True Crime with Kimbyr - DREAM Guy Becomes Her WORST NIGHTMARE! Boxes At The LAGOON Hold Clues

Episode Date: March 20, 2024

A successful Chicago woman from a big family goes missing without a trace. There were bizarre text messages and weird calls from her phone, but no one knew where she went. This case has twists and turns, it left me confused and scared. It can happen to anyone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We want success, love, and happiness. What happens when things don't go as planned? When truth becomes lies and revenge seems better when you're bitter. I would like to introduce you to Naila Franklin. Naila was born to a biochemist and businessman Lee Franklin and Maria Manor on April 12, 1979. Naila was the center of attention from the day she was born. While still at the hospital, she became a very popular newborn. All the nurses all over Highland Park Hospital heard she was born with so much hair, they had to come and see it for themselves. They would stop by Maria's room

to catch a glimpse and some of them even tried stopping them when they were leaving the hospital just to get one last look and she really was a blessing to her family. The family lived in Chicago, Illinois and Naila grew up in a very loving family. They were involved in their children's lives. Her mother and father did get divorced, but they both continued to be involved with every child. Naila's father spent time with Naila every weekend and all summer. Naila loved her family and was very close to everyone, especially her mother. Maria called Naila her good luck charm. She said that everything she touched seemed to turn to gold. She wasn't the only child. She had four sisters and a brother. Some of her siblings were half siblings and some of them were full siblings. However,

they didn't differentiate themselves. They just called everyone's sister or brother. And I'm also from a blended family. I have four sisters and one brother as well. And I agree, they're just my siblings. The firstborn was Naila's sister Leah, who was nine years older. She was like a second mother to all of the siblings. She got to watch each and every one of them grow up to be bright, well-rounded and successful individuals, all with their own gifts. The siblings consisted of Leah, then Naila, followed by Marina, who was born May 1986, and there were actually two girls named Ashley back-to-back only a year apart, one Ashley with two E's at the end, and one Ashley with a why. The youngest sibling was their brother, John. They are a very talented family, each one of them having their

own gifts that their mother and father cultivated and supported. Leah received a scholarship to Notre Dame, and she lives in San Francisco, California with her husband and her two daughters. She's a marketing manager and an owner of a public relations firm. We're going to hear a lot about Leah in the story. Marina is actually a comedian and a pretty well-known one. She's an actress and a writer, Ashley with a wise nurse in Illinois, with a family of her own. The other Ashley is a social worker, and each one of these women are beautiful and talented in their own ways. They look like such a loving and close-knit family, but what happens next really tears them apart. Naila's younger siblings really looked up to her. It was her confidence, her intelligence, go get her attitude and her caring heart. She would also

tell it like it is. She wouldn't sugarcoat anything. So if you really wanted to know if the guy you were dating was a catch, she would be the first one to point out the red flags. She was generous as she was blunt. Her family was her number one priority. She was the first one that her sisters would turn to if they needed advice on anything. And Naila's grandmother, well, that was one of her heroes. And her nickname was moot.

Because of the fact she argued so well and would usually win every argument, so arguing back with her was pretty much a moot point. Naila was walking in her footsteps. She was only 5 foot 2 and weighed 110 pounds, but she could hold her own. She just had that air about her, and you would forget that she was as tiny as she was.

Leah, her oldest sister said that in the summer of 1991, she was turning 21, and Naila was only 12. You wouldn't know that she was just a child because she would talk like an adult and have grown up conversations. People were shocked. She was so well-spoken.

She would ask people what they were doing in their lives, and she would keep up with every word. Even though she had this quiet little voice, She was bold and headstrong and beautiful. Ashley, with a Y, grew up in the same house as Naila. And they kind of had a little sibling rivalry, things that you would look back on later in life and laugh about, and that's exactly what they did.

Naila would mess with Ashley all the time, and she would do things like tell her her Barbie's hair would grow back if she cut it all off. And of course, Ashley trusted her, but then did it and found out it wouldn't grow back. To get a little revenge, she would take pages out of Naila's notebook and tear them out. Ooh, that made her pretty mad because she put so much effort into her schoolwork. Ashley would also purposely embarrass Naila, especially when her friend Dana

would call the house. Ashley would tell her that Naila just ate and now she was doing number two. All in good fun, of course. But then when Naila left for college, Ashley was super sad. She couldn't stand being away from her and as they got older, they became closer and closer. Naila wanted to be involved with everything from her sister's education to her goals and even the guys that she dated because she wanted to know that her sisters were being treated well. You can tell she took her relationships very seriously and the same goes for her friendships. She kept in touch with her friends throughout her life with one of her best friends being Dana. They talked and saw each other on a regular basis. She was a go-getter from a young age, very strong-willed, self-assured and confident

and that was one big reason that she was so successful throughout her life. When I first saw Naila's face, I couldn't stop thinking about her smile. It's what drew me into this case. That and just how unexpected everything that happened was, how this could happen to anyone. And I know that I say that in some of my videos, but that's the truth. This could happen to anyone. It can happen to you. It could happen to me, your loved ones, and it can happen so fast without warning. After Naila graduated from high school, she studied at one of the top University's University of Illinois at Urbana. She graduated with a degree in advertising, then took her first job after college in 2001 as an assistant advertising executive at Leo Burnett. She worked there for

five years, then decided to take a chance and apply for a coveted sales position in an entirely different profession. With a major pharmaceutical company called Eli Lilly in Chicago, she landed the job as a pharmaceutical rep. Naila really wanted to have a financially lucrative career, and she believed this was the path to get her there. Between the time that she spent traveling to different doctor's offices, meeting with the physicians and providing samples of medications on the market throughout her designated territory around Illinois,

she also enjoyed interior decorating. She was good at it. It started when she helped her ex-boyfriend decorate his home. Now she had paying clients lining up to use her skills. She was making a really good salary, had so much to look forward to in so many aspirations. She was really just getting started in life. This story and everything that unfolds happened when Naila was 28 years old. She seemingly had it all, talent, money, and a lot of connections.

There wasn't a lack of lavish parties and upscale nightclubs and fine dining, lots of fun. Oh, and there definitely wasn't a lack of men in Naila's life either. However, she did have high standards, as she should. She's an amazing person. She would be a gift to anyone. Her beauty plus her smile were magnetic. Not to mention her charismatic personality. It just drew people in. She wanted someone who was either equal or would challenge her. She dated men with wealth and status. And she had a type, handsome, educated, intelligent, and successful. She dated plastic surgeons and lawyers, you name it. Not too long before this, in May of 2006, she landed a handsome, successful, 28-year-old real estate investor named Reginald Pots. She wasn't the only one with her eye on him and he wasn't hard to miss. He strutted around in his designer clothes, Gucci shoes, three-piece suits, totally decked out. To top it off, he drove a 225,000. $1,000 white, Bentley, and he let everyone know about it. Yep, that'll do it. He was very popular in the

groups that Naila socialized with, known as the most eligible bachelor living in a penthouse suite of 1111 South Wabash. All right, I have to show you an example of what this place looks like. It's in the heart of the South Loop overlooking the harbor. This isn't his exact condo, but I had to show you a similar one and just look at it. It's spacious. It has so much natural light coming in. It's high above the city. Luxury living for sure. It's exactly the type of place I'd imagine a man like Reginald living in. I'll go ahead and let the slideshow keep playing for a minute in case you want to see more. So that gives you a pretty good idea why women wanted to be in Reginald's life and on his arm because he was quite a catch. It wasn't a surprise that he and Naila connected. But she was just as desirable

to men. She may not have been driving a Bentley, but she was successful in her own right. She also had a luxury condo. In fact, it was only 10 minutes away from Reginald's place and hers was at University Village condominiums. To be fair, I have to show you an example of what her place looked like. It's so pretty. Now, this is not her actual condominium. Just an example. It's not as high up above the city as Reginald's place, but it still has those skyline views, beautiful and cozy fire. place, sleek white quartz countertops, and again, that natural light. A nice little balcony to enjoy the views, and I can see Naila loving it here. So it's true, she wasn't driving around a Bentley, but she did have a nice black Chevy Impala that her company paid for. It was easy for

