January 30, 2025 • 33 mins
On July 30, 2020, in Starke County, Indiana, a 911 call came from North County Road 1025 East just before 3:30 a.m.
The caller, a man named Zachary, had worked late that night and had gotten home and climbed into bed when he said that he and fiancé were woken up by someone pounding on their door.
The man was 27-year-old Nicholas Rudd. Nick said that he had been shot, but neither Zachary nor his fiancé had heard gunshots.
What he didn’t know was that Nick had not been shot, he had been attacked with a hammer, and stabbed in the neck. He was bleeding to death on their doorstep, and the killer was still outside.
If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
The School of Humans to be honest with views.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It happened so fast, and I mean I just woke
up to him banging in my house saying that he
just got shot. And the hell, my whole.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Porch just covered in blood right now, I mean, he
was just covered in blood.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
On July thirtieth, twenty twenty, in Stark County, Indiana, a
nine to one to one call came from North County
Road ten to twenty five East just before three thirty am.
The caller had worked late that night. He had gotten
home and climbed into bed when he said that he
and his fiancee were woken up by someone pounding on
their door. The man was twenty seven year old Nicholas Rudd.
(00:50):
Nick said that he had been shot, but neither the
caller nor his fiancee had hurt any gunshots. What the
caller didn't know was that Nick had not been shot.
He had been attacked with a hammer and stabbed in
the neck. He was bleeding to death on their door step,
and the killer was still outside.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast,
Helen Gone, I've learned that there is no such thing
as a small town where murder never happens. I have
received hundreds of messages from people all around the country
asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
their families, and their communities. If you have a case
you'd like me and my team to look into, you
(01:32):
can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder
line at six seven eight seven four four six one
four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six
one four five, or you can send us a message
on Instagram at Helen Gonepod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
(02:38):
So the caller refused to let Nick inside the house. Understandably,
they wanted to help, but they were also afraid and
wanted to assess the situation first, so they called nine
one one, but by the time nine one one got there,
Nick was gone. Nick ran to another neighbor's house. Now
by this time Nick was bleeding to death. When he
(02:59):
got to another neighbor's home, he collapsed. The neighbor ran
out into her porch and tried to help him, while
also calling nine one one and putting towels over Nick's wounds.
While she tried to render first aid. She told the
dispatcher that she was talking to Nick. The dispatcher asked
the caller to keep talking to him, to ask who
shot him?
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Okay? Can he answer you?
Speaker 5 (03:22):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (03:24):
Who shot.
Speaker 7 (03:26):
He says he can't breathe.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Did he say who shot him?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Honey?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
That's I need to know, he said, She said, a
bald guy.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
It's very hard to hear.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Nick is gasping for air, but the caller was able
to get him to say that his name was Nicholas,
and Nick said a bald guy had shot him. He
died before the paramedics arrived. Police rushed to the scene
and quickly realized that Nick had not been shot. He
had actually been stabbed. He had defensive wounds on his
(04:01):
right arm and a fatal stab wound to his neck.
After that s woon, he would have bled out in minutes.
But who would want to kill Nick?
Speaker 4 (04:10):
And why?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Nick was twenty seven years old, and though we had
a troubled past and became involved with drugs in high school,
he had seemed to be trying to get to a
better place. He grew up in North Judson, Indiana. It's
suburban with a population of about twelve hundred, and like
any small town, it's somewhere where everyone seems to know
each other, but it's also a place that has had
(04:34):
its share of property crimes, drugs, and violence. We talked
to Nick's friend Cliff Gosh.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I met Nick in fifth or fourth grade. Yeah, I
think he just came back from moved back from Georgia.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
And we met. We got along pretty much right away, and.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
We were friends for probably the good part of like
ten years, probably best friends all the way through high school.
We were pretty much inseparable, everything from like playing guitar
and chasing girls, you know, going to party. You know,
it's just the high school kids. I think we were
safe havings for each other for a lot of things
in high school. I know, he had like a really
(05:13):
crappy upbringing, and.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
You know, he would come to stay and me with
me and my dad for like a week at a time,
you know.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So we were super close, and then we had a
bit of a falling out because he was doing bad stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Cliff said that during high school, Nick got into drugs,
beginning with marijuana and then eventually methamphetamines. Nick also got
involved in crime, and Cliff believed some of those early
decisions changed Nick's life Eventually, Cliff said that Nick stole
Cliff's father's identity, which led to Nick being arrested and
(05:51):
convicted of forgery in twenty eleven. According to court records,
he was sentenced to eighteen months in prison.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, that was pretty much out of our relationship. I
didn't talk to him, So we didn't talk for like
six years.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Nick had been in a relation relationship with the mother
of his daughter, and when he got out, the relationship
ended acrimoniously after a custody battle. Nick's family said that
he no longer saw his daughter. Then he got married
to Destiny in twenty fourteen. His family said that she
was a very good influence on Nick. They had two
(06:26):
sons together, and for a while life was good.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
It looked like.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
His life had started to turn around. Cliff said that
he actually ran into Nick just a few days before
he died.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
It's it was difficult because we had you done so
much for each other. I know, like he's made bad
decisions or whatever, but like I always wanted to be
his friend, to be there for him.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
So when I seen him, he was like, hey, man,
like you know, you know I'm doing good.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
We should hang out, play some guitar, and I kind
of just say, you know, I don't know, it's still
kind of I was almost there, but not lay there,
and it's a little I get hold of them.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
So that was after them, But those times didn't last.
A few months before he died, Nick and his wife Destiny, separated.
Since he was no longer living at home, he started
staying on and off with friends, including a guy named
(07:31):
Brandon Combs. On the night he was killed, Nick was
hanging out about half a mile away with his sister Stephanie. Stephanie,
by the way, knew Brandon from way back. Also, like
I said, it's a small town. Nick was planning on
going back to Brandon's. At this point, he'd been staying
at Brandon's for a few weeks. Stephanie said that she
was texting back and forth with Brandon to ask when
(07:53):
he would be home, and that finally, I think around
three am, Brandon texted back to say that he was
there at his house. So Stephanie drove Nick there. When
they got there, she went in Brandon's house with Nick.
Speaker 6 (08:08):
And so when we went down there, I was out
of milk at the house, so I got.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Some milk from Brandon and I just made sure.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
I told him to make sure Nicholas got to say,
you know, he needed to get to sleep, not to
little leave or go with anybody. And he was I mean,
he acted normal to me. But like I said, I
was using at the time. But as far as I
can remember, Brandon act was perfectly normal. The only weird
thing is get a huge TV in his room, and
(08:38):
that's where that him and Nicholas were at, and he
had all of his degree cameras put up on the
you know, they were pulled up so you could see
every angle of the house.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Stephanie left minutes later, and then a few minutes after that,
the killer approached the house with a hammer in one
hand and a spearlike object in the other. Police quickly
figured out the killer kicked the door of Brandon's house down.
