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00:00And I thank God, because you know I love my granddaughters.
00:20Here's someone who lived 91 years, and now she gets tied to a chair, put a plastic bag
00:27over her head.
00:28You want to put this on a scale of bad deaths?
00:31This is a thousand.
00:32It was absolutely unbelievable that had happened to grandma.
00:38We had no idea who would want to hurt such a sweet old lady.
00:42This is not your average robbery.
00:45Someone she knew was able to get into the house.
00:48This was more than one person doing this.
00:51The killers may be young, may be crazy, but certainly angry.
00:56Why?
00:57Very often, people who are the victim of homicides are killed by family members.
01:03Everybody's a suspect.
01:05We're going to give it everything we got.
01:10You would think that after all the deaths I've investigated that I would get used to seeing
01:29the worst of humanity.
01:30But there is one case that stands out for its sheer human cruelty.
01:35And it took place on a quiet little street in the Bronx.
01:39The Bronx is a vibrant and diverse borough.
01:42And among its sprawling urban communities, you'll find well-kept areas like Laconia Avenue with
01:49its red brick houses and working families.
01:51It's like a close-knit little village.
01:59Hey, Bob.
02:00Detective Chufy.
02:01How are you?
02:02I'm doing good.
02:03He is a very experienced, longtime detective in the Bronx.
02:08And he knows the neighborhood really well.
02:10I grew up in a house like this.
02:11Yeah.
02:12In this neighborhood.
02:13It looks like a nice place, a nice house.
02:16It is.
02:17A quiet community.
02:18This is very close.
02:19Yeah.
02:20It looks the same as it was 23 years ago.
02:22But 23 years ago, something heinous took place here.
02:27And it shattered this quiet community.
02:39We get notified by the 47 Parish and Detective Squad that there was a homicide.
02:43On Laconia Avenue.
02:45My team and I, we responded.
02:48We were met by uniformed officers who had the crime scene secured.
02:51And we learned the neighbors across the street were very concerned about their neighbor.
02:57Miss Noe Holcutt, 91 years old, and she would drive all the other women to church on Sunday.
03:03They noticed that something was wrong because her car was in the driveway, which is not normal
03:08for her.
03:09She would bring her groceries in and then put the car back in the garage.
03:13The front door was locked and the mail slot had mail in it.
03:17And it was a newspaper from the day before on the stool.
03:22She was like, something's not right here.
03:24Yeah.
03:25They were concerned about her safety or her health.
03:28And so the neighbors flagged down a radio clock.
03:31So something's wrong here.
03:33The neighbors got the key to the house and she let the officers in.
03:37And that's when they discovered Nellie.
03:45So when I walk in, Nellie's bound to a chair with packaging tape.
03:50And there was a plastic bag over her head and then they tied it with a scarf.
04:00I've been around a long time and I've seen all kinds of things.
04:05They will never be erased from my mind.
04:08But that was really like, what kind of savage can do something like this to a beautiful, elderly old lady?
04:17I was the commanding officer of the Bronx Homicide Squad.
04:21And Shufi gave me a call, said that they were responding.
04:26MLI hadn't arrived yet, but it definitely looked like it was a homicide scene at that point.
04:31Lieutenant O'Toole was a great commander.
04:33I've been with him a long time.
04:34And you don't do anything with that O'Toole known him.
04:37When you first get to the scene, you start to think, how did this happen, right?
04:42Here's someone who lived 91 years.
04:44She was born just before World War I.
04:47She lived through World War II.
04:48She lived through all this.
04:50And now she gets killed and tied to a chair in her own home.
04:54So yeah, it hits you pretty hard.
04:56We're going to give it everything we got.
05:00I was director of investigations at the time, and so was immediately notified.
05:06My death investigator arrives on the scene. It was a crime scene.
05:11One of the first things we noticed on entry into the home was that it was very well kept.
05:16And there were many, many photographs of grandchildren, children.
