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00:07On a spooky Halloween night in Pensacola, Florida,
00:10a woman calls 911.
00:12This is no trick-or-treat prank.
00:14Her terror is real.
00:30The bad place I seen her was Thursday night around 8 o'clock.
00:34One of our officers responded to a call of a missing person.
00:39That officer realized that the circumstances of the incident
00:43seemed quite a bit fishy and contacted me with the need
00:47for an investigation to start immediately.
01:07So Detective Jonathan Thacker wastes no time bringing in
01:11Sylvia Watkins for an interview.
01:13The detective has questions, starting with this.
01:16Who is Samira Watkins, this woman who's gone missing?
01:20Samira Watkins was a 25-year-old single mom.
01:23She was the oldest of five children in her family.
01:26She had a child of her own, a little boy of four years old.
01:30She was a manager at a local fast-food restaurant,
01:33and she was going to college to be a dental assistant.
01:38She'd had a bad relationship in the past with her son's father,
01:41but she'd put that behind her and was looking toward the future.
01:45This was a young woman who was trying to be successful.
01:49She was trying to make a life for her son, trying to do better.
01:54And it seems like her luck was definitely changing.
01:56She'd even met a handsome new guy she thought was Mr. Wright.
02:00Zachary Littleton was a 24-year-old member of the United States Navy.
02:04He was stationed at the Pensacola Naval Air Station.
02:07I think she saw that he was an eligible single military guy
02:13who would be a very desirable mate.
02:15So why does this young woman, who seems to have everything going for herself,
02:20suddenly disappear?
02:21Tell me from the very beginning how everything that has happened
02:24that has made you concerned about your sister's well-being.
02:27Thursday night, when she got off of work, she came home,
02:34and she was getting dressed to go to his house.
02:38On the night of October 29th, Samira had completed her shift
02:42at a local McDonald's restaurant where she was the manager.
02:45After that, she came home, changed her clothes,
02:48and indicated that she was heading out to meet her boyfriend, Zachary Littleton.
02:53Samira was excited to see her new man.
02:56She asked me to drop her off, but I was too tired.
02:59I was already in bed asleep.
03:02And after that, I guess that's when she loves.
03:05So it's around 9 o'clock in the evening.
03:08So she drove herself over, and we don't really know where she went,
03:11but we knew that she was saying she was going to go to his house.
03:14Mm-hmm.
03:15Is that the last time that you heard her?
03:17Her, yeah.
03:18What could have happened to Samira when she left home?
03:21Maybe it was nothing more than she just needed a break.
03:24Has she ever said anything to you that would make you think
03:28that she would just need to get away?
03:31Is it just out of her character?
03:34No.
03:37She's never made any comments like,
03:38I just gotta get away from things, or...
03:41No.
03:42Okay.
03:42When she didn't arrive home, her family and friends were very concerned.
03:48None of it makes sense to her family.
03:50Samira's been raving about Zach Littleton ever since she met him.
03:53So maybe something happened after she left his house.
03:57When did you start calling her?
03:59I started calling her that morning.
04:02And that morning...
04:03Friday morning?
04:04All throughout the day, I've been calling her like...
04:06And initially, it would ring and get to go to voicemail.
04:10Yeah, yeah.
04:11And now, it doesn't even ring, it just goes to voicemail.
04:15Mm-hmm.
04:16Maybe it's something simple, like Samira lost her phone.
04:19But her sister's getting more worried by the minute.
04:22When she stopped responding to the family,
04:25when they couldn't reach her the next day,
04:27her sister went to look for her at Zachary's home.
04:31And that's when she got a real surprise.
04:35About 12, we went out there, me and my cousin went out there.
04:39And that's when we knocked on the door, we didn't get no answer,
04:42so we knocked on the neighbor's door.
04:44And that's when she told us that he was loading a couch on a truck
04:51and said that he was moving because he needed a bigger place for his wife and kids.
04:57Needless to say, Samira's sister never saw this coming.
05:00It was shocking because Zachary Littleton was leading a double life.
05:05He was married, he had a child, he was not who he said he was.
05:10And what we learned is that his wife was also in the Navy
05:14and was scheduled to actually move to Pensacola from South Carolina,
05:18where she was stationed, in the next week.
05:20So it seems like there's kind of this love triangle thing happening here
05:24between Samira, Littleton and his wife.
05:26Though the two women obviously don't know about each other.
05:29As if that's not enough, Samira's sister also throws a twist in the plot
05:33that Samira herself has a secret too.
05:37She thought that she was pregnant probably like a month ago.
05:41And, um, she told him.
05:44And he was saying that he didn't want any more kids.
05:47He's married.
05:49He's not supposed to go outside his relationship.
05:52And what is his reaction?
05:53He wanted her to get an abortion.
05:55Tell me about the things that she told you about him.
05:59Okay.
06:00First, everything was cool or whatever.
06:03She liked him or whatnot.
06:05Then, once she found out she was pregnant, he was saying like,
06:09get an abortion or a punch in his stomach and I ain't got nothing to do with you.
06:14It was kind of scary to me.
06:17Apparently, Samira's military police officer is no gentleman.
