The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home - Watching You | 3. The Last Night

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

In the wee hours of a Saturday, a camera catches Nique smoking a cigarette on the porch. What happened next would change everything. Binge all episodes of Watching You ad-free today by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge Crimes on Apple Podcasts and hit ‘subscribe’ or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access. Join The Binge’s free newsletter – Patreon.com/TheBinge From serial killer nurses to psychic scammers – The Binge is your home for true crime stories that pull you in and never let go. The Binge – feed your true crime obsession. Watching You is brought to you by Sony Music Entertainment. Find out more about The Binge and other podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Listen to all episodes of watching you ad-free right now by subscribing to The Binge. Visit the Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page or visit getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. The Binge, feed your true crime obsession. Does anyone really know what hormones do?

There is so much talk about women's hormonal health, but most women are left even more confused about what it means for them and what to do about it. This confusion ends now. Hormone Harmony is a game changer for women struggling with hormonal imbalances that leave them exhausted both physically and mentally. It contains science-based ingredients that bring back comfort, energy, clarity, confidence, and a sense of balance.

Happy Mammoth, the company behind this phenomenal formula, has helped over 2.4 million women get their lives back and feel like themselves again, after years or even decades of hormonal imbalances. The companies surveyed 1,831 women to see how hormone harmony helped them. And the results are mind-blowing. 86% of women started losing weight. 77% say it improved their mood.

And 100% say they're feeling like themselves again. Hormone Harmony has already sold over 6 million bottles with more than 50,000 rave reviews from women worldwide, and 98% of them say they'd recommend. recommend it to their friends and family. For a limited time, you can get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com. Just use the code Happy15 at checkout. You know that moment when you realize you've just waited way too long to start your holiday

shopping? Like, the shelves are empty, the parking lot is chaos, and you've regretted every life choice that led you here? Yeah, die live in that moment annually. And there's always one group of people I have a hard time shopping for. The people close to me, my family, not the kids, but, you know, the adults. And the older you get, the more options that you run out of, I'm always looking for something that feels thoughtful. So this year, I'm getting everyone an aura frame.

It's the one gift that feels personal without me having to, you know, lose my mind in a store on December 24th. I've already preloaded it with a bunch of family photos unique to each person, vacations, the dog, even a few embarrassing childhood ones I found in a shoebox, and I can keep adding straight to it from my phone. No text dress, no last-minute panic, just a gift that actually lands. ORA makes it ridiculously easy. You can upload unlimited photos and videos, literally unlimited.

You can personalize the gift with a message before it even ships, and every frame comes in this really nice gift box, so it already looks wrapped when it arrives. You can't wrap togetherness, but you can frame it. For a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visitingoraframes.com to get $35 off ORA's best-selling Carver Matt Frames

named number one by wirecutter by using promo code binge at checkout. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com promo code, binge. This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast. So order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by many. mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

The bench. Hey, y'all. Wanted to let you know verbal abuse and domestic violence are a part of this story. It's a cautionary tale to listen to with caution. At age 16,

Alex finally moved out of Matt and Nikki's house and in with her dad. she'd had enough. One of the last final straws before I moved out was Mom was out of town, and one of a group of friends wanted to go to a Braves game, and so I called her and was like, hey, can I go to this Braves game? And she was like, yeah, no problem, just let Matt know that you're going to go. So I was like, hey, I'm going.

You don't get to say, I'm going. You're not my parent, kind of thing. So anyways, he was like, have you talked to your mom? And I was like, yep, shardy said I could go. Don't need your permission. Like, I have my keys. I'm leaving. See you later.

very like F you kind of attitude and he said on the way out he goes well take this phone with you I was like I have a phone like I don't why do I need this phone for it's like this big bulky phone he was like just take it well just not even thinking about it because I wanted out of the house about it threw it my purse

not realizing that this phone tracked everything I was doing well I guess he thought I was going to Atlanta straight to the Braves game when I was going to the friend's house for us to go like their mom was driving us to Atlanta to the friend's house and we're hanging out, mom's there, all this stuff, he shows up, walks in their house, doesn't knock on the door, walks in their house, and yanks me out, said I didn't have permission to be there, wasn't allowed to be there, and, like, literally pulled me out,

like, physically out of their house. It was a moment where I was like, I'm done. Like, no, thank you. I want nothing. I'm done. Alex asked her dad if she could move in with him, and he agreed. After 12 years of bickering over Nikki's daughter, Matt finally got his wish. To have Alex completely out of their lives. My dad came to pick me up and all of my stuff, and Matt looked at me and said, just so you know, you're never welcome back in this house again. My mom was behind him, and I looked at her in the eye, and I said,

are you going to stand behind that? Are you going to, like, I just remember looking her, and it was like I could look. What you said exactly was, are you going to let him talk to me like that? I don't even remember saying it. I feel like I, but I remember looking her in the eye and just, it wasn't even words. It was just, is this it? No words, but I could read through hers, like I'm reading through her soul. And I could tell she, I could feel the pain behind her as a mother, her not knowing what to do.