Naila and Reginald to be drawn to one another, and it wasn't long before they started seeing each other more frequently. You could say they were quite a power couple. It was a fun, intense relationship with a lot of chemistry and they enjoyed nice dinners going to parties hooking up together. But like many of these really intense relationships, they tend to fizzle out. And that's exactly what happened between Reginald and Naila. As it turned out, this just wasn't a forever thing. And besides, Naila had met someone new. So she decided to officially break it off with Reginald in July of 2007. And that meant she was free to explore this new relationship with a handsome gentleman named Andre Wright. He certainly lived up to his name because he was Mr. Wright in Naila's eyes. Andre is a

successful lawyer. He's educated, sophisticated, kind, and generous. They met while they were attending an art gallery opening and their connection was instant. They really enjoyed each other's company. And Andre treated Naila better than the other men she had dated in the past and it didn't take long until they were in a serious relationship. The only thing keeping them a little bit apart was that he was living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the time. So they did have a long-distance relationship. However, they would both travel to see one another on a frequent basis

and with technology. The distance wasn't an issue. Their relationship grew, even though there were miles between them, it was worth it for both of them to put in the work because they cared about their future and they were even talking about moving in together. They would do weekend trips to work. with each other to keep the flame burning and the passion alive and when they were apart,

they would text each other all day long. In September, they had been dating exclusively for three months. Andre had even met Naila's family and Leah liked him right away because they met at Leah's daughter's first birthday. She was pleasantly surprised when Andre took it upon himself to pick out a special gift for Leah's daughter's big day. Now that you know a lot about Naila, her personality, lifestyle, boyfriend and who she was, I want to go to the weekend before Tuesday, September 18th, 2007. That was the weekend of Friday the 14th through Sunday the 16th. They had a fun weekend together like usual. She went to see Andre at his place in Milwaukee and on the 16th. They attended a wedding for one of Andre's friends and then Naila went back to Chicago. The work week was progressing

as usual until Tuesday the 18th. The couple kind of had a ritual. every morning. Andre would call Naila not as a wake-up call, but as a good morning call, and she came to expect it every morning to start her day. That Tuesday, Andre was a lot busier than usual, and it totally slipped his mind. Because it was so routine, he actually thought he already called her. However, he had forgotten, and instead Naila called him asking, where's my morning call? He apologized, but she wasn't mad at him. She was just teasing him, so they had a little chit-ch. chat and then went about their morning, keeping in touch by emailing each other back and forth as usual. Around noon, Naila calls into work, telling them that she's going to take the rest of the day off

as a personal day. Perhaps she needed some rest because she had traveled over the weekend. Being tired was to be expected because she had a very fast-paced job. She was always at different doctor's offices giving them samples of medicines and pharmaceutical products and then driving all over the city, even though she was busy and she took her job very seriously. she made it a point to always be available for the people she cared about, especially her sisters. Like many of us, she always had her phone on her. She wouldn't just text you back either. She would pick it up and call you. She kept in touch with her family nonstop, and she was even known to jump right out of the shower to answer a call from them. After Andre got off work, he called her as

usual, but she didn't answer. So he left a message saying, hey, I'm heading home. Call me back when you get this. A little while later, he got a text message back from her that said, hey, I'll reach out later. I met dinner, which was a little unusual. It was out of character because normally, Andre would be aware of what Naila's plans were. She would also answer the phone no matter what she was doing or where she was going or who she was doing it with. A few hours later, when he was settling in for the evening, he tried calling her again, but she fails to answer. This concerned him. she was a woman of her word. If she said she was going to call you back, she did. Maybe she was tired

and fell asleep. So Andre goes to bed expecting to pick up their conversation as usual the next morning on Wednesday, September 19th, but again, she didn't answer. He emails her in all caps and says, are you alive? He's half joking, but he's concerned. We've probably all said that. Like, are you alive? Where are you? Or you've responded, I'm alive. Well, something else is happening that morning. When Naila's older sister, Leah, who is a PR executive, gets into her office, her phone is ringing. When she picks it up, there's a man on the other end. He introduces himself as Naila's boss, and he informs Leah that Naila never showed up for work. She had a meeting with him that day, and he wants to know if Leah has heard from her. She hadn't.

And she knew something was wrong right away. There's no way that her sister would, miss a work meeting. She tried to think of reasons why Naila wouldn't have at least called in to let her boss know. Leah calls her sister Ashley, and that's when she finds out that Ashley attempted to get in touch with Naila just like Andre did the night before. She texted Naila that evening and got the same exact text that Andre received, that she was at dinner and she would reach back out later. They both thought that was really off. So they reached out to Andre. He tells them the same story that he never got back in touch with her because she never called him. That's when they start calling around. The more people they speak to, the more concerned they get because no one could

reach Naila. By the end of that night, her phone was going straight to voicemail. Leah goes down to the Chicago Police Department and files a missing person's report. But when she does, like many of the cases we've heard before, they tell her, you know what, don't get worried yet. She's an adult, she could have things going on in her life that you don't know about. She might not have time to reach out. Don't jump to conclusions. But the family just knew better. They just knew. They had that gut feeling and sometimes it's right. None of this seemed normal because they knew their family member better than some random police officer. The police officers insisted that Naila would turn up. And they said most adults that go missing turn up. So don't stress. She probably went on vacation.

No, she would never do that. If she needed to get away, even from her own family, she would let them know. Remember, she's pretty blunt. Her family wasn't going to wait around for the police. Leah started right away. Remember how she's a PR executive? She knows how to get the buzz around a story. She didn't wait a second to get her sister's story out there.

She called every media contact that she had and begged them to spread the word. I listened to an interview with Leah. and she said something really important that I wanted to share. She said, quite frankly, I don't know a lot of women of color or people of color who get the same attention by the public in general. The interviewer responded by saying, The good-looking young blonde goes missing

and the whole world wants to know about it. And they stay talking about it for years. It's not the same for black women. Leah agreed, saying, there's a reality to that. It troubles the mind that when people of color go missing or it doesn't fit a certain narrative. Somehow it's not real. There's a really good video by Dr. Grande that goes into this relating to the Gabby Petito case. I would highly suggest watching it. Leah's media savvy definitely paid off because the next morning, guess what? Naila's picture is

all over the news. She got the attention of the public. The family was already out on the streets. Friends were helping. They were putting out flyers. They were taping them to polls. They were handing them out to people on the street that were walking by. Meanwhile, Dana and Leah went to Naila's condo. They knocked and no one answered. Her condo was locked, which they said was unusual and that surprised me. I would assume it would be unusual if it wasn't locked, but Leah is able to get a key. When she steps inside, something seems wrong. The place was in somewhat of a disarray, which was not like Naila. There were eggs and coffee on the countertop, which weren't put away in addition to the fact that she could tell Naila's business-issued laptop,

as well as her personal laptop and her iPad, were missing. Her cell phone wasn't there either, and her car was not parked in the usual parking spot in the garage. So where is she? What happened? Dana also knew the passcode to Naila's voicemail, and we're going to go into detail about that later, but I can tell you there is definitely something significant about Naila's voice messages. Three whole days go by, and they're still searching. At this point, police are beginning to take the search seriously. Andre decides to fly in, to join them, and everyone's hoping they will locate Naila. Now, you probably know from watching a lot of true crime cases that the first person they're going to look at is the boyfriend, and indeed they brought him in for questioning. He told them exactly what we already know,

that they saw each other over that weekend, that he talked to her briefly on Tuesday, and he talked to her briefly on Tuesday. He didn't hear back from her at all since then. Everyone had kind things to say about Naila. There were no red flags when it came to Andre's interview. So the next thing the police do is check her phone records. Even though they don't physically have her phone, they can look at her phone records to get an idea of who she was talking to last. What phone calls did she make or take? The investigators were doing everything they could, even interviewing her doctors, retracing her steps, anywhere she had been in the last month or so, talking to everyone that knew her or anyone that had a relationship with her whatsoever. After all the publicity, they had anonymous tips coming in

one after the other, but they didn't lead anywhere. When the police subpoenaed her phone records, that is when they got their first lead. They uncovered those suspicious messages, and they started coming from her phone to Andre, her friend Devin, and her sister Ashley between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. These messages did not sound anything like her. Her coworkers were also receiving text messages that day that made no sense. The messages were about where she was working that day, about places she was supposed to be, that she definitely wasn't. They traced a number she called, and it was a restaurant.

They found out that someone, presumably a man, called and made a dinner reservation under the last name Franklin, which was Naila's last name. But then no one showed up for that reservation. Even more out of character was that one of Naila's ex-boyfriend's Brent got a bunch of text messages around 7.30 p.m. that were completely random. Then he gets a call from her. He couldn't even hear her and you couldn't tell if it was her, but all you heard was, hello, hello, can you hear me? There was so much wind or static or noise in the background and then the call just connected a few seconds later. Then another call came in from her and it immediately got disconnected a few seconds. seconds later. He tried calling it back and it went straight to her voicemail. But the most disturbing lead that they uncovered were the calls that came from Naila's phone at 10, 15 p.m. on the night she went missing. It turns out there were not one, not two, but three calls to 911. All 911 calls get

recorded, even if no one speaks on the other end and that's exactly what happened in this instance. all that could be heard was what sounded like music playing in the background. And I'm going to play the actual call for you. It's very quick. Yeah, that sounds really weird. By 11.05 p.m., all incoming calls to her phone went directly to voicemail, and there were no outgoing calls ever made again. When I was reading about all this, I couldn't help but think, was this some kind of mental health issue with all the stress at work, the recent breakup. Then this new man in her life, how busy she was, traveling, we do get burned out. It's not uncommon for this unusual behavior to occur when there are emotional or mental health-related issues at play. Plus, these changes, they can come out of nowhere.

