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Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Britt, and we're shaking things up with not one
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but two episodes hitting your feed today. And here's why. The lead detective in a case out of our home
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state of Indiana reached out to us because he needs your help. He's got this case that's pretty fresh, meaning
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there's a little bit less information than usual. So, we decided to cover two Indiana stories. Ashley is bringing you
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the other and it's actually already in your feed. But this one we knew we had to tell because they are this close to
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[music] solving it. They're pretty sure they know who is behind the murder of two young women in Hobart, Indiana, and
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why. But there's a twist. The DNA they have in the case doesn't [music] match the main person they suspected. So, are
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they wrong or is the DNA [music] just misleading? I have theories, but one of you out
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there might [music] have the answer. This is the story of Destiny Jackson and Nira Muhammad.
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If you've been listening to Crime Junkie for a while, or even if you're a new listener, you know that a lot of the
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stories we tell start with a loved one getting worried. That moment that they realize that something is wrong. On the
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morning of Friday, November 4th, 2022, a woman named Felicia, isn't all that worried. She hasn't heard from her
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little sister, 20-year-old Destiny Jackson, in a little over a day, which is unusual for them because they live
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together along with Felicia's boyfriend, Todd, and Destiny's 19-year-old girlfriend, Nazera Muhammad. But even
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when Nazera's mom calls her saying that she can't get a hold of her daughter or Destiny, Felicia's not thinking that
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something bad has happened. Felicia knows their sleep schedules are a little bit off at the moment. Nera isn't in
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school at the time. Destiny's taking some online classes and working part-time, [music] but they're staying
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up late, sleeping in late, doing like normal college age things. Plus, Felicia knows that Destiny turns on the do not
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disturb when she sleeps. So, even when she tries calling Destiny herself and gets sent straight to voicemail, that
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doesn't feel weird. Unfortunately, Felicia and Todd aren't home where they all live in Hobert, Indiana. They've
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been gone on a brief trip an hour away to Chicago. So Felicia can't just go into their room and check on them. So
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instead, she keeps trying her sister, but no answer. After so many unanswered calls, she asks her brother, who she's
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staying with in Chicago, "Hey, can you check and see if you can see her location?" But he can't. Still though,
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Felicia isn't worried. She figures she'll hear from her sister soon. But it's not her sister who calls her later.
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It's Niger's mom again, and she's still worried. And that's when she says something that finally makes Felicia a
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little nervous. According to Felicia, she tells her that she recently sent her daughter a large sum of money. She
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doesn't remember how much it was or exactly when or even why, though she knew that her mom had been supporting
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her financially, so it wasn't totally out of the blue. But I don't know, something about it just made her sister
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Spidey senses tingle. So, better safe than sorry. Felicia decides to call local police for a welfare check that
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afternoon. When police get to the apartment, even from the outside, there is a sign that something is wrong.
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Bags of groceries are sitting outside the apartment. They don't look old, like [music] they haven't been sitting there
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for days, but there are perishables in there. So, leaving them just out in the hall feels like off. And from the moment
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police step into the apartment, they know that they've walked into a crime scene. Bullet casings litter the floor.
