True Crime with Kendall Rae - Vanished Weeks Before Her Dream Wedding: What Happened to Niqui McCown?

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

Niqui McCown was a 28-year-old mother living in Richmond, Indiana, with her 9-year-old daughter, Payton, and her fiancé, Bobby Webster. In July of 2001, they were 3 weeks away from their wedding, and Niqui was said to have been very excited. But on the 22nd of that month, she vanished. After going to church that morning, she took some clothes to the laundromat, and rather than wait around for them to be ready, she went to her mother’s house, who lived not too far away. When she got there, she explained that she was being harassed by two men, and so her mom advised her to get her clothes and come back over. But after Niqui left, she was never seen again. Suspicion fell on her fiancé for a while, and it also fell on Payton’s father. But the true main suspect was her coworker, Tommy Swint. During the course of the investigation, it was discovered that Tommy was responsible for the murder of a woman back in 1991. But before any arrests could be made, Tommy took his life. Many believe he also took the answers as to what happened to Niqui with him. Private Investigations For The Missing: https://investigationsforthemissing.org/ Missing Podcast - Niqui McCown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anC5N... Missing: https://crawlspace-media.com/true-crime#/missing/ Donate to NCMEC through my campaign! https://give.missingkids.org/campaign...  Shop my Merch! https://kendallrae.shop This episode is sponsored by: Huggies Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - [e-mail]

Hello everyone and welcome back to True Crime with Kendall Rae. Thank you so much for joining me today and if you are new then welcome, be sure to join us. So today we're going to be talking about a case that I have wanted to talk about for a long time and that is the disappearance of Nikki McCown. Nikki has still not been found to this day, even though it has been 20 years, which is hard to believe. And the circumstances around her disappearance are just so, so bizarre. It is truly one of those cases where it's going to take you on the roller coaster as far as what you think actually happened.

It's one of those where as I'm explaining things, you're going to start leaning one way and then I'm going to tell you something else and you're going to start leaning the other way. This family to still not have answers after all this time is just so unbelievably sad. Nikki seemed like an incredible person and not having justice, not having those answers is truly heartbreaking. Yeah, let's go ahead and jump in. There's a lot, like I said, to go over here. So Marilyn Renee Nicole McCown, or just Nikki as loved ones called her, was born on January

6, 1973 to her parents, Barbara and Harvey, and she grew up in Richmond, Indiana. They had a big family, she was actually the youngest of ten siblings, and was known to stand out in all the best of ways. Out of all the characteristics that are used to describe Nikki, there were two that really stood out to me. One, Nikki was an incredibly hard worker and really smart. Not only was she consistently on the honor roll in high school,

but when she went on to begin her career, she had big dreams for herself and was already taking steps to achieve those dreams. At the time of her disappearance, Nikki was only 28 years old and was already working as the head accountant for the Montgomery Education and Pre-Release Center, which is a correctional facility located in Dayton, Ohio.

And this is truly badass, but she was also a member of the hostage negotiation team. She'd worked her way up from accountant clerk when she first got the job in 1994 and had big dreams of one day joining the FBI or becoming a U.S. Marshal. It's honestly so impressive and admirable that this is what she wanted to do with her life and that it wasn't just a dream. You know, she was taking the steps to actually get there one day and was determined to do so. In 2001, she was taking criminal justice classes

at the local community college. And if given the chance, I have no doubt she would have gone on to accomplish everything that she wanted to. Now, the second thing that really stood out to me about Nikki, and I know this is kind of a weird thing to have stand out, but just stick with me for a second here. Nikki loved to dress well. She loved shopping, she loved nice clothing, and just loved feeling good about herself.

And I guess I just really liked learning about this sort of, I don't know, juxtaposition of these two sides of her. On one hand, she's this badass woman working at a correctional facility with dreams of joining the FBI or the US Marshall Service, and then she has this more softer, feminine, fun side to her, which I thought was pretty cool, and she just seemed incredibly well-rounded. Nikki was also someone that people were just drawn to. And by the way that everyone describes her, I can totally see why. But there was much more to Nikki than her career aspirations. Nikki was actually a mother and a wonderful mother at that. When Nikki was 19 years old, she gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Peyton.