06:21So this is raising all kinds of red flags for police.
06:25So they immediately call in Florida State Prosecutor Bridget Myers Jensen.
06:29I became involved early on in the case because there was such an unusual and suspicious circumstance.
06:36Zachary Littleton was initially a suspect and probably the strongest suspect because he found out that Samira was pregnant and
06:44he was not happy about the pregnancy.
06:46He was also the last person that we knew Samira had been with the night that she went missing.
06:52It turns out that there is even more to this dangerous liaison than meets the eye.
07:00So Littleton has gone to some really extreme lengths to keep things with Samira on the down low.
07:07Have you met Ricky before?
07:09No, I never met him.
07:11Samira's family, when they told me about Zach Littleton, they actually thought his name was Ricky.
07:18So early on in the investigation, when I went to call Littleton, I referred to him by the name Ricky.
07:34He very quickly indicated that he wasn't Ricky, he was Zach.
07:38And that was odd. There'd be a different name given by the family as to what this actual person's telling
07:45me.
07:46And the name game Littleton's playing doesn't end there.
07:50Hey, uh, you know this young lady, Samira?
07:54Samira, Samira.
07:55Yeah, she said Sammy.
07:57That's what she told me.
08:00He, in fact, didn't even recognize her name at first when he was asked.
08:04They said, do you know a Samira?
08:07And his response is, Samira, Samira, Sammy.
08:11She called herself Sammy, as if this was a person he had just met.
08:15You never heard anybody call her Sammy before?
08:17No.
08:22Because her name is Samira.
08:24Mm-hmm.
08:25What was it?
08:26Does anybody call her anything short?
08:29No.
08:30You never heard them call her Sammy before then?
08:33Mm-hmm.
08:34Do you know where she is now?
08:36No, I don't.
08:37OK.
08:38All right.
08:39Look, here's the deal.
08:41She has been reported missing, OK?
08:43And at this point, we're investigating her whereabouts.
08:48So I need to talk to you and not over the phone.
08:50It was obviously important to see what he knew.
08:55He was essentially, could have been the last person to see Samira alive.
09:00So I asked him to come down for an interview.
09:04OK.
09:05All right.
09:06You'll have a seat here.
09:07He worked for the Navy, right?
09:09Right.
09:10And he is a police department.
09:12OK.
09:12So you're like a military police?
09:15OK.
09:16Hearing that Zachary Littleton was a military police officer, part of me thought, well,
09:20certainly a police officer in the military wouldn't hurt somebody or cause them to go missing.
09:27I want to hear his explanation for why she's missing and what all he knew.
09:33So you've known her for how long then?
09:37Sammy.
09:39Mm-hm.
09:40That kind of thing.
09:41A few months.
09:43Not a whole year.
09:45OK.
09:47But you've had some dealings with her.
09:49You've talked to her.
09:49Yeah.
09:50She's been over to the house like maybe four or five times.
09:54She's been over to my house by four.
09:55You know, she'll kick it over though.
09:57But when was the last time that you saw Sammy?
10:01Last time I seen her was Wednesday when I dropped off at home.
10:04Have you seen her at any time since when you dropped her off?
10:08No.
10:09I haven't.
10:10All right.
10:11So you dropped her off at home, you went back to your apartment?
10:13All right.
10:14And that was early in the morning on Thursday.
10:16It's probably been like early morning, like 2-1 or 2-1.
10:20It seems like this guy's dates are a little bit off.
10:23Thursday evening, October 29th, is when Samira told her sister she was heading over to see Littleton
10:27and then disappeared.
10:31He indicated that he had never seen Samira on the night of her disappearance on the 29th.
10:36And that was odd because she was supposedly going to his house.
10:40What was her demeanor like?
10:42Did she seem upset about anything?
10:44She seemed like she wanted to talk, but I just didn't want to give in to her.
10:48You know, maybe I should have talked to her and maybe, you know, she wanted to tell me something.
10:53But, you know, I just, I didn't want her to feel like that she could just come over and knock
11:01on my door when she wanted to.
11:03Zachary Littleton is obviously in over his head with both his wife and his girlfriend.
11:09But the thing about it is, other than hurt feelings, there's really no indication that he did any physical harm
11:17to Samira.
11:18So Detective Thacker has to dig deeper.
11:21Did you have any kind of a relationship with Sammy that was more than just friends?
11:27No.
11:28So he's clearly not faithful to his wife, but he had to keep that a secret because under military rules,
11:33you can get discipline if you commit adultery.
11:36I want you to know that I'm not the military.
11:41I want you to feel free to tell me everything without you worrying about getting in trouble.
11:46Okay, we had sex once or twice.
11:49You know, there wasn't really a relationship.
11:51We were just friends and what I thought it was.
12:01So Samira was all in on having this relationship with Littleton.
12:05But it seems like his take on it was very different.
12:09When investigators asked him about his feelings, Zachary acted cavalier towards a relationship with Samira.
12:16And this was just a fling.
12:18Did Littleton have his fun with Samira and now he wanted her out of his life?
12:22Was it just the end of their illicit affair or was it something more sinister?
12:27Sometimes I just catch her staring at me and just, you know, looking at me like she just admired by
12:32me so much.
