought Nikki back into the house and finished her off. Like Yucca said, the girls couldn't get their mother who was still alive into the attic. So they dragged her body into the bathtub. Yeah. What does she say when she's in the tub? Kill me now. I'll kill you. What happened, yeah? She went under a couple times and that was it. The last time Yuka said she saw the girls was at a court appearance.

We asked her if she had ever considered going to visit them in prison to try and get some closure. It's just that I think I'm done. I mean, I don't care to hear what they have to say because like I said, that Saturday before they did what they did on that Wednesday, I asked for them to reach out to me. So I mean, when I ask of you, it made no difference

because you went out and you did what you, you know, you wanted to do and I think you planned and you guys plotted this and I feel like whatever that build did what you, you know, you want to do. And I think you plan and you guys plot it this. And I feel like whatever that build up may have, you know, that's what you want to. And they, and they did it. And like I told the, I told one journalist, I felt like, I don't think they, they looked at the consequences when they do it. Because they, I think I really think they felt like they were going to be able to

get away with it. Jasmine and Tasma whitehead seemed to have resources available to them during their tumultuous exchanges with their mother, Nikki. Yucca Harris made it clear on more than just the one occasion that they could have always reached out for her help. The girls were receiving family and individual therapy at one point to help men their relationship with their mother. Therapy however, only works when a patient is willing to put in the effort and makes sure

to always tell the therapist the truth. What they did on January 13th divided an entire family and took away not only Linda Whitehead's daughter, but her two granddaughters as well. I've lost my oldest child. I lost my first seven grandkids. I always saw them at Harvard. I yearn never would I have ever imagined that they would be sitting in a jail cell, a book in their mouth. They were placed back into the home and stay safe later, but don't espouse here. Yaka Harris still feels the loss of her best friend every single day. She says it's therapeutic for her to remember all the good times they had together, and

she is launching a book about Nikki's life and their relationship. My book is actually is gonna release, cause what I want everybody to know, I keep Nikki memory alive, because her and I always had what we would consider hashtag always a celebration. Everything was always a celebration,

I mean we celebrate everything. And so I just keep that going for me. Just keep her memory alive. I still celebrate her day to death and I'll celebrate her day to birth. And when I tell you from over the last nine years we have done some things from I fly to where we you know taken girls' trips and we do a toast to Nikki memory. We've done girl friend best friend tattoos. So we definitely keep, you know, I have like fancy cakes made, you know, poor Nikki, and I just feel like that's just something that she would

want for us to do is to continue to celebrate her. So that's what I've been doing for the last nine years. So I thought about this book and it actually have taken me this long, which would be nine years. And I just felt like, because I see so many different episodes, and if even if I don't see it, of course, I'm, I'm being contact through my inbox or Facebook information or whatever that they've seen me and they look for me and you know they just felt like Niki, you know they don't even know her but you know they just felt like she was a beautiful person on the outside looking in. So I just felt like that I want to write a book and this book here is called the Untold Story of Nikki Whitehead, 20 pieces. And it's just about our childhood growing up from

teenagers up until the adulthood. And it's just like a chain of memories and thoughts that on Nikki and I had and we have shared. And so I actually put this into the book and I want to release it, the date of her death, which is January 13th, 2020. I feel like 2020 is a significant year. It will mark her 10 year anniversary. Yuka's book, The Untold Story of Nikki Whitehead, will be available on Amazon, Kindle, and I books. It's hard to be a teenager. and if the courts that dealt with the

custody arrangements of the twins had listened to everyone involved and not thrown the girls back into a volatile household before they were ready, maybe this tragedy could have been avoided. Then again, maybe Darling Nikki herself wasn't ready to be a parent to two teenage girls who had all but been abandoned by their very own mother, and paid for the cost of that decision with her life. That does it for this episode of Sword and Scale, we hope you've enjoyed it. Please check out unsubscribe to our After Show, Sword and Scale Rewind, for a detailed breakdown of each and every case. If you like the show, sign up for Plus. You'll get over 50 episodes of stories you won't hear on the regular feed,

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I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I love you.