Peyton's father, Steven Johnston, was Nikki's boyfriend at the time, but their relationship didn't end up working out, and he's actually pretty honest about why. Stephen has admitted that while they were together, he was just not good to her and in a pretty major way. He said that he cheated on her and he actually used the word abuse to describe his behavior at the time. Now, I'm not sure exactly what type of abuse she endured, but abuse is abuse. And I really admire the fact that Nikki decided

that was not gonna work for her and her daughter and chose to leave. I will say that Steven did give an interview where he talked about his actions with what really appears to me to be pretty deep remorse. And I know that he and Peyton have a good relationship now so while I absolutely do not condone what happened to Nikki in any way, shape or form, I can't sit here and say whether he is the same person he was back then or not. Plus,

he and Nikki did go on to have a very, you know, amicable relationship for the sake of their daughter. They co-parented well and he's not a big part of the story at least not yet. So we'll come back to him in a little This episode of true crime with Kendall Ray is brought to you by Huggies little movers Huggies know that babies come in all shapes and sizes and their tushies do too Huggies best-fitting diaper is their little movers with its curved and stretchy fit. Parents know that there's nothing worse than an ill fitting diaper especially for your active babies. We love huggies because we can rely on them to keep our daughter covered while she's moving around. After trying out all the diapers since my daughter was born, huggies has been our number one choice.

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Get your baby's butt into huggies best fitting diaper. Huggies little movers, we got you baby. So after Nikki and Steven broke up, it became clear to her that the person she actually wanted to be with was her high school sweetheart who was named Bobby Webster. So her and Bobby had dated for three years back in high school and obviously they went

separate ways. He moved to California and actually had a son with another woman, and like I said, Nikki also had a child, a daughter with Steven. But after Bobby moved back to Richmond, Indiana, which is where Nikki was still living, the two of them rekindled their relationship, and it was like no time had passed. They continued falling in love and by 2001, they were engaged and excitedly planning their wedding for August 18th of that year.

Nikki was so excited to be marrying Bobby. She was so excited to finally get to plan her dream wedding. But sadly, Nikki never got to have her dream wedding because just three and a half weeks before they were supposed to get married, Nikki vanished seemingly into thin air. So that brings us to July 22, 2001. And it was a Sunday and just like they did every Sunday morning, they spent the first half of the day at church. And then after church, they went their separate ways and they both had things they needed to get done that day for the wedding.

Bobby, he needed to go to the tuxedo shop with his best man and you know, find his tuxedo to wear for the big day. And Nikki was doing something more casual that she did most Sundays, which was going to the laundromat. And because this was part of her, you know, normal routine, she did what she always did and dropped her nine-year-old daughter, Peyton, off at her mom's house, which wasn't too far away. So Peyton got dropped off, Nikki went to the laundromat, and I can't stress how normal things seemed that day.

It wasn't until a small amount of time passed, and Nikki already returned to her mom's house, which was a little strange. The first thing that was strange is there clearly hadn't been enough time for her to actually have finished her laundry before she was already pulling up in the driveway. The second thing that was strange is once she got inside,

she seemed agitated and upset and was pacing back and forth. And of course, her mom asked her what was wrong and why she seemed so frantic. And Nikki explained that while she was at the laundromat to men, specifically to Hispanic men, were harassing her and giving her a hard time. And at first, her mom didn't think too much of it, sort of brushed it off.

Nikki really didn't go into detail about what exactly happened. And to her mom, Nikki is an incredibly beautiful woman. And she just kind of figured that maybe these two men were hitting on her. And of figured that maybe these two men were, you know, hitting on her and of course that can be upsetting but her mom didn't think, like I said, didn't think too much of it. But Nikki made it clear that she felt super uncomfortable so her mom told her that she should just go grab the rest of her laundry which she had left at the laundromat and just bring it back to her house and do her laundry there.

Now one of Nikki's sisters, Michelle, who has always been an incredible resource for accurate information in this case, actually said in an interview that when Nikki didn't come right back to her mom's house from the laundromat, her mom assumed everything was just fine, which based on what I've learned about Nikki, this makes sense.

Nikki was a super independent person. She was super tough. And so her mom figured that she just went back to the laundromat and decided to, you know, do her laundry there anyway that she wasn't going to let that experience bother her. And again, her mom didn't think too much of it. But the thing is, once she left her mom's house, this would actually be the last time her mom or anyone in her family would see

or hear from her ever again. And at first they think that she just went back to the laundromat and was doing her laundry and everything was fine, but within a few hours her loved ones began to worry. And the first person to really start ringing the alarm bells was her fiance, Bobby. And at first her family didn't really share his same concern. According to Bobby, Nikki was supposed to return back to their apartment at 4.30pm. And for the first hour, he just assumed that maybe she was caught up doing some last minute wedding shopping.

After all, like I said earlier, Nikki loved to shop. So yeah, he wasn't getting too worried about it at first, but once 530 rolled around and he still didn't hear from her, he became more concerned. And so he decides to call up her family, let them know what's going on, let them know that he's concerned, and like I said, at first, her family wasn't too concerned about it. They also thought that maybe Nikki had got caught up with shopping, lost track of time, and would be back soon. And considering the fact that Nikki was an extremely reliable person, I'm guessing they felt that she would end up having a reasonable explanation as for why she was late.