She seemed like she felt like she didn't have a choice. but to let me go. But it also felt, in a way, her saying, please go. Like, I don't know how else to protect you if you don't go. As a 16-year-old, it was one of the most painful moments of my life because I knew, okay, my mom just let me go. Given all the strife, Alex moving out, didn't surprise anyone, certainly not Nikki's sister Amy.

But there was something off to her about how it all went down. how Nikki seemed to take it. When Alex made the decision to leave and go live with her dad, obviously Nikki was devastated. When she talked to me about it, she said, and I was devastated on her behalf, but she talked to me about it and she said, well, I think it might be for the best.

And I was like, what? To her, she knew something had to be wrong. Why the hell would Nikki put it that way? She had a fierce love of her daughter There's no world in which Alex moving out would be for the best And as soon as she was out Alex felt like a door mat had been waiting to close on her

Have been slammed shut Some of my fondest memories as a kid was Christmas And I was, I really didn't want to miss out on Christmas with my sisters But I had moved out And so I was like, can I please just come stay for Christmas? I just want to stay one night, I just want to see my sisters And they told me that their therapist told them It was best if I was not around.

I didn't come. At this point, Alex barely communicated with her mom, didn't talk to her for two or three months after she moved out. For years after that, Alex only talked to her mom sporadically, only when she was in the car. But Alex said she didn't speak to her once she arrived home, and if she was with Matt. Increasingly, Nikki was on an island. So one day, Alex calls up her aunt Amy. tells her about how much she misses her mom. But I had called Amy and was like,

I don't ever get to see her without him. Like, it sucks. I was genuinely just like, please get her away from him. Like, I want to see my mom. I got in touch with my sister and I said, we're going to do a girl's day. No guys allowed, no husbands, no nothing. We're going to go and we're going to get our nails done.

And we're going to get Manny Petties. and you are going to spend some time with your daughter before she goes off to college. And Matt is not invited. Nikki told her she was in, but she seemed on edge about taking a day off from Matt. She said, well, wherever we go, whatever we do, it has to be quick and it has to be cheap. If she's gone for too long, she's going to be in trouble when she gets home. If she spends too much money, she's going to be in trouble when she gets home. Like, he's monitoring everything, tracking everything.

And, you know, if she's gone for too long, she's going to get accused of something. But we had our Manny Petty Day. We sat at the kitchen table at my dad's house, and she helped Alex fill out her, you know, apartment stuff, like her, you know, application for a lease and all that and, like, co-signed on it and all that stuff. And we had a lovely time.

It was the very last time the girls would have a day like that together, ever again. From Sony Music Entertainment, you're listening to watching you. I'm Jonathan Hirsch. Episode 3. The Last Night. Canada's Wonderland is bringing the holiday magic this season with Winterfest on Select Nights, now through January 3rd. Step into a winter wonderland filled with millions of dazzling lights, festive shows, rides, and holiday treats.

Plus, Coca-Cola is back with Canada's kindest community, celebrating acts of kindness nationwide with a chance at $100,000 donation for the winning community and a 2026 holiday caravan stop. Learn more at canadaswunderland.com. The issues that bring a marriage to its knees are often the same for everyone. One partner steps out of the relationship, or both, I suppose. Or the stresses of raising children leave each feeling like the other as just a roommate, or worse yet, an enemy. And of course, money, the most feelingless and definitional of levers in a marriage.

Because the sad truth is, you either have it or you don't. But underlying all those issues is one bedrock principle. Trust. Without trust, marriage can fall apart alarmingly fast. And it had been a long time since there was trust between Matt and Nikki. A major fault line was this email Nikki had written to her boss back in Mississippi. Well, how can he knew intimate things? What intimate things did he know?

What? That I was working and you weren't? That was public knowledge. Oh, okay. In a city like Cazesco, Mississippi, a very old-fashioned valued town, they take very seriously that men support their women. It's very good justifying that, too. I'm just telling you, Matt. At first she thought it was kind of harmless, but Matt was terribly upset.

And once they got into it, she conceded that she had fantasized about her boss, even though he was married, and according to her, the feelings were not mutual. This started the rewriting of their marriage. Matt saw her as the partner who never told the truth, who even when they met was flirting with other people. The fights over him were unceasing. You lied to me, you hurt me, and then sat there and said, no, man, I don't do nothing. No, man, I never do that.

