Speaker 1: One Friday morning in nineteen ninety one, Nicki Zinger and
Speaker 1: her boyfriend Daniel Rischer decided to drive down to Shreveport, Louisiana,
Speaker 1: for the day. The couple were both in their twenties
Speaker 1: and they lived in Magnolia, Arkansas. Daniel was in a
Speaker 1: band and he needed to take his guitar amp to
Speaker 1: a repair shop in Shreveport, about an hour and a
Speaker 1: half away. They stopped off to pick up some magazines
Speaker 1: at the home of Nicki's mother, Linda Holly. Linda was
Speaker 1: already at work, so Nicki left her a note and
Speaker 1: the two set off. When they got back that night,
Speaker 1: they drove past Linda's trailer.
Speaker 2: They mean because it was a little light. I figured
Speaker 2: she was in the bed, because when we went by
Speaker 2: the house the house was dark, but I thought the
Speaker 2: car was in the front yard.
Speaker 1: The next day, Saturday, Nicki called her mother over and
Speaker 1: over but was unable to reach her. On Sunday, Nicki
Speaker 1: and Daniel drove over to Linda's house and when they
Speaker 1: got their cops were everywhere.
Speaker 2: So when we pulled up and I asked what was wrong,
Speaker 2: and when they tell me that my mom was dead,
Speaker 2: I didn't understand why, because it just seemed make can
Speaker 2: be sinned. She couldn't be dead because she wasn't dead
Speaker 2: when I left.
Speaker 1: Linda Holly had been viciously murdered, stabbed, and bludgeoned to death,
Speaker 1: and Nicki and Daniel were soon the primary suspects.
Speaker 2: My I mistaking danger and not being locked in for
Speaker 2: thirty one years for crome. I have not committed.
Speaker 1: From lov of for good. This is wrongful conviction with
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling today, Nicki Zinger.
Speaker 2: To accept this free call breath one to refuse the
Speaker 2: thank you for using securis. We may start the conversation now, Hi, Nikki,
Speaker 2: are we ready?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm here, It's Maggie.
Speaker 2: Hey, we're a really neat talking kid home something us?
Speaker 1: Nicki? Yeah, we do. But let's get this interview, okay,
Speaker 1: and then we'll catch up because we don't want to
Speaker 1: We don't want to miss this. Nicki Zinger has been
Speaker 1: incarcerated at the McPherson Unit in Newport, Arkansas since nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two, and Nicki and I have been friends since
Speaker 1: I first covered her case in twenty twenty for my
Speaker 1: podcast on' Justin Unsolved. Nicki's story has haunted me since then,
Speaker 1: and after listening to this episode, I think you will
Speaker 1: hear why. All right, Niki, so let's start at the beginning.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about growing up. I know you
Speaker 1: were born in Chicago, but you moved to Arkansas.
Speaker 2: My mom left my dad when I was just a baby.
Speaker 2: I mean, we went to live with my grandmother, who
Speaker 2: lived in Magnolia at the time.
Speaker 1: Nicki Zinger was born in nineteen sixty three. After they
Speaker 1: moved to Magnolia, her mother, Linda Holly, raised Niki on
Speaker 1: her own.
Speaker 2: My dad was never a part of my life because
Speaker 2: he was always drinking and drugging. He was mentally and
Speaker 2: physically abusive to both. As I got older, he tried
Speaker 2: to come see me a few but he was always drunk,
Speaker 2: and my mother asked him, can you not come see
Speaker 2: your only child sober? Because he was flushing me one
Speaker 2: day and he pushed me out of the swings and
Speaker 2: he just left me there.
Speaker 1: Linda was a nurse and worked as a director with
Speaker 1: the health department, but Nicki says she could have done
Speaker 1: more with her life.
Speaker 2: She was smart enough to be a doctor. She just didn't,
Speaker 2: I think because of me, because of my problem I
Speaker 2: was born with a club foot in a foot drawn
Speaker 2: and I was born paralyzed and a throw from the marine.
Speaker 1: And that meant that Nikki needed constant care.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm in the hospital for like three four
Speaker 2: months with my foot. I'm almost upside down because I
Speaker 2: gotta have pins in my pans and all my toes
Speaker 2: and a cast, and I got an upside down so
Speaker 2: I won't get a food cloth. So you really can't
Speaker 2: do anything. I missed a lot of the child my
Speaker 2: childhood being in the hospital.
Speaker 1: Even when she was home in between operations, Nikki had
Speaker 1: to wear a cast day and night. She rarely went
Speaker 1: to school, so Linda homeschooled her.
Speaker 2: I had no friends because I had to go every
Speaker 2: o the year for so many years. If you're friends
Speaker 2: with me one year and I'm out the next year,
Speaker 2: you're not gonna keep you know, you're you're a child,
Speaker 2: so you're not gonna keep trying to be my friend.
Speaker 2: So I really never did get posted anybody because I
Speaker 2: was never in school.
Speaker 1: So tell me about growing up with your mom. You
Speaker 1: guys really were each other's people. She was kind of
Speaker 1: your best friend. She took care of you when you
Speaker 1: were having all your health problems to tell me about that.
Speaker 2: She was. She was my playmate, She was my everything.
Speaker 2: I didn't know any other way. I mean, I couldn't work,
Speaker 2: so you know, I stayed home and did the little things.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. We just got to do
Speaker 2: and everything. If we went to the sonic or went
Speaker 2: to the drive whatever drive through, we sitd in the
Speaker 2: park a lot sometime and just have a big bas
Speaker 2: and just watch everybody. If me and my mother traveled,
Speaker 2: it was just me and my mother. She did it.