However, the lack of concern and feeling fine about everything quickly dissipated for their family when Nikki didn't come and pick up her daughter that evening from her mom's house and That was really out of character for her I mean not only was it out of character for her not to show up at all You know, they're making up excuses that she she probably just got caught up shopping and lost track of time Even though that was out of character for her too They just knew that no matter what she was out doing that she would not have failed to pick up her child at the end of the day. There was just no chance.

So it was that point when she didn't pick up Peyton that her family became really concerned. And that's when they began making calls and driving around town looking for her. But once it became clear that nobody had seen or heard from her, they went right to the police station to file a missing persons report. Now, what's interesting is that even though Bobby seemed to be the one who was initially most concerned, he was actually, well, reportedly against filing the police report. Nikki's dad ended up being the one to convince him that he needed to file it saying, no, you need to do this. And even some of her family members went with him to file the police report. Now, this whole thing is something that you could really look into,

or it's something that you could brush off. I mean, on one hand, not wanting to file the report when you were the person who first, you know, rang the alarm that something was wrong here could definitely seem suspicious. But on the other hand, is it possible that to him filing a police report was going to make it all that much more real and he didn't want to face reality about what was going on? It's possible that he just didn't want to accept that this was now a really serious situation. There have also been a lot of people

that brought up the fact that maybe it was because he is a black man and he thought the police wouldn't really help him anyway. But quite honestly, I don't want to spend too much time speculating on this. It ends up not being a super important detail in the long run and also I wasn't there. I don't know what Bobby was going through.

I don't know what he was thinking. So yeah, I just, I feel uncomfortable weighing in on that too much. And just quickly while I'm on this note, the reporting on when exactly this police report was actually filed is reported differently depending on the source. Some sources out there say he went to the police station

at 2 a.m. to file the report. Some say that he say he went to the police station at 2am to file the report. Some say that he went at 8am the following morning, so really confusing. But what doesn't vary in the reporting is how the police responded. And as a true crime consumer, I'm sure you can guess where this is going. Especially since this is an older case and we see this pattern with older cases a lot, but they were told that Nikki is an adult and that she can leave if she wants to and that they have to wait 72 hours to file a missing persons report. It is so frustrating to see things like this in cases. I mean truly maddening. In this part, I've seen things like this before too and

it's just offensive. One officer actually told them that maybe Nikki was just getting cold feet about getting married and decided to leave because of that. God. And to put it bluntly, that clearly did not happen. I mean, Nikki would not have just run away from her dream wedding that she had been so looking forward to from marrying the love of her life, Bobby, and she certainly above all else wouldn't walk away from her daughter, Payton, who meant everything to her. Plus, there is the fact that Nikki left behind an important medication. You see, Nikki had Graves disease, which is an autoimmune disorder that can cause hyperthyroidism. It's

not fatal, but not taking medication can have a pretty significant negative effect on someone's life. And Nikki was not just someone to leave a medication like that behind. Now it's been widely reported or widely misreported, I should say, that Nikki left behind her ID and her purse at her apartment when she went to the laundromat that day. However, her sister Michelle clarified in an interview on the missing podcast that she actually did take her purse

and her ID with her that day. The only two things that she actually did leave behind were her wedding band and her medication. ["The Westerner's Song"] And just kind of while I'm on that subject, I want to give a quick shout out to the amazing missing podcast. It definitely is the most trusted source for information on this case and not only because they are incredibly well researched, but they also work directly with Michelle, Nikki's sister in their coverage and who better to share information than a family member who is there and experienced what happened for herself. I absolutely love the

missing podcast. I love the host Tim and Lance. I've had the opportunity to talk to them on the phone a couple of times and the two of them are just really dedicated to spreading awareness about missing people and they do an excellent job. They're really thorough in their research and just great guys. So I will of course have the missing podcast linked below and what's cool is Tim and Lance are also board members for the nonprofit Private Investigations for the Missing. This nonprofit was founded by Bruce Maitland whose daughter Brianna sadly went missing in 2004 and he has spent the last decade dealing with the trauma and uncertainty that comes with having a missing loved one. And that's why he created PIs for the

missing. PIs for the missing is a nonprofit that seeks to provide families with qualified expert investigators to help work on the case of their missing loved one. And the best part is they do this at no cost to the family. It's been 15 years since my daughter Brianna went missing. And not a holiday goes by that she's not on my mind. I mean how I kind to deal with those memories. And I knew that starting an organization like this, that kind of stuff would have to come up. So it took a while before I was mentally ready to be able to do that.

You have to make something good come out of all this. And the best way that I knew to make something good come out of Brianna being missing was to help other people. of Brianna being missing was to help other people. What people don't realize is that just the costs of private investigators by the time you pay them for their expenses on the road, travel, motels, and then an hourly fee which can rain from $60 to $100, it would not be uncommon to have a private investigator working for more than $ hundred dollars a week.