A lot of times, people don't say anything about the way they're feeling because they could be embarrassed. Maybe they don't want anyone to worry, but it seems like Naila's family was different. Her family would have been very understanding. She had sisters so close to her that I ruled that out, but I wanted answers, which I'm sure you do too. I wanted to understand why there was such a shift in the messages that were going out. You're probably thinking the same thing I was. The second thought was that somebody else had her phone. Are they making these calls or sending the messages, or was it her? Did she make the dinner reservation and then just never show up because something happened to her that night? Did she call her ex-Brent for help? It was all a mystery, but some of that

mystery was being unraveled. There was a police officer in another location in Illinois called Calumet City. It's 25 miles outside of Chicago, and this officer was making his patrol rounds through a golf course parking lot. It was just an ordinary night. He was making sure everything was secure, and that's when he sees something strange in the distance. And he can't quite. quite make it out. There was something along the curb and as he gets closer, he can tell that it looks like cardboard shipping boxes that were just stacked nearly one on top of the other. So he assumes that it's garbage. He parked his patrol car and he walks over to take a closer look. The boxes were filled with prescription drugs, hundreds of pills, not in bottles, but in those small sample packs.

and he thought this might actually be some kind of sign of a narcotics related crime. Maybe there was a robbery at a doctor's office and a bunch of medicine was stolen. It could be that the crooks tried to make out with as many boxes as they could and then they had to leave some because they couldn't hold them all and they left them and then ran off. How they got there did not matter. He had to get them back to the police station for processing. Later, he's going through all these boxes to log what he found and he sees a label and it's affixed to a box and it has an address and a name to where it was initially shipped.

And the recipient's name is Naila Franklin. He runs the name and figures out that she is a missing person out of Chicago. So he does his due diligence, reaches out to detectives, and they piece together that these prescription samples belong to Naila. Now they had to find out why they ended up 25 miles away. Right away, the investigation takes a turn for the worst. Whenever they find something that's related to a missing person, but they don't find the person, it's the first sign that something has gone wrong. They just don't know how or why.

This is their first major clue, and they wasted no time. FBI and Chicago detectives begin searching in that area in Calumet City. This is not a bustling area. it's secluded. It's near a few rundown, abandoned businesses. They had a long John Silver's. I'm going to show it on the screen. A relic of a video max, a video rental store, kind of like Blockbuster, and an Outback Steakhouse that was adjacent to the River Oaks golf course, and I'm showing it right here. Now, these businesses were no longer here on Google Maps, just the Outback Steakhouse and the golf course. But you can see that the parking lot abuts the

the lagoon. And this lagoon wraps around this entire area. Here's an aerial view and some of the shots from the street view. Highly wooded area, a forest preserve with tall grass and swampy murky water. As the detectives are making their way to where the shipping boxes were found, they find themselves standing in front of a somewhat steep embankment that drops down into the woods and leads right into the water. They're probably thinking what you're thinking, what I was thinking, is this where we're going to find something bad? Maybe Naila. They use their flashlights because they wanted to shed some light in that area. And here's a few pictures now. In these pictures, it's winter. But when this was happening, it wasn't. It was hot. They make the decision that they're

going to dredge the lagoon. They had divers in there searching as well as police and FBI, combing this entire area all around the buildings, the parking lot, through all the brush. And by the end of the day, as night was falling, they found yet another piece of evidence, jewelry. Specifically, earrings, a bracelet, and a pearl necklace, which had been broken. Some of the beads were on the ground, and some of them remained on a string that were hanging from a branch. I'm going to show you it in this picture. This is not a good sign at all. The cops bring these items to her friends to try to identify them. And they say, yeah, it looks like items that belong to Naila. Shocking. It's unbelievable. I can't imagine the thoughts that would be

going through my head if I'm looking at jewelry that I know belongs to someone I care about. You don't know what to think, but your mind tends to think of the worst case scenario. Why would her jewelry be on bushes if she wasn't running through their? for her life. Did she take them off and place them there so that people would know that she had been in that area? More mysteries. They scoured every inch of that area, including the lagoon, and they did not find anything except for that jewelry. The family is getting more eager to get the word out. With Leah and her PR expertise, they're distributing more flyers, knocking on doors, rallying around to bring awareness. Once again, it pays off because another important.

clue comes in. Maybe the most important tip that they had gotten besides the jewelry. Someone called in a tip about a car. They'd been watching the news and they saw a picture of a car that was said to belong to Naila, the black Chevy Impala. They said that there was a similar car parked down the street from them. It was just a block down the road. This person is calling from Hammond, Indiana. Yes, another state, but Indiana borders Illinois. Calumet City is close to that Indiana border. And sure enough, the car was identified as Naila's. This part was sad. Naila's sister Ashley runs over there as fast as she can. The car was parked in front of a completely abandoned house and even though she knew that no one was inside. She was determined to figure out what happened to Naila. So she just kept

banging on this door, peering through all the windows and crying. and crying. She would not leave. She had to be physically removed because she didn't want to leave the last place she knew her sister had been. It was way too emotional. They had to drag her away. The detectives do a walk around to the vehicle checking to see if there's anything unusual, if anything's broken, if there was any visible fingerprints, any blood, and they don't see anything. Now, of course, they have to do when no investigator looks forward to, they have to open the trunk. They know that one of two things is going to happen. They're either going to open the trunk and they're going to find Naila, either dead or alive, and their search is going to be over. There's going to be closure or not. They might

find nothing. That would be the best case scenario, but it doesn't actually mean it's a positive thing. It means that they have their work cut out for them, but it's time to pop the trunk. They look inside and they don't find anything. At this point, there's still hope and her family is holding out hope that she is still alive, but it's not looking good. It looks like there's been foul play. She could have been taken and brought somewhere. The next step is to examine the entire vehicle to see if there's any trace evidence inside and guess what they found. Nothing. The entire car had been wiped clean. What gave away the fact that the car had been wiped, wiped, as opposed to it just not having fingerprints left behind was the fact that they found tiny fibers

in various locations which came from either a cloth or clothing. Considering the fact that the car was found in the area that was a straight shot from where they found the boxes just three miles away, they knew this was probably going to be where they find Naila somewhere between these two locations. That is, if she's no longer alive. On September 22nd, officers from both Calumet City and Hammond, Indiana, begin searching those areas for any signs of Naila. They looked at her phone records and they were able to confirm that her phone pinged off of two towers in Hammond and Calumet City. They attempted to confirm with Eli Lilly whether this was part of Naila's territory, a place where she would have been doing business, but her partner Molly said, no, that was not part of her route.

while the evidence technicians were going through the trunk of Naila's car, which was in Desiree, by the way, they stumble upon a Remy Martin advertisement card, sort of like a promotional business card. Remy Martin is a type of alcohol. So they never really know whether something is of significance, but they did feel it was a little out of place. So they kept in the forefront of their minds and, of course, collect everything and make sure to take notes that it could be something significant. and in this case, it does become something significant because while they're investigating the lagoon area,

they find another Remy Martin card, just like the one they found in the trunk. The second card was found between the lagoon and the golf course parking lot near an Outback Steakhouse. They're starting to pinpoint a connection between the golf course parking lot and where the boxes were found in her car. After five days of searching that entire stretch of land between these locations of interest, they did not find Naila. The search started to become very personal for one of the officers. Remember the officer that stumbled upon the boxes? Well, his name's Calvin. He had friends in common with Naila.

Their high schools were close by, and they graduated around the same time. Lots of mutual friends. He had been helping with the search, and he could feel her family's pain. That's why he and a colleague decided to go out to the lagoon where they found the jewelry around 4 o'clock in the morning after their shift was over on September 22nd. They wanted to take a look for themselves. They walked all around the bank of the lagoon and then they walked through the brush. Just looking for anything that was out of place.

Anything they could have missed, I'm going to put a pause on this search because I want to go back to Naila's voice messages. Remember when I told you that her friend Dana had access to her voicemail on her phone? While the real reason she was trying to get in there was because there was a message she wanted to play for the police. It was a message that Naila had supposedly let her hear and it was very disturbing. However, when she went to look for it, it was deleted. So she couldn't provide it to the police. She couldn't prove it was real.

This was all supposed memory, but she said it was pretty nasty. She told police that Naila was afraid and said if anything happens to me, give the police my email login information. What is going on? Who was this voicemail from? Why would they need her email login? Why would that be important? Then another clue comes in. It's from a neighbor on the same street. The car was found. They say they saw a skinny black male walking around that car the night of September 18th and then he left in a different vehicle. There were two males in Naila's recent past and her present that matched that description, her current boyfriend, Andre, and her recent ex-boyfriend from just a few months ago, Reginald Pots. You know, the one that drives the White Bentley lives in that nice condo

I showed you. We haven't heard about him in a while. They feel it's time to bring him in for some questioning, especially because Dana tells the police that was the person who left the nasty message on Naila's voicemail. They asked Dana what was going on between Naila and Reginald. Dana said at some point when they were seeing each other, Naila had suspicions that he might be cheating on her. The cops were interested, but it's not a crime to cheat on someone. It's important, but it doesn't mean it has anything to do with her disappearance. However, Dana insisted they take a deeper look. She explained it all started when they were at a party together.

One of Naila's friends knew that she was dating Reginal. They came up to her and they said, you know, that guy, he's not who you think he is. And that bothered her. As much as it offended her and she thought that the woman might just be jealous, she wanted to know more. She already had this sneaking suspicion that something wasn't right. She just didn't have any confirmation. Being a curious person and wanting to get to the bottom of it like many of us do,

she decided to have one of her friends do a background check. She was devastated by what she found and she was angry. She felt like she had been lied to. She found out he had a criminal record. Now a criminal record in and of itself doesn't mean that a person is necessarily a bad person. but it can raise some red flags. You want to know who you're dating. There are plenty of people that have been arrested. But what did he do? And should she be afraid of him? It's her choice, whether she wanted to date someone that had been arrested or someone that had a criminal record.