Speaker 2: Lay in the bend and play video games with me,
Speaker 2: or the TV or the movies, or just outside playing,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. And that was just happy
Speaker 2: with me.
Speaker 1: Nikki and her mom did everything together. They were happy
Speaker 1: in each other's company. But still Linda wanted more for
Speaker 1: her daughter, have.
Speaker 2: A good career, have a good lie, not to worry
Speaker 2: about things, you know what I'm saying. She didn't want
Speaker 2: me to have to work hard like she did. She
Speaker 2: didn't want me to have to worry about the things
Speaker 2: that she worried about, or the man that she had
Speaker 2: picked like my father.
Speaker 1: As a teenager, Nikki was interested in boys. She was
Speaker 1: curious about dating, but she wasn't quite ready to strike
Speaker 1: out on her own, to.
Speaker 2: Be honest with you, making my mother, making my mom
Speaker 2: go and dragon so we could look at boys. She
Speaker 2: would take me to Tonic. We would look just look,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, Just drive around and I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: Wait, so you didn't. I actually never do that. So
Speaker 1: you and mom would go look for boys together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just go look on my not. I didn't date
Speaker 2: a lot because I always lived was so shy because
Speaker 2: of the scars on my leg or because when leg
Speaker 2: was bigger than the other. So my mom said, well,
Speaker 2: let's just see this.
Speaker 1: Then in her early twenties, NICKI did meet someone. When
Speaker 1: they got married, she thought Larry would take care of her,
Speaker 1: but that's not how it turned out.
Speaker 2: I didn't know a lot of things about Larry until
Speaker 2: after I got married. And he drank a lot. I
Speaker 2: knew he drank some, I didn't know that he had
Speaker 2: drank that bad. And he wouldn't want to leave and
Speaker 2: come in late at two o'clock in the morning. I said,
Speaker 2: we can't do that, this is my mom found. So
Speaker 2: he when he did late, and he would try to
Speaker 2: bang on the door, and my mother wouldn't let me in,
Speaker 2: and he just got out of hand and he was
Speaker 2: getting real verbal abusive and stuff like that, and so
Speaker 2: I just just got a divorce. I don't ever regret it.
Speaker 1: How long were you married for?
Speaker 2: Not even six months?
Speaker 1: With Larry out of the picture, Nicki and her mom
Speaker 1: went back to their quiet life together. By now, they
Speaker 1: had sold her grandparents' house and moved into a new place,
Speaker 1: a brand new double wide trailer.
Speaker 2: He had two bathrooms, two bedrooms, a living room, a
Speaker 2: TV room, and then the master bedroom had his own bathroom,
Speaker 2: home TV room, like a little apartment.
Speaker 1: Linda continued with her job at the health center, and
Speaker 1: Nikki pitched in by babysitting and working at a nursery
Speaker 1: when she wasn't watching TV or listening to her favorite music. So, Nikki,
Speaker 1: I know that you in your past maybe still are
Speaker 1: a bit of a rocker. What kind of music did
Speaker 1: you used to like?
Speaker 2: Me? Yeah? You? Oh my god, I was like ACDCA
Speaker 2: or Van Highland or Journey. That was back when I
Speaker 2: was a little bit of a young person.
Speaker 1: And then when Linda was forty five, something happened that
Speaker 1: would upset the balance of their life together. Linda's struggle
Speaker 1: with how to tell her daughter the devastating news.
Speaker 2: And I happened to come home early, and I was like, well,
Speaker 2: why is the PaperWorks sitting on my bed? So I
Speaker 2: turned it on and it was her talking. That's when
Speaker 2: she told me that she had cancer. I was devastated
Speaker 2: because I had to know how to act and to
Speaker 2: deal with the feelings because cancer makes you so through
Speaker 2: so much.
Speaker 1: Their lifetime roles were reversed and Nikki became her mother's caretaker.
Speaker 1: What kinds of caretaking things did you have to do
Speaker 1: for her?
Speaker 2: I'd make the bed or cook. We went and got
Speaker 2: her a wig. We learned how to eat better because
Speaker 2: she had to change the way she ate to get
Speaker 2: the vitamin into that the chemotherapy and the radiation was
Speaker 2: taken out of her. So we had bought a steamer,
Speaker 2: so I learned to steam the vegetables that she liked.
Speaker 2: So I'll just cooked. And she still worked because she
Speaker 2: wanted to. Because she didn't she said she would drop
Speaker 2: her cray see. So when she come in, I would
Speaker 2: fix her bath, have her dinner ready and we would
Speaker 2: just watch Tippie or whatever. She if she wanted to
Speaker 2: go outside and walk some We would go out there
Speaker 2: and walk down the road because we lived in the country.
Speaker 1: Anyway, it was hard for NICKI to watch her mom
Speaker 1: going through chemotherapy.
Speaker 2: I don't know if the cure is worse than Kevin canthrope,
Speaker 2: because you know, I'd watched my mom go through so
Speaker 2: much final tab her hair coming out, losing one of
Speaker 2: her breaths, which really upset her is very, very hard.
Speaker 1: NICKI also had to process the fact that the worst
Speaker 1: might happen, that she might lose her mother, her best friend, because.
Speaker 2: By this time she had been through chemotherapy and radiation twice.