There's just so many of these cases don't get any coverage in the media you know particularly people of color especially they just you know they're almost passed over I'm sure all of you have seen, you know, different missing persons cases and they're usually upper middle class, you know, white people that get highlighted and really, really young kids. That's why I started private investigations for the missing, a non-profit that pairs qualified

investigators to help families find their missing loved ones. Now this organization relies on donations to help support families in need of private investigators, which is why this week I wanted to make a donation to their organization. And what I love about PIs for the Missing is Bruce and their team have really put an emphasis on helping families of color. Like you just heard him say, unfortunately, missing people of color are so often ignored by media, ignored by true crime consumers, ignored by law enforcement, and not given the same resource as white victims. It's just a fact.

The work they do is incredible. It means a lot to me and so many others. So if you are able to and would like to make a donation to support the work they do, I will have all of their info below. I also bring this up because they have been really helpful to Nikki McCown's family and so many other families out there. So yeah, just love them and wanted to give them

that shout out. But anyway, let's get back into Nikki's case. So I left off talking about the police and how they didn't take her disappearance seriously and that her family disagreed with their assumption that she left because she got cold feet about her wedding. Well, her family decided that the true and final test to see if she had left on her own accord

was seeing if she showed up on her own accord was seeing if she showed up to work on the 23rd. Like I said at the beginning of this episode, Nikki was an incredibly hard worker, very dedicated and absolutely would not miss work for any reason unless you know, of course she had a real emergency. But if Nikki could be there, she was going to be there. And as you probably guessed, Nikki did not show up to work on the 23rd, and that really confirmed her family that something terrible really did happen. So after this, the efforts to search for her increased tenfold, and some pretty important information also came out around this time.

Even though the laundromat itself didn't have working surveillance cameras, the convenience store across the street did. And Nikki was actually captured on this camera, entering the store where it's believed she bought a Coca-Cola before walking out of the store and then turning left. Now, in the missing podcast, Michelle, her sister, shares that after Nikki left the store, a man could be seen kind of peeking his head into the store, looking around, and then walking off in the direction that Nikki went when she left. And obviously, no one can say with certainty whether or not this is directly related to what happened to her, but at the same time, because it's been so long without answers, it's hard to rule anything out. Now, what I really

think is most significant about this footage is that it shows that Nikki did make it back to the laundromat and that at least in that moment she didn't appear to be in any immediate danger. Now if you're wondering about the two men that were harassing her there, it's been reported that people who witnessed all this at the laundromat had spoken to police and said that they didn't see them follow Nikki out of the laundromat had spoken to police and said that they didn't see them follow Nikki out of the laundromat when she left. Now that's not to say that they didn't somehow find her or that they could have been involved in some way, but I think when I start telling you about the other

suspects in this case, you're going to think that the two of them and that whole situation is probably insignificant. So in total, there were three persons of interest in Nikki's disappearance. And I'm gonna go through each of them chronologically, starting with Bobby. Bobby Webster, Nikki's fiance, was of course a person of interest in her disappearance. After Nikki went missing,

and I'm talking within the first few days, it's been reported that Bobby not only attempted to sell back her wedding ring, but he also canceled their wedding and was asking for refunds on all deposits. He also was said to have called the local community college where Nikki was taking classes and allegedly asked to be given back her unused tuition,

which to be clear, he didn't pay for that tuition in the first place. It was actually paid for by her job, so it wasn't money that belonged to him anyway. Plus, it was also said that Bobby got Nikki's car washed the night that she disappeared. And I know red flags are going off for you big time right now. And just to clarify, Nikki was actually driving Bobby's car on the day that she disappeared, so she and his car were missing.

So her car was still at the apartment with Bobby. Now considering the timing of all of this, Bobby having her car washed that night seems incredibly weird. I'm sure most of you agree. This is something that people have talked about over and over and I see why. I mean, it doesn't seem like it would be your first priority to have your missing fiance's car washed when she is missing. Like it just, it's strange.

But Bobby has explained that he had made this promise to Nikki to wash her car that day and that it just made him feel better to uphold that promise and wash the car for her. That maybe, you know, everyone does have different ways of grieving and I think as I continue to go through things maybe you'll understand that a bit more. And he has an explanation for more than just washing the car. He has an explanation for all of his suspicious behavior. Bobby said that a lot of these things were being taken out of context and were misunderstood. For example, he said that he didn't cancel the wedding, he just postponed it.