Maybe not. She had to dig deeper and find out exactly what he was involved in and whether or not he was actively trying to hide it from her. Some people lie by omission. They think, hey, I'm not going to say anything. I'm not going to tell anyone I've committed a crime or anything, especially if they did their time or if it was far in the past. But she wondered if she were to ask him, would he admit it, or would he try to conceal it? Back to the investigation, they had ruled Andre out at this time because he had an alibi. He wasn't even in the state. He was nowhere near Naila at the time she disappeared. Now they moved on and wanted to interview Reginald. I'm going to warn you, this is going to get deep. It's very convoluted. And as much as I say, I love details, dare I say, this is a little bit

too detailed and kind of confusing, but I'm going to try to break it down as simply as I can. Because all of this is important. I believe details are the most important parts of these cases because it's how everything gets unfolded. It's all the twists and the turns that connect things. And that is what I find to be so interesting, but so scary and frightening. Were there signs? What was happening? Do we really know the people in our life? That's what I'm about to explain. Reginald without hesitation goes down to the Chicago Police Department and agrees to talk to them. He tells them everything, how they met last year, and it was by chance on a street in the Ritzie Gold Coast. Naila was beautiful, sophisticated, and classy. They briefly dated, but they weren't right for each other.

And that their relationship ended back in July and they were seeing other people, everything was fine. Police want to know where he was on September 18th. He gives them a recap of his day. He was hanging out with friends. He says he was hanging out with friends. He went grocery shopping, made a trip to a Target store, and that he went out on a couple dates. He went out with two of his girlfriends. Two of his three girlfriends. Did he have more? I don't know. So I guess the cheating story was true. He had everything, right? Why not every girl? Definitely a ladies man. He was most likely cheating when he was with Naila. She wasn't wrong to assume that he was living a double life. Her friend was right. He wasn't who she thought he was. But that doesn't mean he had anything to do with her disappearance. However, it definitely didn't mean he was Mr. Perfect like she initially thought he was. Now for the next part. I want to warn you about something. In other videos, I've been accused of victim blaming and I am someone who never even

thinks about blaming a victim for anything. I'm not even trying to go there. And in this case, what I'm going to be doing is telling you about some of the actions that Naila took. These are facts of the case. When there are actions that a person took, it's not blaming them. for anything that could have happened to them. It's telling you what actions led up to the events that occurred. It is in no way shedding any false light or negativity upon the person who may have suffered

by the hands of someone else. But it's important. Victimology is a very important aspect of every single case. We don't just look at what's happening with perpetrators of crimes. We also have to look at what the person who was a potential victim was doing when it led up to their last moments. What were they doing in relation to the people involved and anything else connected to the case? That's part of a death investigation and is in no way, shape, or form victim blaming. It's not negative. If someone chooses to look at it in a negative way, as it relates to the players in this case and what happened, that's your own perspective. But these are facts and that's what I stick to.

I read the police reports and legal documents, and that is where I'm getting this information. I just wanted to take a moment to point that out because I have seen it in comments in relation to other cases. So once again, I just want to reiterate, I am not trying to do any harm to any of the people in this case, especially anyone who has been hurt. But we do have to discuss some of the things that led up to this moment in time. Police asked Reginald why the relationship with Naila ended. like you have three girlfriends now. Did you have multiple girlfriends when you were seeing Naila? And he admitted he did. He said in his point of view, his relationship with her was purely sexual. And it fell apart after one of her friends told her that he could be cheating.

After she began digging into his life, she uncovered that one of the girls he was dating was pregnant. He was keeping secrets. Police questioned him about whether he was still in contact with Naila and he said yes, that they do communicate every now and then, and he was even in contact with her that month. So now the police are even more interested. They're like, okay, well, who was this other woman that was having your baby or had your baby? And he's like, which one? Because it turns out, he'd also been married. Another thing he might have been hiding, he had an ex-wife.

Her name was Natalia. And he had two daughters with her, Amaya and Aja. They got married in 2005. That was just a year before he met Naila. So this is starting to get pretty interesting. Now it doesn't mean that he's guilty of anything except being a douchebag, but we're starting to see something going on here. I think it's important because you don't know who you're getting involved with. Natalia and Reginald had their first daughter a few years before they got married and they had their second daughter right before they broke up.

That was in December of 2005. Reginald moved from Naperville to Chicago. that's how he ended up in Chicago. He said he was still involved in his children's lives and that he visited them and maintains contact with their mother Natalia. And then he explains he started dating the other woman in March of 2006. That was the woman that Naila found out was pregnant. Their daughter was born not too long ago in June of 2007, a month before him and Naila split up. These women are important in the story. It's not for nothing that I'm going into detail about them. So this woman that was pregnant, her name is Ina. And Ina was living with her parents.

Ina and Reginald were actually looking for a home together. He was a real estate investor and she worked for a real estate company and they were interested in developing some of their own properties including a condo in university village, which is the same condo complex that Naila lived in. However, this was a very prominent and popular area. So if you are in real estate, you know that. It's not really that much of a red flag or anything. It's just one more thing that correlated. Reginald actually met Naila when he was already dating Ina. He was cheating. He had an ex-wife. He was going through a divorce with two kids. He had a baby on the way. I don't think Naila knew any of that. The cops wanted to know a little bit more about his interest in the University Village

property. He says he's always looking for properties to invest in. He even admitted that he visits those condominiums on a pretty regular basis, and he was looking to purchase one that same month. He had visited that location a number of times in September. Not really that unusual, but something to think about. That raised some red flags because they're like, okay, he was around that area. Was he there on the day that Naila went missing? Let's dig into this a little further. Meanwhile, while, they started to investigate his background. They wanted to find out about the women he was dating, especially the ones that went on a date with him the night that Naila disappeared. During his alibi, he gives him a name of a woman, Nancy Moreno. And Nancy confirmed that Reginald was looking

for a university village condominium. She owned one of the properties that was up for sale, and he did come by that property twice in September. One of those times he was with a woman, which presumably was his girlfriend, Ina. Nancy, unfortunately, did not have the exact dates, but this did link him to being in that area in September. So the police go back and interview some of Naila's friends about Reginald. They say that Naila found him to be pretty arrogant. And that's why she was drawn to André.

He was so much more respectful to her. Once she found someone better, she was able to move on, but it was hard. She still remained in contact with Reginald and they asked why. And there's one simple reason. He's a good looking guy. He's kind of the one that got away. Maybe she would have stayed with him if he wasn't all of those things, a liar, a cheater. But sometimes people that have that lifestyle do those things.

He's living his life. He's doing whatever he wants. And that's really tough. We've probably all known someone like that, someone that you want to want you the way that you want them. and they just don't. So there's all this push and pull and drama. Sometimes they're nice. Sometimes they're just lonely and vice versa.

So it's true. They were no longer in a relationship, but they were keeping in touch. As a matter of fact, when police are going through Naila's email, they find one entitled Adios. That email was sent from Naila to Reginal on July 16th, 2007. This is when they broke up,

or at least for the, final time. Because it seems like from the email, Naila had already tried to remove him from her life several times, but there was just something about him, something that kept her coming back. There's no way to know exactly what somebody else's relationship is like because we're not living it. But from the email, we can get a glimpse into the way that Naila felt. She explained in that email that she had tried, like I said, several times to remove him from her life, but, but But somehow, he always managed to slip back in. Now she finally had to put it to an end.

She wanted to stop all communication. She told him she was very disappointed that he treated the relationship like a game. She called him deeply disrespectful. He constantly flirted with her friends, and he was obsessed to a point of being pathological over these seemingly insignificant things. He was selfish, he only cared about himself and about money. the money he was so focused on making, and it gets worse. She wrote, since the first day we met, you and your life has been nothing but lies. She said that he never told her about his jail time,

or his criminal history, that he constantly lied and made up stories about where he was and what he was doing, and the fact that he probably had other girlfriends the whole time they were together. But the most disturbing thing of all was his refusal. to acknowledge the existence of his own children. She ended the email by telling him she never wanted to hear from him again. And if her impulses ever led her to call him, that he should not answer. That if that happened, it didn't mean anything. It was just a slip of the brain. So now you can kind of understand where she was coming from when they broke up back in July of 2007. He was one of those people that could kind of charm his way back and worm his way back in. He was good looking.

He went to these swanky nightclubs. He had the penthouse apartment and the lavish lifestyle. There was also that sexual attraction that's really strong, that chemistry between them. It might have been really powerful, powerful enough for her not to be able to say no. She knew in her heart. This is not the type of guy she wants to be with. And thankfully, she had a new man in her life, Andre. So she was in a better situation. But both of her friends, Dana and Tiffany, confirmed that even though Naila was angry and felt disrespected, she was determined to learn everything about him. It's almost like you want to add insult to injury for some reason.

Not that you want to punish yourself, but it just piques your interest. One thing she was really upset about, like I mentioned in the email, was that he was flirting with her friends. And Tiffany admitted that she was. She had to turn down his advances all the time. Now, even though I'm telling you this like it's happening really fast, all of this information gathering by police was happening over weeks, if not months. They want to find out and hone in on what Reginald was doing on the 18th.

