MISSING: Marilyn “Niqui” McCown

19:03Brit Prawat:The unsolved 1991 murder of Tina Marie Ivory. She was a 33-year-old woman found beaten and strangled, wrapped in trash bags and a quilt, dumped near a road outside Dayton. Now, at first, this seems like a long shot, but the crime lab had preserved DNA from the scene for nearly two decades, semen and blood. What they didn't have was a suspect to compare it to.

19:24Ashley Flowers:But now they do.

19:26Brit Prawat:Yeah, and they get him using Nikki's case. So he's out here raising hell, being like, I didn't know police were even looking at me. I have nothing to do with this case involving Nikki. So Richmond PD are like, okay, like, you know, to help prove your case, give us your DNA. And he does, not knowing that Dayton police are the ones intending to use it. So they take his DNA and the lab matches it to the semen on the clothing Tina Ivory was found in. And the blood evidence found on the quilt that she was wrapped in was either consistent with him or, like, couldn't exclude him depending on, like, what source you're looking at.

20:04Brit Prawat:Now, Tina did sex work for a living. So the semen was good evidence, but not great. Like, it could be argued away. And the blood wasn't a slam dunk either. So they needed something to, like, really nail him. And that's when they re-examined tape used to bind Tina. And they uncovered a never-before-seen print. That was his. So all of this played out over years. You know this stuff doesn't happen fast. So it wasn't until early 2010 that a Montgomery County grand jury issued an indictment charging Tommy Swint with Tina Ivory's murder. Investigators believe they finally had their suspect, not just for Tina's 1991 homicide, but possibly for Nikki's too.

20:45Brit Prawat:But by then, Tommy was living far away from the Midwest. He was down in Phoenix City, Alabama. Now, he had been questioned about Tina over the years as they were doing all that testing. So when law enforcement from Alabama came knocking on February 3rd to arrest him, he must have known why they were there. And before they could make it inside, a gunshot rang out. Tommy had taken his own life. He left no confession, no explanation, no answers about Tina or about Nikki. But for many people, his actions said more than enough. And that moment became the unofficial end of Nikki's story. The obsessed co-worker with the violent past no one knew about had finally been exposed.

21:32Brit Prawat:End episode. Roll credits. But we have been doing this a long time now together, you and me and the crime junkies. And I might have bought that ending in 2017 when I was green. But after covering more than 600 cases, including those in the fan club, and building out a team of investigative reporters, I know an ending like that is too vague to hang your hat on. After all, we still haven't found Nikki. So I got to wondering, with our resources now, could our team dig up anything that changes this case? Are we looking in the right places? Are we sure that we landed on the right suspect? When we reached out to Nikki's family to see if they'd be interested in us revisiting her case, I was actually kind of shocked to learn that they themselves had already been asking those same questions.

22:20Brit Prawat:For them, Tommy's sudden death didn't settle anything. And in the aftermath, some of them have become far more suspicious of someone else. So they welcomed our help. And sometimes, I think if you're in the right place at the right time, the universe just lines up perfectly. Because even though every records request and interview request was denied by Richmond PD, a trusted source gave us some of the case reports that shed a whole new light on every detail of this case, starting at the very beginning. For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases.

23:11Brit Prawat:And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.

23:29Brit Prawat:In those first few days after Nikki had gone missing, I told you that Nikki's family was suspicious of Bobby. He was never as helpful as they expected him to be. He wasn't really doing much to help them look for her. Instead, he was busy returning Nikki's ring, trying to get her tuition money and canceling their wedding. Oh, and watching movies. Or maybe just one movie, but he watched it enough times to be concerning. Nikki's sister Michelle told us that Bobby was practically fixated on this one particular movie, one that she felt was absurdly inappropriate considering the situation. I don't know if you've seen this one, but it's a movie from 2000 called The Gift.

24:10Ashley Flowers:As in The Gift with Katie Holmes? The one where she has a jealous fiancé who becomes a suspect after she goes missing? That's the one.

24:18Brit Prawat:Okay. Which, like, can you imagine? You are out searching for your missing sister and you walk in on her unhelpful fiance watching The Gift. Michelle said she remembers standing there just like in shock watching him just like play this same movie. Thinking like, why this one? Why now? Why repeatedly? Why over and over? And he's not even hiding it. But like nothing he was doing felt normal or appropriate for the situation. I mean, she told us that his emotions never seemed to match the moment. One minute, he would be sobbing, and then the next, he seemed totally fine. Like he could switch it on and off.

24:56Brit Prawat:It didn't feel real to her. In 2024, news outlet Dayton 24-7 Now obtained Bobby's 2001 interview with Richmond PD. And there is this moment where, in my opinion, I hear what Michelle is talking about. And I'm actually going to play a little snippet for everyone here. Any thoughts where she could be at all? Not sure.

25:17Ashley Flowers:Nothing at all? I mean, give me a... I don't want to sit and go, maybe another guy. I do hope it's another guy. I can deal with that pain. Pain that I can deal with is not annoying. I don't know if she's hungry. I don't know. If she's what?

25:32Brit Prawat:The cities of her just can't eat. I don't know this. And I'm sitting around trying. Yeah, I'm just hoping it's another guy.

25:38Ashley Flowers:I can deal with that pain. I just don't. I'm sick of everyone going to psychics. Oh, they've done that too? It's okay until the phone rings at her sister's. I can't stay at my house. It's okay until the phone rings. And it's like, what is it now? What dead end are we headed out now?

25:56Brit Prawat:There are a few moments like that where he sounds like he wants to cry, but then maybe doesn't. They're like, I can't tell because it's audio only. But he even tells police he's all cried out because he's just been crying for three days straight before they came to talk to him. Now, Michelle didn't see that in the first three days. And when she tried to press him about the day Nikki went missing, July 22nd, She said that his answers seemed very surface level. It was like the same basic outline repeated again and again. Church, wedding errands, back home. But he does get more detailed with police in his interview.