12:33That's why I was like, no, man, we can't.
12:35We knew if it begins that you weren't going to be the woman in my life.
12:40Was she depressed, Zach?
12:42I mean, you know, she was kind of having a sad tone to her.
12:46She said, I don't need to tell her.
12:48Was the conversation centered around her thinking that she was pregnant with your child?
12:53No, it was more centered around why we can't spend time to go.
12:57Detective Thacker does a series of interviews with Zachary Littleton.
13:00And Littleton, at every turn, tries to block him.
13:03But Thacker doesn't give up.
13:05No, there is a serious question that needs to be answered.
13:09Is Zachary Littleton just an adulterer or is he a murderer too?
13:14So is she pregnant?
13:15I don't know.
13:16She never came to you and said, hey, this is your baby.
13:18She never actually came out and said that.
13:21It was like the baby was going to be born.
13:22I mean, if she really was pregnant, weren't you at all concerned?
13:27The flood would be mine.
13:28Right. No.
13:29He didn't want any part of this child.
13:32He didn't want any serious relationship with Samira.
13:34After all, he was married, living a double life.
13:37He already had a child.
13:38And so he tried to encourage Samira to get an abortion.
13:41And that was something that Samira did not want to do.
13:44She wanted to have the baby.
13:45When I asked Littleton about his alibi, for lack of better words,
13:49on the night of the 29th, he basically said he was at home all night,
13:53that he was moving.
13:55As I worked in the night, I was boxing up and cleaning up stuff.
13:59Well, I didn't really clean up.
14:00I was just boxing up my belongings and stuff.
14:02But my wife and my daughter, they'll be here in Friday.
14:07That's it.
14:08He was living in an apartment at that time here in Pensacola.
14:12And with his wife and his child being stationed within a week here in Pensacola,
14:19they had made a decision to leave the apartment and move into a home.
14:23They'll be here and we need a bigger apartment, just one big enough for a family.
14:29So we bring in a house here.
14:31All right.
14:31So this morning, you stayed at night over at the new house.
14:36And your family's not in yet, so it's just you.
14:38Right.
14:38I was bashing time and put some stuff together when you call.
14:43Well, I call you.
14:44So he said that that night, he was packing all night until the wee hours of the morning,
14:49getting all of this stuff put in boxes and things like that
14:53so that he could begin to move the next day.
14:56Where do you think she is?
14:59I don't know.
15:01I hate her for her.
15:03She was a nice person.
15:05I know, but I hate her for her and her family have to go to her.
15:09But I just, I would appreciate if they don't blame everything on me and keep her open-minded, too.
15:14I mean, I didn't do anything.
15:17I'm not responsible for her being missed.
15:19That's why we here.
15:20I do want to know if I'm responsible for her being missed.
15:23Zachary Littleton seemed a little flippant and not concerned whatsoever as to where Samira may be.
15:30Police don't love Littleton's attitude, but there's still nothing pointing to him doing Samira any harm.
15:36Once Littleton had moved out of his apartment, we were able to go and search the apartment to see what
15:43was left behind,
15:44if there was a crime scene somewhere in the apartment.
15:48We didn't find anything of obvious concern.
15:50We didn't find blood.
15:51We didn't find where an obvious struggle had occurred.
15:55When this search turns up nothing, police have to wonder, is Zachary Littleton a suspect in a crime that he
16:01didn't commit?
16:01So police have to set up a wider net.
16:04We didn't feel like it would be prudent to focus solely on him.
16:08We began to research Samira's past.
16:12And what we learned is that Samira had a boyfriend who had just gotten out of prison, actually, a guy
16:19by the name of William Peters.
16:21William Peters was the father of Samira's four-year-old child.
16:25They had had a very tumultuous relationship, both physically and mentally.
16:31Mr. Peters was abusive to Samira.
16:33At the time that Samira went missing, she did have a restraining order against her child's father, William Peters.
16:39So he was someone who was dealing with, obviously, anger management issues, who had some feelings for Samira that were
16:48so intense that he committed crimes.
16:50And so now Samira goes missing? That's a big break for law enforcement.
16:55But when police reach out to Peters, they're surprised by his reaction.
17:00When William Peters was notified that Samira was missing, he was very upset and obviously concerned for her safety as
17:08well as her whereabouts.
17:10He was upset for his child, the child they had in common, knowing that, you know, if she's not found,
17:17then, you know, his son could be without a mother.
17:20You know, so he had, he was showing genuine concern for Samira's well-being.
17:26In stark contrast to Zachary Littleton, he really didn't show much concern at all.
17:30Of course, it could be that Peters is just a good liar and he really did have something to do
17:36with Samira's disappearance.
17:38Maybe he's a jealous ex who didn't like seeing her with another man, right?
17:42So Detective Thacker decides to pay this family a visit to see, you know, what kind of vibe he gets.
17:49Did you ever hear William say anything during this time about being upset with Samira or wanting to do her
17:58any kind of harm?
18:01You're aware that she was last seen on October the 29th, 2009. Is that correct?
18:08Yes.
18:09Okay. On that date, do you remember much about that evening?