No, man, I don't talk bad about you. No, man, I don't do this. And you do it all the fucking time. You fucking had a little affair with that. partial affair with whatever you wanted to do i took you back do i get credit for it no i just get labeled as a fucking schmuck you have you have lied to me you have beaten on me you have disrupted our marriage you have chosen people over me you've chosen your daughter over me you embarrassed me in mississippi you started having a little online affair or whatever kind of affair emotional affair

Whatever you want to do with your fucking boss? And then begged me not to go down and kick his ass. Go kick his ass if you want to. You begged me. You protected him. No, I am. Over me, you protected him. You chose him over me.

I spoke with that, boss. He said there was no affair, emotional or otherwise. I asked Amy about this, too. I think she would have told her sister if she had cheated on her husband. But Nikki said her boss, was just her boss, that this was Matt's weird obsession. And while we're on the topic of weird obsessions, Nikki was still financing Matt's security business. They were now majorly in debt because of it. Money continued to be an issue for them. Un-fucking believable. You want to come to me

and spend $700 fucking on a yellow page ad for a business that we've invested over $100,000 in in the past two years, that has done nothing. Where's the support been from you? Where's the support been from me? Every fucking day. How the fuck do you think you're here? Oh, okay, so I got carpeting and you're paying the rent, so you can embarrass me, you can take my manhood away,

you can talk trash about me. Nikki and Matt were clearly in dire straits. On top of a mounting debt and the tension around Alex, they also fought about sex. It seemed that they both recognized it was supposed to be part of the marriage, but it was clear Nikki wasn't interested in being intimate with Matt anymore. I want to comment of it.

You've asked me when I do say no. I like to take that if you look at the whole picture. What happened the day before that? Well, I did. I looked at the three days prior to me saying no. I don't want to stay long on the rack. We had had sex. We were doing good.

I wish it could tell you that the troubles between Matt and Nikki ended there. That, like most couples who have been together for over a decade, they work through all manner of issues that life presents us, parenting, money, and sex. But that's not this story. This story is about something much worse, because the fights between this doomed couple crossed a line from words to action. A work colleague told cops she'd noticed her injuries. He'd already pushed Nikki when she was pregnant. Alex, as a young girl, had seen it firsthand and promised to always have eyes

on Matt. But now she'd been exiled, and Matt's eyes were trained on Nicky. Oh, right. What am I supposed to tell her, Matt? Out of respect for me, instead... I have no respect for you when I talk to her. None.

This is bullshit. This is fucking bullshit. This is never going to... You put your hand. I did not put my hands around my throat and everything else. I did not put my hands around your throat. Say what the fuck you want to, but you had your fucking hands around my throat and pinned to the fucking wall. Please. Put yourself right here.

You think I'm gonna harm you. I don't know, Matt. You tried to tonight. I did not. Bullshit. You don't, you sit and be me 98 fucking pounds with six foot five, 250 fucking plus pounds with your hands around my throat. My hands were not on your throat. You can just.

Justify that shit to yourself all day long, with your fucking hands were around my throat. You had me pinned to the fucking law. It's true that Alex was no longer the centerpiece of these violent altercations between Matt and Nikki, but she wasn't the only daughter in that house. Amanda and her little sister Rebecca, now nine and 12 years old, were living in the middle of these fights. These recordings are chilling because they were like the soundtrack of their lives. And one time, Amanda woke up to screaming. It was like 7 a.m. or something like that.

Come downstairs and, like, my mom's yelling at my dad, like, let me out of the house. I need to go to work. Like, let me go. And every time, like, she would move towards the door, he would kind of stand in front of it. And she wound up calling 911 and saying, my husband won't let me leave the house. And then my dad snatched the phone from her, said, we don't need police, my wife's just having a temper tantrum.

And eventually 9-1-1 call ends, and then my mom went, and she had a suitcase with her as well, which also confused me. I wasn't sure what was going on with the suitcase, but then she goes out and she sits on the front porch, the police come, they talk to both of them, and then she goes to work. Had Nikki packed a bag to leave and go to a hotel?

Was she coming home that night? Later, Matt asked Amanda to do something for him. And then I had to call her that day. She wasn't answering his calls. He had me call her. The only thing I remember telling her was, like, what my dad wanted me to tell her of, like, we need to save this family.

Like, let's go on vacation or something like that. until I was kind of a pawn in that situation. After that, I kind of hit her. I'm crying because I'm like, oh, my parents are getting divorced. I'm the only one that can save them, apparently. But she wound up coming home that night. Each is accusing the other of abuse.