26:29Brit Prawat:He says that after church, he and Nikki went home. She changed into her casual clothes. She took his car because it was a gas guzzler and unreliable. So since she was just going a few miles away to the laundromat, she took his with like a quarter of a tank of gas in it. And he took her Toyota sedan to go run his errands. He also tells police that he gave her$10 to cover laundry. It usually costs about six to do the three loads that she was planning. But he also found two quarters, like right before she was leaving, gave her that too. He said that he drove to someone else's house to meet his cousin.

27:02Brit Prawat:Cousin wasn't there, so he drives to another house. On the way, he passes the laundromat, sees the GMC there. He says this is about$2.15-ish. Now he ends up finding his cousin, hops into his cousin's car to go to the Richmond Square Mall, where they do the whole tuxes thing. And then he says he's at the jewelry store in the mall by like 2.45 or 3 o 'clock. And he even tells police, like they should have him on surveillance footage at the mall. But whether police ever verified that and got the footage is TBD. There's nothing saying that they did in what we have. He says after the jewelry store, they left and he was taken back to his car.

27:37Brit Prawat:And by like 3.30 or 3.45, he was passing back by the laundromat. And this time the GMC was gone. So he figured, you know, Nikki's done. Now he stops by a few houses before getting home at around 5.30, maybe 5.45. But he notes that he wasn't really paying attention to the times. And then he just kind of hung out at their apartment, waiting for Nikki and watching any given Sunday on TV. To me, this isn't a super strong alibi, especially if we believe that Nikki left the laundromat alive and well. She is last seen there by somebody at around like three o 'clock, remember?

28:12Ashley Flowers:Well, and he's literally putting himself right there where she was at 3.30, 3.45.

28:19Brit Prawat:And that is especially interesting knowing what I found in the case report. There is a witness who apparently places Bobby at the laundromat with Nikki. This woman tells police that she walked into Richmond coin laundry on the day that Nikki vanished. Now, apparently she was just trying to use the payphone when she saw Nikki at the entrance talking to a black man. She didn't know who he was, didn't think much of it. Not until investigators circled back to her years later and asked her to review this six-photo lineup. They explained the process, tell her, you know, take your time. But she doesn't need time.

28:56Brit Prawat:She immediately points to photo number six, Bobby Webster. And she indicates that is the man I saw talking to Nikki. Now, what can you do with an ID that comes like four years later and after your person of interest has been in the news for this case, right? Like probably not a lot. Even though the woman says that she didn't know who he was, never saw him other than that one time talking to Nikki and then in the photo lineup. But without corroboration from other witnesses, her ID just kind of sits there. An explosive claim, if real, left inside the case report. But now that we know about it, we wondered if there was maybe more strange behavior that Bob Yee exhibited after Nikki went missing.

29:40Brit Prawat:Now, up until this point, all we really had were Nikki's family's suspicions, which like, valid. But we really wanted to find somebody not in her family who could give us some kind of outside perspective. And side note, I'm also desperately on the hunt for a TV guide that covers July 22nd, 2001 to see if any given Sunday was playing on TV. You don't know how hard I look for this.

30:03Ashley Flowers:You are usually really good at finding old publications like this.

30:07Brit Prawat:I found one for all the cable channels, but not for like the basic channels. I am desperate. So if anyone out there knows, hit me up. But what we did find was a woman named Kim who knew Bobby since childhood and actually ended up having a fling with him about a year after Nikki went missing. And what Kim said that she witnessed has never sat right with her. Now, Kim went to the same church as Bobby and Nikki. She had seen them both the morning of July 22nd at service. And she remembers Bobby practically glowing about the wedding. So like no red flags before. But a few days later, after word about Nikki was out, he showed up at her door and something just felt wrong.

30:49Brit Prawat:She said that she remembers he was wearing Nikki's engagement ring and wedding band around his neck. even though Kim swears that she saw Nikki wearing them on the day that she disappeared, like she was wearing them at church.

31:01Ashley Flowers:Are we talking about one of the rings that he returned to the jewelry store or something else? No, yeah.

31:06Brit Prawat:He ends up returning her engagement ring on the 27th. So they're like five days between her disappearing and then him returning it. And Bobby's at her door only like days after whatever. And listen, it was weird to her. There could be a straightforward explanation here. I mean, according to Bobby himself, in his interview with police, He said that Nikki took her rings off before she would do laundry. And he said she did that day. And this seems likely because in the case report that we have, it mentions that Nikki wasn't wearing anything on her left hand from what detectives could tell in the surveillance footage.

31:38Brit Prawat:But still, Kim couldn't make sense of it because the explanation that Bobby gave her at first didn't match the one that he gave her later. Like at first he said the rings were too loose, so she was worried about them like falling off while doing laundry. But then in 2002, he told her that she'd taken them off because she'd gained weight and they were too tight.

31:57Ashley Flowers:Which isn't just like a different explanation. It's the opposite.

32:01Brit Prawat:Right. And Kim also said that when she offered to help search for Nikki, Bobby told her not to bother, that it would be a waste of time. And what really spooked her was when Bobby started saying that Nikki was already dead, talking about her being an angel. And Kim just could not understand why he would be talking like that, especially when, in her opinion, it was early on enough where there was still every reason to hope that she was going to be coming back. So with all her uneasy feelings, like, building up, eventually, when they were seeing each other, Kim did something that I think most people in her position might not have the nerve to do.

32:38Brit Prawat:She looked square at Bobby and asked him point blank if he killed Nikki. According to Kim, Bobby didn't answer. He didn't deny it. He didn't defend himself. He just broke down crying. Kim told us that moment stayed with her for years and deeply disturbed her. She didn't ask him again. And they ended things shortly after this. Yeah. Obviously. And for years, she didn't have much contact with Bobby. But then one day around early 2021, so not that long ago, she gets this phone call from Bobby out of the blue. He's telling her, you know, he's broke, he's out of work, he's unable to get hired because of his connection to Nikki's case.

33:23Brit Prawat:Like, it's always, like, followed him. And he begged her to let him come stay with her. Kim's like, I don't know, but she agreed to at least, like, talk to him. And what followed was a conversation that lasted over eight hours that left her seeing him and the case very differently. Kim says that during this long call with Bobby, she learned more information about him and Nikki and their relationship than she had ever been aware of in all the years she'd known him. He claimed that Nikki and Tommy Swint were lovers.