05:21When I walked in the whole house, it had that homey feel,
05:25like when you were going to grandma's house.
05:27On the floor are an empty bottle of scotch and a bottle of red wine that was mostly empty.
05:35When I first approached her, the first thing that I removed, I remember,
05:41was getting the bag off of her face.
05:43And I had to remove this long red scarf that was around her neck.
05:50As the bag came off her head, there was this wave of alcohol.
05:56That smell was very, very strong.
05:59Now we're thinking about that scotch bottle and that red wine bottle.
06:04We could also see condensation, humidity on the inside of the bag, and that is a terrible sign.
06:12That means that she was breathing and struggling for some time.
06:17And in the whites of the eyes, you could see these tiny pinpoint hemorrhages.
06:21That means the scarf was tight enough to close off the jugular veins.
06:27Not only was she suffocated, she was strangled.
06:34She had been tied up with the telephone wire behind her arms, around her body, and around her feet.
06:40And over that, the perpetrator taped around her body.
06:44I think they used the wire to keep her in place.
06:47And then they added the tape around because they weren't sure of themselves.
06:51The cellophane tape was very important because, of course, the perpetrator would have to touch it.
06:58Well, I had to be extra careful with that when I removed it,
07:01because we wanted to try to get fingerprints off of that tape.
07:04There were bruises on the front of her legs, particularly on the right.
07:08She had been kicking.
07:09This was more than one person doing this.
07:12You're not going to tie somebody up to a chair that's fighting you back by yourself.
07:17Nellie was fighting for her life.
07:24There was this big happy birthday banner on her living room wall.
07:29I realized this woman just celebrated her birthday and somebody took her life.
07:35So it kind of touches you in your heart.
07:40Nellie's body is taken to the medical examiners for autopsy,
07:44while police begin to notify her family.
07:51And this was at her birthday party.
07:54Look at that.
07:55She was so surprised.
07:57Oh, wow.
07:58She looks so beautiful and happy.
08:01It was the afternoon.
08:03I was actually coming from work in Long Island, and I received a phone call.
08:07And one of the detectives let me know that something had happened to my grandmother.
08:16She was murdered.
08:18I don't know.
08:19I just couldn't believe.
08:21And I called my grandmother's number just to prove that it was real almost.
08:27I just wanted her to answer the phone.
08:29And of course, she did not.
08:33So we went straight there and saw the tape, and it was real.
08:41My mind was so rattled.
08:44It was absolutely unbelievable that had happened to grandma.
08:51My grandmother Nellie was everyone's grandmother, and she was happy to be everyone's grandmother.
08:56Nellie was absolutely a Georgia peach.
09:01She loved her roots in Fort Valley, Georgia.
09:04She was epitome of grace and beauty.
09:09She was a very classy, regal person.
09:13She taught us about etiquette, how to handle our finances and money.
09:19She encouraged us to be successful women.
09:23She was a pioneer of political activism.
09:27Anything that was going on in the community, she was there.
09:31And she encouraged everyone to be involved in their civil rights.
09:35My sister and I were my grandmother's biological grandchildren.
09:41And I have four other siblings, and she treated them just like they were her own grandchildren.
09:47And I thank God, because, you know, I love my granddaughters.
09:51Couldn't believe someone would hurt a sweet old lady like that.
09:55And I didn't know how we were going to go about finding the person who did it, but
10:02that was something that was heavy on everyone's mind.
10:04We spoke to some family. They were all upset.
10:10They don't tell us anybody who she had problems with.
10:13No one knew who could do this to this old lady who lived 91 years.
10:18We may not have an obvious suspect, but the crime scene is a road map that will lead us to the killer.
10:24We start to piece together a scenario of what might have happened, what I call the choreography of murder.
10:31Now, the front door was locked, but the garage door was open and the basement or lower level door was open.
10:41There was no forced entry or anything like that.
10:43Either one, as she's going in and out of the garage, someone just happened along and got her,
10:49or someone she knew was able to get into the house while she was there.