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There are bullet holes in the hallway wall and blood spatter leads them from a bathroom to the primary bedroom. There
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they find the bodies of two young women, both of whom have suffered multiple gunshot wounds. One of them, Nazera, is
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lying on the floor kind of on her side. From the way she's laying and based on the bullet holes and blood in the
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bathroom and hallway, it looks like she may have been in the bathroom when the attack started and was trying to run
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away from her attackers before succumbing to her wounds in the bedroom. And then Destiny is in bed with the
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covers still pulled up almost like she was caught while sleeping. The two are long past life-saving measures. They're
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going to have to go back to Felicia and confirm the worstc case scenario. But while some officers are tasked with
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notifications, others begin combing through the apartment trying not to lose any more precious time. One of the
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things they try to do is determine exactly how the killer got in because the apartment is on the second floor and
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the front door was locked with no signs of forced entry. But there is an unlocked and slightly still open sliding
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glass door in the living room. It leads out to a balcony and below they see that
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a table owned by one of the neighbors has been pushed to right underneath that balcony
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and in the middle is a single dirty shoe print. That shoe print is one [music] of
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the first pieces of evidence they photograph and collect. But it's not the only thing. There are those numerous
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shell casings along with Destiny's phone and Nigera's phone case. At first blush,
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they think the killer must have taken the phone itself, but they didn't take it far cuz they end up finding her phone
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off to one side of the main road that leads into the apartment complex. And by the time they get to it, it's crushed to
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pieces. They think whoever took it might have thrown it out a car window as they
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were fleeing. And they do find more potential evidence. Two pairs of gloves. Investigators send everything they can
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off for testing to the Indiana State Police Lab. While they request phone and social media records for both women and
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speak to their families and neighbors. When police interview both families, they're able to establish a clear
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timeline of when the homicides likely occurred. Nazera's mom says she last spoke to Nazera around 9:31 p.m. on
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November 2nd, and she got a Tik Tok from Nazera that was sent to her around 1:36
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a.m. on the 3rd. Then Felicia says she last heard from Destiny a little after midnight on the
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3rd as well. But after that, there was radio silence from both of them. So investigators believe they'd likely been
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killed in the middle of the night or sometime the morning of the third. But when they talked to neighbors, no one
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reports hearing any gunshots or seeing anything out of the ordinary, which I okay, sure, maybe everyone was asleep,
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but what I find even stranger is that when police walked into the bedroom, there was a haird dryer that was plugged
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into the wall and it was still running. So, it must have been running for like over a day. And I've lived in apartments
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before and sound travels a lot and forever and long. So, it feels really strange to me that no one would have
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clocked that the haird dryer was blasting like all day. Now, my first thought was that the killer may have
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plugged it in and tried to start a fire. It was right next to Nazer's body, but Detective Gallagher doesn't think that's
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the case. He told our team that the women probably kept it in their room and Nazera may have been using it at the
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time of the break-in, which that threw me for a loop, too, because I knew based on the crime scene that their theory had
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been that she had been in the bathroom when the attack happened or when she was first shot. So, I had a reporter try and
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clear that up with the detective, but I didn't actually get any clarity. He just
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said that she was probably in the bathroom when the attack first started, then tried to run into the bedroom. Been
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using the haird dryer, got up to get something from the bathroom, and then that's when the break-in occurred. Or
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maybe she was using it, heard someone come in, went to the hall to look, saw them, jumped in the bathroom first. Or
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maybe she was in the bathroom, and then like tripped over the blow dryer as she ran into the bedroom. I mean, it's hard
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to know for sure, but Detective Gallagher's confident that it wasn't put there to try and start a fire after they
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were killed, which they can pinpoint to an exact time thanks to Nazera's phone records. At 4:30 a.m. on the 3rd, they
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learned that she'd actually called 911. And that call is disturbing to say the least. We have the audio, but we are not
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going to play it because in it, you don't hear much. I mean, nothing that helps. Just gunshots and sounds from
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Nera that make it clear that she's scared and then dying. It's fast, but it's heartbreaking. The call gets cut
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short, and police couldn't pinpoint Nazera's location. You can't with cell phones, so they couldn't respond at the
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time. What the call does give them now, though, is a precise time of when Nazera
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and Destiny were killed. And they have to figure out where everyone they knew was at that time. And they have to