According to Bobby, he said that in the event that Nikki reappeared, he believes she likely would want to postpone the wedding herself. And if someone had done something to her, he said he didn't see a world in which she would want to postpone the wedding herself. And if someone had done something to her, he said he didn't see a world in which she would want to proceed as normal and didn't want to put pressure on her still having to have this wedding right away. And as for the money stuff, you know, the tuition and everything, he said that he did it because he realized what a serious situation this was. He said he wanted the money for a cell phone because keep in mind this was 2001, not everyone had a personal phone and that he wanted to be able to be

in contact with her family and the police. Which I think does make a lot of sense. I mean, when someone does go missing, oftentimes you need to pour money into all types of resources and having a cell phone would be pretty crucial when you have a missing loved one. And I'm certainly not trying to defend all of his actions because I do agree a lot of it is pretty strange and doesn't seem like it would be your priority in those moments, but I just want to give as much context as I can and let you guys make up your minds. Now, in addition to all of these other things, this is tough, but Nikki's family felt that Bobby seemed to be very preoccupied with his appearance during the time that she was missing, which to them seemed like a really low priority. I mean, they're focused on finding Nikki and what they looked like didn't matter at all to them. And again, this is something that you could really read into or kind of brush off.

Nikki and Bobby were sort of known, I mean, I kind of explained it with Nikki, but they really did care about their appearance, how they dressed, it was important to them. Bobby has been described by many as sort of a vain person. And so in that sense, it's not like this was all new for him, that he suddenly now cared about his appearance. He just kind of always was this way. But I can absolutely see how that does not look good, how that would be very frustrating to her family and look suspicious for someone to care so much about what they look like

in such dire times when that should be the lowest priority. So I get it. And at the time, all of these things rightfully seemed very suspicious to them, and they weren't the only ones. The police agreed that these things were weird. And so Bobby was asked to take a polygraph test, and I know we all know how unreliable polygraph tests are,

but keep in mind this was 2001. Things were quite different back then, and it wasn't looking good because Bobby actually failed the polygraph test, and that's when he officially became a person of interest. And for years and years and years, his family questioned if Bobby really was involved in Nikki's disappearance and saw his actions in those early days as something they just couldn't look past. And I totally see where they were coming from. If I were in their shoes, I would feel the exact same way. In fact, one thing that I learned that I thought was interesting is Michelle spent many years wondering if Bobby's ex, whose name is April, could have been involved

in her disappearance as well. I guess there was this report that someone saw a woman and a man carrying what appeared to be a woman through a field, and these two people matched Bobby and April's descriptions. Now this field was not only near the laundromat, but it was also near where April lived. April was also said to have been extremely jealous of Nikki all the way back since high school and that the two of them had several altercations, keyword, this is what has been said. None of this is, you know, able to be confirmed. And honestly, even if we did have the information

on these events and what that relationship is truly like, it doesn't really matter because it's important for me to tell you now that Michelle no longer feels that April was involved in her sister's disappearance. And it's even more important to note that she no longer feels Bobby was involved in her disappearance. In her interview with the Missing Podcast, she said she recently learned that April was actually out of town when her sister was missing, so she couldn't have been responsible. And as for Bobby, she said she received information about another suspect after all these years that laid her questions about him to rest.

But Nikki's daughter Peyton believed in Bobby's innocence from the beginning. And she said that they maintained a really positive relationship over the years and that she just doesn't believe he had anything to do with her mother's disappearance. Now, obviously, you were all entitled to have your opinions on his behavior and whether or not you think he was involved in her disappearance, it still could be possible. I mean, we haven't gotten to a lot of the other information that could sway you, but yeah, I just wanted to at least clear up that her family does not think that he was involved.

So that brings us to the second person of interest in Nikki's disappearance, and that ended up being Stephen Johnston, Nikki's ex-boyfriend and Peyton's father. He did end up being quickly dismissed, but this story is kind of crazy because it involves major pieces of evidence being found. Listen to this.

A few months after Nikki went missing on November 5th, 2001, the car she was driving that day, Bobby's 1990 GMC Jimmy, was found abandoned in the parking lot of an apartment complex. And this apartment complex, which was located in Dayton, Ohio, 50 minutes east of the laundromat in Richmond, just so happened to be where Stephen was living.

Very odd. And as I'm sure you can imagine, her car being found there drew up a lot of suspicion, especially considering the fact that her family had searched that area before and it wasn't there when they had searched. And when the car was found, the door lock had been punched out. The radio was missing and the ignition had been tampered with.

And most importantly, Nikki's laundry was found neatly folded in a basket in the back seat. This told investigators, who by this point were taking the case seriously, that Nikki did in fact finish her laundry and that she likely wasn't met with foul play inside the laundromat. Now, of course, that isn't to say that someone didn't follow her out of the laundromat, but

at least we know that she did finish her laundry and made it back to her car. But of course, the investigators needed much more than that. They needed to know why the car was there and how it back to her car. But of course the investigators needed much more than that. They needed to know why the car was there and how it got there. And of course the car being in the parking lot of Steven's apartment complex pointed directly at him. And the initial theory was that maybe he was jealous of Nikki and Bobby's relationship

and maybe he had done something to her as a result. But that was quickly shut down because Steven was extremely compliant with investigators and was dismissed as a person of interest very soon after. He offered to take a polygraph which he passed and he offered up samples of his DNA and was willing to help in any way he could. There was quite literally nothing that tied him to this. But at the same time, there wasn't anything that tied anyone else to her disappearance either.