Brandon and Nick ran out the back. Nick was carrying
the hammer when he left the house, so obviously he
(09:09):
fought his killer, and then the killer continued to chase
him to the neighbor's house. That's where he was stabbed
in the neck, which ended up being the fatal wound.
He also had a defensive wound on his upper right arm,
which he probably sustained while fighting for his life. Brandon's
house in the neighbor's houses quickly became crime scenes. After
(09:33):
police checked security cameras, they found that Brandon's house did
have a camera outside the front door. Unfortunately, there was
no footage of the fatal attack, but there was footage
of the killer.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Lieutenant Calea.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Miller described the footage and said, quote, just before that
nine to one one call was made, there was a
male suspect seen kicking in the door of the home
and it appears that the suspect is armed with a
hammer and bladed object. He gains entry, we see Nick
run out. He is being chased running toward the house
where they called nine one one end quote. This footage
(10:10):
has not been shown to the public, but Nick's mother, Michelle,
and sister Stephanie were allowed to view it at the
police station.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
So you see Nick running out of the house.
Speaker 7 (10:20):
Nick runs off the porch and he runs into the
grass that you can't see him because he run into
the house next door. It is a thirty or forty
five seconds time before this guy comes out of the
house after Nick, a good thirty to forty five seconds,
and Nick when he comes out before this guy. He's
got the hammer whatever it is, in his hand. I'm
(10:42):
sure he fought with the guy. You more or less
see the time of the image in the light itself.
Walking along the road is Brandon's house. From the porch
to the road was not even thirty forty feet something
like that, so Nick, of course the guy was looking
for Nick.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Nick was hiding.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Michelle talked to local media and the police. Eventually the
police did release an image to the public. They gave
it crime stoppers and hope that someone might see something
something that would be able to help solve the case.
The photograph was taken on night vision and for red camera,
so it's very blown out. Everything looks white, but it
(11:23):
appears as though the killer was wearing a dark colored
possibly a black suit and hoodie. And just thinking back
to what Nick said about a bald man shooting him,
the killer may have been bald, but in the image,
he also looked as if he could have been wearing
something that covered his hair, possibly a ball of clava,
and it looks like he may even have a mask
(11:44):
covering his face. It's just really hard to tell due
to the lighting. He also seemed to have on some
sort of protective goggles. By the way, I'm saying he
because the police have described the suspect as male, obviously
we don't know for sure. It does appear to be
a male, but that's really all we know. Because the
killer was in disguise, we also know he was carrying
(12:07):
a hammer in one hand and something else in the other.
We talked to the detective in charge the investigation, who
confirmed that the killer was holding a homemade weapon of
some kind, some type of spear attached to what appeared
to be a cattle prod.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Stephanie is very.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Open about the fact that at the time her brother died,
she was a heroin dealer, and she revealed that Nick
had also recently begun using heroin. His drug usage was
one of the reasons he and his wife, Destiny separated.
But besides Stephanie and Nick, Stephanie said almost no one
else knew that he was using heroin. Along with the
(12:46):
footage from the first caller's front door, police also found
video of the front of Brandon's house taken from a
doorbell camera. Again, they have not made this footage public,
but Michelle and Stephanie have seen it, and they described
what they saw to us. The footage shows stephanielling up
to Brandon's at around three fifteen am, and then Nick
(13:09):
getting out of the car. They both went inside the
house for a few minutes. Then the video shows Stephanie
going back to her car alone and her vehicle leaving.
Then just minutes later, the killer approaches the door. But
we don't know where the killer came from. Did he
drive there, did he park somewhere or with someone else
driving a getaway car. Nick's family finds the timing suspicious.
(13:33):
They wonder how did the killer know to come to
Brandon's house right after Stephanie left. Stephanie said that due
to her drug dealing, she changed vehicles frequently. She said
that only a few people knew what kind of car
she would be in that night. Was this a coincidence
or they wonder could it have been some kind of setup?
(13:53):
In that video, right before the killer arrived, Michelle said
she could see a car passing Brandon's house. She wondered,
could this be the killer?
Speaker 7 (14:03):
This car drives by really and you can't it's black
and white. You can't see the car. You see the lights,
you see the headlights, So it passes the house and
it probably goes down from just what we gather because.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Of the guy walking up to the back porch.
Speaker 7 (14:20):
He probably goes down and then somebody gets out whatever,
and then there's a little side road, and so within
a few minutes you see this guy walking up to
the deck.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Brandon had like patio doors.
Speaker 7 (14:30):
They were glassed, which is what is another strange thing
to me, That you're in the back and not facing
the road. You're in the back of the house. He
wanted to break in, Right, there's your patio doors. You're
looking through them. Then the guy looks heard of the camera.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
In the video, the killer approaches the house and then
kicks the door down and walks inside. About forty five
seconds later, by Michelle and Stephanie's descriptions, you can see
Brandon coming around from the back of the house. He
apparently crawled out of a window and Nick followed him.
After they got out of the house, the video shows
them taking off in separate directions. Nick ran toward the
(15:06):
first caller's house and Brandon, well, it's not clear where
he goes.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
Police found him the next day.
Speaker 7 (15:14):
They didn't find him until like three or four o'clock
that next afternoon.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Oh where did he go.
Speaker 7 (15:19):
He supposedly fell asleep at a ditch bank, that's what
he said. When they finally found him, he told a
story that he climbed out the window, which is a coward,
and he said that Nick was behind him, because when
the guy comes up to the porch and kicks the
door down, So when the guy goes to the back
then you don't see him. But then he comes up
(15:40):
to the front porch, of course, and he kicks the
door for five or six times at least. Yes, he
takes his leg and he's kicking this door.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
A lot of rumors were flying around after Nick's death,
but everyone seemed to agree on one thing. They believed
that the killing had been a hit, that someone went
there that night because they were targeting someone at that house,
probably nicko commenting on these rumors on social media, and
there were even comments about potential suspects on Nick's obituary,
(16:11):
asking about two people whose names we keep hearing. We
will call them Jay and h their first initials because
they have not been arrested or charged with anything. In fact,
no one has been arrested or charged at all in
connection with Nick Rudd's murder. Jay was Michelle's cousin, Stephanie,
said that she believed Nick had been spending time with
(16:33):
Jay's girlfriend. Jay was much older in his fifties, while
his girlfriend was closer to Nick's. Ah H was a
younger friend of Jay's, so there is a rumor that
Nick may have been involved in a love triangle with Jay.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
But another mode of.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
People mentioned was drugs, that Nick might owe money to
someone for drugs. In fact, Michelle said that one of
the last texts that Nick sent her involved a drug
debt to Jay.