His story is that he woke up around 11 a.m. And he went to various places in Chicago. A fishery, a county building, an auto parts store. and he was there around 4 o'clock just taking care of an outstanding invoice. Then he left and he had to meet with a contractor that he had hired to renovate his condo, but the contractor never showed up. Then between about 6 and 10 p.m., he's out shopping with his friends, the Eccles, Hugh and Castro. They picked him up at his condo.

According to him, they came by and picked him up from his condo and they went to Target on Roosevelt Road. They were there to buy a gift from a baby register. After they were finished, they just drove him home, and then he went out for the evening. First, he met up with a woman named Joy. Then he met up with a girl named Lindsay, and she's the one that ends up spending the night at his condo. Two investigators, Reginald didn't seem like a guy that was necessarily hiding anything. As a matter of fact, he was telling them above and beyond what they were asking, and we've seen this before. He's going all out. He's letting them know every detail, who he was with, their first names, their last names. He didn't seem to be hiding anything. He gave

all the phone numbers to the police and he said, go ahead and reach out to these people. And that's exactly what they did. They wanted to track down this couple, Hugh and Castro Eccles. But I do want to shift our focus back to Dana just for a moment. There is important information that starts to come out in relation to Reginald coming from Dana. She said that the messages that she wanted the police to hear came from him and he was threatening her and yelling at her, telling her to stay out of his life and his business. Police wanted to know why. Why would she still be in his life and his business? What led him to leave these messages were they out of the blue? Why was he angry? Dana explains that in her anger, Naila decided she was going to start letting people know that he was not a very good

guy. He wasn't who he was pretending to be. She was determined to let other women know what happened to her and what he might do to them. She might have thought that this was something valiant. Or maybe she was just doing it out of spite. We don't know. What we do know is that she was able to track down his girlfriend, Ina, the one that was pregnant with his baby. And that started a shitstorm. Ina had just given birth. and here Naila was telling her that she was having sex with Reginald the whole time. Ina is shocked. She's got this little baby at home. She thinks she's dating this amazing guy.

They're looking for a property together to start a new life. And now she's finding out that he's been with this other woman the whole time. However, she believed Naila because she had so much evidence. They continue talking and sharing information and the more they share with each other, the more livid they both became. Ina let Naila in on something else. Reginald was actually supposed to be paying child support for his two other kids, but he wasn't.

And he also got physical with her. Everything was starting to unravel. And Naila couldn't believe it. She was actually kind of lucky that she didn't stay with him, that she uncovered these things before she got deeper and deeper into that relationship. She let him go. And it seemed like things were over.

She didn't have to worry about it anymore. She got everything off her chest. She let the other girlfriend know. But then in August of 2007, just a month later, she finds out that one of her colleagues is dating him and it set her off. Was this on purpose? Was it to rub it in her face? Did he go seek out one of her colleagues? It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was that now, Naila, was going to let this woman know that. he was manipulating her. I don't know exactly what she told this woman. It might have been about his criminal record. And we really haven't talked about his criminal record. And it's important I let you in on exactly what it consisted of. It's a little more intense than, oh, I got pulled over for speeding or I was drunk in public. Some of the things we hear about when younger people who kind of find themselves in a bad situation go through. This was a little different. But before I go into that, I always wonder, is this the right thing to do? And what I mean by that is I think to myself, is it my place to say something? Every relationship is so different. I'm not saying this is a good guy.

And I'm not saying that he wasn't doing anything wrong. All I'm saying is, I just personally ask myself whether or not I should tell this to someone else. Maybe he's not going to do the same thing in every relationship. But the past seems to repeat itself. And in this case, We're talking about a man who had eight felony convictions and three misdemeanor convictions, har theft, physical altercations, orders of protection from women. It was intense. And his record dated all the way back to the 90s. He had punched a gas station attendant.

He had threatened police officers. And once the cops got a copy of his criminal record, they thought it was a pretty bad sign, considering Naila went missing. And now all these things are coming to. the surface. It's been confirmed. She had a major problem with him and she was trying to go tell other people about what was happening. One friend says Reginald was pissed. He was really upset that she was going around telling people that he's a cheater and that he wasn't who he said he was. As the police are sifting through all of these emails, they see one from September 6th. This was an email that someone

sent to Naila, one of her friends. It was an article about Reginald I don't know if they were trying to stir things up with her again. I'm not sure. But it's from the Chicago Sun Times. Naila reads it and decides to forward this article to Dana and Tiffany. That's how we know about everything that transpired. Tiffany told the police that Naila had blind copied so she BCCed the forwarded email to Reginald and she wrote in the body, this shit is ridiculous. The article explained that Reginald was arrested on drugs and weapons charges and for threatening a Highland Park police officer who was investigating him for stealing cars. While he was alone for just a moment in this federal building, quote, the skinny pots slipped out of handcuffs and escaped, unquote.

While he was on the run, he called the FBI and he was bragging to them that they'll never catch him, kind of like catch me if you can. Finally, two weeks later, agents found him hiding under a bush and arrested him. That's what started all of these hateful messages going back and forth over the next few weeks. And this was just a couple weeks before Naila went missing. Now he's really looking like a suspect. Warning adult content. So I don't know if you're watching this around a kid, but language is going to be a little bit explicit. The first heated communication starts off with a voice message. He calls her and she doesn't answer. So he decides to go off on her on the voice message. He talks about how he's so rich and he'll always be surrounded by these hot women and all the lavish

things and he'll always be living the life and how she is just so hung up on him and desperate and angry and that she won't fucking stop with all the stuff she's doing. And now he knows he is never going fuck with her again. He said she was bitter and venomous and she doesn't deserve the things that he has. He tells her to forget about him and stop digging in his business and leave him alone. He also responded to the forwarded email with the article in it and he copied Tiffany and Dana among other people, defending himself once again and repeating his request not to be dragged into whatever drama was going on with Naila. The subject line for the forwarded email said, bitch, I'm rich, so that shit don't even matter. In that email, he wrote how it was just so

sad that she was so caught up in him and mad that he would no longer take her calls or come over and fuck her anymore. He said, don't be upset. You give okay head and your ass is kind of tight, so you should be able to find a decent man in no time. Just do yourself a favor and get a lift for those saggy ass breasts. Then he warned her to stop testing him or trying to figure out his next move or who he's fucking. He ended with the article didn't even embarrass him at all. It just made her look bitter and desperate. And if she kept talking shit and sending articles, he would respond by passing around copies of the video they made that shows his dick in her mouth. Instead of ignoring this message, Naila decides to write back. She was the type of person that

really didn't take crap from anyone. So she told him he was being dramatic and that he was clearly crazy. She also wanted to know how he got all of her friend's email addresses and she said, do not contact Dana or Tiffany or her ever again, that they were all sick and have had enough of his obsessive calling and his behavior. Now Reginald calls her on her phone again. Dana is on the other line. She tells Dana to hold on and she takes his call. When she returned to talk to Dana, that's when she told her she was scared. That's when she gave Dana the information about her username and her password to both her voicemail and her email in case anything happened to her. Dana said that over the next few days, they talked and texted about this situation all the time.

Naila told her that she was becoming even more afraid that he was going to retaliate in some kind of way. Now remember that she's sharing information with Ina, and Ina lets her know that she's confronted Reginald and that he is really not happy. Then now he's surrounded by all this drama with women, that everyone's finding things out. People know he's a two-timer and he has a criminal past. Both of the women decide that they want to file orders of protection against him. Instead of just doing it, Naila decides to let Reginald know that she's going to do it. So she emailed him that she was going to file a police report seeking an order of protection.

And she said, don't come anywhere near me because if you do, you'll be back in jail. I promise. You're crazy. You hit women. You're a bully and you're extremely dangerous. But you won't bully me. You're messing with the wrong woman. These emails and voice messages and phone calls went back and forth.

But then they finally stopped around September 11th. That was when Naila spent those few days with. Andre in Wisconsin. When she came back, she told Tiffany that she was serious about seeking a restraining order against him. She was afraid. And she also emailed Ina. And she told her they should share information so that they could file a similar order. That same day, Naila told her friend Devin Carter the Reginald threatened to kill her. She even said, if something happens to me, he did it. and this was just on September 17th, a day before Naila goes missing. What was this about?

What did he say? Well, it turns out he sent her a voicemail that Dana could no longer find. The one that Dana really wanted to give to police, because all this other stuff, it doesn't prove anything. It proves he's a cheater and that he has a criminal past and he treats women really badly. but it doesn't have any real threats directly toward Naila, other than to just stop testing him. Dana insists there was a voicemail where he threatened to erase her. And that was why she decided to file the protective order.

That was a threat. Saying you're going to erase someone, it means you're going to make them disappear, and then she disappeared. But you may be wondering about all these other women. The past seems to repeat itself. and he hasn't harmed any of these other women and taken their lives. So did he really do anything to Naila? Well, it's time to dig into that situation real quick.

Police interview Natalia, his ex-wife. And sure enough, she admits he had gotten physical with her. They lived together in a small apartment in Naperville, and there were several instances where he had harmed her. They got into an argument one time when they were driving on the freeway, and they had their four-year-old daughter in the backseat. Natalia got hit in her face, and in her right eye. She tried to pull over and she was crying and screaming and he just apologized.