33:55Ashley Flowers:What?

33:56Brit Prawat:And when she asked how he would know that, he told her it was because he'd been following them, watching them, seeing things that he never confronted Nikki about because he didn't want them to be true. And Kim couldn't believe what she was hearing. This felt like a man unraveling, like revealing a side of himself that she had never seen before. Someone jealous enough to stalk the woman he loved. So by the time Bobby finished talking, Kim said that she knew one thing for sure. He was not coming into her home. Whatever darkness he was carrying, she wanted no part of it. Kim said that Bobby kept reaching out, but then seemed to give up after she stopped responding altogether.

34:40Brit Prawat:And then just a couple of months after that call, Bobby died of a heart attack.

34:46Ashley Flowers:Do police know about this? I mean, I know a heart attack isn't like an expected event, but this feels almost like it feels like a deathbed confession.

34:54Brit Prawat:I don't know what this was, but like Kim held the weight of it for a few years until she just couldn't anymore. She told us that it was after listening to Bobby's taped interview that was made public online, part of the one you heard earlier. She said that she heard that and she felt compelled to come forward. So she says that she spoke with Richmond detective Mike Wright about her concerns.

35:15Ashley Flowers:But now Bobby's dead. So, like, what can they even do?

35:19Brit Prawat:Exactly. And listen, Kim is clear. None of this is proof. This is only her experience. experience. But based on everything she saw and everything Bobby told her, she could no longer reconcile the longtime friend that she thought she knew with the man on the other side of that line during their last conversation. And girl, same. Like, I'll link out to Bobby's full interview with police, but I bet what rubbed her the wrong way is what I had a hard time with, too. In this interview, he's like, oh, you know, I hope there's another guy. I hope, like, that's the reason. At least she would be okay. I mean, you heard him.

35:54Brit Prawat:But he says he didn't know about anything. And he mentions Tommy Swinn, but like as one of her friends in line with a bunch of other people, never says a word about knowing they were having an affair or about following them. So if he knew that while he was sitting in the room with those detectives, then he was boldface lying to them. Why? But here's the thing. As recently as 2024, Detective Wright told Dateline that Bobby is no longer considered a person of interest in this case. But when we tried asking police that same question ourselves, if Bobby was officially cleared, how he was eliminated, as of this recording, we have not heard back.

36:35Brit Prawat:Now, before we let a claim like Nikki and Tommy possibly being lovers reshape this narrative, I want to be absolutely clear about what is fact and what is rumor. We still don't know the true nature of Nikki's relationship with Tommy Swind, who, by the way, was married at the time Nikki vanished. And he was even still married to the same woman when he took his own life after being indicted for Tina's murder. When I look at the case report, like depending on who we talk to, depending on who police talk to, the story of like his relationship with Nikki, it varies. And the files are full of conflicting accounts.

37:07Brit Prawat:I mean, there's one person at least who believed that Nikki and Tommy were having an affair. Others insisted they were just close friends. Some say it was all just one-sided, with Tommy wanting more and Nikki shutting him down. So I am going to get, like, more into Tommy later. But before him becoming, like, the foregone conclusion to this case, and after they had looked hard at Bobby, it turns out that there were a lot of people that they looked at in between.

37:34Ashley Flowers:It was only ever Bobby and Tommy. Tommy and Bobby. I thought that was kind of all they had.

37:40Brit Prawat:That's all we got publicly. But that's never been the full story. And this one is full of winding roads, twisty turns, and more red herrings than one case can handle. But it's been almost 25 years, and maybe to find Nikki, we have to kind of wade through all of that. Starting with a totally out-of-left-field allegation that came about two years after Nikki disappeared, when someone tried to inject a brand new theory into the case. One so pointed that if it were true, would turn the entire investigation on its head. For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore.

38:23Brit Prawat:I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to The Deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.

38:48Brit Prawat:In November 2003, detectives received something completely unexpected. An anonymous letter claiming investigators had missed a crucial relationship in Nikki's life. No name was signed to this letter, just a set of accusations sharp enough to ruin a career or derail an entire investigation. According to the case report, this letter alleged that Nikki had been romantically involved with someone from work and not Tommy Swint, not even just an officer like Tommy. This letter named the guy presiding over the entire prison. Like the warden? The warden. And the letter claimed that the two had some sort of secret relationship, that they had argued before she disappeared, and that there were rumors he didn't want her getting married.

39:37Brit Prawat:And just to make things even stranger, this letter was signed only with the number 6-3-4-5-7-8-9.

39:48Ashley Flowers:What is that? Like an inmate number? A badge number? Like employee ID?

39:52Brit Prawat:That's what I thought at first, too. But it probably is none of the above. The best guess, according to the case report, is that it's referencing a Wilson Pickett soul song where that number is the title. It's a made up phone number, basically, like that you can call when you want someone to like come over and give you some attention. So if that's what it is, I don't know if the author was doing this as a nod to being anonymous or like trying to give some clue that like we're not picking up on. or if this is just like a super weird coincidence and the number actually is something else. I mean, there wasn't like a dash in it, like the song title or like a phone number actually would be.

40:28Brit Prawat:So could it be something else? Maybe. But like, just look at this as a whole. The whole thing to me feels designed and not like someone trying to help, more like someone trying to steer the investigation. Almost like a diversion. Yeah. And the case report states that investigators followed up on this, but they didn't find anything to support it. But did they? Because we reached out to the warden and he agreed to answer our questions via text and he was quick to shut down the rumor. And according to him, he had never heard of this letter. Now, it's unclear to me whether like police had talked to him or not talked to him, but he was clear that the letter at least, like that this had never come up.

41:11Brit Prawat:He was surprised by it, which I was kind of shocked that he wouldn't have gotten word of something like this. But he made it clear that he was not romantically involved with Nikki, that there were no arguments of any kind, and that, in his words, she was an exceptional employee who earned high marks on her evaluations.

41:29Ashley Flowers:This is feeling a little bit like the car to me. Like I said before, like a misdirection. Something tells me that figuring out who wrote this letter would be far more telling than who it's implicating.