Speaker 7 (17:00):
And one of the texts that he had sent Nick
one probably the last text that he sent Nick was
you know about if he get paid, He's get a killing.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
So drug debts do seem like they could be a
possible motive, but something police told Nick's family made them
believe money was not the motive.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Here.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
The police recovered nick wallet from his body and it
had five hundred dollars in it, So if money was
the motive, surely the killers would have taken that cash.
And in talking to local sources, we have not so
far found any evidence of a big drug debt. It
appears that the debt that Nick o Jay was around
one hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars, which doesn't
(17:40):
seem on the surface like an amount that would cause
someone to take the risk to kill.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
After Nick Rudd was.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Murdered, rumors were flying about possible people of interest, people
who supposedly had recent conflicts with Nick. But there were
more and more rumors flying around, one involving a love triangle.
So might there have been another reason why Jay would
have wanted to hurt Nick. As rumors were flying around
(18:13):
Stark County, Indiana, online commenters and Nick's family started suspecting
a couple of different motives involving Jay. One that was
seeming less and less likely was money. The other was
a love triangle. Stephanie said that Jay had a girlfriend
and that Nick was in some way involved with this woman.
If this is true, it could have made Jay or
(18:34):
someone who knew Jay angry. Jay is apparently older, in
his fifties, but people who have seen the photo and
no Jay have told us that Jay has a very
distinctive look, and everyone who has seen the photos agreed
the killer looks like a much younger man and also
just does not seem to match Jay's description. So Nick's
(18:57):
family wonders if Jay could have possibly hired someone to
target Nick. One theory discussed was that Jay and ten
for his hip man to just beat Nick up or
scare him, but then Nick surprised the killer by grabbing
the hammer and fighting back. I want to back up
a bit and talk about some misconceptions about hit men,
(19:18):
or to be less sexist, I could say hired assassins,
but just know when I say hit man, I mean
hit man and hit women when we see movies. Normally,
these assassins are glamorous James Vond style figures like villain
l and Killing Eve, or professionals who are quirky like
John Cusack and Gross point blank.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
But the reality is very different.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
And as someone who handles a lot of fraud cases
from my other podcast, Red Collar, I know that most
hit men are not like that normally. Very often they're
low level gangsters who carry out hits for very little money,
a lot of four and five figure amounts, and they
tend to make a lot of mistakes because when you
hire hit man, you get what you pay for. Also,
(20:01):
a lot of times people who want to kill someone
will hire one of these low rent hit men, and
to do that they go to their circle of friends.
Now this means there is more loyalty there, but it's
also big problem because there is a connection between the
person who hired the assassin and the assassin. They are friends,
they hang out together, and if one of them gets
busted by the police, likely sold the other one. There
(20:23):
was a study in twenty fourteen by Birmingham City University
in the UK. The professor who ran the study told
NBC News quote, these images are Hollywood eyes. The hit
man seems like quite an attractive image that people are
responding to. They are professional, very confident, hyper masculine.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
End quote. He goes on to explain that that's a
total myth.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
The professor said, these hits are not taking place in
internationally glamorous locations like casinos. They're happening while people are
out walking their dogs or coming home from the grocery store.
He said, quote, the hits were not in the underworld.
They were in the overworld, and usually with passers by
as witnesses looking on in abject horror.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
End quote.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
He had some other interesting statistics that I'll share just
because I am actually fascinated by this stuff. He said,
Tuesday is the most common day of the week for
a hit. March, May and July are the most common months,
and the average cost of killing someone is just over
twenty five thousand dollars. The highest payout he saw was
one hundred and sixty eight thousand dollars, but this was
(21:27):
back in twenty fourteen, so it might.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Have gone up since then.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
I do find the dark part of myself wondering, as
someone who studies this stuff, if hit man are affected
by inflation. The study broke hitman down into four types.
Type one they called the novice. This is the inexperienced
killer like someone's high school cousin, or the very young
gang members send out in a hit because he's probably
(21:50):
too young to be prosecuted, at least that's what the
other members believe. The second type is called the diletant.
This is the type of hit man who doesn't really
want to go through with a hit. When I think
of the diletant type, I think of the Robert Marshall
case is a great example of this. This guy was
living in Tom's River, New Jersey. He wanted to kill
his wife Maria because he was living way beyond his
(22:11):
means and having an affair. He couldn't afford to divorce Maria,
so we hired a hit man from Louisiana. But the
hit man, for a long time just kept taking Robert
Marshall's money and blowing him off. Because it turned out
he actually had a lot of sympathy for Robert Marshall's wife.
He didn't really want to kill her, but in the
end he had taken so much money that he basically
(22:31):
felt he had to go.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Through with it.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
But because he didn't want to do it himself, he
brought another accomplice in, which is part of the reason
he ended up getting caught. The third type of hit
man they call the journeyman. They explained it in the
news story as a hit man like John Travolta and
Samuel L. Jackson's characters in pulp fiction. This is the calm,
cool and collected hit man. Then there's probably the rarest
type the group of criminologists conducting the study called the Master.
(22:56):
According to NBC, these guys are hard to study because
when they do carry out a hit, it looks like
an accident or something random, so most of the time
they're floating around out there not getting caught. They mostly
have military backgrounds and her weapons experts.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
As I said, a lot of people who have.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Looked at Nick Rudd's case agrees that this was some
kind of targeted hit. As we know, Nick was separated
from his wife in the months before his murder. He
had been staying with his friend Brandon. According to Nick's sister, Stephanie,
both Nick and Brandon were involved in drugs during this time.
(23:33):
So there are a few possibilities here. One that the
killer was targeting Brandon or maybe just trying to steal
drugs from him, and that Nick coming there was something
the killer hadn't counted on, or this could have been
some kind of a setup. Brandon had security cameras in
his back bedroom. Stephanie has wondered why he didn't see
(23:53):
the killer circling the house. By the way, the police
also questioned Stephanie extensively. She was very forthcoming about this.
She believes they questioned her due to the fact that
she dropped Nick off and because she was a drug
user and dealer. Also, after police found Brandon the next day,
remember he'd allegedly slept outside, he was taken into custody
(24:15):
in question, but Brandon was never charged with anything connected
to next death, and then the case seemed to stall.
Michelle talked about her frustrations with the police during this time.
She believed that they had written this off as just
another drug murder.