She was super swollen. She had to miss work and school and wear sunglasses. She didn't tell anyone because she was afraid. He was on parole and at that time she didn't want to get him in trouble. Then in the summer of 2005, she was pushed onto a bed. A pillow was put over her face and pushed down until she couldn't breathe. She was finally able to break free because her daughter came into the room and she told her to call 911. But Reginald said to her, he could have done a lot to her before they ever arrived.

These threats were serious. Then later in 2005, he put his hands around her neck. He only stopped because once again, their daughter came into the room. If she hadn't, Natalia might not be here. By December 2005,

the month that they had their daughter, Reginald finally moved out of the apartment in Naperville, and then he was living in Chicago. But that didn't end the suffering. because one time he grabbed her by the arm and threw her to the floor. She was once again too afraid to file a report and then by January of 2006, she filed for divorce and he was enraged. She got hit in the head and it was bad. She even bled. He wouldn't take her to

the emergency room because he knew he would get in trouble and possibly arrested. He just drove her by a nearby hospital and dropped her off and left. After that, they finally went their separate ways and she settled into a new townhouse, but she still let him have contact with their daughters. And she had just seen him on Mother's Day in May. That didn't go well because they got into an argument. They yelled at each other every single time they had to talk or exchange their children. It was a mess. On Mother's Day, she had to call the police, but he grabbed the phone and he drove off with it. A couple weeks later, he shows up without being invited, gets in her face again. She calls the police and she's screaming, but he just keeps taunting her and saying, go ahead, I'm rich. I have all the money to bail myself out. He grabs the phone out of her hand, drives away with her phone, and her arm was left injured. That time, she gets a neighbor's phone, calls the police, and files an order of protection. That's the day their divorce was set into motion, but she didn't put any of that in the divorce petition. So none of it was on his record. In March 2006,

Ina started dating him. She knew nothing about him getting physical with Natalia. On September 8th, while he's exchanging these communications with Naila and he's really upset, he's at Ina's parents' house asking them for money. What is that all about? He's supposed to be this rich guy with all this money and designer outfits. Of course, I'm going to tell you all the details, but he and Ina get into an argument. It was scary because he was holding Eva, who was only three months old. And guess what he starts doing? Putting his hands around Ina's neck. The only reason he stopped is because Ina's mother came in and tried breaking down a glass door. He then grabbed Ava and left the house. When Ina tried to follow him because she was afraid for her daughter, he pushed her down a flight of stairs and drove off.

When he came back, he started arguing with her mother. Thank goodness nothing happened to Eva. I know was upstairs in a closet hiding. The next day, he comes back and he's kicking and screaming and he's kicking the back door in and tells her he's losing his patience. He removed him from the property and then three days later, she tried to file a protective order, but she went to the wrong courthouse. She eventually did get that order on September 18th.

The exact same day, Naila disappeared. And that's also the same day that Ina initially got in touch with Natalia. That's right, his ex-wife. So now his ex-wife and his current girlfriend who both share children with him just got in touch with each other on the 18th. It sounds very, very suspicious. Knowing all of this, he is definitely the number one suspect, but he has an alibi. He was a target. And he says he was with those other women and they corroborated his story.

We're going to hear more about his target trip and what his friends had to say, but I have to go back because we left off on September 18th again. All this time, the cops are still looking for Naila. And I told you, there was someone very close to this case, Calvin, and we left off with him and his colleague deciding to go out on their own and look for Naila at 4 o'clock in the morning on the 27th. They got their flashlights and they walked right into the wooded area. There was just something about that area. It kept bothering Calvin. He just had a gut feeling. After looking around, his partner saw something hanging from a tree.

They practically lit up in the darkness because they were white and contrasted against the dark sky when the flashlight was shined towards them in the dark. They knew they were on to something. I can't help but think that they were. were placed there on purpose like breadcrumbs. Naila, leaving behind clues to her whereabouts. As they kept going, they were crossing into the adjacent parking lot near the preserve. A parking lot of a run-down video store that I mentioned. They're approximately 20 feet from the edge of that lot and directly in front of the preserve. This was half a mile away from where they found Naila's car. Calvin saw this section of grassy wheat.

and it came up to his waist. He could tell that there was almost a perfect path through the grass. He started to follow it. He only got about five or six steps in and that's when he saw something. It just didn't look right to him. As Calvin got closer, his worst fears were imagined. Because when he looked down, he realized that he was looking at human remains. He was completely shocked. He knew what he was seeing, but he just kept thinking, how? How do I know it's her? In all likelihood, it was her. Who else would it be? It wouldn't just be another random person, but he didn't want to think that was true. It couldn't be true, because how could they have missed this? The cops were focusing more on the lagoon, not really in this other area behind the video store. This was nine

days after she had gone missing, and now everyone's fears had come true. This wasn't the body of someone who had just died. It was decomposed. It couldn't be identified. I can't go into full detail, and you know why. And a lot of you really wouldn't want me to anyway, because it just sticks with you. They knew it was the body of a woman. She wasn't clothed, and she was only partially buried in a shallow grave. They ended up needing dental records to identify the remains. A doctor named Dr. Crowns was the pathologists who performed the autopsy. The remains were partially mummified and skeletonized, and they estimated that she had passed away eight to 12 days earlier, so sometime between September 16th and 20th. It was ruled a homicide. The night before they got the horrible news, the family

had gotten together and surrounded Naila's mother and father. For nine days, they had continued to believe that Naila was going to come back alive. And that night, Her uncle Dwayne Johnson said that he was just pacing back and forth, just waiting to find out if the body they found was Nihela's and they just kept thinking, maybe it's not. They still hadn't gotten word by 10.30 the next morning. So they really thought, maybe it's not her. 1130 rolled around and then it was noon, but then the call came in at 1230 and that's when everything came crashing down. Her uncle said that when the call came in and you hear it, it's like, God, no, no, not Naila. Everyone cared about this family. They were rallying around them, giving them support. John, Naila's younger brother, was in high school. And he was also holding out hope.

All of his classmates just surrounded him, his fellow students and people that didn't even know him that well. They were all attending the prayer vigils and showing concern for Naila. He still went to school that day. And everyone gathered together around this flagpole to support him and pray for him and his family. But all of that hope was completely shattered. Sadly, the dental records did confirm that the identity of the remains was that of Naila Franklin. But there was a lack of injury. There wasn't anything that could be observed on the outside. So the doctors concluded that the cause of death was exfixiation. And that could have been done in a variety of ways. I know you can imagine all of those ways. An item,

plastic bag, pillow, something that would obviously cause someone not to be able to breathe. Now they're trying to find someone who committed a homicide. They're no longer looking for Naila. And of course, her family is completely torn apart. How could you ever think that something like this was going to happen to the person you love? Someone close to you, someone you just spoke to. Her family wants answers. As soon as the sun came up, the police were on that scene. They were blocking everything off. They didn't want anyone in that area. There were all kinds of people coming up on the scene. Friends, relatives, media, and a bunch of people that just wanted to take photos. This location was Wentworth Woods Forest Preserve. It's on the north side of this road right here. There were officials

from Calumet City, Chicago's Cook County Sheriff's Office, Cook County Forest Preserve Police Department, and Cook County Medical Examiner's Office. A spokesperson for the family said this. Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers during the sorrowful time. As we move forward, the family asks that you respect this time of morning as they plan the celebration of Naila Franklin's life. She will be greatly missed by all of the family. They also express their thankfulness for everyone's efforts in searching and praying

on October 3rd, still not knowing exactly what happened to Naila, all of her friends and family gathered for her funeral. More than 1,000 people showed up at the Trinity United Church of Christ on 400 West 95th Street. Naila just couldn't have known how many people that she was going to have an impact on. The search was still on to figure out who did this to her. They went back over all the clues and they found something. Remember that Remi Martin card that they found in the trunk? And then they found another one in the parking lot. Well, while they're interviewing people that knew Reginald, they spoke to a woman named Kimberly Nash. This was yet another woman that he had been seeing at the time. She spent a lot of time at his condo. She was a marketing manager for Remi Martin. Now things are heating back up because what

would her business card be doing in Naila's trunk? As well as where the Eli Lilly boxes were found. Obviously, there's some kind of connection between Reginald and Naila's death. This is when the police decide they're going to get a search warrant because now they had this connection and they had probable cause. Something from his condo was at the scene where they found her body. Detectives go there and right when they get there, they notice his front door is extremely. extremely damaged. It looks like it had been kicked in. That was strange. It does look like there had been some foul play. But they found out there was a reason his door was like that. And it had nothing to do with Naila. A few weeks ago, the Cook County Sheriff's Department had actually tried to

force it open because they were attempting to evict him. This was 2007. A lot of people were falling behind on their bills, on their mortgages. This was when the whole real estate market was collapsing. Reginald had money issues. Even though he was strutton around like he was some kind of baller and wearing all the designer brands, his whole closet was full of designer clothing and Gucci shoes, but guess what? He didn't even have a bed to sleep on. He was literally sleeping on a mattress, no furniture in his entire condo, not even anything to cook on in his kitchen. You know why? Because someone like him didn't care about those things. The things that were important, were eating at fancy restaurants and driving nice cars.