Speaker 2: Sometimes she would feel better and sometimes you wouldn't. I
Speaker 2: just couldn't think about this being the end of my
Speaker 2: mom because I don't have any family. This is only
Speaker 2: this has been my only mah long. I just didn't
Speaker 2: thinking my life just staying after by Masel, you know.
Speaker 1: And then when she was in her mid twenties, someone
Speaker 1: new came into Nicky's life. She had met a few
Speaker 1: people around the area and one day one of the
Speaker 1: girls invited her to a party.
Speaker 2: Held my mom a mad and she said, it was
Speaker 2: like a heart you might meet somebody you I'm play
Speaker 2: so I go and there was Daniel.
Speaker 1: Nicky was twenty six and Daniel Rischer was four years younger.
Speaker 1: She was attracted to him right away.
Speaker 2: His hair was it looked like a legal haircut when
Speaker 2: I first meet him. Dark brown is great. He had big,
Speaker 2: puppy dow brown eyes. He was kind of shy like me.
Speaker 2: He was just oh no, just different from everybody.
Speaker 1: One day, not long after that, to Nicky's surprise, Daniel
Speaker 1: showed up at their trailer. Linda was on her way
Speaker 1: to work, but.
Speaker 2: Who is this? And I introduced and everything she was
Speaker 2: talking about she didn't want to leave me, and he said, well,
Speaker 2: I bet if I just come up and keep recompany
Speaker 2: during the day while you're at work. And that's what
Speaker 2: he did, and that's where it started.
Speaker 1: What stood out to you about him, It wasn't.
Speaker 2: Like my ex husband, it was it was it was
Speaker 2: sweet because it was like a slow build that makes
Speaker 2: sense to you. It was this he helped with everything.
Speaker 2: It was just it was just so natural.
Speaker 1: Not only that Daniel was into rock music like Nikki.
Speaker 1: Music was one of the things they bonded over.
Speaker 2: You know. He played the guitar and he had his
Speaker 2: own little personal band and he was good at it,
Speaker 2: and I thought that was kind of neat to have
Speaker 2: my boyfriend that played the band. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: It's kind of not necessarily a prestige or whatever you
Speaker 2: want to say, but it was kind of neat.
Speaker 1: Before long, Nicky and Daniel were inseparable. They went back
Speaker 1: and forth between their homes, staying some nights at Linda's
Speaker 1: place and others with Daniel's parents, Albert and Rachel. At first,
Speaker 1: Nicky says, Rachel wasn't sure how she felt about her
Speaker 1: son's new girlfriend.
Speaker 2: When she got to know me, things changed because, you know,
Speaker 2: she didn't think I was trying to take a betty
Speaker 2: to her soon or anything else. She was. I was
Speaker 2: really nice because I helped with the dishes, and I
Speaker 2: helped cook when we all lay down there, I helped
Speaker 2: everything that she did.
Speaker 1: Did your mom like him?
Speaker 2: I think so. Harry and Daniel really got along. She
Speaker 2: had asked that, you know what I thought about maybe
Speaker 2: was going on vacation one time, all of us together.
Speaker 1: Oh where would you have gone?
Speaker 2: Well, my mom, she was a very history buff and
Speaker 2: Glen went to Mississippi together and seeing no battlefields, and
Speaker 2: she wanted to go to Dalamo. They see all the
Speaker 2: stuff in Texas. As things progressed with me and him,
Speaker 2: we talked about maybe getting married one day, maybe starting
Speaker 2: a family.
Speaker 1: One Friday morning, about a year and a half into
Speaker 1: their relationship, Daniel needed to take his guitar AMP to
Speaker 1: a repair shop in Shreveport. It was about an hour
Speaker 1: and a half away, and Niki decided to go along
Speaker 1: for the ride and make a day of it. On
Speaker 1: their way out, they stopped by Linda's to pick up
Speaker 1: a few magazines for the drive, and Linda was already
Speaker 1: at work.
Speaker 2: I left her a note on the bar the Taylor
Speaker 2: and we were going to Strappart. It was still daytime
Speaker 2: when we got there, so we went to the amp
Speaker 2: place and the city was closed for lunch, so we
Speaker 2: went to the mall and he decided he was hungry,
Speaker 2: so we went night a sandwich place and he bought
Speaker 2: me some perfume a couple of balls apart few.
Speaker 1: They walked around the mall for a bit, then went
Speaker 1: back to the shop to drop off Daniel's AMP. As
Speaker 1: it was starting to get dark, they headed back to Magnolia,
Speaker 1: arriving in the late evening.
Speaker 2: I don't know what time. It was exactly. We stopped
Speaker 2: by Easy Mark, we had dinner at Sonic, and we
Speaker 2: went home.
Speaker 1: On the way, they drove past Linda's house.
Speaker 2: I didn't think of myself because it was a little late.
Speaker 2: I figured she was in the bed. I mean because
Speaker 2: when we went by the house, the house was dark,
Speaker 2: but I thought the car was in the front yard.
Speaker 1: The next day, Saturday, Nikki called her mom and left
Speaker 1: multiple messages.
Speaker 2: But that's when she usually goes to the store. This
Speaker 2: her day. She goes to the grocery store, to the
Speaker 2: farmer's market, Kmart. Is just her day to do all that.
Speaker 2: And now I didn't think of anything.
Speaker 1: So John, can you introduce yourself for listeners.
Speaker 3: Sure, my name is John Harden. I'm a private investigator
Speaker 3: and four ten years as i rend the nonprofit Proclaimed Justice.
Speaker 1: Can you walk us through what happens back on March eighth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. What do we know that happened? Basically,
Speaker 1: what we know.