18:24Just days after Samira Watkins goes missing, Detective Jonathan Thacker interviews the mother of her ex, William Peters.
18:32He and Samira share a four-year-old son, Daquan.
18:36The thing that makes Peters so interesting to police is that he already has one big strike against him.
18:43William Peters had done time for actually battering Samira Watkins.
18:48When William got out of jail, it was a short time before Samira went missing.
18:53So that was another thing that was a red flag for us, that perhaps William Peters was responsible for Samira
19:00going missing.
19:01I did go to his house. I interviewed his family.
19:04All right, so she was supposed to come by to drop off her child for you to watch him?
19:09Yes, she had.
19:10Okay. Did you ever find out why it is that she didn't?
19:15I never heard from her.
19:16He had a violent past, and he was free, and they wanted to establish whether he had a real alibi.
19:22Let's talk about William for a minute, okay?
19:26William has a job, yes or no?
19:29Yes, yes.
19:29He does have a job. What is his job?
19:31He worked with my daughter.
19:33Okay, what kind of work do they do?
19:35They do genitary cleaning.
19:36Okay. So they clean office buildings?
19:41Yes, they do.
19:42Right after getting out of jail, he began to work cleaning in the middle of the night.
19:46So him and his crew would go to companies, businesses, and do cleaning for them.
19:52So by 11 p.m. on the 29th, he was getting home?
19:57Yes.
19:58Okay. Once he got home, what did he do?
20:01Okay. He came home, spoke to me, asked me, did I plug up the fryer so he can cook and
20:09something to eat?
20:10He went straight in the back and started cooking him something to eat.
20:14And after that, he started watching TV.
20:17On this evening, on the 29th, and also we're talking about the 30th in the morning, did William ever leave
20:24the home?
20:25No, he did not.
20:26On the night of October 29th, I was able to verify that William Peters was actually on a crew that
20:33night cleaning.
20:35And I had his alibi pretty well secured at that point.
20:39So Detective Thacker turns the heat back up on Samira's boyfriend, Zachary Littleton.
20:44Does he know something he's not letting on?
20:47Did your wife know that you were talking to this girl?
20:49No.
20:50Would that be a problem if she knew that?
20:53No, because she knew, she knew I have a lot of friends.
20:56And she didn't know about, she don't know about Sam.
20:59She don't know their name.
21:00I put it like that.
21:00She knew I talked a little girl.
21:02Zachary was known on the base as a player, a playboy, someone who had multiple relationships.
21:08In fact, later on when he was talking to police, he said that Samira was just one of many extramarital
21:14relationships he had.
21:16If nobody asked me, when we were all the way up here, you said that you had some problems here
21:21recently and in trouble?
21:23Well, when I was about a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month or so ago, I had this dependent
21:30wife call at the police station and said that Manny and her had an affair and her husband found out.
21:36And she went to telling her friends that me and her had a relationship.
21:40And then one of her friends asked me about it.
21:42I was like, no, we're not doing nothing.
21:45So that friend cursed her out.
21:46She felt offended.
21:47So she called up.
21:48Everybody changed the man, talking about, yeah, they out doing this and they out doing that.
21:52So.
21:53Police start looking for any direct evidence linking Littleton to these other women, including Samira.
21:59During the course of the interview with Littleton, we talked to him about his cell phones and he indicated that
22:05he had at least two cell phones.
22:07And he wasn't really shy as the interview progressed.
22:10He wasn't shy to indicate to us that one of those phones was kind of for the girls to call
22:16him on.
22:16What I learned was that the phone was a, we call a burner phone.
22:21Zachary Littleton was using the burner phone to call Samira.
22:25It was the kind of phone that you get at maybe a convenience store.
22:31You take it home, you register it online or over the phone.
22:35And you don't have to give a lot of information to the companies that, that service those phones.
22:40I had two cell phones.
22:42I had a, um, Boost mobile phone.
22:44And, um, she was, that number she used to call me on.
22:48I was like, I cut that phone off.
22:49Cause the Boost one, she used to call you on that.
22:52And you, and why did you shut it off again?
22:54Cause I was getting text messages.
22:56Just didn't want to have nobody calling me and harassing me by anything.
23:00So I cut it off.
23:02And hearing that just kind of started to build a understanding of the kind of person that, that Littleton was.
23:11Zachary had a cabular attitude towards the relationship and the child.
23:15In reality, it was always about him.
23:17I'm trying to recreate this young lady in my mind.
23:19I don't know her.
23:20All right.
23:21And if I can recreate her and kind of get in her head, I'm about to find out where she's
23:25at.
23:26Um, what her demeanor was like.
23:29This is important.
23:30So when Littleton describes Samira, detectives hear something.
23:35It's very subtle, but clearly it suggests that he knows more than he's letting on.
24:01He used her name in the past tense a lot when he would refer to her, which at that time
24:08it was a missing person.
24:10Missing persons often are found alive and perfectly fine.
24:15In fact, they usually are.
24:16And he was already referring to her in the past tense.
24:20What do you think happened with her?
24:24I mean, what aspect?
24:25I mean, where is she at now?
24:29I don't know.