41:42Brit Prawat:Yeah, I agree. And I know detectives were able to determine like a couple of things about this letter, really just that it was postmarked from Dayton, Ohio. So like, again, we're still focused on the Dayton area. That's where the car is found. And I know they tried to process under the flap area for prints, but they didn't get anything. So all in all, based on what we have, detectives conclude that like this Nikki Warden rumor, whatever, isn't true. And the report even, like, notes that the allegations didn't seem credible and that they even say kind of what we're saying, that this appears to be an attempt to push the investigation in a different direction.

42:18Brit Prawat:But it's also worth considering, too, that maybe this was just a hoax because whoever wrote the letter didn't even spell Nikki's last name correctly.

42:27Ashley Flowers:If it was someone connected, though, what was going on in the case, like, right before this letter appeared?

42:33Brit Prawat:I had that same question because this is coming two years later. Like what?

42:37Ashley Flowers:It feels like kind of cold. Nothing's happening.

42:40Brit Prawat:Things had stalled by that point. And so I had the exact same thought. Like what is happening that you're like, oh. I need to do something. Yeah. I don't have all the files. The only note that I see right before this one was from like a few weeks before when this body had been found in Owen County, Indiana. Now it sounds like they were going to run some tests to make sure that it wasn't Nikki. Obviously, it didn't end up being her. But maybe someone panicked. Right. But like you would think that if it was someone connected to actually what happened to Nikki, they would know where they put her body and they would know that this one in Owen County wasn't her.

43:16Brit Prawat:Yeah, I guess. And like Owen County, by the way, is like southwest of Indianapolis. It's a hike from like this Richmond Dayton area. Which is on the east side. Yeah. Now, maybe they were just getting word that a body had been found. I don't know. Or it's possible this whole thing was a red herring that just, you know, took a lot of time and investigative energy from detectives. And this wasn't the only thing they were running down. What seemed much more promising to me were two separate anonymous tips saying that Nikki's remains were in illegal dump sites closer by. In the first one, the McCowan family got a call claiming that Nikki's remains could be located at this site near the intersection of State Road 320 and US 40 in New Paris, Ohio.

43:59Brit Prawat:Now, the caller refused to give a name or any additional information. And in the second tip, someone anonymously called the Wayne County Sheriff's Office, again referencing an illegal dump site over the Ohio state line, possibly even referring to the same one mentioned in the tip before. Now, this second call, investigators were able to trace to this Nebraska-based phone number tied to a trucking company. And they started to kind of run this down to see if any of these truckers had ties to the Richmond area or the Dayton area. And it seems like they got it kind of narrowed down, but they were never able to identify who actually made this call.

44:37Brit Prawat:I got kind of obsessed with this one. So our reporters followed this lead and we got in touch with the company owner's son. And we're like, listen, like there are these two employees. They had it narrowed down to these kind of like two names. And based on the descriptions he gave us, one of these guys seemed more likely over the other. We still tracked down both guys, but either way, they each denied having anything to do with the call. And they said they didn't know Nikki or anything about the case. And we were even able to, like, figure out exactly what phone the call would have been made from inside the building.

45:11Brit Prawat:It was, like, in this area that was accessible to all employees, if they were in town at the time, of course. But with this being so long ago, we couldn't get, like, 100 % confirmation to nail down one person. So kind of the way detectives hit a dead end, so did we. And honestly, things really slowed down with this tip. Those come in in 2006, and as they investigate into 2007, that's when things with Tommy start heating back up, right? This is when they find out he applies or gets a job at Trotwood. And so that's where all the focus ends up going. But before we circle back to him, I have to tell you about something tucked so far down in the narrative of this report, I almost missed it.

45:56Brit Prawat:But the second my eyes hit one name in particular, I froze. Like, I couldn't believe what I was seeing in the case report because this name was one I knew well. So, you see, after they found the GMC in Dayton, police made a concerted effort to really try to talk to everyone in Dayton who knew Nikki, right? Well, one of the people that they get in touch with tells them that some woman named Kay told her she ran into someone else. I know this is getting a little confluted. But this someone else told Kay that they were Nikki's godmother. And this godmother said that Nikki had just got cold feet. And oh, by the way, Kay has this boyfriend named Jeff Moore.

46:36Brit Prawat:And Jeff actually just happened to be friends with this disc jockey who was murdered in Ohio the year before Nikki's disappearance. Her name was Kelly D. Wilson. That stopped me in my tracks because if anyone's listened to my other podcast, The Deck, they might remember that I covered Kelly's case years ago. And that case is still unsolved. Now, the next note in the report says that they talked to this Jeff guy who's like mentioned. And he's like, yeah, I worked construction at the apartments where Kelly was killed and we were friends. That's it. Like, that's like the end of the summary of their conversation.

47:10Brit Prawat:This Kelly, Jeff, Kay, none of it sticks. But I was over here freaking the F out because another weird detail I already knew because I lived in that case is that Kelly's on-air disc jockey name was Nikki. And the apartment where this Jeff guy worked, the apartment where Kelly was killed in 2000, was Meadows of freaking Catalpa. Catalpa, the same place where Nikki once lived, where her GMC that she was driving ends up being found. Something about these Meadows of Catalpa apartment. I know. It keeps pulling us back. Everything comes back to these apartments. And guess who frequented those apartments?

47:55Brit Prawat:Tommy Swint. And we're back. Apparently, he used to pick Nikki up from that complex when she and her ex, Stephen, would be, like, fighting. This is before Bobby. So my big question, did Tommy know Kelly? Like we know he hung around that area, but we can't seem to confirm if Tommy was in the same circle of friends as Kelly. We tried asking around, but so far we can't find anyone who can say for sure either way.

48:21Ashley Flowers:And are we sure Kelly knew her killer?

48:23Brit Prawat:No, not necessarily. I'm actually going to put Kelly's deck episode here in the Crime Junkie feed the day after this one dropped. So anyone not familiar with that case, you really need to listen. It is a truly wild case. But at least in my opinion, it's totally possible she could have been killed by someone who just saw an opportunity. Someone who may have just been in her apartment complex and saw her come home late after drinking at a party. Now, we actually reached out to the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office asking if they have any DNA in Kelly's case, wondering if they could compare it against Tommy.