10:57There were several packages of groceries from a grocery store.
11:00It looked like the contents of one of the grocery bags had been dropped or thrown on the floor.
11:08This was immediate, so this had to be someone who was right there with her in that driveway,
11:15coming up behind her, maybe even helping her with her bags.
11:19In this case, we had all weapons of opportunity.
11:28This person or these people did not come there with ready-made weapons to kill someone.
11:36They took what they found in her home.
11:40Crime scene found a roll of tape on the counter in the kitchen.
11:43And there was an old phone on the wall, missing its phone group.
11:50And there was a dinette area, which had a pocketbook that was opened and all the contacts thrown about the table.
11:59Now, speaking to the family, her gold necklace was actually ripped off her neck,
12:03in addition to $120 in U.S. currency that was taken.
12:07At that point, we're thinking robbery as our motive here.
12:11But this is not your average robbery.
12:14If you go to so much trouble to make someone suffer, to kill someone, this is deeply personal.
12:22And this is where we start to think about someone she knew.
12:25She knows whoever it was. She let him in. And just thinking about if that was my grandmother,
12:31you want to make sure that you catch whoever did this.
12:36Crime scene went through the house with a fine-tooth comb.
12:39Those guys were there for over maybe 13 to 15 hours.
12:43They were just short of 20 fingerprints that were recovered in the entire house.
12:48I had it in my mind that there's no forced entry.
12:52What are some of the reasons why somebody would knock on a door is to use their phone?
12:57From the receiver itself, I recovered five fingerprints.
13:01All you're really hoping for now is the crime scene to come in and get that million dollar hit.
13:06That they get the perfect print and it's going to bring us up her.
13:11As crime scene removed the latent prints, a canvass of the neighborhood is automatically conducted.
13:17In interviewing neighbors, they told us that she was very security conscious.
13:22She wouldn't open the door for anybody she didn't know.
13:26Having the paper right outside the door kind of gave us an idea that, you know, when it occurred.
13:32Some people had seen the paper, boy, you know, when I say boy, he was a man who knocked at the door.
13:36And then go inside the house. We found out that his name was Mr. Francis.
13:41He was interviewed at the 47 precinct.
13:47Everybody's a suspect. So yeah, I'm looking at him too.
13:51Throughout the interview, he said that he had never been in our home.
13:56Then after a while, he recants and says, yes, I was in there.
14:01I've been inside because she offered me drinks on occasion.
14:05Now I'm thinking about this. Did you intentionally lie?
14:08Are you trying to cover something up?
14:16What kind of professional killer who wanted to rob someone would come in and go to all this trouble?
14:21We asked the granddaughter if she would take a polygraph test and she refused.
14:26Now that's suspicious to me.
14:28Evil does exist. I know. I've seen it a lot.
14:3891-year-old Nellie Holcutt was brutally killed in her own home in the Bronx.
14:49And while we prepare for autopsy at the medical examiner's office,
14:53detectives question a suspect whose story is not adding up.
14:58During the interview with Mr. Francis, he was asked if he was ever in the house.
15:05Initially, he said, no, he wasn't. But in the course of the interview,
15:09he then changed his story and said, yes, that he had been inside the house.
15:12We're going to rule out everybody we possibly can. And he's very nervous. But he was a young man,
15:18so I am being in front of detectives, wearing suits, and intent to make you nervous. And we
15:25don't know if that's the case or if there is something else going on here. So when I asked him,
15:30would you consult for a polygraph? A lot of time, if you try to get them to do a polygraph,
15:35they'll say, yeah, tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes.
15:37But he was cooperative. He voluntarily gave up his fingerprints,
15:42and he actually took a polygraph exam, which he passed.
15:45It tends to be believable. So we continue conducting our investigation.
15:50In an autopsy, Moore's revealed, very sadly. Her tongue has two deep bite marks on either side.