24:29They said she was on the way to my house.
24:32Okay.
24:32What do you think though?
24:34I hope she okay.
24:37I understand that, but what do you think she, what do you think?
24:40Y'all feel like I had the mode to do something to her, but I really, I didn't do nothing
24:43to that girl.
24:44I don't, I don't know where she at.
24:46She didn't come to my house dirty, so.
24:48Zachary Littleton was stonewalling investigators.
24:51She was pregnant and he was trying to protect his family and his career.
24:55Under military rules, adultery is an offense.
24:58You get sanctioned for that.
24:59Plus, he's married with a child.
25:02And so you could see why a child with his mistress could complicate things at home and at work.
25:10I've been working on my rep for so long for this to happen, you know, to try to clean up
25:13my rep and work.
25:14Because in the military, your character means a lot.
25:19Because you get evaluated with your peers and you want to get the high evaluation because they help you make
25:24rain.
25:24It's obvious that Littleton is trying to do some type of damage control.
25:28But then the day after his interview, something major happens that blows the case wide open.
25:34On November 3rd, four days after Samira disappeared, a call comes in to 9-1-1.
25:41Sheriff's 9-1-1, what's your emergency?
25:43Okay, that's the Navy Point.
25:44Okay, what's the Navy Point?
25:46Within, we found a dead body.
25:48It's in a bag.
25:49A big old, like, like a big old, like a bag you can.
25:52It looks like it has blood over it.
25:54It has a big old rock upon it.
25:56It's off the beach.
25:57It's real heavy.
25:58On Tuesday, November 3rd, I was notified that a duffel bag had been located, washed ashore, in a local body
26:07of water, right across from the Pensacola Naval Air Station.
26:11The people that found it, which were jet skiers, were concerned enough to call law enforcement.
26:17When they discovered the black duffel bag, there was a very foul odor coming from it, and it obviously appeared
26:24to be suspicious.
26:26So inside of this bag, in the fetal position, was the body of a black female.
26:32She had duct tape wrapped from her chin up to just below her eyeballs, all the way around her head.
26:41She was clothed only in a bra.
26:45She was otherwise nude.
26:48Inside of the bag, there was a Clorox wipe that was kind of balled up in the bottom of the
26:56bag, and there was also a paper towel.
26:59Could this woman be Samira Watkins?
27:02Experts analyzed her fingerprints right there on site.
27:06Sadly, they confirmed that it is Samira.
27:09And this would be the break that law enforcement needed in this case.
27:12Upon finding the body in the duffel bag, this case transformed from a missing persons case to a homicide.
27:19The medical examiner ruled that Samira had been asphyxiated and that she was suffocated.
27:27My theory was that she was likely strangled by whoever killed her.
27:32The autopsy also reveals what could be the smoking gun.
27:36When the autopsy was done on Samira, the medical examiner removed the duct tape from around her face and around
27:43her head, around her ears.
27:44And it was noticed at that point that she was only wearing one of her gold hoop earrings.
27:50And the reason this was so significant is because these earrings were so sentimental to her, and according to her
27:56family members, she wore them all the time.
27:59Surveillance footage from the fast food restaurant where Samira worked the night she was last seen shows her wearing both
28:04earrings.
28:06And she only had one. The other one had fallen off at some point.
28:10And I surmised that she probably lost that earring during some kind of an altercation.
28:16And it probably dropped at or near the place where she was assaulted and then later killed.
28:22Whoever had the other hoop earrings was going to be the main suspect in her death.
28:28Police are pretty sure that the person who has Samira's earring is Zachary Littleton.
28:34The problem is, until they find it, they can't directly link him to the murder.
28:39So what do they do? They call them the top guns in Navy crime solving, the NCIS.
28:44Now, this is not the TV show, okay? This is the real-life Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
28:49So being that our suspect was a member of the United States Navy, Zachary Littleton,
28:58and we knew that a lot of our witnesses and the friends that Zachary had were also members of the
29:04Navy,
29:06we reached out to NCIS to help us out.
29:10They'd be able to help facilitate interviews, perhaps records of things that went on.
29:16So I worked closely with NCIS during the investigation.
29:20Now, Detective Thacker has the Navy's go-ahead to reach out to Littleton's friends
29:25to see what pieces they can add to the puzzle.
29:28What do you think? Based on what you've heard and what we've disclosed to you, what do you think's the
29:33most reasonable?
29:33Baby mama drama. I mean, you know, he got her pregnant, and I know he's married with another child,
29:38and I know she's coming down soon.
29:42You're a policeman?
29:43Yes.
29:44Okay.
29:45Yes.
29:45With those circumstances, what does that lead you to what you have?
29:49All eyes are pointing to her. Everything's pointing to him.
29:57Pensacola Police Sergeant Jonathan Thacker is closing in on Samira Watkins' killer.
30:01All signs point to her boyfriend, Zachary Littleton, as the guy who did her in,
30:05then dumped her body near the Naval Air Station.
30:08Littleton's friends and colleagues helped narrow down the timeframe.
30:12Did you work on Thursday?
30:14Yes, I asked Thursday.
30:15Yes, I did.
30:15When did you next hear Littleton?