48:56Brit Prawat:But they said no, they don't have any unknown DNA samples from a possible suspect.

49:02Ashley Flowers:But have they considered him? I mean, Dayton's big, but it's not that big, right?

49:07Brit Prawat:Yeah. So we asked them about a possible connection between Nikki's case and Kelly's. And we were told that they're, quote, not aware of any connection between these two. End quote.

49:18Ashley Flowers:Okay. That's not what we asked.

49:20Brit Prawat:Have they considered a connection? Honestly, I don't know. I don't know if they're, like, dodging the question because, like, I, too, was like, that's like, that didn't totally answer it. Yeah. Yeah. Or I don't know if they actually haven't considered a connection at all.

49:35Ashley Flowers:But if there is a connection, then in that hypothetical scenario, we're back where the first episode ended. And Tommy is the most likely culprit for Nikki's case. I mean, did the case report convince you of that?

49:50Brit Prawat:Convince me 100 percent? No. I mean, like to me, like until we find Nikki, nothing is 100 percent. Right. I will say that the case report filled in a lot of the blanks, making it clear why they were so confident that it was him. And it made it clear to me that we never got the whole story on Tommy. Because if Tommy Swint had anything to do with whatever happened to Nikki McCown, it is clear that police theorized he worked with and had help from someone that you have probably never heard of until right now. For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases.

50:42Brit Prawat:And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.

51:00Brit Prawat:It's impossible to talk about the new stuff I learned about Tommy Swind without discussing this other person. Because it's all so intertwined. And while this is all new information now, it's been there all along. Actually, after I released our first episode on Nikki and then met up with her daughter Peyton, she told me about this other person. Like, not in detail, just kind of like mentioned that there was this other woman who worked at the prison who was like mixed up with Tommy. And if Tommy had answers, maybe this woman did too. And it was that comment that Peyton made that had me so sure we never knew the full story.

51:36Brit Prawat:But I didn't have the tools to dig back then. Well, welcome to 2026. That woman is Darlene Williams. Darlene is a coworker and friend of both Tommy and Nikki. They all worked at the prison together. And I really should say she's a friend of Nikki's, But she's a little more than just that with Tommy. It turns out the two had been having this long-standing affair, one that was still going on when Nikki went missing, and it made for a complicated dynamic. Because no matter which way you slice it, the one thing that's clear about Tommy and Nikki's relationship is that Tommy seemed to have a thing for Nikki.

52:16Brit Prawat:And Nikki, at minimum, was keeping Tommy close. I mean, we saw something in the report that maybe she was even using one of his credit cards, like according to one of her friends. And she may have at least once been intimate with him based on an account that someone in her family gave police that is recounted in the case report. So there may have at least been some truth to what Bobby told Kim like a few years ago. But the question is, did Darlene know that? And if she did know about all of this, how did she feel about it? In an early interview with police, she seems to think that she is the only other woman in Tommy's life.

52:55Brit Prawat:Like, obviously, she knows he's married, but, like, she's the mistress. Now, people describe Darlene and Nikki as friends, but it seems like something was coming between them right before Nikki went missing. When investigators talk to a fellow employee, she says that Nikki, Darlene, and Tommy hung out together, but later tells them that Nikki and Darlene had been fighting before her disappearance and that Nikki even left work upset the Friday before she went missing. Now, the case report doesn't explicitly say why, though. It doesn't offer any details about this. And when they go talk to Darlene, Darlene denies to police that there was any kind of fight.

53:31Brit Prawat:But what she can't deny, what I never knew until recently, is that it's possible the actual last confirmed time Nikki was alive wasn't 3 o 'clock when that witness saw her back at the laundromat. It may actually be later than we thought when Nikki called Darlene. What? So let me give you the whole scoop on this call because I think it is so important. I don't know how police initially become aware of this. Nikki does not have a cell phone. She only has a pager, but apparently she had left that pager in her Toyota that day. There is one note in the case report that this call between her and Darlene is not on the home phone.

54:12Brit Prawat:So where did she make that call from? I mean, do you think they're just getting this from Darlene? Possibly. I mean, she admits to police in her interviews that Nikki called her. And apparently she was saying that she called to ask about these like skin nail hair vitamins that Nikki wanted to get before her wedding. And she says that Nikki was going to pick them up that day before the store closed, maybe from like a CVS. Now, I do think this call happened. This is like one of those things that is stated as fact over and over in the case report. So they must have confirmed this somehow, like maybe through Darlene's phone records.

54:45Brit Prawat:I mean, I know they subpoenaed her call records for the 21st and the 22nd. But as I got to thinking about it, like maybe it's not as confirmed as I think, because over time and in different interviews with Darlene, the time of this call changes. I mean, like in different statements, it's as early as 3.30 p.m. to as late as 6 p.m. And at least in the reports I have, there's no like firm time they decide on, which makes me take back what I said. And I like which you would think they'd be working off of phone records unless they just didn't write about it in the case reports I have.

55:17Ashley Flowers:Right.

55:18Brit Prawat:Either way, it doesn't seem like police ever determine where this call is made from, which I think is so important.

55:26Ashley Flowers:Yeah. Especially when you think of like the timeline of where Nikki was that day. So wasn't there a witness who was at the laundromat to use a payphone and like she saw? Yeah. So there's like there's a phone there. So maybe Nikki used that.

55:39Brit Prawat:Yes, but per Bobby's timeline, if we're believing his story, he's driving by the laundromat at like this exact time, 3.30, 3.45. Yeah, and her car is not there. So to me, she's not making the call from the payphone, which like leaves two options in my mind. One, Nikki made the call from a payphone at a gas station. This option half works with the theory that police seem to have. It's clear from the detective's notes that they don't fully buy Darlene's story about why Nikki called. Or like at least there's something they don't buy. Because like in the case report, they call out the fact that there was a CVS like right by the laundromat that was 24 hours.