Speaker 3: Happened is on Friday March eighth, at four thirty five
Speaker 3: o'clock something like that, Linda Holly was seen at her
Speaker 3: mailbox by her neighbor Kara Lee Davis. She was in
Speaker 3: her scrubs. She was checking her mail. They had a
Speaker 3: brief conversation about maybe we'll go to the store together tomorrow,
Speaker 3: do a little shopping tomorrow. And that's the last sighting
Speaker 3: that we know for sure of Linda Holly alive. That's
Speaker 3: on Friday afternoon. You fast forward to Sunday and Caro
Speaker 3: Lee Davis, the neighbor, was concerned because she had left
Speaker 3: a couple of messages for Linda that were not returned,
Speaker 3: but her car was still there, so she Kara becomes concerned.
Speaker 3: She calls her friend Jan Terrell, who is also Linda
Speaker 3: Holly's friend, and they call a police officer who they knew,
Speaker 3: named Buddy Height. The three of them go over. Buddy
Speaker 3: enters enough to see that there's a bad scene going
Speaker 3: on there, and he calls the police officers that who
Speaker 3: were on duty.
Speaker 1: So once the police arrive on the scene, what was
Speaker 1: the investigation?
Speaker 3: Like the first couple of officers, they don't know what
Speaker 3: they're walking into. So they go through the back utility
Speaker 3: room door of the trailer and they're walking through broken
Speaker 3: glass or walking through blood, and you can't blame them.
Speaker 3: They've got their weapons drawn. They don't know if somebody's
Speaker 3: still in that trailer or not. They go in, they
Speaker 3: find Linda dead. It was multiple stab wounds twelve stab wounds,
Speaker 3: as well as blunt force trauma, some evidence of some
Speaker 3: strangulation as well.
Speaker 1: John says that the investigation was a mess from the beginning.
Speaker 3: That crime scene was not secured at all. There were
Speaker 3: very quickly, multiple people, multiple officers, kind of all over
Speaker 3: the place there. Going in and out of the trailer
Speaker 3: was sort of the first thing that went wrong with
Speaker 3: this investigation.
Speaker 1: So you guys on Sunday are calling her. She's not answering.
Speaker 1: So at what point do you go over to the house.
Speaker 2: I guess about lunch, maybe maybe a little after lunch.
Speaker 2: I come around the corner and there was a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of cars in the yard and told them we
Speaker 2: pulled up. Everybody was coming out from behind my house,
Speaker 2: and I asked what was wrong, And when they told
Speaker 2: me that that my mom was dead, I just remember
Speaker 2: thinking that they're lying. So I run around behind the
Speaker 2: house and they caught me and told me that I
Speaker 2: told me that I couldn't. I couldn't go around there.
Speaker 2: And by this time I was crying and I didn't
Speaker 2: understand why because it just seemed making any sense that
Speaker 2: you're telling me that my mom was dead and she
Speaker 2: couldn't be dead because she wasn't dead when I left.
Speaker 2: I just know. That's when I just light on the
Speaker 2: grass and I can do nothing because it was just
Speaker 2: my whole life was gone. I have no life now
Speaker 2: that didn't have anything no more. Who would do something
Speaker 2: like this? I mean, I just didn't know anybody that
Speaker 2: didn't like my mom my d You don't say I
Speaker 2: still don't know. I know I didn't. Why would I
Speaker 2: tighten my life away from me?
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 1: You can listen to this and all the LoVa for
Speaker 1: Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing
Speaker 1: to LoVa for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Within days
Speaker 1: of finding out her mother had been murdered, Nicky was
Speaker 1: told that she had to leave their home.
Speaker 2: Nobody was paying for it anymore. We had like ten
Speaker 2: fifteen days to get everything out of the house, so
Speaker 2: me and Daniel and my friend Davy went up there
Speaker 2: and we would try to plan it up some during
Speaker 2: the days and keep the things out that I wanted
Speaker 2: to keep. We would do to the day because I couldn't.
Speaker 2: I couldn't do in there at night time. It stretched
Speaker 2: me out too bad and I had not marriage from it.
Speaker 3: The day after Linda was found murdered, Daniel and Nicki
Speaker 3: were allowed to go into the home unsupervised. They're cleaning
Speaker 3: all this stuff up from the murder before the crime
Speaker 3: scene folks got there, before the State crime lab arrived,
Speaker 3: three days before the State crime labl.
Speaker 1: Nicky says that at one point officers asked her if
Speaker 1: there was anything missing from the house, mcdona, what was missing?
Speaker 2: Her gun was missing, hammer was missing, money was missing,
Speaker 2: jewelry was missing, and they did not one thing about
Speaker 2: any of that.
Speaker 1: As it turns out, the detectives were concerned about something
Speaker 1: else entirely.
Speaker 3: They weren't looking for valuables that were missing or anything
Speaker 3: like that. Officers testified at trial that immediately once they
Speaker 3: found Linda Holly murdered in her home, they immediately started
Speaker 3: looking for insurance and other important.
Speaker 1: Papers Linda's two life insurance policies, which added up to
Speaker 1: ninety thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: And they all four said that there were all these
Speaker 3: papers on the floor and scattered about and Nicky was
Speaker 3: gathering papers and putting them in this box. The day
Speaker 3: after Linda was murdered, they take them to daniel house.
Speaker 1: At this point, the investigation had already begun to turn
Speaker 1: towards Nikki and Daniel.
