Nikki
Jarmecca "Nikki" Whitehead was a 34-year-old single mother of identical twin girls Jasmiyah and Tasmiyah. Nikki had lots of friends and worked hard to provide for her children as best as she could.
Nikki had overcome a difficult childhood and decided she was going to do everything she could to give her girls the life she couldn't have - and she did. The three of them lived a very comfortable life, but it all came to an end on January 13, 2010.
A Horrible Discovery
A police officer was patrolling the road as usual when he spotted two distressed young girls on the side of the road. He stopped his car and talked to the girls, who looked like they had seen a ghost. When asked what was wrong, they said someone had killed their mother.
The girls were 16-year-olds Jasmiyah and Tasmiyah Whitehead. They told the police officer that they came home from school and found a horrific scene: the whole house covered in blood, and their mother dead in the bathtub.
The Scene
The girls were taken to their great-grandmother's house as the police rushed to their Conyers, Georgia home. The door had not been forced open, which meant that whoever killed Nikki had been let in.
As soon as you entered the house, you could see blood everywhere. The carpets were soaked in blood and there were drag marks leading up to the bathtub, meaning that Nikki's body had been dragged there. There was also broken glass everywhere, meaning there had been a struggle.
Clues
Since there had been no signs of a burglary, police started thinking about the people close to Nikki and who could have committed such a heinous crime. When they learned that Nikki and her daughters were living with her fiancé, Robert Head, he became their first suspect.
The first thing that made him a suspect was the fact that he was nowhere to be found. He had apparently left town the morning Nikki was murdered, which was very fishy. So, the police wasted to time and tracked him down.
More Questions
Robert was not answering his phone and he was out of town. While the police was trying to find him, they questioned Jasmiyah and Tasmiyah to get as much information about the crime scene as possible.
The girls said that they had overslept that morning but made it to their first class at school with no problems. They had a normal day and when they came home, they found their mother. They also mentioned that even though Nikki was engaged to Robert, she was also seeing someone else.
Finding The Suspects
Nikki's other boyfriend was named Joe Carter. The police believed that this could have been a crime of passion because of the love triangle between Nikki, Robert and Joe. Maybe Robert or Joe had found out about the other man's presence in Nikki's life.
And all of this made perfect sense. After all, when someone is murdered, the killer is their significant other in most cases. The two men each had a motive, so they needed to be investigated as soon as possible.
Dead End
When the police finally got in touch with Robert and Joe, they hit a dead end. Both men had a solid alibi that put them several miles away from the crime scene that day. Not only that, but they seemed heartbroken to hear what had happened to Nikki.
All the police could do now is look carefully at the crime scene and try to find more clues. They also asked a neighbor for his surveillance footage, but his camera did not point at Nikki's house. All they had was the evidence at the scene.
More Evidence
The police started finding more clues in different parts of the house, which led them to a conclusion they hadn't even contemplated before. While there was blood all over the living room, hallway, and bathroom, they hadn't looked at the other rooms of the house yet.
This had been a big mistake at the beginning. But now, they were looking at every inch of the house, trying to find more evidence. And sure enough, they did. Their discovery came when they looked at the twins' bedrooms.
Could It Be?
Everything in each of the girls' bedrooms looked untouched, but luckily the police decided to carefully examine every single inch of them. In the closet, they found a piece of evidence that would change everything.
There was a shoe box in the back of the closet that contained shoes stained with blood. The shoes obviously belonged to one of the girls, so they were clearly hiding something. Then, they kept digging and found more evidence.
The Hair
They found another pair of bloody shoes stashed in the back of another closet, but the most shocking discovery was found inside one of the shoes. Wrapped in a tissue, there was a bloody clump of hair.
But this wasn't the kind of hair that you find in a hairbrush or in the shower drain. This clump of hair had been ripped out of Nikki's scalp, which is why it was bloody. Her murderer had clearly tried to hide it inside the shoe.