Speaker 7 (24:31):
Stark County is very small. There's three towns in a
val Stark County in Indiana. There's North Judson where I live, Knox,
which is where that happened at, and then there's Orban Davis.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
It's all small, very very small.
Speaker 7 (24:45):
Nothing even the three counties, the three areas combined still
wouldn't make up a small city to you. Probably, so
everybody knows everything, like especially you know how that is
in small town talk and talk and gossip. We've heard
so many different stories. I couldn't even and I wish
looking back, and of course I wasn't even in my
right mind, I wrote I would have wrote down everything,
(25:09):
but I didn't didn't even know the importance of that,
because I'm sure I've forgotten a lot of things. And
some of the things was repetitive, you know. And so
two of the detectives that Stark County, it's out of Knox,
the Stark County Sheriff's department, well, they had like probably
three detectives on the case, right away.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
It was just like Barney Fife. I'm not even kidding, Uh,
it was it was a joke.
Speaker 7 (25:35):
They had really probably never investigated a homicide before and
they were thrown into it.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
But recently police agreed to let Stephanie and Michelle rewatch
the video of the night that Nick was murdered. Stephanie
and Michelle said since they had been talking to this podcast,
they felt that the police were being more responsive to them.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
You've been involved with the podcast. They've been getting a
lot more phone calls, which you know, obviously some of
those are crap, you know, but yeah, yeah, but there's
more people, you know, people are talking again. He did
inform us that he had gotten a tip that day.
Of course, he didn't say what it was or who
it was, but he did say that they had had
a call.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Stephanie told us that when she and her mother rewatched
the video, they found themselves focusing on details that they
had not noticed before. And again, these are details that
have never been made public.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
I did notice, and I told the detectives. I thought
it was just kind of funny saying it. But in
the one clip of the guy walking around back, he
bends over at some point in time. I don't know
if he dropped something, but he could tell when he
bent over, like his clothing stretched around it, and you
could see that he was a little sicker on the hips.
And so then he walked around and I got to
(26:52):
watch the video footage that they showed us. It was
not the original footage that I got to see. It
was from up. It was up closer, and it was
at a different direction. The camera the one camera that
they showed us the footage on, and it was in color,
and we got to see. I know it's hard to watch,
but it was Nick running out and then it takes
(27:13):
a while and then the guy runs out after him.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Stephanie said the way the person in the video walked
reminded her of someone. We won't use their name here
because it's not someone police, to our knowledge, have ever
mentioned in their investigation at all, and we're not sure
if they've ever even interviewed this person. Stephanie also said
she noticed something else when she rewatched the video, the
fact that the killer walked around to the back of
(27:38):
the house with the glass patio and made a point
to come back to the front door to gain entry
to the house.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
A year prior to all this happening, probably a little
over year, the couse rated Brandon's house to arrest him
and literally tried to kick the door in, and eventually
they had to knock on the door ass be let
in so they could do this raid because they couldn't.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Get into the house.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
Brendan had reinforced his door so instead of just you
know when you put a new door knob on your door,
instead of those little screws that come in the pack
that's only like an inch or too long. Yeah, he
put in like seven eight inch nails like screws through
the side of the house. So it was reinforced really good. Yeah,
(28:26):
the guy when he walks up, which I thought was
kind of and it could have been just a coincidence
that he did it, but when he walks up, he
kicked the door in. Before he even kicked the door,
and he goes to turn the handle like it's like
he's it's like, I need it to be unlocked. Yeah
that I know, I locked the door when I walked out,
so maybe maybe it was opposed to be unlocked, you know.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Chief Detective David Combs from the Stark County Sheriff's Office
emailed us and said that h J and Brandon have
all been interviewed several times. He said, quote, currently, I'm
not comfortable saying that anyone has been ruled out. As
of right now, there has not been any suspect DNA identified.
I've revisited the crime scene and reviewed crime scene photographs
(29:08):
end quote. There are still a lot of questions in
this case, like was Nick the target that night, and
if so, who wanted him dead, who set him up?
And whin who is the bald guy? Was that a
crucial clue or just something random? He blurted out. The
killer may have been wearing a mask or a balaklava.
(29:28):
That could either mean that Nick somehow fought the guy
and got the balaklava off or pulled the mask down,
or that he mistook the smooth surface for a bald head.
Or it could have just been something random. He blurted out.
At that point, he was dying and he could have
been confused. He was wrong about being shot. Then again,
he did know his own name. He seemed to be
(29:50):
trying to get a message across I just wish we
could figure out what that message is. Michelle said that
one thing that puzzles her is that Nick knew everyone
who has been named as a potential person of interest.
So if he recognized his killer, why why wouldn't he
name them when he was asked who it was?
Speaker 7 (30:08):
Nick knew of them. So I really think the bald
thing has very little. It's irrelevant because I think that
in his mind he thought that they were bald.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
But here's another thing that I thought.
Speaker 7 (30:20):
And here's another theory of mine, because the guy, like
I said, the guy was thirty to forty five seconds later.
You know, Nick had that much time to run from him,
and we ran out of the house. So I don't
know if Nick pulled the mask off of him when
they were fighting, and it took him a few seconds
to kind of re situate, put the masks on, put
the hat on, and their run out.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
That's just the theory of mine.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
There didn't seem to be much other evidence.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Michelle said that some evidence had been sent for DNA
testing in South Bend, Indiana, which does have more facilities,
but she said detectives there have told her so far
they have not found any matches other than the video footage,
which is a public The best piece of evidence that
we have.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Is that photo.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
I really believe someone out there knows something something that
could help lead to an arrest. One thing we've heard
is that h J's friend worked at a fertilizer plant,
and that apparently people who work at fertilizer plants do
wear outfits similar to the one on camera. I've also
heard it could be someone who works in farming or.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
Works with seeds. In this community, there is a.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Lot of farming, so I know that we have to
cast a wide net, but we have to start with
the crime scene. In what we know, someone out there
might recognize some detail, maybe the writing on the jacket
or the type of coat, which to me looks a
little like a rain slicker. The tiniest detail could crack
this case, and Nick and his family and his children
(31:51):
deserve that. We'll post that image on our instagram at
helen gonpot. Crime Stoppers has announced a reward of twenty
five hundred dollars. You can be totally anonymous with them.
If the tip leads to the solving of the case
or an arrest, you're eligible to collect that money. You
can also contact crime Stoppers at five four eight two
(32:12):
eight eight stop, or you can call the Star County
Sheriff's Office at five seven four, seven, seven two three
seven seven to one. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen
Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production
of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and
narrated by me Katherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts.