16:04Now, when someone is being asphyxiated, they begin to have seizures. And they clamp down,
16:11even to the point of cutting deeply into their own tongues. That is so painful. Even worse,
16:17toward the back, there is an actual laceration and contusion of her tongue. This means that
16:23something was forced into her mouth with sufficient force. And then we find something else that makes
16:32things worse. In her gastric contents, there's 0.66% drinking alcohol in her stomach. That's huge.
16:42There's wine. There's scotch. But more horribly, there's methanol. What is methanol? It's not a drinking
16:50alcohol. It's an alcohol that's used as a solvent. Methanol, when ingested, this causes cramping of the
16:59stomach. It's deep pain. These things not only contribute to her death. She's being poisoned.
17:04But wait a minute. How did they administer them to her? They forced her mouth open and jammed these
17:10liquids into her mouth. She's drowning in these fluids. They go up behind the posterior nasal passages.
17:18She can't take a breath through her nose. She can't swallow fast enough to get air. This is beyond
17:25hideous. She's being waterboarded. We know that our cause of death is asphyxiation by multiple
17:36mechanical means. You want to put this on a scale of bad deaths? This is a thousand.
17:46Now, of course, this is not Nellie Hokut's apartment, but the layout is similar.
17:51You know, if you're just coming in to rob somebody, you grab a knife, you stab them, got a gun, you
17:57shoot them. If you're going to choke them, you choke them. But this is so suffering.
18:01Yeah, this was torture. It was barbaric.
18:05What kind of professional killer who wanted to rob someone would come in and go to all this trouble?
18:10Now, this is someone inexperienced, maybe young, maybe crazy,
18:16but certainly angry. Why? And who?
18:21I'm thinking somebody to be able to really take control of this woman and do all these violent
18:28things to her, it probably was related to a male. Maybe it's a male they know,
18:32or maybe it was a neighbor. So we really don't know.
18:34I want to talk to family members all right away. We found the information that her granddaughter,
18:44Salima, lived in Co-op City. And we went to make a death notification, which is required in person.
18:52We knocked on the door, and Salima was not there. But Salima's boyfriend, David, came to the door,
18:59and the detectives tell you that Nellie Holcutt is deceased. And the only thing that he said was,
19:05was she murdered? That's a pretty highly unusual statement to make.
19:12When you're talking about, you know, a 91-year-old lady who lived there by herself,
19:16it wouldn't be the first thing you think is that she got murdered.
19:20And so now we're speaking to the family, although not Salima, but I'm talking to other family members
19:26who were telling me about David, what he's all about. I found out through Salima's sister,
19:33Sonique, that David was a male stripper. And we found out that he had a criminal record.
19:39David became suspect number one at that point.
19:46We looked at a lot of different people. I looked at all the family members.
19:52Granddaughter's boyfriend. Oh, absolutely.
19:57Nobody's going to say, well, she murdered.
20:00Peaceful, quiet lady in a quiet neighborhood at 91 years old.
20:04So now we have an avenue we're going to go down. We're not going to leave any stone on time.
20:08And also, at that particular time, we're doing all this computer work. We're running prints,
20:17you know, hoping that we're going to get ahead. We're hoping DNA is going to come back. But it takes a while.
20:22When you have no witnesses, we have to go out there and canvas. Again, you're hoping for something
20:30that's going to bring us our perp in the case. People are getting disgusted with you because
20:35you're coming back two or three times. But hey, maybe you're going to remember something that you
20:39didn't remember the last time I talked to you. A neighbor tells us that a muscular bodybuilder type
20:46guy had been up there and was knocking at Nellie's door a few days prior to the murder.
20:53That fit David, aka Blaze, his dancing name. He was in great shape and he looked like a bodybuilder.
21:00We obviously want to get in his girlfriend, Salima, the granddaughter of Nellie Holcutt,
21:07get her story, get him in, interview him, get his story. The next day, we interview both of them.
21:15We interview David and he denies murdering Nellie or having even been there during that time.