56:21Brit Prawat:So she didn't need to get anywhere before it closed. And when we spoke to a close friend of Nikki's, she told us that the rumor was Nikki wasn't going to a store to get these. She was going to someone's house to pick these up. possibly a co-worker's house. Most of her co-workers live near Dayton. The co-worker she is calling about these vitamins lives in Dayton. And the about 44-mile drive to Dayton was one that Nikki made all the time for work. So I don't think she would think twice about just like going there to pick something up. So my thinking is, if she's going to make a longer drive, remember, Bobby's car is a gas guzzler.

57:02Brit Prawat:Like that's part of the reason she drives it to the laundromat. It's super close. It only had like a quarter of a tank of gas, according to what he told police in his interview. But I found from the case report that when the car was found, it had half a tank of gas. So if she drove the car out there, it had to have been filled up. Maybe she called then at a gas station. I mean, this makes a lot of sense, actually. Maybe. Hold that thought because it's not a perfect theory. Here's the problem with it. Bobby said the only money she had on her was like$10.50, right, that he had given her. For the laundry.

57:36Brit Prawat:It would cost about$6 to do the three loads. So that gives her like$4.50 left. Did I research the price of gas in this area July 2001 and then the size of a GMC Jimmy tank? Couldn't be your crime junkie if I didn't. Right. So the tank held like 31 gallons. Gas was anywhere from like$132 to$145 a gallon, depending on if she filled up in Indiana or Ohio. I wish. I know, like so cheap. So if it's already a quarter full, to get to a half a tank, and this is before she drove and used any more, she needs like$11 worth of gas. And again, this is before she makes the 40-mile drive. In good condition, a 1990 GMC Jimmy gets like average 15 miles per gallon on the highway.

58:19Brit Prawat:That's a lot of math, by the way. I know.

58:21Ashley Flowers:Everyone's probably like, don't glaze over. This is a word problem and I am. Don't glaze over.

58:26Brit Prawat:So we know the GMC is in poor condition. I don't know what it actually got. Even if like best case scenario, let's just cut to the chase. Back of the napkin math, she had to put somewhere between like 12 to 16 bucks into the car. She had 450, according to Bobby. So did she even have money for that? Maybe. Nikki's sisters, Michelle and Tammy, told us that she almost always had a wallet on her, but no one seems sure about whether she had it on her that day at the laundromat. All we know is that there was no wallet reportedly found in the GMC.

58:57Ashley Flowers:So Nikki did or didn't have enough money to get to dating on her own. Like, we don't know.

59:03Brit Prawat:I don't know. Like, you just saw me do the math. Like, I am desperately looking for answers over here where I don't know if there are any. Like, it shouldn't be this hard to know if she had any of her cards on her. Like, so I don't know. It's possible she had money or a card that nobody knew about. And she could have had Tommy's card, too, right? Like, that's in the case file. Well, in the case report. I have, like, a narrative. Right. I don't know if they checked her financial reports. I don't know if they checked Tommy's. But if she didn't have money on her, then we're actually back where we started.

59:34Brit Prawat:And she went somewhere after the laundromat, maybe even in the Richmond area, to call Darlene sometime between 3.30 and 6 p.m., depending on Darlene's different accounts. We know it's not home because it's not on her home phone. That I know for sure. So wherever she went, did someone intercept her and they drove the car and had money for gas?

59:55Ashley Flowers:Could Darlene or Tommy have been in Richmond around then?

59:59Brit Prawat:According to the case report, no, because Darlene says she got the call from Nikki while she was at work. In Dayton. Right. And it's kind of insinuated in the reports that she was working her normal second shift that day, which would have kept her at the prison till later in the evening. But Tommy was not at work. He was in Dayton, says he went to church, went to dinner with his wife, like just as he does every Sunday, never venturing to Richmond. But when they ask his wife about this, she doesn't seem to remember much about July 22nd. And it's really the next day that things get really shifty.

1:00:37Brit Prawat:So the day after Nikki goes missing, this is now July 23rd, 2001, both Tommy Swind and Darlene Williams were scheduled to work. But they call out, according to the case report. Darlene calls out of work at 1245, which is just an hour and 15 minutes before her shift is supposed to start. And Tommy Swint's work records show that he didn't put in for the day off until the 24th. So the day after he actually took it, which is like, I don't know if it's a no call, no show, or if he just like calls someone and nobody put it down. I don't know.

1:01:08Ashley Flowers:So if they weren't at work, what were they doing then?

1:01:11Brit Prawat:Well, in a police interview, Tommy straight up tells police that he took the day off to go to Richmond to help search for Nikki with Darlene, even saying they met up with some of Nikki's family. Darlene has the same story when she speaks with detectives. But when they go back to the family to fact check this, at least according to them, Tommy and Darlene never show up on the 23rd. And we confirmed this with the family today. They don't remember either Tommy or Darlene being with their group on that day after she went missing. So I ask again, what are they doing then? The million-dollar question.

1:01:49Brit Prawat:But as far as our records could uncover, one that no one seems to find an answer to. Though you can see why police spent so much time digging into these two. So by early 2002, police were running any and all reports that they could on this couple. They're looking for anything, and I mean anything. And paying attention to details matters. Because in doing this, police looked to see if there were any driving infractions. And like both had some come up, but like none for the dates in question, whatever. But something did stand out to one of the detectives. It was a speeding ticket that Tommy got on October 7th, 2001, and he got it near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.

1:02:34Brit Prawat:Seems totally unrelated, right? But it sounds like they didn't recognize the car he was in. So they run the plates and it comes back to an auto leasing company at an address in Dayton. So they pull the address up on MapQuest, throwback, and you won't freaking believe it. Catalpa. The auto leasing company is about a mile from where the GMC was found. Where the GMC is found at the Metals of Catalpa. Yep. Now, this looks like a residential area. So it's probably weird to them that it's coming back to like a leasing company or whatever. But they got to know who this belongs to, right? Or, I mean, my big question would be like, how long has he had this rental vehicle?