(32:33):
Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance. Noah
camer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is
by Ben Salek, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
and L. C.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Crowley.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the
iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
If you are interested in seeing.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Documents and materials from the case, you can follow the
show on Instagram at Helen Gonpott. If you have a
case you'd like me and my team to look into,
you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone
Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six
one four five that six seven eight seven four four
six one four five.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
School of Humans
The School of Humans to be honest with views.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It happened so fast, and I mean I just woke
up to him banging in my house saying that he
just got shot. And the hell, my whole.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Porch just covered in blood right now, I mean, he
was just covered in blood.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
On July thirtieth, twenty twenty, in Stark County, Indiana, a
nine to one to one call came from North County
Road ten to twenty five East just before three thirty am.
The caller had worked late that night. He had gotten
home and climbed into bed when he said that he
and his fiancee were woken up by someone pounding on
their door. The man was twenty seven year old Nicholas Rudd.
(00:50):
Nick said that he had been shot, but neither the
caller nor his fiancee had hurt any gunshots. What the
caller didn't know was that Nick had not been shot.
He had been attacked with a hammer and stabbed in
the neck. He was bleeding to death on their door step,
and the killer was still outside.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast,
Helen Gone, I've learned that there is no such thing
as a small town where murder never happens. I have
received hundreds of messages from people all around the country
asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
their families, and their communities. If you have a case
you'd like me and my team to look into, you
(01:32):
can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder
line at six seven eight seven four four six one
four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six
one four five, or you can send us a message
on Instagram at Helen Gonepod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
(02:38):
So the caller refused to let Nick inside the house. Understandably,
they wanted to help, but they were also afraid and
wanted to assess the situation first, so they called nine
one one, but by the time nine one one got there,
Nick was gone. Nick ran to another neighbor's house. Now
by this time Nick was bleeding to death. When he
(02:59):
got to another neighbor's home, he collapsed. The neighbor ran
out into her porch and tried to help him, while
also calling nine one one and putting towels over Nick's wounds.
While she tried to render first aid. She told the
dispatcher that she was talking to Nick. The dispatcher asked
the caller to keep talking to him, to ask who
shot him?
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Okay? Can he answer you?
Speaker 5 (03:22):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (03:24):
Who shot.
Speaker 7 (03:26):
He says he can't breathe.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Did he say who shot him?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Honey?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
That's I need to know, he said, She said, a
bald guy.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
It's very hard to hear.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Nick is gasping for air, but the caller was able
to get him to say that his name was Nicholas,
and Nick said a bald guy had shot him. He
died before the paramedics arrived. Police rushed to the scene
and quickly realized that Nick had not been shot. He
had actually been stabbed. He had defensive wounds on his
(04:01):
right arm and a fatal stab wound to his neck.
After that s woon, he would have bled out in minutes.
But who would want to kill Nick?
Speaker 4 (04:10):
And why?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Nick was twenty seven years old, and though we had
a troubled past and became involved with drugs in high school,
he had seemed to be trying to get to a
better place. He grew up in North Judson, Indiana. It's
suburban with a population of about twelve hundred, and like
any small town, it's somewhere where everyone seems to know
each other, but it's also a place that has had
(04:34):
its share of property crimes, drugs, and violence. We talked
to Nick's friend Cliff Gosh.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I met Nick in fifth or fourth grade. Yeah, I
think he just came back from moved back from Georgia.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
And we met. We got along pretty much right away, and.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
We were friends for probably the good part of like
ten years, probably best friends all the way through high school.
We were pretty much inseparable, everything from like playing guitar
and chasing girls, you know, going to party. You know,
it's just the high school kids. I think we were
safe havings for each other for a lot of things
in high school. I know, he had like a really
(05:13):
crappy upbringing, and.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
You know, he would come to stay and me with
me and my dad for like a week at a time,
you know.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So we were super close, and then we had a
bit of a falling out because he was doing bad stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Cliff said that during high school, Nick got into drugs,
beginning with marijuana and then eventually methamphetamines. Nick also got
involved in crime, and Cliff believed some of those early
decisions changed Nick's life Eventually, Cliff said that Nick stole
Cliff's father's identity, which led to Nick being arrested and
(05:51):
convicted of forgery in twenty eleven. According to court records,
he was sentenced to eighteen months in prison.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, that was pretty much out of our relationship. I
didn't talk to him, So we didn't talk for like
six years.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Nick had been in a relation relationship with the mother
of his daughter, and when he got out, the relationship
ended acrimoniously after a custody battle. Nick's family said that
he no longer saw his daughter. Then he got married
to Destiny in twenty fourteen. His family said that she
was a very good influence on Nick. They had two
(06:26):
sons together, and for a while life was good.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
It looked like.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
His life had started to turn around. Cliff said that
he actually ran into Nick just a few days before
he died.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
It's it was difficult because we had you done so
much for each other. I know, like he's made bad
decisions or whatever, but like I always wanted to be
his friend, to be there for him.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
So when I seen him, he was like, hey, man,
like you know, you know I'm doing good.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
We should hang out, play some guitar, and I kind
of just say, you know, I don't know, it's still
kind of I was almost there, but not lay there,
and it's a little I get hold of them.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
So that was after them, But those times didn't last.
A few months before he died, Nick and his wife Destiny, separated.
Since he was no longer living at home, he started
staying on and off with friends, including a guy named
(07:31):
Brandon Combs. On the night he was killed, Nick was
hanging out about half a mile away with his sister Stephanie. Stephanie,
by the way, knew Brandon from way back. Also, like
I said, it's a small town. Nick was planning on
going back to Brandon's. At this point, he'd been staying
at Brandon's for a few weeks. Stephanie said that she
was texting back and forth with Brandon to ask when
(07:53):
he would be home, and that finally, I think around
three am, Brandon texted back to say that he was
there at his house. So Stephanie drove Nick there. When
they got there, she went in Brandon's house with Nick.
Speaker 6 (08:08):
And so when we went down there, I was out
of milk at the house, so I got.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Some milk from Brandon and I just made sure.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
I told him to make sure Nicholas got to say,
you know, he needed to get to sleep, not to
little leave or go with anybody. And he was I mean,
he acted normal to me. But like I said, I
was using at the time. But as far as I
can remember, Brandon act was perfectly normal. The only weird
thing is get a huge TV in his room, and
(08:38):
that's where that him and Nicholas were at, and he
had all of his degree cameras put up on the
you know, they were pulled up so you could see
every angle of the house.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Stephanie left minutes later, and then a few minutes after that,
the killer approached the house with a hammer in one
hand and a spearlike object in the other. Police quickly
figured out the killer kicked the door of Brandon's house down.
