Nicole and Arianna Fitts Replay

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1:20Flavio Sementilli. Big heart, big voice, big laugh. A rock star hairstylist who drove a Porsche. He was like a wizard behind the chair. Killers came for Fabio in his own backyard. I would have never in a million years imagined this. Who could have done this? The uncertainty of not knowing is a form of agony. From Sony Music Entertainment and Novel, this is Cut, Color, Kill. Available now on The Binge. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. Before we begin today's episode, I wanted to let you know that there won't be a new episode of Voices for Justice this week.

1:57As many of you know, this time of year is always a difficult one for me personally, this year especially with the 25-year anniversary of my sister Alyssa going missing, so I decided to take a little extra time off this month to process that. Today, we'll instead revisit a case that stayed with me ever since I first covered it in 2022, the disappearance of two-year-old Ariana Fitz and the murder of her mother, Nicole Fitz. There have been some updates since this episode originally aired. Investigators have continued to work the case, and in late 2024, the FBI announced that they've developed new investigative leads connected to the Las Vegas area.

2:33So I really wanted to make sure that I hopped on here and shared that with you. They also released an updated age progression image of Ariana, who would now be around 11 years old. Authorities continue to believe that someone knows what happened to her. So please share this episode. And as always, I just wanted to thank you guys for continuing to show up week after week. Not just for me, but for these families and the victims whose stories deserve to keep being told. Your support truly means more than I could ever express. So with all of that being said, today we are revisiting the case of Nicole and Ariana Fitz.

3:11Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics including violence, abuse, and murder. This podcast may not be appropriate for younger audiences. All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Some names have been changed or omitted per their request or for safety purposes. Listener discretion is advised. My name is Sarah Turney and this is Voices for Justice.

3:45Today I'm discussing the case of Nicole and Ariana Fitz. Like so many people in the U.S., 32-year-old Nicole Fitz was struggling with housing insecurity. She worked at Best Buy in San Francisco, California, and would often travel up to four hours a day to commute to work from wherever she was staying at the time. Sometimes the commute was so bad, Nicole would just crash on a couch until her next shift. This meant she would have to leave her two-year-old daughter Ariana with a babysitter for extended periods of time. This was the reality of trying to make ends meet for Nicole. Eventually, one of her co-workers noticed what she was going through just to get to work each day, and offered for her and Ariana to move in with her.

4:30Nicole was ecstatic. She scraped together enough money to get Ariana a new bed, and told the babysitter she was coming to pick up her daughter. But she was met with resistance from the babysitter, saying that they were out of town taking Ariana to Disneyland. She'd have to grab her daughter another day. Nicole was upset, obviously because she was ready to pick up her daughter, but also because they didn't tell her they'd be taking Ariana out of town. According to Nicole's new roommate, Goyette, the plan was for Nicole to pick up her daughter on April 3, 2016. But on the night of April 1, Nicole withdrew a large amount of money from her bank account, saying she was going to meet the babysitter and would be back in five minutes.

5:12A week later, Nicole's body was found in a local park, and Ariana remains missing to this day. This is the case of Nicole and Ariana Fitz. Nicole Fitz was one of three girls raised by a single mother. They moved around a bit, but ultimately settled in Culver City, California. Catherine was the oldest, Nicole was the middle child, and Contessa was the youngest. Before this episode, Contessa was kind enough to do an interview with me, and she told me that Nicole always felt like the baby of the family, because she was so shy, sweet, and kept to herself. Nicole had a pure heart, got good grades, and was a teacher's pet, even wanting to be a teacher at some point herself.

5:55In high school, she spent much of her time volunteering for various programs, including at the Culver Recreational Center. She even received an award from the City of LA for her work with the center. Here is Contessa to tell us more about what Nicole was like. Growing up with Nikki, so Nikki is what, you know, my sisters and I called her Nicole. She's my older sister. She's a year older than I am. Growing up, I actually always kind of felt like I was the older sibling. uh nikki was always shy and um uh kind of uh yeah just kind of yeah just kind of shy and kind of kept to herself a lot and uh you know us being just a year apart there was three of us um girls growing up and you know us being a year apart we were the closest um you know always a year apart in school uh you know my mom would even dress us the same very often so people um I always thought we were twins.

7:02And Nikki and I were in Girl Scouts together for a couple of years.