So of course the vehicle was sent to the state crime lab for testing and nothing was found and I mean nothing. No fingerprints, no unusual DNA, no blood, absolutely nothing. And besides the locks being punched out, the radio being missing and the ignition being tampered with, which could have easily happened after the fact by someone just breaking into an abandoned vehicle, the car was the same as it had been on the day that Nikki went missing.

So what other explanation could there be for her car being there? Well, there were a couple, starting with the idea that maybe someone was trying to frame Steven. Nikki's daughter Peyton believes that it's possible that someone knew where her dad lived and purposely dumped the car here to draw suspicion to him, which, as we know, did briefly end up happening. Another theory is that whoever abducted Nikki returned her car here thinking that this is where she was living,

which I don't really see the logic in that, but let me explain. It makes more sense when you find out that the apartment complex address was actually listed as the address on her driver's license. Like I said, the apartment was located in Dayton, Ohio, which is about 50 minutes east of where she and Bobby were living in Richmond, Indiana. But in order to work at her job at the correctional facility, which was also located in Ohio, which is about 50 minutes east of where she and Bobby were living in Richmond, Indiana. But in order to work at her job at the correctional facility, which was also located in Dayton, she needed a Dayton address, so she listed that apartment. And to be fair, she did live there at one point, but again, I just don't see the logic

in someone returning the car to where they thought she was living. I mean, wouldn't you want to dump it somewhere totally anonymous? I just, I've never heard of anything like that. Returning the car to where they let, I just, I'm sure you guys agree that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, or maybe I'm missing something. But let me move on to the final theory because I think that is a lot more probable. The final theory is that Nikki drove the car there herself. And let me explain why I think that would make a lot more sense.

Investigators learned that on July 22nd, Nikki made a call to her friend and co-worker, Darlene. And according to Darlene, they spoke on the phone very briefly about where Nikki could buy these hair and nail vitamins that she had been telling her about. Now, I mentioned earlier that Nikki had Graves disease, and because of that, she struggled with hair loss. And with her wedding being just three weeks away,

many people believe it's possible that she drove 50 minutes to Dayton to get these vitamins that Darlene was talking about. But the theory goes a lot deeper than that, because you see, Darlene lived only about a mile away from the apartment complex where Nikki's car was found. And neighbors even say that on the day that Nikki disappeared, they saw her car in Darlene's driveway.

And so the theory is that Nikki did drive herself to Dayton on the 22nd that she was led there for a reason, which leads people to believe that maybe Darlene was involved in Nikki's disappearance, which leads me to person of interest number three, who we haven't even brought up yet. The third person of interest in Nikki's disappearance is not Darlene. It's actually a man named Tommy Swint.

And buckle up because I'm about to give you a lot of information that you were definitely not expecting if you haven't heard of this case. Tommy Swint was a correctional officer where Nikki and Darlene worked and had known both women since they began working there in the early 90s. He was a husband, a father,

and a dishonorably discharged member of the military. Also a wannabe cop and he was also a boyfriend. Yes, despite being married with kids, Tommy also had a girlfriend, and you wanna guess who that girlfriend was? Darlene. But apparently being married and also having a girlfriend wasn't enough for Tommy because he also wanted Nikki,

and he had wanted her for years. Now something that has been extremely misreported in this case is that Tommy and Nikki had dated seriously at some point. I want to be super clear this absolutely did not happen. Nikki did go on one date with Tommy before she rekindled things with Bobby but quickly decided that that's all she wanted from him that they could be friends but she you know wasn't interested in anything beyond that. But Tommy did not like that and either did his astronomically sized ego. It has been said that he was constantly vying for her attention, that he was just desperate for Nikki to see him as more than a friend. And that he even sent her a gift to her bridal shower. And guess what it was? It was lingerie, which is just so beyond words inappropriate and weird.

Even though Nikki had made it super clear she wanted nothing more with him and was on her way to marrying another man, Tommy could not take no for an answer. And that brings us to something incredibly disturbing. And this information comes from Michelle, Nikki's sister, who I mentioned did a great interview on the missing podcast. I definitely suggest tuning into that. But she explained that there was one time on her lunch break that she decided to go over to Nikki's house.

And when she did, she heard screaming from the inside. So of course she runs right inside. The door is unlocked. And again, this is all coming from Michelle but personally I believe her. And she says when she goes inside she sees Tommy on top of Nikki and Nikki is yelling help me he's trying to rape me. And if that were enough when Michelle runs over and tries to pull this man off of her sister he starts chasing the two of them around the house before trying to laugh it off saying that he was just playing.