Brandon and Nick ran out the back. Nick was carrying
the hammer when he left the house, so obviously he
(09:09):
fought his killer, and then the killer continued to chase
him to the neighbor's house. That's where he was stabbed
in the neck, which ended up being the fatal wound.
He also had a defensive wound on his upper right arm,
which he probably sustained while fighting for his life. Brandon's
house in the neighbor's houses quickly became crime scenes. After
(09:33):
police checked security cameras, they found that Brandon's house did
have a camera outside the front door. Unfortunately, there was
no footage of the fatal attack, but there was footage
of the killer.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Lieutenant Calea.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Miller described the footage and said, quote, just before that
nine to one one call was made, there was a
male suspect seen kicking in the door of the home
and it appears that the suspect is armed with a
hammer and bladed object. He gains entry, we see Nick
run out. He is being chased running toward the house
where they called nine one one end quote. This footage
(10:10):
has not been shown to the public, but Nick's mother, Michelle,
and sister Stephanie were allowed to view it at the
police station.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
So you see Nick running out of the house.
Speaker 7 (10:20):
Nick runs off the porch and he runs into the
grass that you can't see him because he run into
the house next door. It is a thirty or forty
five seconds time before this guy comes out of the
house after Nick, a good thirty to forty five seconds,
and Nick when he comes out before this guy. He's
got the hammer whatever it is, in his hand. I'm
(10:42):
sure he fought with the guy. You more or less
see the time of the image in the light itself.
Walking along the road is Brandon's house. From the porch
to the road was not even thirty forty feet something
like that, so Nick, of course the guy was looking
for Nick.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Nick was hiding.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Michelle talked to local media and the police. Eventually the
police did release an image to the public. They gave
it crime stoppers and hope that someone might see something
something that would be able to help solve the case.
The photograph was taken on night vision and for red camera,
so it's very blown out. Everything looks white, but it
(11:23):
appears as though the killer was wearing a dark colored
possibly a black suit and hoodie. And just thinking back
to what Nick said about a bald man shooting him,
the killer may have been bald, but in the image,
he also looked as if he could have been wearing
something that covered his hair, possibly a ball of clava,
and it looks like he may even have a mask
(11:44):
covering his face. It's just really hard to tell due
to the lighting. He also seemed to have on some
sort of protective goggles. By the way, I'm saying he
because the police have described the suspect as male, obviously
we don't know for sure. It does appear to be
a male, but that's really all we know. Because the
killer was in disguise, we also know he was carrying
(12:07):
a hammer in one hand and something else in the other.
We talked to the detective in charge the investigation, who
confirmed that the killer was holding a homemade weapon of
some kind, some type of spear attached to what appeared
to be a cattle prod.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Stephanie is very.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Open about the fact that at the time her brother died,
she was a heroin dealer, and she revealed that Nick
had also recently begun using heroin. His drug usage was
one of the reasons he and his wife, Destiny separated.
But besides Stephanie and Nick, Stephanie said almost no one
else knew that he was using heroin. Along with the
(12:46):
footage from the first caller's front door, police also found
video of the front of Brandon's house taken from a
doorbell camera. Again, they have not made this footage public,
but Michelle and Stephanie have seen it, and they described
what they saw to us. The footage shows stephanielling up
to Brandon's at around three fifteen am, and then Nick
(13:09):
getting out of the car. They both went inside the
house for a few minutes. Then the video shows Stephanie
going back to her car alone and her vehicle leaving.
Then just minutes later, the killer approaches the door. But
we don't know where the killer came from. Did he
drive there, did he park somewhere or with someone else
driving a getaway car. Nick's family finds the timing suspicious.
(13:33):
They wonder how did the killer know to come to
Brandon's house right after Stephanie left. Stephanie said that due
to her drug dealing, she changed vehicles frequently. She said
that only a few people knew what kind of car
she would be in that night. Was this a coincidence
or they wonder could it have been some kind of setup?
(13:53):
In that video, right before the killer arrived, Michelle said
she could see a car passing Brandon's house. She wondered,
could this be the killer?
Speaker 7 (14:03):
This car drives by really and you can't it's black
and white. You can't see the car. You see the lights,
you see the headlights, So it passes the house and
it probably goes down from just what we gather because.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Of the guy walking up to the back porch.
Speaker 7 (14:20):
He probably goes down and then somebody gets out whatever,
and then there's a little side road, and so within
a few minutes you see this guy walking up to
the deck.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Brandon had like patio doors.
Speaker 7 (14:30):
They were glassed, which is what is another strange thing
to me, That you're in the back and not facing
the road. You're in the back of the house. He
wanted to break in, Right, there's your patio doors. You're
looking through them. Then the guy looks heard of the camera.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
In the video, the killer approaches the house and then
kicks the door down and walks inside. About forty five
seconds later, by Michelle and Stephanie's descriptions, you can see
Brandon coming around from the back of the house. He
apparently crawled out of a window and Nick followed him.
After they got out of the house, the video shows
them taking off in separate directions. Nick ran toward the
(15:06):
first caller's house and Brandon, well, it's not clear where
he goes.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
Police found him the next day.
Speaker 7 (15:14):
They didn't find him until like three or four o'clock
that next afternoon.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Oh where did he go.
Speaker 7 (15:19):
He supposedly fell asleep at a ditch bank, that's what
he said. When they finally found him, he told a
story that he climbed out the window, which is a coward,
and he said that Nick was behind him, because when
the guy comes up to the porch and kicks the
door down, So when the guy goes to the back
then you don't see him. But then he comes up
(15:40):
to the front porch, of course, and he kicks the
door for five or six times at least. Yes, he
takes his leg and he's kicking this door.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
A lot of rumors were flying around after Nick's death,
but everyone seemed to agree on one thing. They believed
that the killing had been a hit, that someone went
there that night because they were targeting someone at that house,
probably nicko commenting on these rumors on social media, and
there were even comments about potential suspects on Nick's obituary,
(16:11):
asking about two people whose names we keep hearing. We
will call them Jay and h their first initials because
they have not been arrested or charged with anything. In fact,
no one has been arrested or charged at all in
connection with Nick Rudd's murder. Jay was Michelle's cousin, Stephanie,
said that she believed Nick had been spending time with
(16:33):
Jay's girlfriend. Jay was much older in his fifties, while
his girlfriend was closer to Nick's. Ah H was a
younger friend of Jay's, so there is a rumor that
Nick may have been involved in a love triangle with Jay.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
But another mode of.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
People mentioned was drugs, that Nick might owe money to
someone for drugs. In fact, Michelle said that one of
the last texts that Nick sent her involved a drug
debt to Jay.