New Suspects
This led police to think the unthinkable: the two innocent, seemingly distressed teenagers had brutally murdered their mother. But why would they do that? They all seemed to love each other!
While it all looked suspicious, the police couldn't directly tie the girls to the crime yet, so they thought the best approach would be to interrogate them again and check their alibis. That's when their story began to crumble.
Not Adding Up
The girls said that they had missed the bus and had to walk to school that day but yet made it in time for their classes at around 7:30 am. But after doing some digging, the police found out that this was an outright lie.
The girls were seen in the security footage of a gas station nearby hitchhiking a ride from a stranger at around 10:00 am, almost three hours after they were supposed to be at school. Then, they were seen in the school's security footage arriving at around 10:15.
The Witness
In the security camera footage from the gas station, the police saw the girls getting a ride from a mysterious man in a truck. They managed to track the man down, who told them everything.
According to the man, he was just filling up his tank at the gas station when the two girls asked him for a ride to school because they were late. The man agreed and dropped them off at school at around 10:00 am, which also contradicted the girls' initial statements.
Red Flags
During the interrogation, both girls were wearing oversized hoodies and gloves. It was cold outside, sure, but why didn't they take their gloves off once they were inside the police station?
The investigators asked them if they could remove their gloves and the girls had no choice but to comply. Both of their hands were covered in scratches and cuts, suggesting they had taken part in a fight. The investigators' suspicions were further confirmed at this point.
The Wounds
The kind of wounds that the girls had on their hands and arms were consistent with defensive wounds against an attacker, meaning they were the kind of wounds that an attacker would receive from their victim as they are trying to defend themselves.
They also had bite marks on them, which matched Nikki's teeth. The girls were probably responsible for their mother's death, and the police needed to put all the pieces of the puzzle together to build a strong case against them.
The Final Piece
The final piece of evidence that the police found against the twins was their journal. The girls used one journal to communicate back and forth with each other, and they wrote some pretty incriminating things on it.
Some of the things written on the journal were: "We have to get rid of her" and "She's gotta go." Now, the police were finally ready to arrest the girls for the murder of their mother.
Confessing
After being arrested and playing innocent for a while, the girls finally gave up and told police the whole story of what had happened. And it all began when the girls were just babies.
Jarmecca had a tough childhood. She was actually born in prison while her mother was an inmate, and she became a very troubled teenager. She got into drugs, parties, and got pregnant with the twins when she was only 17 years old.
A Better Life
The twins were raised by their great-grandmother during their first years of life, until Nikki finally got her life on track and was able to provide for the girls. She worked hard, saved money, and bought a house for the three of them to live together.
Because she wanted the girls to have a better life than she did, she was pretty strict. She encouraged them to study a lot, take part in lots of extracurricular activities, and hoped someday they would attend a prestigious university like Harvard.
Fighting
But as they became teenagers, the girls started to rebel. They didn't want to do what their mother told them to, and the two would usually team up against Nikki. It wasn't long before these fights turned physical.
The police somehow did not look into this during their investigation, but there were actually records of many 911 calls made by Nikki against her daughters. She called the police several times because she feared for her life.
Escalating
One day, one of their fights escalated so badly that neighbors had to call 911. When the officer arrived, she found that Nikki had been viciously beaten by her daughters, while she had not laid a single finger on them.
A court sentenced them to get counseling and that was the end of it. The girls kept telling the court that they wanted to live with their great-grandmother instead, but they stayed with Nikki.
A Tragic End
The day Nikki was murdered, the girls and their mother had a fight, as always. This time, however, the girls went too far. Not only did they beat their mother as they usually did, but this time, they grabbed a knife. They stabbed her until she was dead.
The twins pleaded guilty to murder and were each sentenced to 30 years in prison and are currently serving their sentences in different prisons. Nikki wanted to give her daughters the best life possible but instead they took hers. Do you think 30 years is a fair sentence for the girls?