7:12And, yeah, yes, when she was a teenager, she would volunteer for the neighborhood, the local park and rec center. She would spend pretty much every day after school volunteering her time there. with the local kids who would come, the decorations for the park,

7:39another rec center that was in close proximity in the neighborhood there. She would volunteer tons of her time at school with different projects and functions and things going on there, along with my mom. So she got awards from the school as well and an award from the city. And that was her as a teenager. And that's just how she continued to be into her adulthood. Anyone who's ever met Nikki can tell you just how kind and selfless she is. Again, sometimes to a fault. But she always looked out for people ahead of herself. One of my favorite stories to tell is how she, the person who eventually became her roommate, like how they became friends was they worked together.

8:38And I can't remember who was new. One of them was new. Either Nikki was new or this other person was new. And one of their first interactions with each other, you know, this person forgot to bring their lunch to work. So Nikki went out and, you know, got her lunch. and that's just you know the kind of person Nikki is it's just um um you know she wouldn't let people go without I remember one time she was telling me about how when she was going to get her tax return how she was going to um buy blankets for the homeless and you know I thought that was great of her but I actually had to tell her like you know you probably that's that's a great idea but you should probably you know take care of yourself as well like you can do that but like you know don't spend all of your money on that.

9:25Like, you know, you need some things as well. And so, yeah, that's just the kind of giving person that Nikki is. Unfortunately, tragedy struck the Fitz family while the girls were in high school when their mother passed away from cancer. From here, they were split up as adults in their life scrambled to care for the three sisters? Yeah, when I was 15 and Nikki was 16, yeah, our mom died. She died of cancer. And, you know, we mostly just had to be there for each other. Luckily, you know, we had, or, you know, very gratefully, we had, you know, different families that we knew from the neighborhood that we were growing up in.

10:19And, you know, they were kind enough to take us in. And, you know, certain situations would happen, you know, with that, you know, they had to move on to other things. And so then we'd have, you know, another family who would help us out and take us in. And And it wasn't easy for her two teenage kids to lose their mom. But, you know, Nikki and I having each other, I think it's definitely what helped get us through it. Because, like I said, it wasn't easy at all. And like I said, I'm very grateful for the people who were there and, you know, took us in and helped us out. And eventually, Nikki and I ended up splitting because Nikki ended up going to the job corps.

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12:50Where is Daredevil? On my hair. Don't miss the return of Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again. So what's next? I've been liberated. I'm gonna take this city back. in an all-new season now streaming only on disney plus they're hunting us it's time we started hunting them i can work with them this should be tons of fun marvel televisions daredevil born again now streaming only on disney plus jumping forward a bit in 2011 nicole contessa and contessa's girlfriend claire decide to move in together they choose an apartment in pacifica just outside of San Francisco. Basically, it's the closest place to San Francisco they could afford.

13:36If you aren't from the US, or maybe just not familiar with the area, in 2011, the cost of living in San Francisco was one of the highest in the country. It was about 61 % above the national average at that time. It was just below the cost of living in Honolulu, Hawaii, so a very pricey city to live in. Then, Nicole got pregnant with Ariana and fell behind on her end of the rent. So, the trio decided it was time to find more affordable housing elsewhere. Contessa and Claire moved to Santa Cruz over an hour away, but Nicole really wanted to stay in the area. So, she ended up staying in a local women's shelter.

14:16After learning that Nicole went to this shelter, I asked Contessa about Ariana's father. Contessa doesn't even know his name, but she knows that once Nicole got pregnant, he didn't want to be involved. Ariana was born on September 6, 2013. Despite the distance, Nicole and her sister Contessa remained pretty close, and they saw each other often. Here is Contessa to tell us about what Ariana is like. She was always a happy kid.

14:47Just energetic and, you know, it was quite contagious. um another thing that one of my favorite things to um tell about ariana is just you know i remember anytime we're in public with with ariana she would just um you know smile and wave at people and um uh and you know people are very responsive to it and they would smile and wave back you know She just has this magnetic energy about her, and she's just very curious about things. And I just remember her always smiling and such a bond she had with her mom, too. You know, again, out in public, you know, the happiest little kid. But if her mom stepped away, she wasn't happy about that.

15:47She would get quite upset. I remember going out to dinner with all of us, Claire and Nikki and Ariana. Ariana just happily drawing with the little paper and crayon thing that they give the kids. I have some pictures of her, just like the biggest crayon with her two little front teeth. I guess, always smiling, happy kid. While living at the shelter, Nicole meets a self-proclaimed evangelical street preacher named Lemassani Briggs. Lemassani offered Nicole a place to stay and childcare for Ariana, an offer that Nicole just couldn't refuse. At first, it seemed like things were going well. Nicole got a job at the local Best Buy store, her living situation improved, and she had someone she thought she could trust to watch her daughter.