21:22He was cooperative to a point. He gave us his fingerprints. He took a polygraph exam. She passed.
21:34Very soon after, we interviewed Salima Holcutt. Nellie's granddaughter, Salima, initially was
21:41very forthcoming and telling the detectives everything she could think of that would
21:45possibly be of assistance. And then at some point when the detectives started asking more pointed
21:51questions about who her associates were and who might have been in Nellie's house at one point,
21:57she became a little bit less cooperative. She became extremely distraught
22:06and was acting wildly. She was literally all over the place in the room and we couldn't even speak to
22:11her. I feel that it was strange behavior that she would not talk to us. I felt that she was overreacting
22:18to us trying to speak to her. We asked Salima if she would take a polygraph test and she refused.
22:28She became uncooperative and left the precinct without giving us her fingerprints.
22:36Now that's suspicious to me. That's your grandmother. God forbid my grandmother died that way. I tell you,
22:43you can do anything you want to do to me. I'll give you my blood right now. Whatever you want.
22:49Our examination of the body and its evidence seemed to suggest that whoever committed this violent crime
22:56likely had a personal relationship with the victim. And Salima certainly appears to be close to Nellie.
23:03I got the sense that they were leaning towards Salima being a suspect. And I got a little uncomfortable
23:14with that. I feel my anxiety building just speaking of that. It was very disturbing to hear that the
23:20police were considering Salima as a suspect because we all felt that she was not capable of anything like
23:26that. It's awful to say but very often people who are the victim of homicides are victims from somebody
23:35that they know. So we go back again and speak to all the family members because they would know
23:41information that neighbors do not. You know families talk. One of the things that they did look for
23:49who would have a financial gain should Nellie no longer be alive. Money is very frequently the motive
23:56for a murder. From talking to Ms. Holcott's sister, she told us that Salima felt that she was in line
24:05for the house and for everything that Ms. Holcott had if Ms. Holcott passed away. She said that Salima was
24:13having some financial problems at the time. That might be a motive, especially if she was down on her luck
24:18or money as I was told that she was. Combined with the fact that after we attempt to interview Salima
24:25Holcott, her behavior became very erratic and quite honestly suspicious to me. And now the fact that
24:33Salima believes she was the one who was in Ms. Holcott's will to receive her house and her money,
24:38it made us look at Salima a lot closer. Could Salima have killed her grandmother, her beloved
24:46grandmother who had helped raise her since she was a child? And if so, what on earth could make her do it
24:54in such an angry and cruel way?
24:57The way Salima was acting, her behavior seemed to be suspicious to me. Salima, she really didn't
25:13want to talk to us. It happens a lot with people initially in these investigations when they don't
25:19understand that you're kind of asking questions like, where were you last night? What was your
25:22rally by? Where were you yesterday? They get the feeling, you think I did this? That's when you go
25:28back a couple of days later and try to calm the situation down and see, see where it goes.
25:34Later on, tried to interview her again and she refused. She knew that we were looking at her
25:41and that's why eventually she just shut down and lawyered up. So now we really can't talk to her.
25:48The cynicism says, well, if you didn't do anything, why can you need a lawyer? But in a very practical way,
25:54people do want a lawyer because they're not sure of the process and, you know, they want to protect themselves.
26:01At that time, the laboratory is conducting their examinations for latent prints and also DNA,
26:08which of course was submitted. There are basically two kinds of fingerprints, patent and latent.
26:15Patent prints are readily visible. For instance, if a perpetrator were to put his hand in blood and
26:21then touch a wall, we can see it immediately. So patent prints we photograph and then we lift them.
26:27Latent prints are not readily visible. They're created by skin oils or sweat, which are clear.
26:34And it takes a lot of skill to find all these fingerprints. But despite all the latent prints we
26:41collected, none of them were a match to Salima or her boyfriend David. In fact, none of the prints
26:48came back to anyone in the database. I would have thought for sure we're going to get something.