Speaker 3: I guess the old adage that you always looked at
Speaker 3: those you know, they look at those closest to you
Speaker 3: rings true to some degree here, and in that way,
Speaker 3: you sort of can't blame me either.
Speaker 1: So when did they start questioning you about what happens?
Speaker 1: Tell me what you remember about when you started realizing, like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, I think they might think I did this.
Speaker 2: They interviewed me and Daniel maybe I don't remember. Right
Speaker 2: after they let us go in the trailer the good things,
Speaker 2: and then I think that day or that next day
Speaker 2: they called SUP there they read Daniel's his rights, so
Speaker 2: they never read mine. Robert Boram talked to Daniel, and
Speaker 2: GM talked to me. He told me that they had
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of suspects, and then I'd ask him
Speaker 2: who he wouldn't tell me, And he asked where we'd been,
Speaker 2: and I told him where we'd been, and he said,
Speaker 2: did I have any receipts? And I showed him. He
Speaker 2: took my receipt from where he bought that perfume, and
Speaker 2: I've never seen it since. They pulled hair out of
Speaker 2: my head ten fifteen, maybe twenty friends of my hair,
Speaker 2: and I asked why are they doing that, and they
Speaker 2: said they had to. I don't know why. It's this
Speaker 2: very day. Did it match anything? Did not match anything?
Speaker 2: They cut her fingernails off because they said they said
Speaker 2: it was something under her finger nails. Did that match something?
Speaker 2: What was it? I tried to find out, and no
Speaker 2: one's told me.
Speaker 1: On March fourteenth, officers got a warrant to search Daniel's
Speaker 1: parents home for evidence.
Speaker 3: And they find this insurance box that, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: is so when they came to form this theory that
Speaker 3: it was done for insurance. And I honestly believe that
Speaker 3: there's a strong probability that these officers conspired to testify
Speaker 3: that they were immediately looking for insurance papers. So that's
Speaker 3: why the insurance papers became so significant at trial.
Speaker 1: In addition to the box with the insurance papers, they
Speaker 1: seized a hunting jacket and some boots belonging to Daniel.
Speaker 1: The investigators also zeroed in on Daniel's rock and roll lifestyle.
Speaker 3: This is nineteen ninety one, this is at the height
Speaker 3: of Satanic Panic era. It became a lot of this
Speaker 3: stuff of Daniel was this weird, aggressive guy that listened
Speaker 3: to all this heavy metal music, played heavy metal music,
Speaker 3: that kind of thing. So I think that those things
Speaker 3: are what sort of got the police's focus on them
Speaker 3: to start with.
Speaker 1: They also scrutinized things like Nikki's rock posters and an
Speaker 1: Iron Maiden T shirt of Daniel's, which to them seemed
Speaker 1: to suspect.
Speaker 3: And in fact, some of that stuff was ses as evidence.
Speaker 3: It wasn't used a trial, but shows you where their
Speaker 3: minds were at as they were investigating. So there was
Speaker 3: strong indication and even some comments made about this could
Speaker 3: be something to do with the occult. Ultimately, what the
Speaker 3: state decided on was that Daniel and Nicky murdered her
Speaker 3: mother for a ninety thousand dollars life insurance payout.
Speaker 1: About a month later, on April eighteenth, nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: Nicky and Daniel were both arrested and charged with first
Speaker 1: degree murder. What were you thinking when that happened.
Speaker 2: I don't remember. I don't think I was thinking because
Speaker 2: who does that? Who thinks that they would kill their mom?
Speaker 2: Who really thinks that they would kill their mom? I
Speaker 2: think that everybody was just putting out every all kinds
Speaker 2: of rumors, and I think a lot of them come
Speaker 2: from the sheriffs office. I do.
Speaker 1: So when they arrest you, when they actually put handcuffs
Speaker 1: on you, and you wind up in the jail and
Speaker 1: you're waiting for trial. The only person you have now
Speaker 1: at this point is Daniel, and were you even able
Speaker 1: to talk to him?
Speaker 2: They were letting me talk to Daniel, but they were
Speaker 2: listening to everything that we said, just in case I
Speaker 2: said something or he said something, or or they would
Speaker 2: take him outside and they wouldn't take me. They did
Speaker 2: a lot of horrible things to me in County jail,
Speaker 2: trying to make me say that I did. And I
Speaker 2: keep telling them, then, if I'm not going to say
Speaker 2: that I did now, why would I say I'm doing
Speaker 2: it now? Because I haven't done anything wrong. I got
Speaker 2: sick with walking pneumonia. They tell me it isn't take
Speaker 2: me to the hospital, and then they wouldn't take me,
Speaker 2: or they laugh at me, or they'd give me water
Speaker 2: with crashing, and I got the poisoned him because the
Speaker 2: food was rotten that they give me. They wouldn't take
Speaker 2: me outside. They would put people in there and tell
Speaker 2: me that I was going to die. They would make
Speaker 2: fine noises like they was going to find me in
Speaker 2: the letture chair that I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat.
Speaker 1: Sitting in jail awaiting trial, Nikki had nothing but time
Speaker 1: to think about her mother's life and what happened to her.
Speaker 2: First of all, I loved my mom very dearly, even
Speaker 2: as broken as she was. I would have never traded
Speaker 2: for nothing in the world when you don't have anything
Speaker 2: and you were raised up like me with the day
Speaker 2: that was so mean and hateful, and he's already destroying
Speaker 2: one life, my mom, and she was trying to put
Speaker 2: it all back together. And you have a child that
Speaker 2: was born with such a terrible disability. You know, she
Speaker 2: had to swallow her life because of mine, because she
Speaker 2: couldn't be what she ended up being in six veins
Speaker 2: all right, LEAs tried to where I could walk and
Speaker 2: have a decent life, and it's just very hard.