People who behave like that are not just playing. They are monsters down to their core and Tommy was a monster down to his core. And one time when Nikki owed him some money he told her that she could pay him back by having a threesome with him and when she refused him back by having a threesome with him. And when she refused, he slashed her tires and Bobby's tires. And honestly, this just scratches the surface of what this man was capable of. His obsession with her was undeniable, but there's a lot more to him than just being an obsessive piece of shit. When investigators first turned their sights on Tommy as a person of interest,

both Bobby and Steven completely dropped off their radar. And that's because Tommy seemed that much more suspicious and he was completely uncooperative with police. Whether he just straight up didn't answer questions or was evasive when he did answer questions, there was just something they could tell was off about this dude. But like I mentioned earlier, there was no real evidence tying anyone to Nikki's disappearance. So unfortunately the case ended up going cold for a few years. Now during those years, Tommy was the only person that investigators were seriously looking at in connection with her disappearance, but without more to go off of, they sort of had to just wait around.

And they ended up waiting until 2007. It was then that investigators were alerted to the fact that Tommy Swint, the number one person of interest in their missing persons case, had just been sworn in as a police officer in a nearby county. And if you didn't already know, I'm sure you can just imagine, that you cannot be sworn in as a police officer if you are a person of interest in a felony case. Now investigators would argue that Tommy purposely withheld this information in order to get the job, but get this, Tommy says that he had no idea that he was a person of interest. Really bro, when Richmond investigators reached out to the Trotwood police department to tell them that they had hired a potential criminal, they gave Tommy the option of resigning himself or being fired. And Tommy,

of course, chose to resign, but he ended up suing the city of Richmond, saying that he was never told that he was a person of interest in Nikki's disappearance. This lawsuit was obviously frivolous because Tommy was, without a doubt, told that he was a person of interest because of course he was, so eventually it was dropped. But not before his face was plastered all over the news in Richmond and surrounding cities and included in the cities that got wind of Tommy's lawsuit was Dayton, the city that he lived in. And it turns out that someone in Dayton saw Tommy's face on the news and ended up calling

in with an anonymous tip and guys, I bet you couldn't even guess where this is going. This tip said that they needed to look into Tommy Swint as a possible suspect in the 1991 murder of Tina Marie Ivory. Tina Ivory was a sex worker living in Dayton in 1991 when her body was found in a pile of trash by a group of tree trimmers. This is very disturbing, but she was found naked from the waist down, wrapped in two large plastic trash bags, and then wrapped once more in a quilt. And her cause of death was ruled strangulation and blunt force trauma.

And up until 2007, her murder had been unsolved. At the time, investigators recovered blood, semen, and fingerprint DNA from the scene, but again had never connected her murder to anybody. Until now. In April of 2008, Richmond police gave Dayton Police a sample of Tommy Swent's DNA from a swab that they'd collected when they first questioned him in connection with Nikki's disappearance. And when they ran tests on this swab, Tommy's DNA actually matched the blood

that was found on Tina's jacket. And not only that, it also couldn't be excluded as a match for DNA that was found on the quilt that Tina was wrapped in. But an ex-girlfriend of Tommy's said that that quilt, she remembered it, that it had belonged to him in the early 90s. And with this knowledge, detectives went to Tommy's house and pulled out a picture of Tina and he, of course, very defensively denied knowing her and denied ever seeing that quilt.

But even if Tommy lied, DNA does not. Now by this point, Tommy had moved back to his home state of Alabama, however that did not stop investigators from pursuing an arrest. Detectives got a warrant for his fingerprints and traveled to where he was living to collect a sample. And by November of 2008, they matched Tommy's fingerprints to the fingerprints found on the tape that was used to secure the blanket around Tina's body, which was the slam dunk that they needed to get an indictment.

And I know what you must be thinking, Tommy had to have been arrested at this point, right? Well, sadly no. After presenting their evidence to a grand jury, law enforcement officials from Alabama, Ohio, and Indiana all gathered outside of Tommy Swint's house preparing to make an arrest when suddenly they hear gunshot sounds from inside the house. That's right. On February 3rd, 2009, Tommy Swint took his own life.

Former Trotwood police officer Tommy Swint was indicted for murder Wednesday afternoon. A grand jury decided there's enough evidence to try Swint in the 1991 death of Tina Marie Ivery. Her nude, strangled body was found on a pile of trash by a crew of tree trimmers in December of that year. It took me a whole lot to get that closure. It's been a long time and I need that closure because my time is running out. In this interview with two news from 2008, Iberi's mother pleaded for information in her daughter's case, but the indictment didn't bring much closure. Swint had been living in Phoenix City, Alabama. When officers closed in on his house Wednesday afternoon, they say they heard a gunshot and found Swint dead.