16:43But it was too good to be true. Lemassani became verbally abusive, refused to give Nicole a key to the house, and would go through her personal things when she was gone. Contessa says Lemassani even went through Nicole's personal writings on her laptop and confronted her about it. Obviously, it just wasn't a good situation. But I really wanted to get a better understanding of who Lemassani is. So I asked Contessa to tell me more about what she knew about her. So, yes, she is a self-proclaimed street pastor, street preacher. You know, I don't know where if she has an actual church where she, you know, where people attend regularly.

17:35I think that I think she's completely bogus. I think that, you know, she spews out a lot of, you know, religious speak. But I think it's just, I think it's just to get people to follow her and to be deceived and manipulated by her, I think is all it is.

18:04And unfortunately, Nikki fell victim to it. But I feel like Lemassani was just always looking for, you know, the next person to pray on, the next person to take advantage of. And Nikki is easily that person because she is so giving and so kind and to a fault, you know, to where she's kind of naive. And, you know, and then, you know, people like Lemassani take advantage of her. While living with Lemassani, Nicole gets an offer for more affordable childcare from Lemassani's nieces, Helena and Sciolo Hearn. They tell Nicole that they understand what she's going through with Lemassani, and they aren't even on speaking terms with their aunt.

18:47They'd be happy to watch Ariana for less than what Lemassani is charging her. So Nicole agrees, and Ariana begins spending a lot of time with Helena and Cielo Hearn, as well as Helena's husband, Devin Martin. Nicole's former roommate Claire told SanFranciscoWeekly.com, quote, She told me, yeah, these are Lemassani's nieces, but they're not really on good terms, so I'm not afraid. I know they don't really talk to each other, so I feel like I can trust them, end quote. Claire says she basically begged Nicole to find anyone else to watch Ariana. But she couldn't pass up on more affordable childcare from people she thought she could trust.

19:28Unfortunately, after this, life only got harder for Nicole. Lemassani began charging Nicole more for rent to make up for the lost babysitting income, and seemed to just get nastier to her all around, calling her names and continuing to invade her privacy. Finally, enough was enough, and in November 2015, Contessa and Claire went to physically remove Nicole and Dariana from the situation, calling on the San Francisco PD for backup. You know, when we, the next day, you know, Nikki called me up and, you know, she couldn't take it anymore. And sure enough, you know, Claire and I, we came and we got them.

20:07And, you know, it wasn't easy because Lemason wasn't having it. And, you know, she wouldn't let Nikki get any of her stuff. And, you know, just to be, you know, precautious, we decided to have a cop come with us. Because we knew there was a possibility that it could get ugly. So we had a cop just, you know, come with us so that, you know, it could be as peaceful as possible. And, yeah, she just was not budging. She was refusing to let Nikki in to get any of her stuff, to even get the car seat for Ariana so that, you know, we could, you know, we could drive with her in the car. And, you know, once we did, you know, get out of there, she's just, you know, sending Nikki terrible texts and she's like, bring me my baby back.

20:59And, yeah, so she was, yeah, she got very possessive. Like Contessa touched on, at this point Lemassani began texting Nicole, telling her to bring her baby back, meaning Ariana. But Nicole tried to move on with her life the best she could. She didn't have a car, so she was using public transportation to commute over two hours each way from Santa Cruz to San Francisco to her job at Best Buy. She was also trying to get all the hours she could to improve her situation. So oftentimes she'd work overnight shifts, crash on someone's couch for a few hours, and then go back to work, leaving Ariana with Helena or Sciolo.

21:39Luckily, at Best Buy, Nicole met a few friends that really helped her out, including Goyette Williams, who eventually offered to let Nicole and Ariana move in with her. By all accounts, Nicole was very excited for this. She even saved up enough money to get Ariana a new bed and some presents for her when they moved in. But there was a huge problem. At this point, Nicole hadn't seen Ariana since mid-February, and we're now into mid-March 2016. This is when Nicole contacted Helena and Sciolo saying she wanted to pick up her daughter, but they told Nicole that this wouldn't be possible because they were out of town in Anaheim visiting Disneyland with Ariana.

22:20Now, if you guys follow me on social media, you know that Disneyland is my happy place. That being said, I know a huge part of going to Disneyland is taking pictures. So, I asked Contessa if she ever saw a picture of Ariana from this trip to Disneyland. She had to think about it, but eventually she said no. She'd never seen a single picture of Ariana at Disneyland. And she said that she was pretty sure Nicole never saw one either, saying it was the type of thing that Nicole would have absolutely shared with her. So, as far as I know, there's no evidence to prove that Helena or Sciolo took Ariana to Disneyland like they told Nicole.