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figure out what [music] the motive might be. The why usually leads you to the who. And this is when the two families
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divide. Nazir's family starts to question if Felicia and her boyfriend Todd may have had something to do with
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it. I mean, how convenient it was that this is the time that they were gone. And there had been some conflict, though
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they were your normal roommate [music] conflicts. Nothing violent. But I think they're just looking for anything, any
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explanation for this inexplicable loss. But police are quickly able to rule that
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out. [music] Phone records and witnesses put them in Chicago on the second before
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Destiny and Nazera's last cell phone communications, just like they said. But actually, the reason they were there
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makes police wonder if this was a targeted attack by a family member, just a different one than Felicia. It turns
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out the reason Felicia was in Chicago when the murders occurred was because she was meeting with police about
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pressing sexual assault charges against her and Destiny's brother, Terrence. Both she and Destiny had allegedly
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experienced sexual abuse by him. Destiny when she was a child, and Felicia had been assaulted more recently. Now,
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Felicia is the only one pressing charges, and he hasn't had contact with Destiny in over a year. Not since he
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reached out promising to make things up to her, which she rejected. But with charges potentially incoming, they're
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wondering if he broke in targeting Felicia or maybe Destiny 2. And Nazer was just collateral damage. But I'm not
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going to drag this out. After digging into his whereabouts on the second and third, he is ruled out. He denies being
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involved, and his phone records confirm that he wasn't in Hobart. Investigators even speak with his girlfriend who
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corroborates that he was in Chicago and her phone records match up with his. And
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just in case you were wondering, cuz I know our crime junkies are always so sleuththing for the missing piece or the
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angle that hasn't been explored, there's no evidence anyone in Destiny's family hired someone to do this either. And
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really, when you break down the motive for Terrence, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Killing Destiny wouldn't
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stop Felicia from pressing charges. In fact, Felicia still met with police and Terrence got charged and eventually was
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sentenced to 18 years. Destiny's family agrees with police in the end. They don't think the whole Terren thing is
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[music] related. They actually don't think Destiny was the target at all. They think Nazer was. And here's the
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context for that line of thinking. Felicia tells police that Nazera was known for purchasing really large
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quantities of weed at one time. She got it from multiple dealers, but no one knew how she paid for all of it. Because
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remember, Nigeria was unemployed. So Felicia is wondering if maybe she didn't pay repeatedly and one of her dealers
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felt they'd been ripped off. Felicia even told our team that she knows Niger had several sandwichsized bags of
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marijuana in the apartment when she left, but police couldn't find any in the apartment when they searched. It
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seems to be the only thing that was taken, assuming Nazera still had it all when they were killed. Now, is this why
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she asked her mom for that large amount of money Felicia told us about? Maybe she was trying to pay someone back. It
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would make sense if she actually got that large sum of money, and there's some confusion around that. Felicia is
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adamant that's what Nazara's mom told her the first [music] day that she called her. But Nazera's mom later
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states to police that her daughter never asked for that money. So, I don't know what to make of the discrepancy. Is
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someone lying? More likely, it's misremembering. Trauma does a hell of a lot to the brain. So, I wouldn't fault
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either of them if their truth was slightly off from center. [music] Either way, police are in on this owing someone
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money theory, and they have a pretty good idea who she owed money to. The world is full of mysteries that make
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us question everything we've ever known to be true. These events leave us with a
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sense of wonder and yearning for understanding. I'm Evette Gentile. and I'm her sister Rasha Pecarero. And each
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week on our podcast, So Supernatural, we take a deep dive into the world's most bizarre and puzzling mysteries. Ready to
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dive into the unknown? Join us every Friday for a new episode of So Supernatural, available wherever you
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listen to podcasts. Niger's phone records revealed a whole saga of things that happened over the 24
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hours before she and Destiny were killed. Turns out she'd actually called 911 not once but twice. Once in the
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early morning hours in the middle of the murders where you can hear gunshots. But
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she also called the police 24 hours before around the same time. So on the 2nd at 5:08 a.m. she called to report a
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man outside her apartment looking in people's vehicles. Police drive over and they do find a guy in the parking lot, a
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guy that we're going to call Chip. And Chip literally admits to the cops that he's there to sell weed. And in his car,
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they find over a pound of marijuana along with two legally owned guns. Now, marijuana is still illegal in Indiana.