And when he did, he took the answers with him that Nikki's family believes were the key to solving her disappearance. The fact that he had killed in the past just strengthened everyone's belief that he was capable of making Nikki disappear. And so he went from person of interest to suspect. And what's crazy is it's actually theorized

that Tommy Swint may have been a serial killer. And between 1991 and 2001, when Nikki first went missing, he'd killed enough times to know how to better hide her body. And of course that's just a theory, but it is why many people believe that Nikki's body has still not been found to this day.

Tommy was said to have been an extremely violent man who could not handle rejection. He was said to have this hatred towards women and Nikki denying him just fueled his anger towards her and really could have been a motive for him to have killed her. Of course we can't say that for certain without evidence, but it is a definite possibility. And to this day, despite his death, Tommy Swint remains the number one suspect in Nikki's disappearance.

Although it is believed that there might be one person who holds the answers to what really happened and that person could possibly be Darlene. Unfortunately, I can't say with any certainty how much police have actually questioned her. But even if they have, I think at this point, we would probably know something if anything came out of that, if they did question her.

At this point, all Michelle really wants is to have a conversation with Darlene. All she wants to know is what they talked about that day on the phone and kind of hear her At this point, all Michelle really wants is to have a conversation with Darlene. All she wants to know is what they talked about that day on the phone and kind of hear her side of the story. Because until she can rule Darlene out, she's always going to consider that maybe she was somehow involved in her sister's disappearance. Now before I wrap things up today, I want to share that despite all the time that has

passed, Nikki's family has not and will not give up on her. In July of 2021, on the 20th anniversary of her disappearance, loved ones gathered at the laundromat where Nikki was last seen to hold an event in her honor. It was called Keep the Light Alive, where loved ones came together in hopes to keep Nikki's story in the public eye. After all these years, it's especially important that people see her picture, hear her name, and remember her story.

They refuse to stop fighting for her, and I have so much admiration for the time and effort that they have put into advocating on her behalf. Their determination to get her face out there is what made me want to cover this case and bring it to the attention of some of you who may not have heard of it. Nikki was last seen on the 1,000 block of southeast street in Richmond, Indiana. She was 5'2", 115 pounds African-American woman last seen wearing blue bike shorts and a pink swimsuit top. She had a small scar above her left eye, another small scar on the right side of her face, a scar at the top of her head, and a larger scar on her left eye, another small scar on the right side of her face, a scar

at the top of her head, and a larger scar on her left leg. Nikki would be 51 years old today, and not only would she be a mother, but she would now be a grandmother. Her daughter Peyton has a daughter of her own, and she really has taken over the efforts to advocate for her mom. Sadly, Nikki's mom, Barbara, did pass away on July 21, 2020, which was just one day shy of the 19th anniversary of Nikki's disappearance. And up until the very end, she was just determined to get answers. She even had scheduled a meeting with law enforcement

to get the latest information she could and talk to them one more time before she passed. And when she was on her deathbed, her granddaughter Peyton promised that she would never stop fighting for answers. Nikki's dad also passed away sadly just a few years after she went missing and this is also really sad but Bobby also passed away and pretty recently in 2021 just adding to the list of people that never got answers, that never got to see justice for Nikki. It's all just so sad to think about, especially because Payton said that the loss of her grandmother and then of Bobby was just unbearably painful because they were the two people that

she was closest with in the world since she lost her mom. Payton has just gone through so much since she was closest with in the world since she lost her mom. Peyton has just gone through so much since she was only nine years old and you know, throughout her life since. And I just really hope that one day she can at least get some answers. God, it is just honestly so hard to even know how to wrap up cases like this because it's such a tough spot right now. We just don't really have much to go off of or much more to say at this point until Nikki's

hopefully found. And I just hate ending episodes on that note. I just hate that there's not more for this family at the end of the day, but unfortunately that's the reality of this case. Nikki just deserved so much better than what happened to her. I mean, it is truly a loss to the world. Not only was she going to do so much good in her career, but she was also just an amazing person, you know, touching so many people's lives to think about the

fact that she never got to marry the love of her life or to watch her daughter grow up or to meet her grandchild, to spend those final years with her parents and all of her other loved ones. It's just beyond heartbreaking. And to have no answers as to why or how any of it happened is just one of the most terrible things I can imagine a family going through. All we can do is keep her memory alive, keep sharing her story and hope that someday someone comes forward with answers or that maybe she will be found and that will lead us down a path

to justice. In some way, I just wanted to say thank you to her family, especially to Michelle for all of the information that she has shared on this case and for being on a mission to keep her story alive. I will leave their family's resources in my description box so that you can keep up with the case and send them some encouraging words. That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify

and Apple Podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there.