1:03:19Brit Prawat:If it is a rental vehicle, I think that's unclear too. Anyways, so Detective Roger Redman and Detective Mark Connery decide to pay this address a visit. And listen, I've read a lot of police write-ups. They're like dry and clinical. Even 90 % of this report that I have on Nikki was dry and clinical. This section reads like the climax of a movie. I mean, Redman, I don't know why he's not writing narrative fiction. So they get to this house. They knock on the door and this big dog charges at the window. It sounds like there's maybe even more than one dog. But finally, after knocking and knocking, the door creaks open just like a few inches.

1:04:00Brit Prawat:And they can see that there's like a woman on the other side, but they can't see her. And she's asking, you know, why are you here? And like, well, ma 'am, we're investigating a homicide. We'd like to speak with you. And she just shuts them down right away. She doesn't want to talk to them. Ask them again, like, who are you? I don't think she's like believing them for some reason. So they tell her again, like, listen, we're detectives. We just want to talk to you. She again refuses. So Redmond's like, look, I'm going to leave my card. You can reach out when you're ready to talk. You can see like if you need to verify who I am, whatever.

1:04:28Brit Prawat:So they leave the card. They start going back to their car. And as they're about to get in, the woman calls them back. She's like, okay, I'll talk to you. So they go back into the house and it's like eerie. All of a sudden, there are no dogs. And as they walk into the room, which is like very dark, the woman like walks away from them. And she has them sit in the living room while she goes into the kitchen where they can't see her very well because it's so dark. And so from the shadows, she's asking them, what do you want? And the detective says, you know, like, I want to know if you know a man named Tommy Swint.

1:05:04Brit Prawat:And she says, yes. So they ask her, do you know this leasing company? She's like, how do you know about this leasing company? And so Redman explains how he pulled Tommy's speeding ticket. And this is when she got upset. Like, you're looking at driving records? And she says this multiple times. You're looking at driving records? And he's like, yeah, we're looking at everything. And they can see that she's nervous. She's like rubbing her head like in her hands. And she says, you know who I am, Redmond. He really didn't. I mean, he could not see her in the dark. So he just asks, who are you? I'm Darlene Williams.

1:05:43Brit Prawat:Now, Redmond had never been to her house before. He had her address from her employment records. But everything was like, you know, on paper in those days. He didn't make the connection, especially when it comes back to a leasing company. He also never made the connection that she lived that close to Meadows of Catalpa. So now they know who she is. Darlene's pretty upset. And so he says, like, this is the point where they kind of like end their interview. But it got me wondering, what if the GMC was at her house at some point? I mean, they never were able to determine how long it had been parked at the apartment complex.

1:06:19Brit Prawat:From what I can see, witness accounts were kind of all over the place. Some neighbors said that the GMC had only been there like a couple of weeks. Others said it had been sitting there closer to a couple of months. And there was one woman who said that she walked past it regularly. And she was adamant that it had been parked there for about three and a half months. So maybe like the entire time. And there were even a few residents who remembered the SUV coming and going occasionally. So we know the car's there, sometimes not exactly in that same spot, but no one could say what the person behind the wheel even looked like when it was coming and going.

1:06:53Brit Prawat:So what if for at least part of the time it was there at her house, in her driveway or in her garage at some point? I don't have enough documentation from police documents to know how much they dug into her alibi of being at work or when exactly she would have gotten off the day that Nikki went missing. But the car Nikki's driving is found about a mile from her house. She calls out of work the very next day. She is the last known person who speaks with Nikki. That is a lot to ignore. But Britt, this is where I started having like heart palpitations. Darlene wasn't just Nikki's last known call.

1:07:34Brit Prawat:In what we have, Redmond also notes this. Tommy Swind had also called Darlene Williams prior to taking his life.

1:07:44Ashley Flowers:Why her? Why in his final moments is the person he contacts Darlene, like just his co-worker?

1:07:52Brit Prawat:Well, I mean, we know they had an affair, right? Yeah, but I know. I wish I could tell you, but that is literally like all we've got. Remember, Tina Ivory's murder wasn't Richmond's jurisdiction. So Redman, when we're reading these case reports, he's just getting this information secondhand from Detective Patty Tackett out of Dayton. And according to the report, she relates something else to him. Tackett stated that Swint left a note behind. And in this note, he stated he was not responsible for any deaths.

1:08:24Ashley Flowers:But obviously that's not true. They have his DNA and prints for Tina.

1:08:28Brit Prawat:But all they really have for Nikki are theories. Now, in one snippet of Redmond's report, he theorizes that Darlene is somehow connected to Nikki's disappearance. And he believes that she was disposed of into the trash dumpster that was next to where her vehicle was left. He thinks that the car was driven there by Darlene Williams and she was assisted by Tommy Swint. But after he writes this, Tackett ends up sharing more information with him that makes him consider an alternate theory. You see, she had gotten results back from the computer that Tommy had used while in Alabama. And she told Redmond that Tommy was closely watching the local Richmond newspaper.

1:09:11Brit Prawat:And he was paying close attention to a high school news story about something that happened at the school near Darlene's house, which led her to believe that maybe Nikki's body is somewhere near Williams's address or Meadows of Catalpa, the apartment complex. Now, according to the case report, Darlene's property isn't searched until 2022, more than 20 years after Nikki disappeared. Darlene consents to the search, and investigators bring in cadaver dogs trained to detect decades-old remains. Based on canine results, they dig beneath a flower bed in her backyard. Nothing's found. Later, ground-penetrating radar does flag underground inconsistencies.

1:09:55Brit Prawat:The dogs are run again. Investigators dig again. This time focusing on a spot where this like plastic flower pot had been sitting. Still nothing. No remains. No physical evidence found. But there was another canine indication of remains in the area behind Darlene's property. An area with dense underbrush and woods. It's like this expansive lot that Darlene does not own immediately adjacent to. Here we go again. Meadows of Catalpa. Yes. This area that has been tied to this case for decades. And according to the report, an area that an investigator specifically noted warranted further searching based on this canine alert.

1:10:40Brit Prawat:Now, again, police haven't responded to our request for comment as of this recording. So I can't tell you if that search has ever been done. The last thing it seems Detective Redmond ever wrote in his portion of the narrative was this single haunting line. This case has been suspended until further information surfaces. It leaves this awful question mark hanging in the air for Nikki and for her loved ones. People who want to know what's been done since the file we got ends. So far, as of this recording, there has been no official police response from former or current investigators at Richmond PD.