The fighting is just too intense for this to go on much longer. The marriage seems to be hanging on by a thread. I remember that night, that whole week I had woken up almost every single night to them fighting. And then I remember Friday night, it was date night, and they went out for their date, and Rebecca and I were old enough at that point to pretty much be left home alone. But they weren't alone. By then, Matt's dad, who was retired and lived back east, came to stay. Matt had called him.

I remember going to bed and just waking up the next morning, Saturday morning, and my mom was an early riser, and so every morning she was up, she grabbed her coffee, she was sitting at her desk playing Farkel, but she was, like, addicted to that and was playing it all the time. And I remember waking up that Saturday, and she wasn't there. And, like, I looked for her car, and her car was in the driveway, and what was even? Even stranger was my dad was awake at, I think it was probably eight, nine o'clock in the morning. Meanwhile, Alex was in Gainesville, near her school, the University of North Georgia. Yeah, Friday night, ironically, I had gone to like a college party, got super, super drunk, and texted my mom. I was like, I'm never drinking again. That was stupid.

That was the last text message I ever sent to her. But I never heard back from her. She had called me Friday, actually, that morning. I didn't answer. She left her way his voicemail. I was like, hey, babe, like, thinking about you, love you. Call me back later. Nikki was gone.

Saturday passed. It was Sunday. It was the Monday. of that week. Nikki was officially missing. I got a call that Monday. And I was actually in Connecticut, because my then-boyfriend, now husband,

and I had traveled up there because his dad was at Yale University Hospital. And he was like an ICU. Her phone started ringing, and it's Nikki. Her phone called my phone. But Matt was on the other line, which I thought was weird. He said, hey, have you heard from Nikki? And I said, no, why?

What's going on? And, you know, we had elderly grandmother, you know, I mean, like, you know, we had oldsters all over the place. I thought maybe some family thing had happened, you know. So I said, I said, no, why? What's going on? And he said, I don't know. Why don't you tell me?

like, accusing me of something. And so, again, me being me, I said, I don't know you, psycho. You called me. I've been in Connecticut since Friday. How would I know? Matt told Amy that Nikki left. I said, what? What the hell are you talking about?

He said, yeah, she just up and left. And I was like, have you called the police? And he said, no. And I said, why? And he said, well, I didn't want it. You know, if I call the police, then the news will get a hold of it. And then it'll be on the news. And then she'll be embarrassed and she won't want to come back.

And it just sounded so dumb and bullshity. Alex hadn't heard from her mom either. Not since she sent the Friday texts. It wasn't like her to not get back to her. And then her phone rang. She was at six flags with a friend, actually. We're in line to ride a ride, and I get this call, and it's my mom. So I answer, and it's Matt.

Matt's calling someone from Nikki's phone again. And he's immediately, where's your mother? Have you heard from your mother? Where's Nikki? I was like, what? He immediately, before I could even hardly start talking, goes, do you remember that time she hit me with a knife and my brain just clicked into drive

and I went something's wrong why the hell did he just I knew I was being recorded I knew something was wrong by the panic in his voice and why he asked me about that I just hung up

I was like uh nope I know you too well I know you're nope so Matt's calling Amy and Alex but still hasn't informed the police several days have passed Anyways, we had between us and eventually that afternoon reported her missing. In the end, more than one person reported Nikki missing.

And for the time being, everyone seemed to be working together to find her, including Matt. And between Monday and Wednesday of that week, he was playing ball. It was, we need to check the local shelters. We need to, you know, put flyers up. But again, he was like communicating with the family per se until Wednesday. Wednesday, all of a sudden, I don't know where he completely cut off communication, and he said, you'll have to communicate with my lawyers. Lawyers? Why would he need one lawyer, let alone two?

And one of them was a divorce lawyer, and one of them was a criminal attorney. Hey. How are you? My good. This is Matt on Sunday That's why not I'm filing for divorce I'm not I'm not

I'm not waiting around Nikki's just missing right and he wants a divorce you can hear him laying out what he says happened the night Nikki disappeared we had a little bit of a spat and my dad came in

and my dad expressed his opinions and my dad pretty much told her how she is not very welcoming and that she talks to me like shit and that he doesn't feel comfortable here and Nikki's Brigg and how she's made all these changes and how she's doing whatever she can to make things work and my dad is saying the same thing I am to her my dad said how have he changed you know I mean I came down here I've noticed several changes is that, you know, in my son. And she pretty much went ballistic.