26:54So now we're really starting to think that this might be a whole different ball game.
27:01Early on in the investigation, we believed that the person doing this kind of crime
27:05has to have probably have some arrest record. And now we're starting to look at it as this person's
27:12never been arrested before. Then you wouldn't have the latent prints or the DNA.
27:17I know Nick Chufi and the guys in the Bronx Detective Squad. They're tough. And they don't let go,
27:25especially in a case like this. And as much as they wanted justice for the family,
27:31they found themselves faced with an undeniable truth.
27:36We have no evidence established that Salima committed this crime.
27:42I understand he was trying to do his job and try to figure out who killed her, but that became
27:50really upsetting. To blame her for something as tragic as that, she didn't know how to handle that.
28:04Salima never hurt her grandmother. She would never hurt anyone.
28:07Salima never hurt anyone. We thought it was some scary man, just a random nutcase,
28:15who could have come into her home and killed her.
28:24Mike Sheehan from Fox News used to do a show called New York's Most Wanted.
28:30So we agreed to go on TV to talk about this case. Now, of course, on TV, we're not giving up
28:41certain information. You got to keep certain stuff in the public so that, you know, compromise the
28:46investigation.
28:52The show generated some phone calls. People called in tips and they're investigated,
28:58but none of those tips brought us any closer to arresting the person responsible for Miss
29:03Holcutt's death. Now, this case is deeply personal to Nick Chioffi. He knew the people of this
29:10neighborhood and he was one of them. So this case not only haunted him like it would any good detective,
29:17but it obsessed him. As time went on, no great leads came forward in the case.
29:23Unfortunately, the case is going cold. We're a year in, two years in, and we weren't getting anywhere.
29:33But Chioffi would keep that case up on his desk.
29:37I'm still catching cases, other homicides in the Bronx, but I'm still working on this case. I'm
29:43going to do everything I got to do, because you never know. Phone call comes in and you get lucky.
29:47Four years later, we get a tip someone who calls in about a homicide of an old lady in the Bronx.
29:57Her name was Larissa Kirby and says that she knows these two girls and that they had talked to her
30:06about the homicide. Miss Kirby knew a lot of details of the crime and she provided us with the two names.
30:13She said that these two women, they killed this little old lady whose name was Nellie Holcutt.
30:30Nick Chioffi was on this case daily and it was four years later that police finally got a break in this case.
30:39A woman named Larissa described a story she had heard from a close friend that put her solidly in this suspect pool.
30:51Around the time of the homicide, Larissa Kirby had a good friend that she saw every day
30:56whose name was Sparkle Daniel. And she also knew another woman by the name of Nadine Panton.
31:02It was a 17-year-old girl at the time of the murder. Nadine was 26 at the time.
31:09Larissa Kirby reported that she was friends with Sparkle, but they had had a falling out over some man.
31:17Now Larissa is really angry and quite honestly, she wants revenge. So Larissa calls the Bronx Homicide
31:24Squad. We interview her shortly thereafter. How did Sparkle know Nellie Holcutt?
31:32Sparkle's aunt lived next door. This is a semi-attached house.
31:37So Miss Nellie knew Sparkle because she would come to visit her aunt.
31:41Yeah.
31:42Miss Nellie gave candy to Sparkle Daniel. So she knew them because they were neighbors.
31:45Yeah.
31:47Larissa says, Sparkle was telling me that she was having some effed up dreams and she can't sleep at night.
31:53And when Larissa asks her why, she explains that her aunt Nadine killed this little lady.
32:02So she sits on this for years.
32:04Yes.
32:05But then the perpetrator pisses her off and now she goes to the police just for the payback.
32:13Absolutely. That's what it was.
32:16Now, after all these years, Nick Chuthy and the Bronx detectives are finally getting to the truth
32:22of what happened to Nellie Holcutt.
32:25According to Larissa, Sparkle and her friend Nadine had went to Miss Holcutt's neighbor's house
32:31and no one opened the door.