This was also a reason why I bet Naila thought there was something suspicious about him. Something wasn't right. If she had ever been to his condo, which I'm guessing she had, she would probably be thinking, if you're rich, where's your bed? What's going on? You're an adult. There was something in his condo that was significant. They found an iPod, and when they ran the serial number, it was confirmed that the original owner was Naila.

and oddly the device was named Reginald that it used to be named Naila. Shortly after midnight on September 19th, someone had connected the iPod to iTunes. And what did they do? They changed the name. A brand new iTunes file had been created and the old database was deleted. Why would he have her iPod? Why would he be changing the name just the next day after she went missing? while they're collecting things from his condo,

they're also confronting him about the voice messages. They wanted to know why he was leaving messages like that, and whether he had anything to do with her death. They show him the emails. They have everything on him. And he admits, yeah, I was angry. It wasn't cool that she was going around town, spreading my business around.

And so they said, oh, okay, well, you weren't really happy about it. And he's like, who would be? They replied to him and say, yeah, but we heard that you threatened to errone. race her. This is when Reginald got a little bit angry because he said, no, I have sisters. I would never say that. And he insisted he's a good guy, but we know otherwise. But we know his criminal past. He had just gotten out of prison two years before this. And then the police confront him with something else. His MySpace page, yeah, they found some really weird posts that he made

right after Naila's body was discovered. He had all these public pleas about how he He was innocent and he had nothing to do with it and he was acting like he was the victim. He even went to the media telling him his story and that he was completely innocent, denying he had anything to do with Naila's death. His exact words were, it's an unfortunate situation, but it doesn't mean I should be run through the ringer. I had nothing to do with it. Something you have to understand is that this is November going into December and no murder

charges had been filed yet. No one had been arrested and Reginald was in the Cook County Jury. jail because he had violated one of those protective orders. At the same time, he was charged with aggravated battery for hitting a deputy. And as far as Naila's case was concerned, yeah, there was a lot of evidence pointing towards Reginald, but it was all circumstantial. There was no physical evidence connecting him to a crime. They still weren't even sure exactly what happened to her or where she was killed. Just because her body was found, where it was doesn't mean that's where it happened. Besides, it wasn't his business cards that were found.

It was someone else's. Sure, they were in his condo, but so was Kimberly Nash and so was Naila. Did Naila take them and put them in her trunk, maybe to look into this Kimberly Nash woman? It wasn't until December that Reginald's alibi was being thoroughly investigated. There was so much going on in this case. I know it seems like a lot of time has passed, but with everything they had to uncover, interviewing all those people, her. her family members, her friends. Making all these stories make sense, connecting all the dots. Sure, we can look back and think, there's an easy line of evidence from A to Z leaning towards him being a suspect, but that's not really how it works. At this point, they're doing an interview

with his alibi witnesses. The couple that he said he went to Target with, they're both in for questioning. But you see, since Reginald had already given them information about which target location they were at, police proactively went and gathered the surveillance videos. Sure enough, they do see his friends there. The couple backed up everything Reginald said, that they were at Target together on the evening of the 18th. Then they dropped him off at his condo. But police come in and confront them with the surveillance video. They said, yeah, we see you and your wife here, but where's Reginald? Why didn't the cameras pick him up? You can see I'm putting this on the screen. Here's a screenshot. We all know if you're in a store like Target, you cannot avoid being picked up

by surveillance cameras. So what's going on? At that point, they bring Hugh's wife into another interview room and they say, listen, this is a murder investigation. They tell both of them that they think Reginald might be involved and they need to start telling him the truth. Not only that, police had some other evidence that could actually implicate them in this crime. They let them know that they had phone records, so they better start telling the truth or they'll be arrested. That's when Hugh immediately changed his tune. He said, yeah, I went to Target with my wife. We were there to print out a registry for a baby shower. And when we were shopping, around about 745, that's when Reginald called. He said he was stranded and he needed a ride home. He gave Hugh directions.

He said, take the I-94 to the 159th Street exit and get off. and meet me at the first gas station. Across from where? Huh, the Indiana State line. Wow. Reginald just happened to be across the Indiana state line. Isn't that where they found Naila's vehicle? When they finally saw him,

he was coming from behind the gas station as if he were hiding, and then he gets into their car. The police were able to confirm this with surveillance video from the gas station. Then Hugh was begging the police to believe him that this was the only time that he was with Reginald that night. His wife corroborated the story, but she added that when Reginald had said he was stranded and Hammond, it was because he got into an argument with his uncle, and it is true. His uncle lived in that area. As a matter of fact, this is his house. She also said that when they picked him up, there wasn't anything suspicious

about him. He didn't have any marks on him. His clothes were not disheveled. There was no dirt on him, and he looked fine. But the cops have something else. Since Reginald was in jail, they had a recording of his last conversation with Hugh right before Hugh was supposed to be interviewed by police. He said, Reginald called you three times. What was that about? Reginald's exact words were the baby registry does a lot. I'm assuming that means it would place them there because they have to print it out and there

would be a record of it. But this is getting crazy and things are really starting to fall apart. Now, the police had to check with every alibi witness. They got in touch with a contractor that Reginald was supposed to meet on the afternoon of the 18th that was remodeling his condo. Well, that never happened. The contractor said, yes, he started to remodel the condo. But then Reginald stopped paying him and the initial $5,000 that he put down as an installment check had bounced. Every single time this contractor tried to collect his money, Reginald wouldn't pick up his

phone so he never got paid. Remember that woman Nancy that owned the property in University Village, the same place where Naila lived? She had told police that Reginald did come visit her property in September but she didn't remember the dates. Well apparently there was a friend who was part of his alibi witness. He was an old friend that recently reconnected with him because he was mentoring him in real estate investment. The day of the 18th this friend Aaron was driving Reginald around. They met up for breakfast, then you took him back home, and then you picked him up again in 10.30 a.m. And they drove around to different places. He went into like a car dealership to do some business.

And then around noon, they go by University Village to see Nancy's property. This was the day that Naila went missing. He's at her complex. Aaron says that Reginald got out of his car and said he would be right back. He was just going to go check on the property. Well, he left Aaron waiting for 45 minutes. So what was he doing? Was he with Nancy looking at her property? From noon to almost 1 o'clock, where was he in that building? Coincidentally, somewhere around the same time, Naila called her work and decided to take a personal day for the rest of the day. They spoke to her. They know it was her. So she just happened to take a personal day the exact same day and time that Reginald was in her building. Then Erin says they left that area and drove to Gold Coast Auto Body Shop.

Then to a Bentley dealership. And oh, by the way, remember the white Bentley? The $225,000 Benley that he kept bragging about and flashing around. Probably why he was getting so many girls in the first place acting like he's this real estate mogul. Well, that was actually another one of his manipulations. He had actually tricked someone into buying it for him, and he promised to pay them back, but the check bounced. Oh my God, he was just basically manipulating everyone taking advantage of so many people with his charm and his charisma, just like he did with Naila. Aaron says he drove him to a couple more businesses and then back to his condo at 6 p.m. So if his alibi is completely wrecked, What was he really doing? Well, that is where CSL information comes in.

It will reveal his whereabouts, and it stands for cell site location information for phones. Nihilus phone, Reginald's phone, and Hughes phone. We already know that they found evidence that Naila's phone had been used in bounced off towers in Hammond, linking her to her car location and where the body was eventually found. So the CSL information on the phones show where the phone. show where the phones are moving because it's where the signal is bouncing off which tower. The biggest gap of time in this story is when he was actually at Naila's building for 45 minutes. Now, I am not going to go into every place that each phone involved was at which time.

But I am going to tell you the most important places where the phones pinged. Naila's phone was present at the vicinity of her condo in the morning. However, Reginald's phone is in precisely the same exact location when her voicemail was accessed at 121 p.m. And again, at 1.28 p.m. 4 minutes the first time, 6.5 minutes the second time. Is that when some of the voicemail messages were deleted? Around the time that Andre was leaving, work 4 p.m. and was calling Naila's phone and she texted back that you couldn't pick up because she

was at dinner. Well, at that point, her phone and Reginald's phone were both moving together toward Reginald's condo. Between 6 o'clock and 7.30 p.m., there is no activity coming from Naila's phone, most likely because it was shut off. But Reginald's phone was picked up near Naila's condo. between 6.24 p.m. and 6.49 p.m. And then it started traveling south on I-94. And just like Hugh said, a call came into his phone from Reginald around 7.10. And that phone call bounced off a tower right near the target. But when he called his second time, the tower that Reginald's phone bounced off was none other than where the pharmaceutical boxes were located in that parking lot of the River Oaks golf course and Naila's phone was in the exact same area. Then between 8.15 and

8.19 p.m. Reginald's and Naila's phone were in the exact same area where her body was found. Around 8.39 p.m. Hughes's phone is traveling toward where Naila's car was found. Remember, he came to pick up Reginald from his uncle's house, which was just a couple blocks away. Then all three phones are heading back toward Reginald's condo. Around 10 o'clock when Reginald's phone and Naila's phone were near his condo. That's when the 911 calls were placed. And after that, there was no more activity on Naila's phone. However, Reginald's phone was still making calls.