She was yelling. She was screaming. She started packing her bags. I put my hand on her suitcase, and I said, please don't go. Please calm down. And then finally she just dropped the suitcase, and she just walked out the fucking door at 6 o'clock this morning.

The cameras. Surely the cameras would have seen Nikki. And sure enough, she's captured in a grainy video. smoking a cigarette on the front porch of the house early in the middle of the night. Word is spreading about Nikki's disappearance. A missing person's report has been filed. Co-workers are calling the Gwinnett County PD looking for any information about what happened to her. How can they help?

Is she okay? Well, investigation, Detective Averson. Detective Averson, hi. This is Phil Wynne and Woody Alderman with ACG. Yes, sir. How are you? Pretty good. You and I spoke a few days ago, and Woody and I are the owners of ACG,

and Nikki is our controller. Okay. And we really just wanted to get an update. as to where the investigation stands with regards to Nick. She hasn't been located. She's a valued employee here, and we're concerned, obviously, and we'd like to, we'd love to see her back here. But at this point, can you give us an update on?

She hasn't been located. That's all you've got. Yes, sir. How aggressive are we looking? Okay, sir, she's a person who's an adult who left in her own. So no law has been violated. Okay, okay. Nikki is an important part of our company here.

We just feel like we should do something. This is when the search party is organized. We met at the Walmart, like down the road from there. I don't know. It was over 100 people, I feel like that showed up. So we like split up into groups. Like, you go here, you go here. Detective John Richter, one of many law enforcement personnel on the scene that night,

recalled what happened next. She is found just outside the neighborhood, so maybe a quarter, a half a mile from their house if you went A to B, right? And she was just maybe 30 feet from the wood line as it starts, and she was covered with debris like pine straw, leaves, naked, completely naked, and just covered up with just some hair showing, just a little bit of her hair. Nikki's body was found naked in their subdivision, covered up with leaves and dirt. But chillingly, one part of her body was clean, untouched, her feet, which investigators immediately understood to mean that this mother of three, Dominique Liley, from Lawrenceville, Georgia, hadn't walked off into the night of her own accord. She'd been placed there in the woods by someone else.

her killer Nikki's friend Allison had uttered that fateful scream in the woods captured that night on live television she had made the gruesome discovery It was obvious there was a branch on top of the pile and I'm comin

Derek and I are coming you know start at the very top of the hill and just start walking down and I and Derek was on my right and I was on the left side And I just see this huge pile that looked like it had been put there. So I start kicking away at it, and I see bloatedness, like bloated, it looked like a stomach or purple. And so I screamed, Derek, before that I had called Derek's name out and said, Derek, because I knew that I had found something. And when we saw the blonde hair, the coordinator of the search had told us, you know, if you find anything, you know, don't touch it, don't do anything, and call 911.

And her sister called 911 right there because she heard me scream. so yeah the body was laying like this way okay now you said at one point you said he he covered her up with stuff now why you're assuming her husband or something yes why do you why are you so convinced today because they got in because they got in a fight on Friday okay okay and she never came back to work on Monday next time on watching you and then ultimately there was I think around like 55,000 short videos that were discovered. And audio recordings, too. Years of the Liley family's life immortalized.

Two detectives take it upon themselves to listen to it all. She's dead. I've never met her, but I know her better than the other person I've ever met. I know her attitude. I know her little traits. I know how telling she is. witty, a great mother. Amanda had no cavities.

Well, that's a good thing. So when are they going to do all these cavities? I don't know. I think they told Daddy, but they didn't tell me. Did they say anything about Amanda's braces? Yeah, they said she's going to get braces in a month. In a month?

Yeah, in a month. All these things, just from these recordings. But I know the end. And I think she knew the end, too. Don't want to wait for that next episode, you don't have to. Unlock all episodes of watching you. Add free right now by subscribing to the binge podcast channel. Search for The Binge on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page.

Not on Apple? head to get the binge.com to get access wherever you listen. As a subscriber, you'll get binge access to new stories on the first of every month. Check out the binge channel on Apple Podcasts or getthebinge.com to learn more. of Waveland Media is our lead producer and co-reported the series with me. Catherine St. Louis is our story editor. From Sony Music Entertainment, the executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch. Sound design and mixing by Scott Somerville.

We use music from Epidemic Sound and APM. Our fact checker is Naomi Barr. Our production managers are Tamika Balance Kalasni and Sammy Allison. Our lawyer is Minokshi Krishnan. Special thanks to Steve Ackerman, Emily Rasek, Jamie Rasek, Jamie Mines, Jamie Myers and the whole team at Sony Podcasts. If you're enjoying the podcast, please rate and leave us a review. Thank you so much for listening.