32:34And then they saw Miss Holcutt in the driveway removing her shopping bags.
32:40And they went over and said, Miss Holcutt, could we use your phone?
32:43Nellie opened the door. Nellie told Sparkle she could use the telephone to call her aunt.
32:51She called her aunt but got no answer. Larissa Kirby told us that at that point,
32:57Nadine told her that we're going to rob this lady.
32:59Nellie Holcutt had nice things around her house. Her bag was right on the table.
33:06And then, at some point, they realized, oh, she's seen us. We're going to have to kill her.
33:15Larissa had no insight as to why Sparkle and Nadine would kill Nellie Holcutt in such an over-the-top
33:22and violent manner. However, the death investigation informs us that Nellie was killed by someone she
33:29knew well enough to let into her house. And that it took more than one person to carry out this evil act.
33:37Everything that Larissa told investigators checked out.
33:41LARISSA KINGER- It sounded like very promising information that we might finally
33:46get to the bottom of what happened to you, Nellie. But the information had to be vetted.
33:51I do a full background investigation on Larissa, because I want to know who I'm dealing with.
33:57She had a couple of minor prior arrests, but she was honest about it. And I said, okay, we're good.
34:03And she's going to work with us. We set up a second meeting. But before that, what I do is,
34:11I reach out to an editor from the Daily News. And I asked him to run an article saying that
34:19four-year-old homicide of an old lady, new leads developed.
34:22LARISSA KINGER- Detective Chuffey then sets up what's called a controlled phone call
34:26between Larissa Kirby and Sparkle Daniel.
34:29LARISSA KINGER- We have a hello phone in the office.
34:32It's basically a phone that comes back to two or three different names.
34:35It doesn't say police. So they brought her into my office where she did that phone call.
34:40LARISSA KINGER- We have the phone night. Larissa calls up Sparkle.
34:45I says, oh, did you see that? That one goes in the newspaper now. They got new leads.
34:50LARISSA KINGER- And at first, Sparkle was like,
34:53I don't know, like, what you're saying or whatever. And Larissa's like, come on,
34:56you know, you remember you told me that you were with Nadine and poured alcohol down the old lady's
35:03throat.
35:03LARISSA KINGER- And Sparkle makes incriminating statements to Larissa. And then she says,
35:10I got to talk to Nadine. And then she hangs up. Now we're good. We have our probable cause now.
35:18We start to do background checks on Sparkle Daniel.
35:21LARISSA KINGER- Sparkle really had no record. But Nadine had been arrested in the past.
35:27LARISSA KINGER- Nadine had a criminal history. However, her prints didn't come up. So
35:33it's possible that they were sealed at one point in time.
35:36LARISSA KINGER- Christine Skacia was the chief of the Homicide Bureau at that point.
35:42We reviewed the facts with her. We went through the case. And then Ms. Skacia said, okay, bring her in.
35:51LARISSA KINGER- On July 19, 2007, we show up where Sparkle lives. A female fitting
35:59Sparkle's description comes out of the building. And I said, I have eyes on a possible suspect.
36:06The other detectives drove in, calmly approached her and said, excuse me, but what's your name?
36:11She wouldn't give him her name. She tried to step aside to get away from him. They stepped in front of
36:18her. LARISSA KINGER- One of the detectives said, all you have to do is tell us who you are,
36:22then you can go. And she said, I'm effing Sparkle Daniel. At that point, she was put in cuffs. But
36:30Sparkle and Nadine committed this murder together. So now we have to find Nadine Pantone,
36:39and then hopefully make an arrest.
36:51After Sparkle's arrested, and once she's printed, I bring the prints down to the latent print
36:57detective. He comes up and says, you got her.
37:01Her fingerprints weren't in the system. It wasn't until her arrest that it matched up,
37:10and it showed that, yeah, her fingerprints were actually on the phone in the house.