His phone was near North Loop, which was downtown near his condo. That's consistent with Joy's account of that night. She said that they went out. And then surveillance footage does show him coming in with the other woman showing up and pulling up into the garage and walking into his condo lobby right before midnight. So piecing all of this together, the police finally have enough to charge him. And they interview him. And I don't have the whole interview, but I have a couple clips. I just want you to see his body language, the way that he interacts with the police officers, because he's adamant that he is not involved. And he is so confident that he sounds believable. But then he starts acting really

strange. So I want to give you a look at this. You can tell me what you think in the comments. He has always maintained his innocence. However, there were eyewitnesses. They actually saw him at Naila's condo. Not only that, they pulled surveillance from her condo and in fact, he's on camera and it's chilling. Listen to this. In the days leading up to her disappearance, neighbors and security guards in her building saw Reginald lurking. This is when police believe that he was actually plotting and premeditating her demise. On the morning of September 16th, just a couple days before she went missing, a resident there named Sterling Gunn, which is an interesting name saw Reginald Bentley in the parking garage. He noticed that the parking garage was partially closed.

Reginald saw this man and said, oh, should I move my car? And the guy said, nah. But when he looks up again, he sees Reginald and he's spying on him from a different portion of the parking lot, which is really strange. And the garage door seemed like it was broken. The next morning, another resident named Sheila Gregory saw Reginald walking down the hallway on the interior of the building. He didn't look like he was coming from anywhere specific and security footage shows him walking out of the elevator into the parking garage. Lisa Hudson, who was a security guard, went to the parking garage after someone reported that the door wouldn't close. She saw Reginald pacing around and talking on his phone. Later, she and another guard returned to investigate a report of a suspicious person, and they found

Reginald in a stairwell. They asked him what he was doing there, and he said he was smoking, but he didn't have a cigarette, and it didn't smell like smoke. He also lied to security guards. He said his name was Johnson from Unit 403, but the guards did not believe him, and they called the police. That's when he drove away in his Bentley. They searched the garage, and they found, that the locking mechanism on the door had been tampered with. This man, surveillance footage from the building showed Naila entering the garage in her car shortly before noon on September 18th. She parks her car, goes up to her condo, and then she returns to the parking garage

with Reginald around 1 p.m. The camera shows Naila walking in front of him, and then she seems to quickly turn her head and look back at him. That was the last time that she was ever confirmed to be alive. I'm going to show you the footage of Reginald and Naila. It shows them getting on an elevator together. Look at her body language. She's just standing against the wall. It doesn't seem right. She doesn't seem happy. And the part we don't see, but that was in a report I read, was that it looked like he was pulling her inside, that she was being forced by Reginal to, go with him against her will. And it's pretty obvious that he was the last person that was with Naila that day.

He had the opportunity, the time, and the accessibility to commit this crime. When Aaron dropped him off and waited for him for 45 minutes, that is when that footage shows them getting in the elevator together and going to that parking garage. And that was probably where Naila was killed in her own car. Reginald forced her in there and put his hands around her neck and left her there and then came back to drive her car to Hammond and leave it there on the side of the road and then ask his friend for a ride home. It all corroborated with the cell phone towers. Everything connected to what the cell phone records showed. Because remember at 624, Naile's phone was turned off and Reginald's phone was at her condo. Right after that, both phones start traveling towards Hammond. He's pretty much a con man. That's what it looks like, and that's what Naila's family and friends believed as well.

Now that they had all this evidence, they knew that they were finally going to get justice for their loved one. But that's not exactly what happened. No, it took nine years, nine years, almost a decade from when Naila disappeared, because this man was a master manipulator. All the qualities, good looking, conniving, living a tub of life. Reginald had gotten so many people to believe in him, and he's done it again and again. He has just become this master of manipulation, not only with people, but with the criminal justice system. He was able to delay this trial that long. He played every game. He would hire attorneys and then fire attorneys. When that happens, everything has to start over. There's a whole new process. At one point,

he tells the court, he's just going to represent himself and then he just changes his mind. This was so hard on Naila's family. They just wanted justice. They wanted to see him held accountable. They were heartbroken. And worse yet, her father Lee had passed away while this trial was in limbo for four years at the time. He passed away. And her mom said he died because of this trial because he lost his daughter. He stopped eating and he became sick and his health just went downward from there. He died from a broken heart. This family lost so much.

The January after Naila passed away, the family did get together. They went to her condo to pack up some of her things. It was the first time they had been there since she passed away. And Leah remembers walking in and smelling Naila's perfume. and she just envisioned her walking out at any moment to greet them and running up and saying hello. And I found this to be so touching. It's one of my favorite things that I read. Just a little bit of happiness in this really sad case that's not even over yet. They went to her condo. They did things for her. They cleaned up. They did her dishes. They made her bed. I can't even imagine.

And just looking around, it was like she was just there. Everything was just the way that she left it. there was even a cup that she used for her morning coffee that was still on the countertop. When people do these terrible things to their victims, they don't just take away that person's life. They take away the family's life because they take away the joy and they take away the future. I think with all the people that he tried to fool in his life, the biggest person he was trying to fool was himself. This man had 20 arrests in four counties and eight convictions spanning more than a decade. He had threatened to kill a Highland Park police detective in his family. You're going to hear from that man now.

He threatened for me, I would see the end of his 45, that he would kill me, that he would kidnap my family, kill my family, I would never be safe. In 2003, he pled guilty to hitting a correctional officer in the eye. The next year in 2004, he called his ex-girlfriend's family numerous times with threats. and by March 5th, 2008, he was being charged officially with Naila's murder, and prosecutors were seeking the death penalty. There were 16 counts against him, the highest being for first-degree murder. This case finally went to trial in 2015, and by then, the death penalty had been overturned in the state. When prosecutors were gathering even more evidence, they found out that that abandoned video store,

remember that? It was actually owned by registrar. Reginald's brother-in-law, Muhammad al-Shik. He had taken Ina there shortly after his brother-in-law purchased that property. Wow, that's good. It puts just another nail into Reginald's coffin. The case went to trial in November of 2015, and the sentencing was in 2016. Here's the prosecutor talking at the hearing. It was so hard to hear what her family had to say. Nightmare still taunt me with her screaming, moaning and reaching out, begging for her life. but none of us were there to save her. None of us were there to hear her cries.

There were two deaths as a result of this crime, Naila and her father. He died as a result of this. He stopped eating and his health declined. And there were a lot of witnesses for the prosecution, police officers that had handled other cases he was involved in, like this one. When they asked him how bad Reginald was, this was his point of view. The county jail chief Terry Williams testified that Ponce's

committed more than 200 violations while in custody, including setting a fire in his cell and sabotaging plumbing. He was asked where Potts ranked among worst inmates. In my career, he's got to be top 10. His ex-girlfriends testified, his ex-wife, anyone who knew him, and they didn't have nice things to say. Even Reginald's dad, Reginald Potts, Sr., spoke at the sentencing, trying to get his sentence reduced. He talked about how Reginald had. a broken home and about his upbringing. But none of those things mattered. Oh, and Reginald spoke at his sentencing as well.

Are you ready to hear this? From the man himself? From the legend? In his own mind? Here we go. Not a monster. I'm not a monster. I can't ask for forgiveness for something I didn't do.

I stand before you and I say that I am innocent. I did not murder night ill, period. Every channel you look on. Man murders his ex-girlfriend. because she broke up with her. Man murders his ex-girlfriend after stalking her. There is nothing in this case that suggests that I stalked Naila Franklin. I feel something drunk.

I'm going to speak about it. Not going to attack anybody. I'm going to speak my mind. Did that not disgust you? It's weird. I didn't like when he said that he can't ask for forgiveness for something he didn't do. And no matter what Reginald wanted to say, how much he wanted to try to convince the jury,

that he did not have anything to do with Naila's death? It didn't matter because it only took them two hours to find him guilty. They couldn't be manipulated. I'm going to let the judge tell you exactly what his sentence was. You are a cold, calculating, coward of a con man who must be punished. You didn't erase her, Mr. Potts. She lives on in the hearts and the minds of all these people. Hereby sentence you to spend the rest of your life.

in the Illinois Department of Corrections without the possibility of parole. You heard the judge. He handed down a life sentence. Today, at the age of 45, he's imprisoned at Medium Security Lawrence Correctional Center in Summer, Illinois. I know this has been a long story.

I know this has been a long video, but in closing, I want to read you something that I found on Naile's MySpace page. She had a bunch of photos with her and her friends, smiling. and laughing together. She described herself as someone who loved to travel, loved her family,

and having fun. She said she was extremely opinionated, and her grandmother was her hero. She dreamed of meeting Oprah, Janet Jackson, and Hillary Clinton someday because she thought they were smart and sexy. On her personal website, she wrote, My friends might call me a busybody. I can never really sits still. I'm always trying to figure out what I should be doing better with my life. I'm sort of a hopeless romantic. I tend to find the romance and beauty in people and in the world around me. Everyone has a story. There's always a lesson to be learned. I just try to remain open to receiving it. I did cry. When I read that, it got me choked up and it still does. After hearing everything that you have, and knowing what kind of person Naila was.

I would say to you that I hope you too can find romance and beauty in people and in the world around you because you still have the gift of life, the gift of being here. Everyone does have a story and Naila's was cut short. We get to add more chapters to ours, so make them count. That's all. That's all I have for this heartbreaking story. And as always, thank you so very much for watching. And I will see you in my next video.

Bye.