1:11:18Brit Prawat:And the same goes for Darlene. We reached out to her for comment and advised her of the allegations presented in the police case report. We even sent her a certified letter and her signature confirms that she got it. But as of this recording, we have not heard back from her.

1:11:33Ashley Flowers:So after all this, those woods around Meadows of Catalpa could still hold the key to everything after all. And we don't even know if anybody even followed up on it.

1:11:44Brit Prawat:Yeah, and if Nikki's remains are somewhere in the wooded area near those apartments, the question still remains, who put them there? I get why police looked so hard at Tommy. And according to the report, Detective Patty Tackett told Redmond that Darlene even admitted to her that in the end, she no longer believes Tommy's comments about not being involved in Nikki's disappearance. And like, what about all those things Bobby said to Kim? what if he really was following Nikki in her final days? Two of the main men in this story have passed away, but I don't think it's too late for answers or too late to find Nikki's remains.

1:12:24Brit Prawat:It's been almost 25 years and it's now or never. Eight years ago, crime junkies got to hear from Peyton. She was a new mom back then and so many things have changed in her life. But in the search for her mother, it's like she's frozen in time And like so many loved ones I've spoken to over the years, it really is just answers she wants now, not vengeance.

1:12:48Ashley Flowers:I think I would just like to say what we've been saying for the last 24 and a half years is, we're not going to stop. We're going to continue. We will continue to put the fire under you until you decide that you want to come forward and say something and speak your piece. At this point, I'm not looking to see anybody really serve time. I just want answers. I want to be able to go somewhere and take my daughter so she can at least speak to her grandmother without looking at a flyer or a T-shirt or, you know, a news article or anything like that. I would just like to have that peace and really start the grieving process of the loss of my mother.

1:13:25Ashley Flowers:It's different grieving someone that you don't know you really lost, essentially. So I just want them to know that no matter what, come hell and high water, we're going to get answers.

1:13:37Brit Prawat:Maybe you know something. Is it about Bobby Webster's movements the day Nikki went missing? Or maybe you know more about Darlene and Tommy's movements. As far as I can tell, Tommy's wife is still alive. And in 2010, someone identifying themselves as Lisa Swint wrote on Tommy's online obituary that he was her best friend, an adoring husband, and that he was a wonderful man. And that, quote, those who knew Tommy also know that truth as well. End quote. We tried every number listed for her that we could find. but as of this recording, we haven't heard back from her either. Someone out there knows where Nikki is.

1:14:13Brit Prawat:And if that's you, please contact the Richmond, Indiana Police Department at 765-983-7247.

1:14:35Brit Prawat:you can find all the source material for this episode on our website crimejunkie.com

1:14:41Ashley Flowers:and you can follow us on instagram at crimejunkie podcast we'll be back next week

1:14:45Brit Prawat:with a brand new episode but stick around for the good

1:15:14Ashley Flowers:Okay, Ashley, are you ready for the first good of the year? Ah, 2026. Yeah. What's happening? This is from an anonymous Crime Junkie listener.

1:15:22Brit Prawat:I'm already intrigued.

1:15:23Ashley Flowers:Hi, Ashley and Britt. I had to do this anonymously as I'm not clear of the situation yet. I am such a huge fan of your show. I've been listening religiously for years. I've listened to every true crime podcast available and thought the women in those stories could never be me. And I'm not going to be part of a tragic story. Thanks to you, lovely ladies. Tonight, you helped me leave my partner after he put his hands on me the first time. I might have taken him back or heard him out if it wasn't for you. He pushed me and I just heard your voices in my head. I knew it was time to get out. I called my sister and headed to my parents' safety.

1:15:56Brit Prawat:I literally have chills, like from my head to like my knees. Oh my God.

1:16:00Ashley Flowers:The stories you tell that center abuse victims and talk about how hard it is to leave, I've heard them all and I never thought it was me. I thought the red flags didn't apply to my situation, that it wasn't verbal abuse. He just couldn't control his anger and arguments. He wasn't hitting me, just smashing objects, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The list goes on and it's all becoming clear bit by bit now. I am the poster child for you can't leave until you're ready. I've watched all the videos on how to know if you're in a healthy relationship and heard all the crime junkie rules, but it was like they went in one ear out the other.

1:16:32Ashley Flowers:Well, it turns out they didn't go anywhere. My brain filed knowledge away for later because it helped me today when I needed it. I am now home safe and snuggling with my parents' dogs, adorable, you'll just have to trust me, who haven't left my side since I got here. Dogs just know. Thank you both for all the work you do centering victims of abuse and women's strength in much worse situations than mine. They helped me have the strength to call my family and friends for help, even when I felt broken. This journey isn't over. It's only just begun. But I'm so glad you both helped me take the first step today.

1:17:02Ashley Flowers:Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Fingers crossed I have the strength to keep pushing through after a four-year relationship. Thank God I have an amazing support system and your podcast to distract me. All my love, your very grateful listener, Anonymous.

1:17:15Brit Prawat:You can do this. Do not take him back.

1:17:18Ashley Flowers:Yeah. I just love this one. And the fact that in this moment, tonight, right? Like when she left, she thought of us and like thought of not just us, but the lessons that we talk about, the information that we provide.

1:17:31Brit Prawat:It's wild how these like stay with people. And I think also it's like people, she said, you know, you're not ready until like you're ready. I think like people recognize it even subliminally.

1:17:41Ashley Flowers:The way she said she filed away, like it kind of just kind of breezed by in the moment, but her brain had filed it away for like such a time as this.

1:17:47Brit Prawat:And my little piece of advice is if you're watching a lot of videos and reading a lot of things asking if you're in a healthy relationship, that's probably the first sign that you're not. Take the steps you need. Take care. Look out for yourself. We love you guys. Crime Junkie is an Audio Chuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

1:18:11Ashley Flowers:Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now, and I've been listening for years. I think you'll love it too. Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.