Speaker 1: In January of nineteen ninety two, Daniel and Nikki went
Speaker 1: to trial. They were tried together, but with separate attorneys.
Speaker 1: The trial lasted just three days. The most damaging testimony
Speaker 1: for the prosecution came from Arkansas state criminologist Don Smith.
Speaker 1: He had done lumino testing the camouflage, hunting jacket and
Speaker 1: boots that have been taken from Daniel's home.
Speaker 3: I'm sure your listeners know, but you know, luminol is
Speaker 3: a chemical that is an agent that reacts with bloods,
Speaker 3: but it reacts with a bunch of other materials too.
Speaker 3: So if there's blood on something, you can spray luminol
Speaker 3: on it, put a black light over it, and it
Speaker 3: will essentially glow. Right. It doesn't tell you even if
Speaker 3: it's blood number one, number two, it doesn't tell you
Speaker 3: what species of animal the blood comes from, much less
Speaker 3: whose blood it is if it's human's blood. So the
Speaker 3: prosecutor really led him into this about the strong implication
Speaker 3: without outright saying during his testimony that the blood that
Speaker 3: reacted to luminol on Daniel's shoe and jacket was Linda
Speaker 3: Hally's blood. That was the clear implication given to the jury.
Speaker 1: In fact, Daniel has always maintained that the blood on
Speaker 1: his hunting jacket came from a deer, but against the
Speaker 1: expert criminologist testimony, all but saying the blood was Linda's.
Speaker 1: It added up to a powerful argument for conviction.
Speaker 3: In fact, I've interviewed multiple jurors since then, and that's
Speaker 3: the first thing any of them ever brought up, was
Speaker 3: the blood on the jacket.
Speaker 1: Because besides that, I mean, what other evidence was there
Speaker 1: against them? It was the life insurance, the.
Speaker 3: Life insurance and the blood. I mean, that was it.
Speaker 3: That was truly it.
Speaker 1: The defense didn't seem to have much to present either,
Speaker 1: although they did try to introduce the possibility of alternate suspects.
Speaker 3: There was a man named Lewis Burris. He with regularity
Speaker 3: would see people at Linda's home that he thought were
Speaker 3: out of place. Let me put it that way. One
Speaker 3: of them was the same guy that he would see
Speaker 3: there very often, and he saw him there that morning,
Speaker 3: saw him outside Linda's place on that Friday morning.
Speaker 1: According to Nikki, Linda was dating a police officer at
Speaker 1: the time and he sometimes stayed overnight. Both Lewis Burris
Speaker 1: and Linda's neighbor Caro Leie Davis testified that they'd seen
Speaker 1: a police car parked in front of her house on
Speaker 1: a regular basis he would come at.
Speaker 2: Light at night, because should I always say, if the
Speaker 2: car's in the front yard, please yourself stop and come back.
Speaker 2: And there'd be a lot of times his car would
Speaker 2: be in the yard at that time.
Speaker 3: Another set of people that Lewis Burris saw with regularity,
Speaker 3: there were, as he described them, two black guys, the
Speaker 3: same black guys that were there almost every Saturday morning,
Speaker 3: is what he said. And I only really bring that
Speaker 3: up because there was a similar crime that happened in
Speaker 3: a town just thirty miles away, just a few days
Speaker 3: before Linda Holly's murder, that was very similar and the
Speaker 3: strongest suspects in that case were some African American males.
Speaker 1: That was the case of a woman named Bernice Rankin.
Speaker 3: She was found murdered in her home, stabbed, bludgeoned, so
Speaker 3: very similar crime, similar enough to the point where a
Speaker 3: detective named Jimmy Morgan felt strongly that these two crimes
Speaker 3: were similar enough that he wanted real work done in
Speaker 3: comparing notes, comparing potential suspects, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: In fact, Jimmy Morgan came to the trial he was
Speaker 1: prepared to testify about the similarity between those two murders,
Speaker 1: but the prosecution objected.
Speaker 3: The jury left the room, and you know, there was
Speaker 3: an argument back and forth. Ultimately the judge decided that
Speaker 3: he should not be allowed to testify in front of
Speaker 3: the jury. The other thing that the defense did bring up,
Speaker 3: Nicky was the primary beneficiary of that ninety thousand dollars
Speaker 3: life insurance upon her mother's death. The secondary benefit, Sherry,
Speaker 3: was a lady named Jan Terrell who was Linda's friend.
Speaker 1: And Jen was one of the first people to go
Speaker 1: to the house on that Sunday morning along with Carol Lee,
Speaker 1: and later after Nicki was convicted, the ninety thousand dollars
Speaker 1: went to Jen Terrell.
Speaker 3: We don't know what she did with that money, we
Speaker 3: don't know anything like that, but we do know she
Speaker 3: was the beneficiary.
Speaker 1: So, in addition to Nicky and Daniel, John believes there
Speaker 1: were several people in Linda's life that police could have
Speaker 1: looked into, but they didn't.
Speaker 3: She's a nurse for the county. There's strong rumor that
Speaker 3: she would take prescription pads that were pre signed by
Speaker 3: doctors and fill prescriptions for people for money. That's not
Speaker 3: anything that we've ever been able to prove definitively, but
Speaker 3: there is very strong indication that that's the case. So
Speaker 3: you know that puts year around some shady people sometimes,
Speaker 3: especially in Southwest Arkansas in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, do you have any thoughts on who might
Speaker 1: have killed your mom?