30:18Oh, in the parking lot.
30:20That evening, after we downloaded it, because we were making plans for me to go over the next morning
30:25and help him move from his apartment to his new house.
30:27All right, so is it in the parking lot that he approached you about helping him move?
30:31Yes, sir.
30:33Okay.
30:33And what time was that?
30:35About 10, 10, 15-ish, maybe. I mean, at the latest.
30:39Zachary Littleton was at work at the base earlier in the evening that he left his job.
30:45He drove directly up to his house.
30:48And he's arriving at his house just before Samira would also arrive at his house.
30:55Littleton followed up with his friend the next day, the morning after Samira was last seen.
31:01That morning, he texted me about 7-something in the morning, and I was still sleeping.
31:06And I woke up at about 8.30-ish, and he said, can you be here by 9? But I
31:10couldn't get there until 9.15.
31:12All right, so you guys arrived at his house, and what happened at his house?
31:16We were standing there. We basically made up like a game plan on how we want to start moving everything.
31:22And he backed the truck up, and then we started taking the furniture down.
31:26Surely he has other things, you know, knick-knack things.
31:29Clothing?
31:29Yes.
31:30Because I asked him, I was like, why isn't your clothes packed?
31:32And he said, I don't have any luggage.
31:34He pulled all his drawers out, and he just sent them on the side.
31:38And we didn't move those down.
31:40But when I left, they were still in his bedroom.
31:42While Zach was supposed to be ready, he wasn't.
31:45So that kind of messed up his alibi even further, that he was indicating to us that he was at
31:50home packing all night, when in reality, nothing was done.
31:54If that seems suspicious, what Littleton did earlier that morning really raises Detective's antenna.
32:01We did have a friend come forward that said that on the morning of October 30th, so we're talking about
32:06the morning after Samira's disappearance,
32:10Zach comes to her house at 5 a.m., so very early, and he's asking if he can do his
32:17laundry over at her house.
32:19Is it usual for him to want to come to your house at 4 or 5 in the morning?
32:23Does that strike you as a little odd?
32:24Yeah, but he said he'd just been packing all night.
32:26It did make us feel like he was probably doing that to destroy some sort of evidence or to wash
32:31away blood or something along those lines.
32:33Littleton's supervisor raises more suspicions about what Zachary was up to the night Samira went missing.
32:40Is there anything that you can think of that were in the apartment that you think we should know or
32:46something that you might recall that might be?
32:48You know, me being his mentor, I asked him, you know, is he okay?
32:52And he said one thing. He said that, yeah, she came over and asked to stay over, and I told
32:58her I don't want her to come over here, so I took her home.
33:01And I said, took her home. Like, if he took her home, what happened to her car and stuff like
33:07that?
33:07What night was he saying that was?
33:09Thursday.
33:10This statement from the supervisor directly contradicts what Littleton has been saying all along.
33:15He said the last time he saw Samira was on Wednesday. This is a completely different timeline.
33:21And it gives Thacker a different view on what may have gone down here.
33:26The theory that I have is that Samira made it to Zachary's apartment, and whoever killed her or put her
33:35in the bag likely used her own car to transport her body to that waterway.
33:42It seems Detective Thacker is right on the money.
33:46It was several days later that we had a neighbor contact the police to say that they had located a
33:53Red Ford Taurus.
33:55That Taurus was parked in a driveway, and it had been there for several days.
33:59So when we got there, we found that it was indeed Samira's car.
34:03My theory was that after dumping her body, Zachary Littleton also dumped the car and left it there in that
34:10driveway.
34:11Law enforcement found Zachary Littleton's DNA on the steering wheel of Samira Watkins' car.
34:17He had mentioned in one of his interviews that he had never been in her car, much less driven it.
34:21So that was obviously very important.
34:23On November 6, we conducted a search warrant at Zachary Littleton's home.
34:29Now, keep in mind, we believed that when the murder occurred, he was living at the apartment.
34:35We had looked in the apartment, found that there was nothing there of value.
34:38But we also knew that a lot of the evidence, he could have very easily moved with him, either knowingly
34:45or inadvertently.
34:46When law enforcement was going through the different areas of his house, inside of one of the bedrooms were some
34:51paper towels that had a pattern that were consistent with the paper towels that were found inside the duffel bag.
34:57And there was also a can of Clorox wipes that were consistent with a wipe that was found in the
35:04duffel bag.
35:05The number one most valuable item that we found, the thing that was the best piece of evidence, was the
35:11earring.
35:12An earring that matched exactly the earring that Samira Watkins had.
35:16There were a lot of pieces of evidence that were important to the case, but certainly the gold earring was
35:22a smoking gun.
35:24Now investigators have the best theory so far of what happened to Samira Watkins.
35:29Our theory of the case was that Samira went to go see Zachary Littleton the night of October 29, 2009.
35:37At some point while she was at his apartment, a neighbor saw and heard Zachary and Samira arguing.
35:43We believe that the same night, Samira was suffocated or smothered or somehow asphyxiated inside of Zachary Littleton's apartment.
35:52He then wrapped duct tape around her face. He placed her naked body in a duffel bag.