Speaker 7 (17:00):
And one of the texts that he had sent Nick
one probably the last text that he sent Nick was
you know about if he get paid, He's get a killing.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
So drug debts do seem like they could be a
possible motive, but something police told Nick's family made them
believe money was not the motive.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Here.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
The police recovered nick wallet from his body and it
had five hundred dollars in it, So if money was
the motive, surely the killers would have taken that cash.
And in talking to local sources, we have not so
far found any evidence of a big drug debt. It
appears that the debt that Nick o Jay was around
one hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars, which doesn't
(17:40):
seem on the surface like an amount that would cause
someone to take the risk to kill.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
After Nick Rudd was.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Murdered, rumors were flying about possible people of interest, people
who supposedly had recent conflicts with Nick. But there were
more and more rumors flying around, one involving a love triangle.
So might there have been another reason why Jay would
have wanted to hurt Nick. As rumors were flying around
(18:13):
Stark County, Indiana, online commenters and Nick's family started suspecting
a couple of different motives involving Jay. One that was
seeming less and less likely was money. The other was
a love triangle. Stephanie said that Jay had a girlfriend
and that Nick was in some way involved with this woman.
If this is true, it could have made Jay or
(18:34):
someone who knew Jay angry. Jay is apparently older, in
his fifties, but people who have seen the photo and
no Jay have told us that Jay has a very
distinctive look, and everyone who has seen the photos agreed
the killer looks like a much younger man and also
just does not seem to match Jay's description. So Nick's
(18:57):
family wonders if Jay could have possibly hired someone to
target Nick. One theory discussed was that Jay and ten
for his hip man to just beat Nick up or
scare him, but then Nick surprised the killer by grabbing
the hammer and fighting back. I want to back up
a bit and talk about some misconceptions about hit men,
(19:18):
or to be less sexist, I could say hired assassins,
but just know when I say hit man, I mean
hit man and hit women when we see movies. Normally,
these assassins are glamorous James Vond style figures like villain
l and Killing Eve, or professionals who are quirky like
John Cusack and Gross point blank.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
But the reality is very different.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
And as someone who handles a lot of fraud cases
from my other podcast, Red Collar, I know that most
hit men are not like that normally. Very often they're
low level gangsters who carry out hits for very little money,
a lot of four and five figure amounts, and they
tend to make a lot of mistakes because when you
hire hit man, you get what you pay for. Also,
(20:01):
a lot of times people who want to kill someone
will hire one of these low rent hit men, and
to do that they go to their circle of friends.
Now this means there is more loyalty there, but it's
also big problem because there is a connection between the
person who hired the assassin and the assassin. They are friends,
they hang out together, and if one of them gets
busted by the police, likely sold the other one. There
(20:23):
was a study in twenty fourteen by Birmingham City University
in the UK. The professor who ran the study told
NBC News quote, these images are Hollywood eyes. The hit
man seems like quite an attractive image that people are
responding to. They are professional, very confident, hyper masculine.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
End quote. He goes on to explain that that's a
total myth.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
The professor said, these hits are not taking place in
internationally glamorous locations like casinos. They're happening while people are
out walking their dogs or coming home from the grocery store.
He said, quote, the hits were not in the underworld.
They were in the overworld, and usually with passers by
as witnesses looking on in abject horror.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
End quote.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
He had some other interesting statistics that I'll share just
because I am actually fascinated by this stuff. He said,
Tuesday is the most common day of the week for
a hit. March, May and July are the most common months,
and the average cost of killing someone is just over
twenty five thousand dollars. The highest payout he saw was
one hundred and sixty eight thousand dollars, but this was
(21:27):
back in twenty fourteen, so it might.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Have gone up since then.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
I do find the dark part of myself wondering, as
someone who studies this stuff, if hit man are affected
by inflation. The study broke hitman down into four types.
Type one they called the novice. This is the inexperienced
killer like someone's high school cousin, or the very young
gang members send out in a hit because he's probably
(21:50):
too young to be prosecuted, at least that's what the
other members believe. The second type is called the diletant.
This is the type of hit man who doesn't really
want to go through with a hit. When I think
of the diletant type, I think of the Robert Marshall
case is a great example of this. This guy was
living in Tom's River, New Jersey. He wanted to kill
his wife Maria because he was living way beyond his
(22:11):
means and having an affair. He couldn't afford to divorce Maria,
so we hired a hit man from Louisiana. But the
hit man, for a long time just kept taking Robert
Marshall's money and blowing him off. Because it turned out
he actually had a lot of sympathy for Robert Marshall's wife.
He didn't really want to kill her, but in the
end he had taken so much money that he basically
(22:31):
felt he had to go.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Through with it.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
But because he didn't want to do it himself, he
brought another accomplice in, which is part of the reason
he ended up getting caught. The third type of hit
man they call the journeyman. They explained it in the
news story as a hit man like John Travolta and
Samuel L. Jackson's characters in pulp fiction. This is the calm,
cool and collected hit man. Then there's probably the rarest
type the group of criminologists conducting the study called the Master.
(22:56):
According to NBC, these guys are hard to study because
when they do carry out a hit, it looks like
an accident or something random, so most of the time
they're floating around out there not getting caught. They mostly
have military backgrounds and her weapons experts.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
As I said, a lot of people who have.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Looked at Nick Rudd's case agrees that this was some
kind of targeted hit. As we know, Nick was separated
from his wife in the months before his murder. He
had been staying with his friend Brandon. According to Nick's sister, Stephanie,
both Nick and Brandon were involved in drugs during this time.
(23:33):
So there are a few possibilities here. One that the
killer was targeting Brandon or maybe just trying to steal
drugs from him, and that Nick coming there was something
the killer hadn't counted on, or this could have been
some kind of a setup. Brandon had security cameras in
his back bedroom. Stephanie has wondered why he didn't see
(23:53):
the killer circling the house. By the way, the police
also questioned Stephanie extensively. She was very forthcoming about this.
She believes they questioned her due to the fact that
she dropped Nick off and because she was a drug
user and dealer. Also, after police found Brandon the next day,
remember he'd allegedly slept outside, he was taken into custody
(24:15):
in question, but Brandon was never charged with anything connected
to next death, and then the case seemed to stall.
Michelle talked about her frustrations with the police during this time.
She believed that they had written this off as just
another drug murder.
Speaker 7 (24:31):
Stark County is very small. There's three towns in a
val Stark County in Indiana. There's North Judson where I live, Knox,
which is where that happened at, and then there's Orban Davis.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
It's all small, very very small.