22:59The thing is, this entire struggle with Helena and Sciolo was something Nicole kept to herself at this time. So, Contessa and Claire had no idea that Nicole wasn't able to get Ariana back. According to a statement Goyette made to True Crime Daily, Nicole was upset and told Helena and Sciolo that she was coming to get her daughter on April 3rd. But Nicole goes missing before that could ever happen. On April 1st, 2016, Nicole went to work as usual at Best Buy. She had plans to see Claire that night, but Claire had to cancel. So, Nicole ends up hanging out with her friend and co-worker from Best Buy, a man named Michael.

23:41They go to the mall to do some clothes shopping for Michael's new job, and at the end of the night, Nicole grabs a pizza to bring home to Goyette. During this time, Nicole sees a 7-Eleven convenience store and withdraws a few hundred dollars, possibly up to$600 from the ATM. I've seen some conflicting information about the amount, but Nicole never told Michael what it was for. When she gets home, she and her roommate Goyette eat the pizza and begin watching a movie. During the movie, Nicole is contacted by someone, presumably either Helena or C.L. O. Hearn, because according to a statement Goyette made to True Crime Daily, quote, she was like, I have to meet my babysitter.

24:20She's over at some restaurant on 3rd Street. She's upset. I need to go see if she's okay. She said she was only going to be gone for five minutes, end quote. But Nicole doesn't come back at all that night. The next morning, Goyette wakes up to a text message from Nicole's phone. So Goya gets a text message, um, and it's from Nikki and the text message says, um, I'm in Fresno with my friend, Sam, um, or, or like I'm in Fresno with Sam, I think it's, it reads. Um, and so that message comes from, from Nikki's phone and, um, And, you know, once we find, you know, once we learn that, we're like, there's no way.

25:06There's no way that Nikki would just up and leave late at night, go to Fresno when she doesn't have a car and she has to work the next day. Like Nikki would stay late for shifts. She would pick up shifts. She would come in early. She would, you know, she would be there whenever they needed her, you know, let alone for her own shifts. But she would be there for, you know, extra time, overtime. You know, there was no way she would just up and leave town and not go to work the next day. So, so, yeah, when we saw that, we immediately knew that that was completely bogus. And, you know, she also just wouldn't be like, I'm with Sam, because no one knows who Sam is.

25:52Like, if anything, she would just be like, I'm with a friend, you know. So, so, yeah, we definitely knew that that was a bogus message. which, you know, it has to be, this all has to be done by someone who knows Nikki personally, because how could someone have Nikki's phone and know exactly who to text, you know, that message to? In addition to the late night text, a post was made on Nicole's Facebook account at 1.13 a.m. on the morning of April 2nd. So when she was supposedly with this random Sam person, no one nose. It read, quote, spending some time with my three-year-old, need the break, end quote.

26:32A few things stood out to Contessa about this post. First, she fully believes Nicole would have told her roommate Goyette as opposed to just posting on Facebook and not returning home. Second, in the post, break was spelled incorrectly, like car break, as opposed to needing a break, B-R-E-A-K. Contessa says Nicole was a stickler for grammar and can't imagine her making this mistake. And last, Ariana was two, not three. So she has no idea why her sister would write that she was spending time with her three-year-old. I asked Contessa if Nicole had a passcode on her phone. She said that she didn't know for sure, but she believed she would have, saying that she and Claire would actually poke fun at her for her laptop password being extremely long.

27:19Contessa believes her sister trusted someone enough to have the password to her devices, or she was forced to provide them. Four days after Nicole was last seen on April 5th, her family discovers that she's missing. I was actually, I was driving, well, Claire and I were driving, Claire was driving and I was a passenger and I get a text and this is on the 5th of April. You know, it's not unusual for, you know, Nikki and I to go a couple of days without talking to each other. We had spoken, I believe the Sunday before the first because that was Easter. And so, you know, we called each other up. So like I said, not unusual that we go a couple of days without talking.

28:06And so I get a text message from our older sister. And the message is, hey, is Nikki missing? And I respond back and I'm like, no, I just talked to her a couple of days ago. and um i can't remember if she told me i think she if she told me to look at facebook or if like that was just my instinct but i open up facebook and that's the first thing i see is a post with my sister's picture and it says you know have you seen this person and i am just in complete shock uh like claire just pulls over like we have to pull over because we're like what the heck is going on. Um, and yeah, uh, look at the post and says that she hasn't been seen, uh, in a couple of days and we weren't that far from, from home.