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So, they confiscated the weed and issued him a court summons, which I mean is pretty lucky. They definitely could have
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arrested him. And it doesn't seem like he's saying who he was there to sell to. But Niger's phone records are now doing
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all the talking. They show that he was there to make a delivery to her. According to her messages, he got there.
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She went out to the parking lot to meet him and then must have called the police
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after she went back inside. Now, what would make her buy weed from someone and then call the police on
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them? It seems risky, but it makes me think again about Felicia's money theory. Like, what if Nigera owed this
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guy money? she didn't have enough to pay him what she owed him and she was afraid
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he'd [music] be back to get it or something like that. So, she called the police on him or what if he made [music]
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a threat to her when she was there and she was trying to get him taken away. But again, Chip was very much a free man
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after this and he was not happy. through Facebook Messenger, where he goes by a pseudonym that we're going to call Chips
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Ahoy, he found out she'd called the cops, and he demanded she pay him for the marijuana they confiscated. Now,
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initially, she said she was trying to, but there was an issue with her bank, but then the tone shifted. Chip's
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messages turned threatening, prompting Nazera to say she was going to get a protection order until she moved, which
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according to the messages would be soon. But Chip wasn't having it, stating she quote won't make it, and that he had
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friends in town to back him up. She wasn't worried, though. She said she and Destiny were planning to go out of town
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the next day, so quote, "Catch us in the city if you can, cuz it ain't going to be out here." So, if he's the culprit,
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the theory is that Nera hadn't been paying him, and calling the cops was the final straw. Now, detectives find Chip
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and bring him in for an interview where he confirms he did in fact deliver some weed to Nazera in the early morning
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hours of the second. He claims he's never been inside the apartment and denies killing the girls, but he can't
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say where he was at the time of the murders. That night, he claims he went to work at a local factory as usual, but
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left around 11:40 p.m. because of a headache. But he didn't go home. He drove around and started making some
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sales. But when it comes to exactly where he was driving, he can't say. He was smoking weed the whole time and
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claims he can't remember where he was, like at all. Has zero memory of that night. I don't know if investigators buy
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that. But when they ask Chip if they can get a DNA swab, he agrees. Even though at that point, they still didn't have
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anything to compare it to. All the evidence they had from the scene was still being processed. Now, they also
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ask Chip for his phone, but he refuses to let them search it. No biggie. They get his phone in social media records
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anyway. Plus, they review data from local license plate readers to try to cooperate his driving around story. And
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what they get paints a hazy picture of that night. First, the license plate readers. On November 3rd, when the women
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are believed to have been killed, they put him about four miles away at 2:00 a.m. and then again in the same area at
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6:00 a.m. [music] Then his cell phone records put him in the area of the apartment complex around the time of the
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murder, so 4:30 a.m.ish, although we couldn't get any more specifics on this, like just like how close he was. Those
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records also reveal that he was communicating with two other men both before and after 4:30 a.m. Now, we asked
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for these conversations. Detective Gallagher told us he'd like to hold on to those, and we won't be naming the two
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other guys. But investigators do have their phone records, too. [music] And what we can say is that after the
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murders, those two other guys were messaging back and forth saying, quote, "Don't say nothing to nobody." Once
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evidence starts coming back from the lab, it indicates that there may have been more than one killer as well. The
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casings they have indicate that there were two guns used in the attack, likely a rifle and a handgun. The same kind of
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weapons they'd found in Chip's car when they stopped him the night before in the
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very same apartment complex where Nera and Destiny would be murdered. But here's the catch. The rifle was seized
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shortly after the murders. Investigators also do a bit of digging on the shoe prints and determine they're either from
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Nike Katie Trey 53 shoes or Nike Katie Trey 54 shoes. They're basketball sneakers, but investigators can't
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determine if anyone connected to the case owned a pair. So, at least for right now, the shoe prints are also sort
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of a dead end. What they need is DNA or a fingerprint, something they can compare to literally anyone. But the
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Indiana State Lab says they can't get anything like that off the rest of the evidence.
