Nikki And Her Twin Killers

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Discretion is it by ten minute murders. When yor Mecca Yvonne Whitehead, who

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went by Nicki, was only eighteen
years old, she gave birth to twin

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girls. She named them Jasmya Kanisha
and Tasmaya Genisha Jazz and Taz for short.

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When Nicki was twenty five, she
met Robert Head, a fifty five

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year old truck driver. Nicki and
the girls moved in with him shortly after

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they started dating. It's unclear at
what point Nicki lost her daughters, but

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they spent much of their younger years
under the care of their great grandmother,

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Della Fraser. While living with Della, the girls were Honor Roll students and

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participated in Girl Scouts. Nicki was
a bit sporadic and would randomly pop in

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to visit the girls, but she
wasn't a consistent presence in their lives.

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All that changed in two thousand and
seven. The twins were thirteen and Nicki

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wanted a chance to be their mom. She requested custody through the courts.

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Her request was granted, although it
may not have been the best decision.

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Jazz and Taz complained that Nicki was
too controlling and also a bit of a

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hypocrite, but are there any thirteen
year olds that don't complain about their parents'

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rules? But their conflicts quickly escalated
into physical altercations. The arguments resulted in

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court mandated counseling and juvenile court appearances. With all the hostility in the home,

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Della Fraser was able to petition the
courts and regain custody. Unfortunately,

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the arrangement with Della was only temporary. Most of the time, the courts

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make every attempt to keep families together
that are willing to put in the effort,

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and in January of twenty ten,
they once again awarded Niki custody of

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the girls. Della protested the decision. Jazz and Taz protested the decision,

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but the courts stood by their decision
for the girls to return to Nicki.

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However, this time they put a
two week trial period in place. During

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that trial period, Nicki was murdered. On January thirteenth, twenty ten,

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A Rochdale County Sheriff's deputy happened to
be driving through the Whitehead's neighborhood and Conyers,

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Georgia, where two distressed young women
flagged him down as he was passing

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by. Jazz and Taz were extremely
upset and stated that they'd come home from

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school and found their mother dead in
the bathtub. When the officer entered the

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home, he was immediately hit by
a strong smell of blood in the air

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that metallic copper iron smell. There
were pools of blood all around the living

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room and kitchen, so much blood
that it had quit soaking into the carpet.

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There were lines of blood where the
body had been dragged around and into

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the bathtub. It was splattered on
the walls, furniture, and ceiling.

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The officer said it was by far
the worst crime scene he had ever walked

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into. He found Niki in that
tub, right where the girls said she

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would be. Nicki had been stabbed
fifty times. Her lungs were punctured,

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her jugular veins severed, and her
spinal cord injured. She had also been

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bitten and punched. Jazz and Taz
were visibly shaken during the interrogation. The

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detectives were comforting and tried to console
the teen girls. The twins described the

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crime scene that they walked into like
something they'd only seen on a TV show.

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Initially, the police believed them but
as the crime scene was investigated,

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they couldn't find any signs of breaking
and entering, leading them to believe that

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Nicky knew her attacker. The medical
examiner even said that it looked like a

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crime of passion. That changed the
direction of the investigation. They then decided

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to separate the girls who had been
questioned together previously. Once separated, the

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detectives began to doubt their stories.
Their stories started to develop inconsistencies, and

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the account of what happened started changing. It was easy to confirm that the

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girls had not been at school all
day. The girls also had been wearing

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gloves. It was January and cold
outside, but even in the interrogation room,

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Jazz and Taz left the gloves on. The detectives asked them to remove

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them, and it wasn't really a
surprise to them to find scratches and bite

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marks covering their hands. But of
course, the girls had an explanation for

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this. They the scratches probably came
from them fighting with each other. They

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also claimed that they both dealt with
being nervous and biting their hands brought some

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kind of calming relief. The explanations
could have been true. The girls were

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known to physically fight, and some
people do bite themselves or cut themselves to

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feel a sort of release. They
couldn't say the girl's explanation was a lie

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or make them feel bad because of
the reasons they gave, so they just

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continued their investigation through other sources.
The girls were allowed to go with Della

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and continued to deny any involvement.
Blood from the crime scene was collected and

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the DNA was tested. Nicki's boyfriend
was cleared. His DNA did not match,

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although the DNA did produce matches three
matches to be exact Nicki, Jazz,

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and Taz, implicating the twins.
They were present at the time of

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their mother's murder. In May two, twenty ten, four months after Nikki's

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death, her sixteen year old twins, Jasmya Kanisha and Tasmaya Genisha, were

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arrested and charged as adults with voluntary
manslaughter, making false statements, and being

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in possession of a knife during a
crime. The detectives placed microphones in the

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police cars in the event that the
girl said anything incriminating. After the arrest,

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the girls were angry, almost taunting
the police. Jazz kept asking about

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the bite marks Taz questioned why she
was being arrested if they had not found

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a murder weapon with her fingerprints on
it, even challenging them to try to

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find it. In twenty fourteen,
the twins finally quit denying any involvement and

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pleaded guilty, accepting a lesser charge. They were sentenced to thirty years in

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prison and sent to different prisons to
serve their time. Now that the truth

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was out, they could give their
account of what they say really happened on

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that cold and bloody Janus Day,
and this is it. Jazz and Taz

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woke up late for school. They
were fighting with Nicki about being late again.