Speaker 7 (24:45):
Nothing even the three counties, the three areas combined still
wouldn't make up a small city to you. Probably, so
everybody knows everything, like especially you know how that is
in small town talk and talk and gossip. We've heard
so many different stories. I couldn't even and I wish
looking back, and of course I wasn't even in my
right mind, I wrote I would have wrote down everything,
(25:09):
but I didn't didn't even know the importance of that,
because I'm sure I've forgotten a lot of things. And
some of the things was repetitive, you know. And so
two of the detectives that Stark County, it's out of Knox,
the Stark County Sheriff's department, well, they had like probably
three detectives on the case, right away.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
It was just like Barney Fife. I'm not even kidding, Uh,
it was it was a joke.
Speaker 7 (25:35):
They had really probably never investigated a homicide before and
they were thrown into it.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
But recently police agreed to let Stephanie and Michelle rewatch
the video of the night that Nick was murdered. Stephanie
and Michelle said since they had been talking to this podcast,
they felt that the police were being more responsive to them.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
You've been involved with the podcast. They've been getting a
lot more phone calls, which you know, obviously some of
those are crap, you know, but yeah, yeah, but there's
more people, you know, people are talking again. He did
inform us that he had gotten a tip that day.
Of course, he didn't say what it was or who
it was, but he did say that they had had
a call.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Stephanie told us that when she and her mother rewatched
the video, they found themselves focusing on details that they
had not noticed before. And again, these are details that
have never been made public.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
I did notice, and I told the detectives. I thought
it was just kind of funny saying it. But in
the one clip of the guy walking around back, he
bends over at some point in time. I don't know
if he dropped something, but he could tell when he
bent over, like his clothing stretched around it, and you
could see that he was a little sicker on the hips.
And so then he walked around and I got to
(26:52):
watch the video footage that they showed us. It was
not the original footage that I got to see. It
was from up. It was up closer, and it was
at a different direction. The camera the one camera that
they showed us the footage on, and it was in color,
and we got to see. I know it's hard to watch,
but it was Nick running out and then it takes
(27:13):
a while and then the guy runs out after him.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Stephanie said the way the person in the video walked
reminded her of someone. We won't use their name here
because it's not someone police, to our knowledge, have ever
mentioned in their investigation at all, and we're not sure
if they've ever even interviewed this person. Stephanie also said
she noticed something else when she rewatched the video, the
fact that the killer walked around to the back of
(27:38):
the house with the glass patio and made a point
to come back to the front door to gain entry
to the house.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
A year prior to all this happening, probably a little
over year, the couse rated Brandon's house to arrest him
and literally tried to kick the door in, and eventually
they had to knock on the door ass be let
in so they could do this raid because they couldn't.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Get into the house.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
Brendan had reinforced his door so instead of just you
know when you put a new door knob on your door,
instead of those little screws that come in the pack
that's only like an inch or too long. Yeah, he
put in like seven eight inch nails like screws through
the side of the house. So it was reinforced really good. Yeah,
(28:26):
the guy when he walks up, which I thought was
kind of and it could have been just a coincidence
that he did it, but when he walks up, he
kicked the door in. Before he even kicked the door,
and he goes to turn the handle like it's like
he's it's like, I need it to be unlocked. Yeah
that I know, I locked the door when I walked out,
so maybe maybe it was opposed to be unlocked, you know.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Chief Detective David Combs from the Stark County Sheriff's Office
emailed us and said that h J and Brandon have
all been interviewed several times. He said, quote, currently, I'm
not comfortable saying that anyone has been ruled out. As
of right now, there has not been any suspect DNA identified.
I've revisited the crime scene and reviewed crime scene photographs
(29:08):
end quote. There are still a lot of questions in
this case, like was Nick the target that night, and
if so, who wanted him dead, who set him up?
And whin who is the bald guy? Was that a
crucial clue or just something random? He blurted out. The
killer may have been wearing a mask or a balaklava.
(29:28):
That could either mean that Nick somehow fought the guy
and got the balaklava off or pulled the mask down,
or that he mistook the smooth surface for a bald head.
Or it could have just been something random. He blurted out.
At that point, he was dying and he could have
been confused. He was wrong about being shot. Then again,
he did know his own name. He seemed to be
(29:50):
trying to get a message across I just wish we
could figure out what that message is. Michelle said that
one thing that puzzles her is that Nick knew everyone
who has been named as a potential person of interest.
So if he recognized his killer, why why wouldn't he
name them when he was asked who it was?
Speaker 7 (30:08):
Nick knew of them. So I really think the bald
thing has very little. It's irrelevant because I think that
in his mind he thought that they were bald.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
But here's another thing that I thought.
Speaker 7 (30:20):
And here's another theory of mine, because the guy, like
I said, the guy was thirty to forty five seconds later.
You know, Nick had that much time to run from him,
and we ran out of the house. So I don't
know if Nick pulled the mask off of him when
they were fighting, and it took him a few seconds
to kind of re situate, put the masks on, put
the hat on, and their run out.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
That's just the theory of mine.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
There didn't seem to be much other evidence.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Michelle said that some evidence had been sent for DNA
testing in South Bend, Indiana, which does have more facilities,
but she said detectives there have told her so far
they have not found any matches other than the video footage,
which is a public The best piece of evidence that
we have.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Is that photo.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
I really believe someone out there knows something something that
could help lead to an arrest. One thing we've heard
is that h J's friend worked at a fertilizer plant,
and that apparently people who work at fertilizer plants do
wear outfits similar to the one on camera. I've also
heard it could be someone who works in farming or.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
Works with seeds. In this community, there is a.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Lot of farming, so I know that we have to
cast a wide net, but we have to start with
the crime scene. In what we know, someone out there
might recognize some detail, maybe the writing on the jacket
or the type of coat, which to me looks a
little like a rain slicker. The tiniest detail could crack
this case, and Nick and his family and his children
(31:51):
deserve that. We'll post that image on our instagram at
helen gonpot. Crime Stoppers has announced a reward of twenty
five hundred dollars. You can be totally anonymous with them.
If the tip leads to the solving of the case
or an arrest, you're eligible to collect that money. You
can also contact crime Stoppers at five four eight two
(32:12):
eight eight stop, or you can call the Star County
Sheriff's Office at five seven four, seven, seven two three
seven seven to one. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen
Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production
of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and
narrated by me Katherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts.
(32:33):
Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance. Noah
camer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is
by Ben Salek, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
and L. C.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Crowley.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the
iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
If you are interested in seeing.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Documents and materials from the case, you can follow the
show on Instagram at Helen Gonpott. If you have a
case you'd like me and my team to look into,
you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone
Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six
one four five that six seven eight seven four four
six one four five.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
School of Humans
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