37:14I was elated when I found out that the print came back to Ms. Sparkle Daniels. Whatever small
37:21part I played in this, it's really gratifying.
37:24LARISSA KINGER- They arrested Sparkle Daniel and Nadine separately, but on the same day.
37:33Sparkle Daniels confessed to being in the house, but she said that it was more Nadine's idea to do
37:40the robbery. She was kind of threatened by Nadine. LARISSA KINGER- Nadine did not deny her
37:47participation. She was blaming Sparkle Daniel for being the person who mastermined the incident.
37:58Of course, they each blame the other, but each can confirm the details. That's shoving the bottle
38:04in her mouth, forcing her to drink, putting the bag over her head. We're going to keep her bound up
38:10real good so she experiences maximum terror. It's rare for two young girls to kill someone in such a
38:20horrendous and torturous manner. Just doesn't make sense. You know, I once asked a forensic psychiatrist,
38:29young people who kill with brutality, what is it? What makes that happen? He said,
38:35bad brain. Nothing more. A bad brain. It's broken. That's hard to accept, isn't it?
38:45It's mind-boggling. When I keep hearing, the back of my mind is evil. Evil does exist. I know.
38:53I've seen it a lot. LARISSA KINGER- I heard on the TV that they had arrested
39:01someone in connection with the death of Nellie Hokut. We were blown away because it was girls.
39:10We never could have imagined that would be the outcome of this.
39:17Once they were taken into custody, we went into a grand jury. An indictment was secured. They were
39:23both charged with murder. Whenever I try a case, I meet with the family prior to trial and Salima had
39:38at one point been a suspect. And obviously that caused a rift between her and the police department.
39:46However, by the time the trials came around, I think that ultimately she understood why Detective
39:52Chufy had to investigate her as well as everybody else. Salima and the other family members, they had
40:01my back every step of the way. We were there for all of it. We wanted to make sure that they were
40:07put away for as long as possible. I chose to try Sparkle Daniel first because between Larissa's
40:21testimony and Sparkle's fingerprint on the phone, she was the stronger dependent to try.
40:27Taking a look at Sparkle Daniel, it was like looking at the devil.
40:32It was hard being in the trial. My grandmother was going along with her day and met two monsters
40:40who thought it was important to take her life for absolutely nothing.
40:47But one thing I am glad of is that my grandmother gave her a fight.
40:53She wasn't as weak and feeble as they thought she was.
40:56The jury found her guilty of murder. She was ultimately sentenced to 25 years to life.
41:03I don't think Sparkle ever acknowledged her participation in this crime or was remorseful
41:09about it or accepted responsibility in any way, shape or form.
41:16The next trial that took place, which was a couple of months later, was the trial against Nadine Panton.
41:20The jury convicted her of murder in second degree as well. And she was also sentenced 25 years to life.
41:30Without Larissa Kirby coming forward, they would have gotten away with that crime.
41:34At Nadine's sentencing, Nadine extended to the family her remorsefulness by saying she was so sorry
41:41for the pain that she caused. We were vindicated. You know, I mean, we couldn't bring grandma back,
41:48but it was a load off of us. And finally, we got something positive out of it.
41:56My grandmother Nellie needs to be remembered for the great person that she is. She was such a positive
42:03part of that neighborhood. So we asked the city to change the name of the street that she lived on to Nellie
42:14Holcutt Way. So that is something we'd like to have happen to honor her.
42:28So that's why we were in the city of Nellie.
42:34So that's why we were in the city of Nellie.
42:37So that's why we were in the city of Nellie.
42:39So that's why we were in the city of Nellie.
42:41So that's why we were in the city of Nellie.
42:43So that's why we were in the city of Nellie.
42:45So that's why we were in the city of Nellie.
42:47So that's why we were in the city of Nellie.
42:49So that's why we were in the city of Nellie.
42:51So that's why we were in the city of Nellie.
42:53So that's why we were in the city of Nellie.
42:55So that's why we were in the city of Nellie.
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