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They said. Nicki complained that they
didn't follow her rules and she was

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angry. They claimed that she grabbed
a pot and tried to hit them with

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it. At some point, she
grabbed a knife and threatened them with that

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as well. While yelling. Jazz
said that Nicki lunged at her, so

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she grabbed the pot and hit her
mom with it. Jazz said that when

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Nicki fell, she latched onto her
chest and bit her. Then Jazz grabbed

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a vase and broke it over Nicky's
head so she would quit biting Both girls

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started punching Niki, but she was
fighting back, scratching them and trying to

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bite their hands. Taz grabbed the
knife off of the counter and started to

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stab Niki. Eventually, Jazz grabbed
the knife from her sister and stabbed Niki

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a few more times. They then
drugged their mom's body into the master bedroom

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and put her in the tub.
Nicki was still alive at that point.

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The girl said that she was yelling
at them about how much she hated them

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and that they would go to jail
for what they were doing to her.

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It's not documented how long she was
in the tub before Jazz and Taz flagged

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down the officer that happened to be
driving by. They could have called the

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police at any time, but it
appears they wanted to make sure she was

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dead and could not be resuscitated or
helped. Della Fraser continued to stand by

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her great granddaughters, describing them as
loving girls, but Nicki's friends disagreed and

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said that they were not at all
shocked by what the girls did. Could

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Jazz and Taz really have been that
different depending on if they were living with

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Dela or Nicki did living with their
mom? Really bring out the evil in

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them, or did their great grandmother
just refuse to see it. We all

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have a breaking point, but that
doesn't mean that we all are going to

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commit murder when we reach its side. Is fairly uncommon. The murder of

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a mother at the hands of her
own children. Actually, less than one

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percent of all homicides are matricide related, and most of the time when they

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are, the mothers are killed by
a son. So what caused two sixteen

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year old daughters to not only kill
their mother but to do so in such

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a violent and brutal way. We
may never know exactly what happened, only

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the story the twins tell. According
to the American Society for Positive Care for

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Children, thirty six percent of women
in the US prison system were abused as

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children, and the numbers for children
psychologically or physically abused every year are staggering.

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Yet there is very little research on
how many parents live in homes with

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abusive teenagers. We know it exists, and we know it sounds like the

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relationship between Nicki Whitehead and Jazz and
Taz was violent, unhealthy, and chaotic.

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What we will really never know is
who the real abuser was in this

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sad story that ended with such an
uncommon murder. That is your ten minute

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Murder story for today or one of
the stories for today if you planned to

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binge. I'm Joe the host,
and thank you so much for taking the

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time out of your day to listen
to ten Minute Murder. If you are

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new, make sure you hit subscribe. If you're not new, welcome back.

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I love you. Connect on social
media see the pictures of what we

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talk about here on the podcast.
It's never gross in graphic stuff though.

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If you like the show, leave
a rating and review anywhere that's possible.

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A positive one helps the show grow
so much, and let your friends and

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family know about Ten Minute Murder.
Now quickly, let's get to an email

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question from one of you that listens. Dear Joe, be honest with me.

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Do you already have your Christmas tree
up? Becca in NYC? And

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Becca, Yeah, it's up.
It's fully up. It's been up for

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a little while now. Now.
I didn't put it up until after Thanksgiving.

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I normally will do it before Thanksgiving
and that freaks everyone out for some

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reason. But if you're trying to
catch me in a do I celebrate Christmas

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too early? Kind of a thing. Yeah I do. I've Christmas Vacation.

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National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is my favorite
movie of all time period, not

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favorite Christmas movie or you know.
It's my favorite movie of all time.

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I will watch it multiple times throughout
the year when it's still warm outside.

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It can be one hundred in the
South, and I'll be watching Christmas Vacation.

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It's a little strange. I get
that, but it's my favorite movie,

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and Christmas is my favorite holiday,
so I celebrate early. I get

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it going pretty quickly, and I
started with Christmas music. I've been doing

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that since probably September. Now I
do stop right at Christmas. I stop

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it all. I shut it all
down right after Christmas is over, the

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trees away. There's no more Christmas
music, and I don't get cranked back

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up until a little bit later on
into the new year. But I'm a

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little bit weird about it. I
understand that you thought you were gonna get

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me Becca, but then I turned
the tables on you and I admitted it

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myself. So boom, if you've
got an email question for me, Joe

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at ten Minute Murder dot com,
thank you so much for listening to ten

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minute murder bye,