Speaker 2: My mom didn't always know the best people in her life,
Speaker 2: or didn't always sometimes pick the best people in her
Speaker 2: life like me. I guess that's where I got it
Speaker 2: from a lot. I didn't always pick the best people
Speaker 2: in the world either. Before Daniel, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Sometimes there with people that would drive real, real slow
Speaker 2: by the house at not time, or they would call
Speaker 2: the house when's while we had to have her phone
Speaker 2: number changed.
Speaker 1: Who do you think that was? I mean, what kind
Speaker 1: of people did your mom know? Was she involved in anything?
Speaker 2: Well, she worked for the sheriff department when she wasn't
Speaker 2: working for the health department. After she passed away, I've
Speaker 2: had a few people tell me that, I guess just
Speaker 2: the people that you work with, You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: That she didn't necessarily hang with all the best people
Speaker 2: in the world. But I've never heard anybody's.
Speaker 1: Name on January thirteenth, nineteen ninety one, Nicky Singer and
Speaker 1: Daniel Richard were both convicted of first degree murder and
Speaker 1: sentenced to life in prison.
Speaker 2: When the realization comes in and I had a lot
Speaker 2: of sentence, it was just I just quit. I stayed
Speaker 2: into bed. I didn't know eat, I didn't shower because
Speaker 2: I didn't know how I was going to do this.
Speaker 2: The first five years of my prison stay was really
Speaker 2: bad because I had to learn how to survive. I
Speaker 2: learned that you couldn't be who you are. You don't
Speaker 2: be nice to everybody. You can't give your shoulder or
Speaker 2: try to say, you know, can I be here? You know,
Speaker 2: do you need somebody that's ought to because I've learned
Speaker 2: that they would sab people in the bag. I didn't
Speaker 2: think I would ever survive as long as I have
Speaker 2: because as the horrible things enough saying the people get
Speaker 2: beat up or stabbed or pay and its breaked my
Speaker 2: heart because I wasn't raced up that way.
Speaker 1: But Nicki turned out to be stronger than she ever knew.
Speaker 1: She did survive and even earned her ged while in prison,
Speaker 1: and eventually she found herself becoming a mentor, helping others
Speaker 1: to adjust the way she wished someone could have helped her.
Speaker 2: When I first came to prison, I didn't have anybody
Speaker 2: that was there for me, nobody to tell me that
Speaker 2: it was okay, the pad on the bag, or I'm
Speaker 2: very proud of you that you've survived another day. I
Speaker 2: try to be there and listen to him. I'll heel
Speaker 2: many and I do it for the simple mind and
Speaker 2: if we all need peace of mind, because there's none
Speaker 2: in here. And when we get something, we have to
Speaker 2: hold it very dear.
Speaker 1: Through the years, Nicky has tried to keep up on
Speaker 1: how Daniel's doing.
Speaker 2: I would ask Rachel with the okay because I wasn't okay,
Speaker 2: you know. I used to hear from Rachel all the
Speaker 2: time about Daniel.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety three, Nicky and Daniel filed an appeal
Speaker 1: with the Arkansas Supreme Court, requesting a new trial, but
Speaker 1: the court upheld the conviction. Daniel and his family continued
Speaker 1: to pursue every avenue they could to prove their innocence,
Speaker 1: which is how John Harden learned about Nicky's case in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: So when we first launched Proclaimed Justice, I got a
Speaker 3: message from the cousin of Daniel Rischer, and she asked
Speaker 3: us to look into it, and so I started looking
Speaker 3: into it, really on Daniel's behalf, and that's what got
Speaker 3: me into the case to start with. But of course
Speaker 3: you can't investigate Daniel's case without investigating Nicky's.
Speaker 1: Daniel had already gotten the Innocence Project of New York involved,
Speaker 1: and they had agreed to have DNA testing done on
Speaker 1: the blood found on his jacket. The test results showed
Speaker 1: that it was not definitively human blood.
Speaker 3: And it's what Daniel's saying all along, it's my dearer
Speaker 3: hunting jacket is dear blood.
Speaker 1: And there's something else that John keeps thinking about the
Speaker 1: lack of a motive when she was killed. Remember, Linda
Speaker 1: was still battling cancer.
Speaker 3: She had gone into remission and then the cancer had
Speaker 3: come back. There was strong belief in indication that this
Speaker 3: could very well be terminal cancer this time around. And
Speaker 3: so if we're talking about the motive to murder her
Speaker 3: mother to get ninety thousand dollars of life insurance, and
Speaker 3: this sounds crasp, but if you want your mother dad
Speaker 3: to collect ninety thousand dollars and she's got almost certainly
Speaker 3: terminal cancer. Why not just wait it out and not
Speaker 3: take a risk of being convicted and sent away for life.
Speaker 3: So it's just illogical on its face.
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, based on the new DNA findings, Daniel
Speaker 1: and Niki were granted a parole hearing.
Speaker 3: The parole boarder unanimously recommended them for parole, which does
Speaker 3: not happen very often at all.
Speaker 1: No, and then they get denied by the governor.