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The questions I keep coming back to were like, "Who is this Chip guy?" Like, could he have gotten two people to help
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him commit double homicide? Digging into him didn't really help me answer that second question. It turns out Chip's
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just a small town drug dealer from Gary, Indiana. [music] I don't know what persuasive power he has, if these are
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like close friends of his. No clue. But it's not like he's some big crime boss out there who's ordering hits on people.
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So maybe answers lay with the two men he was communicating with that night. Police don't get to talk to them
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immediately. Detective Gallagher wanted more evidence before tipping them off that he's on to them, but he's trying to
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make that happen now. He's been working the case diligently since 2022. And when
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the Indiana State Lab said there wasn't anything on the evidence, he wasn't going to give up. So earlier this year
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in 2025, he sent a bunch of evidence off to a private lab in Florida capable of doing more advanced DNA [music] testing.
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And lo and behold, they got DNA and a print. Now, that comes with some caveats. One, the print is off Nera's
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phone case, and it very well may be Nazera's. One of the many challenges they've run into in this case is not
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being able to get fingerprints from Destiny or Nazera because they were too decomposed by the time their bodies were
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found. Even after such a short period, it just wasn't possible. There are fingerprints all over the apartment. But
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without being able to compare them directly to both Destiny and Nazera, Detective Gallagher just doesn't feel
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comfortable assuming whose is whose. The second caveat is that the DNA they got was from the gloves, which Detective
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Gallagher thinks are related to the crime scene, but they can't be 100% sure because they weren't found at the scene.
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And he didn't tell us whether it was male DNA for sure. And before you ask, Chip's DNA is in Cotus, and they did
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compare it to it, but it wasn't a match. Same thing with the print. Not a match.
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and no matches in Aphus. Now, this development just came through and Detective Gallagher hasn't had a chance
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to print or swab the other two guys yet. If they're not a match, then there's only two paths forward when it comes to
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DNA. Wait for someone to slip up and get put into COTUS so they get a hit or tips
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come in that develop new suspects that they can directly compare against. I asked about IGG, but unfortunately the
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DNA sample they had was used up, so they don't have enough to do any genealogy stuff with. So that's why Detective
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Gallagher asked us to share this case with you. They've looked far and wide for alternate suspects, but haven't
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found anything. They even went digging into the girl's backgrounds, checked out an ex-girlfriend of Nazera's who had a
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tumultuous breakup with her. I mean, Destiny was the reason for the breakup. She'd cheated on this other girl to be
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with Destiny, but even she was quickly ruled out. Chip was recently arrested this year on a weapons law violation,
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but he's still out and about. Detective Gallagher feels strongly that this case is solvable, and they're on the right
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track. They just need something, a confession, a witness. And that's where you guys come in. Crime
00:22:30
junkies, the guys who do things like this, don't normally keep things like this to themselves. If there was ever a
00:22:37
time to come forward, it's now. Destiny's family wants justice for the young [music] woman they say loved and
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forgave so easily. She was described as the glue that held her family together and an inspiration to her eight siblings
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because she wanted to pursue higher education. And Nera's family went to see justice
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for the funloving girl who had an infectious smile. Her mother said she remembers the heart-shaped pancakes
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Nazera made for her on her last birthday they shared together. a testament to how
00:23:06
deeply she cared about her loved ones. If you know anything about the murders of Destiny Jackson and Isara Muhammad,
00:23:13
you can contact the Hobart Police Department. I'm going to have the contact information in the show notes.
00:23:19
And don't forget, we're releasing two episodes today on unsolved Indiana cases. So, there is another story told
00:23:25
by Ashley that's in your feeds right now. That episode is Murdered Jessica [music] Star. Go take a listen. You can
00:23:32
find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkie.com. And if you want to listen to this
00:23:37
episode and all of our episodes completely adree, be sure to join the fan club. You'll also get early access
00:23:42
[music] to new episodes every week. And you can follow us on Instagram, CrimeJunky Podcast. [music] Ashley and I
00:23:48
will be back next week with a brand new episode.