35:57He took the duffel bag from his apartment and put it in the trunk of her car.
36:01He then drove to the other side of town and threw her body into the bayou.
36:06What police need to do now is confirm their theory. And to do that, they need cold, hard facts.
36:11So they turned to the NCIS for their technical expertise here.
36:15One of the things that NCIS helped us out with is that there was new technology at the time for
36:21cell phone mapping, specifically cell phone tower mapping.
36:25I knew I'd be able to get the tower hits from the phone provider, but the mapping would have been
36:31made a lot easier if NCIS was involved.
36:34So when I pulled Samira's phone records in the months leading up to her death, I did see where she
36:40was talking to Littleton pretty regularly.
36:44But then there came a point where that stopped, but then a mystery number came about.
36:50I think that when he decided he was going to kill Samira is when he decided to cut ties with
36:56her from his regular phone and start using the burner phone without supposedly us finding out.
37:02And on the day of her disappearance, that number called her a total of 11 times.
37:07It was the main number calling her, quite frankly.
37:10NCIS was able to determine where their cell phones were pinging onto the nearby cell phone towers.
37:17And with that information, you're able to track the two of them who were traveling together and also put holes
37:23in Zachary Littleton's story about moving and not seeing Samira.
37:29We can see plain as day where Samira was at work at her fast food job that she left, that
37:37she came down to where she lives, which is pretty much across town.
37:40She's there for a little while, and the next thing you know, you see her heading back up to the
37:46area where Zachary Littleton lived.
37:48And it actually showed she made it to his house, despite him saying earlier in our interviews that she never
37:56arrived.
37:57And instead of him being at home all night and packing like he told us, we see him actually leaving
38:04his house by way of the tower hits and headed back toward the base.
38:09The cell phone data traces Littleton's travels and it shows him heading for the exact spot where Samira's body was
38:17found.
38:18But there is still one more question that detectives have to answer.
38:23How did Littleton get home when Samira's car was found 10 miles away?
38:28The location where we found Samira's car was clear across town, roughly 10 miles away.
38:35It didn't seem feasible that Zachary Littleton was able to just walk home.
38:39So we played around with the idea. Did he have somebody that helped him? Did he have a friend come
38:44pick him up?
38:45Back then, Ubers weren't a big thing, and there's only one way you can do it, and that is taxi
38:51cab.
38:51And so law enforcement called all the taxi cab companies, and bingo, they found a cab that Zachary Littleton was
38:59traveling in on his way back from killing Samira.
39:03Zach had ordered a cab from a Waffle House that was about a mile from where Samira's car was left.
39:10They went to that location and got video surveillance and were able to find Zachary Littleton inside the Waffle House
39:16at approximately 4.20 a.m. with a can of Clorox wipes.
39:21He walks into the restaurant and actually asked to borrow their phone.
39:28They allowed him to do it, and he talks on the phone for a very short amount of time and
39:33hands the phone back to the employee,
39:35and he goes outside where, at some point within a short period of time, a cab comes and drives him
39:42away.
39:43There is a point on the video surveillance where Zachary Littleton looks directly into one of the cameras that was
39:49inside of the Waffle House.
39:51This guy is not as smart as he thought he was.
39:55He was caught on camera, not only on camera, but looking directly into the camera at the Waffle House where
40:01he was calling for the taxi.
40:03Not only calling for the taxi, but doing so while holding a tub of Clorox wipes, something that's used to
40:08clean up blood and other incriminating evidence.
40:11Littleton's goose was cooked once he was caught on camera, once the taxi cab records came through, and once the
40:18body was found.
40:19So even before the video at the restaurant, I knew Zachary Littleton was likely going to be our suspect, but
40:27that was like putting some level of icing on the cake.
40:32I felt very confident then that we would be able to make the arrest.
40:37So on November 23rd, less than a month after Samira's murder, police arrest Zachary Littleton, and it kind of seems
40:43like his lies and deceptions are finally coming back to bite him.
40:48Zachary Littleton was indicted for first-degree premeditated murder, and that was the charge that I went to trial on.
40:55The prosecutors had a really good case at this point against Zachary Littleton.
40:58I mean, not even to mention the fact that he lied from beginning to end.
41:02He lied from the beginning when he told Samira his name was Ricky, when he said he was single, until
41:09the end when he lied to investigators.
41:10But the prosecution faces one big challenge.
41:14My biggest concern going to trial on this particular case was because it was 100% circumstantial.
41:21I really didn't have an eyewitness.
41:22I didn't have forensics that directly linked Zachary Littleton to the homicide.
41:27I didn't have video surveillance of the homicide itself, so my concern was that it was just so circumstantial.
41:43Almost two years after Samira Watkins' murder, Zachary Littleton's trial begins, and the state has what they hope is an
41:50airtight strategy.
41:51My strategy going into the trial was to create a timeline that went from the beginning of summer when Zachary
42:00and Samira first met into November when her body was discovered and the earring was found in his house.
42:09And then in between that timeline, trying to plug in pieces of evidence that would create a clear picture of
42:16Zachary Littleton's guilt.
42:17As for the defense, they zero in on the lack of direct physical evidence.