Speaker 3: That's right, Governor Asa Hutcheson denied parole.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Proclaimed Justice was started by John Harden and Jason Baldwin,
Speaker 1: one of the infamous West Memphis Three. John was a
Speaker 1: pivotal member in helping to exonerate the three wrongfully convicted
Speaker 1: men after eighteen years in prison. After Jason's release twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: the two decided to start an innocence organization together. They
Speaker 1: have worked on many wrongful conviction cases. One of the
Speaker 1: most well known what's their work exonerating Daniel Viegis. But
Speaker 1: after years of running a nonprofit, the pace was taking
Speaker 1: its toll on John. In twenty twenty three, he made
Speaker 1: the difficult decision to disband Proclaim Justice.
Speaker 3: It was just time. I mean, it's fucking hard starting
Speaker 3: an organization and keeping it, you know, a several hundred
Speaker 3: thousand dollars budget together every year, and I'm still active
Speaker 3: in the investigations in our current cases. I'll be able
Speaker 3: to keep some of my fundraising network in place to
Speaker 3: do this kind of good work.
Speaker 1: And he has no intention on giving up on Nicki's case.
Speaker 3: I promised Nikki. When I called her and explained what
Speaker 3: was going on with me and proclaimed justice, she was
Speaker 3: very supportive of me on a personal level, just because
Speaker 3: she's sweet like that. She's kind and caring and compassionate,
Speaker 3: and and she wants to make sure I'm okay, which
Speaker 3: is always strange to hear from somebody who's dealing with
Speaker 3: what she's dealing with on the inside.
Speaker 1: You know, you and I talk about that, John, Like,
Speaker 1: anytime Nikki calls, it's like, are you okay? Is her
Speaker 1: first question?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, how are you doing? And so I know to
Speaker 3: some degree she's mostly it's because she truly cares about me.
Speaker 3: To some degree, it probably helps her just be thinking
Speaker 3: about somebody else's life. So she's absolutely, one hundred percent
Speaker 3: completely innocent of this crime. And we just can't rest
Speaker 3: until we've got her out where we're at is we
Speaker 3: have to have a status hearing. We have this order
Speaker 3: for all these items to be tested DNA tested. We
Speaker 3: can't really proceed in the courts until we have a
Speaker 3: decision on whether or not we can forego testing on
Speaker 3: all those other ones ones. So now we're left with
Speaker 3: waiting on a judge's order telling us what we've got
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 1: Nikki has been behind bars since she was twenty eight.
Speaker 1: She's now sixty. Her health has never been great, but
Speaker 1: she admits that as she gets older, things are getting
Speaker 1: even harder.
Speaker 2: I have diabetes, real bands, I have high blood pressure,
Speaker 2: my headache to words crum sistress. I can't remember when
Speaker 2: the last time I feel good. Yeah, and it gets
Speaker 2: really pressing this time, and I try not to cry
Speaker 2: because I don't want anybody to boohoo or a baby thing.
Speaker 1: What do you want for your future when you get out?
Speaker 1: What do you think about?
Speaker 2: I don't want a perfect life, because there's no such
Speaker 2: thing as perfect. I just want to learn to be
Speaker 2: okay with me all over again, learn to be okay
Speaker 2: with the world, because I don't even know what the
Speaker 2: world looks like. I don't the world is so big now,
Speaker 2: I don't know maybe travel may be, tell my story,
Speaker 2: write a book. I just want people to get a
Speaker 2: chance to know who I am, to like who I am.
Speaker 2: I want know people to know that I'm capable of
Speaker 2: doing things more than that I've ever thought about. I
Speaker 2: don't even know what's out there to do exactly, but
Speaker 2: I just want people to know that I want to
Speaker 2: have that chance to do it.
Speaker 1: I got to know Nikki really well while covering her
Speaker 1: case for Unjustin and Unsolved, and after learning about her
Speaker 1: case in her life and speaking with her at length,
Speaker 1: I felt compelled to be a friend to Nikki rather
Speaker 1: than just a journalist using her as a source. What
Speaker 1: gives you hope? Nikki? You Maggie, Why did I know
Speaker 1: you were going to say that You've heard me get.
Speaker 2: This bad before, and you get over to me and
Speaker 2: tell me that you have obvious people out here just
Speaker 2: because you don't say I'm visitly or not there. Even
Speaker 2: if people in here, though, will tell me Dad it's okay. Nikki,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say I'm a bad person. I would say
Speaker 2: I've learned to be better person than I was before.
Speaker 2: My heart always hours. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Since Proclaim justice has closed its doors, Nicki is in
Speaker 1: need of a new team to pick up where they
Speaker 1: left off. Please reach out if you can help or
Speaker 1: can connect her with someone who can. It's been over
Speaker 1: thirty years now and it is time to get her out.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, Nicki would love to have your support.
Speaker 1: A donation to help with prison expenses, or even just
Speaker 1: a letter or card to let her know you've heard
Speaker 1: her story would mean the world to her. There is
Speaker 1: also a fundraiser for Nicki. Since she doesn't have family
Speaker 1: or friends put money on her commissary, it's up to us,
Speaker 1: so we will put that link and how to write
Speaker 1: her in the episode description. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freelink. Please support your local innocence
Speaker 1: organizations and go to the links in the episode description
Speaker 1: to see how you can help. I'd like to thank
Speaker 1: our executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wortis,
Speaker 1: as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer Kathleen Fink,
Speaker 1: story editor Hannah Beal, and researcher Shelby Sorels. Mixing and
Speaker 1: sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with additional production by
Speaker 1: Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music in this production
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on all social media platforms at
Speaker 1: Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also
Speaker 1: follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good
Speaker 1: Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one