The following podcast contains dramatizations of actual events.

Certain situations, dialogue, names, and locations may have been changed.

Some scenes are graphic in nature.

Listener discretion is advised.

Up next, a single mother doesn't survive a life and death struggle.

It was, what, everywhere?

I mean, all over the living room, the walls, the back door.

She fought for her life.

Probably the longest fight to death that I ever investigated.

No one can believe this woman would be a target for murder.

I was immediately taken into a detective car, and he asked me, do I know of anybody that would have wanted to harm, Nicky?

And I'm like, harm, Nicky.

Evidence shows the killer is uncomfortably close to home.

We'd get into physical obdrications all the time.

I'm almost getting a little teary-eyed now about it because I knew.

I knew.

I knew. Nikki Whitehead's life was full of obstacles from the moment's life was full of obstacles from the moment she was born.

Nikki was born in prison.

You know, she was the oldest of five siblings.

Unlike her brothers and sisters, Nikki was not raised by her mother.

Her mother was behind bars for most of Nikki's childhood.

She wasn't in the same household as her siblings. What she didn't know, and I even said, like,

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