42:22A challenge for prosecutors was that there wasn't clear blood or DNA evidence linking Littleton to the murder, and prosecutors
42:29had to still put the pieces of the puzzle together.
42:31So the prosecution's approach is to paint a picture for the jury of Littleton's character, to show them what kind
42:37of guy he really is.
42:38Not just an adulterer, but a killer.
42:42So although the jury doesn't hear him testify on the stand, they saw him in the police interviews being a
42:47sociopathic liar.
42:49Was she saying that it was your baby? See, I know it's it. It was my baby.
42:53All those lies show consciousness of guilt, show what kind of person he is, and made it clear to the
42:59jury this was someone who you could not trust.
43:01Zachary Littleton's demeanor during the course of his trial was confident and almost borderline arrogant.
43:10He seemed to be more concerned about what he was wearing and how he looked, as opposed to the evidence
43:15that the state was presenting against him.
43:17The prosecutors had a really good case. They had a gold hoop earring. That's as close to a smoking gun
43:23as you can get in this case.
43:24That's direct evidence that he was the one who committed this heinous crime.
43:29How did the other gold hoop earring get into Zachary Littleton's apartment unless he was the one who killed her?
43:36And then, of course, the cell tower records that showed the location of Zachary Littleton and Samira the night she
43:43went missing because it put them in the exact same area.
43:46And Littleton also left a digital trail of breadcrumbs that prosecutors lay out for the jury.
43:52Some of the most important pieces of evidence to show the jurors were some searches on Zachary Littleton's computer.
43:59These searches included how long does it take for a body to decompose?
44:04He was looking at searches related to putting a body in a landfill.
44:09How did it cause a person to have an abortion?
44:12Does drinking vinegar cause an abortion?
44:15He was Googling abortion locations within our city.
44:19Those searches then turned into how to speed up human decomposition.
44:24And then they led into how to pass a polygraph.
44:27So his searches were obviously key in the timeframe of, you know, beginning when she was pregnant,
44:32to then wanting to cause a miscarriage, to then when he was being interrogated by law enforcement.
44:36That is so bad for the jury. There is no way to explain it other than you just killed your
44:42girlfriend and you're trying to ensure that you don't get caught.
44:45They had this guy dead to rights. You don't have to have too much direct evidence when you have this
44:50mountain of circumstantial evidence.
44:52Three days later on June 30th, the jury begins deliberations.
44:56It doesn't take them long to reach a verdict.
44:58It only took the jury three hours to reach a verdict in this case.
45:03Once the evidence was presented and the timeline was proven and the alibi was discounted that he tried to provide,
45:11I think it was very clear to the jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that he was in fact the person
45:16that murdered Samira Watkins.
45:18So the jury finds Zachary Littleton guilty of first-degree premeditated murder.
45:23So they obviously see him for what he is.
45:26Jurors clearly had a visceral reaction to Zachary Littleton.
45:29Zachary seemed to use his position, his power, for nefarious means by gaining the confidence of Samira to make her
45:37believe that he was someone who he was not.
45:39But it's also someone who the jury would hate, a liar, a cheat, and a killer.
45:46Zachary Littleton was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
45:50I believe that justice was served for Samira Watkins, for her unborn child, for her four-year-old little boy,
45:58and for the rest of her family members that loved her so much.
46:02Zachary Littleton's lawyers do file several appeals, but none changed the fate of this man who betrayed the people who
46:08loved him.
46:09He'll be in prison for a very long time. He was 24 years old when this happened.
46:14And he, um, he's got a lot of life left where he'll have to do it behind bars.
46:19How would you categorize her mental state? Did she change when she, when the revelation occurred that she was pregnant?
46:25I think she was okay mental. She used to send me, like, some crazy text messages, like, when I didn't
46:30speak to her in a couple days,
46:32and I had to call her, I mean, what's wrong with you?
46:34So I believe that Zach Littleton made the decision to murder Samira because he was, he was desperate.
46:40He had a couple different things working against him.
46:43One of them, being in the military, it's against their code of conduct to commit adultery.
46:49Uh, he would have likely lost rank if they had found out that he had, um, been having affairs,
46:55that, that he had gotten somebody pregnant that wasn't his wife.
46:59He would have been in trouble for that.
47:01He also had working against him the fact that his wife, she had found out in the past that he
47:06had done things like this,
47:07um, and that she had given him an ultimatum that you, you know, if you do that again, we're not
47:12going to stay together.
47:13This case was obviously so tragic because it involved such a young, beautiful, vivacious mother of a small child
47:22that was really just trying to make the best life that she could, that was trying to do something with
47:28herself,
47:30and then to have that taken away at such a young age for such a senseless reason.
47:36It would be very fair to say that Zachary Littleton destroyed two families.
47:41There's Samira Watkins, her son, her siblings.
47:45But there's also the wife and child that he left behind by having a fling with Samira.
47:51Now in the end, Zachary Littleton's schemes not only wreck the lives of his wife and his girlfriend,
47:56but also one more, his own.
47:58And now at least he's in a place where he can't break any more hearts.
48:01Yes.
48:02Yeah.
48:05Chris.
48:07Yeah.
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