May 1, 2025 • 28 mins
It was April 21, 2006, and 21-year-old college student Nina Ingram was coming home after a long day.
Nina had a very busy life. She was two years into her business degree at Northwest Arkansas Community college in Bentonville, Arkansas and also worked full time at Walmart, part of the loss prevention team, basically a security officer.
That night, Nina had worked her shift, ate dinner at her boyfriend's apartment, and then drove back to her apartment complex a little after 10 pm.
Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. But the next day, no one heard from Nina.
At around 2 pm her other brother, Noah, and his partner, Chad, drove over to Nina’s apartment to check on her.
They knocked on the door, but Nina didn’t answer. So her brother climbed through an open window into the kitchen.
Chad waited outside while Noah unlocked the door and the deadbolt, which were both locked. Seconds later, he heard Noah scream.
Chad went in through the now unlocked front door and raced into Nina’s bedroom in the back of the apartment; he and Noah saw her lying face up on the bed with what Chad described as very visible red scratches and bruises around her neck. Chad told police that he knew immediately that she was dead.
Was Nina Ingram murdered by a serial killer, was this a random attack, or was it someone she knew?
If you have a case you’d like the Hell and Gone team 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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
from family and community members, their statements should not be
considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
(01:10):
inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It was April twenty first, two thousand and six, and
twenty one year old college student Nina Ingram was coming
home after a long day.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Nina had a very busy life. She was two years into.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Her business degree at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
She also worked at Walmart.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
She was part of the Lost Prevention team, basically a
security officer. That night, Nina had worked her shift at
the Walmart supercenter on Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard in Fayetville.
She got off work at nine pm, picked up some
fast food, and then went to hang out with her
boyfriend Josh Stewart at his apartment. They hung out for
(02:07):
a little while, but Josh later told detectives that Nina
seemed quiet, like something may be on her mind. She
said that nothing was wrong, she was just tired. When
she left Josh's house between ten thirty and eleven pm,
she was driving Josh's pickup truck. Josh later told police
they often swapped vehicles. Surveillance camera showed that Nina pulled
(02:29):
into her apartment complex a little after ten pm. She
got out of her vehicle and walked toward her unit,
Unit one on the ground floor of the Law Quad
apartment complex. The officer would later observe from what he
saw on camera that as Nina left the vehicle and
walked toward her apartment that nothing seemed to be out
of the ordinary. But the next day, April twenty second,
(02:52):
no one heard from Nina. She didn't respond to her
boyfriend's text. Josh also tried to call her and left
several boys mails, but Nina never replied, and then she
didn't show up to give her brother Nelson a ride
to school, which Nina did often. When she failed to
show for her shift that day at Walmart that was
supposed to start at one pm, her family started to
(03:13):
get seriously worried. At around two pm, Nina's other brother, Noah,
and his roommate Chad Williams, drove over to Nina's apartment
to check on her. They knocked on the door, but
Nina didn't answer. Nina had two cats, family members later
told police she had a habit of opening the front
window just a crack so that the cats could get
(03:35):
some mayor. The window to the right of the front
door was open about two to three inches and unlocked,
so her brother pushed the window all the way open
and crawled into the kitchen. Chad waited outside why Noah
unlocked the door and the dead bolt, which were both locked.
Seconds later, he heard Noah scream. Chad went in through
(03:56):
the now unlocked front door and raced back into Nina's bedroom.
He and Noah saw her lying face up on the
bed with what Chad described as very visible red scratches
and bruises around her neck. Chad told police he knew
immediately that Nina was dead. This case involves a lot
(04:18):
of twists, and turns. But we're going to try to
figure out was Nina Ingram murdered by a serial killer?
Was this a random attack, or was it someone she knew.
I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years of making
my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned that there's
no such thing as a small town where murder never happens.
(04:39):
I've 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
can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder
line at six seven eight seven four four six one
four or five. That's six seven eight seven four four six,
(05:01):
one four or five. Or you can send us a
message on Instagram at Helen gonepod. This is Helen Gone
Murder Line. Immediately after Nina's brother Noah and Chad found
(05:56):
Nina's body at around two nineteen pm, Chad called the police.
Detectives raised to the scene at the Law Quad apartments.
They started taping up the crime scene and canvassing residents,
but it was a pretty quiet apartment complex.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Police found out.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Only a few neighbors knew Nina and they hadn't seen
anything out of the ordinary. Nina was very close to
her family. Her mother, Judy, told a local news station
that her daughter did not drink or do drugs. She
called Nina quote an outstanding Christian girl with no enemies
end quote. Nina Ingram was born and raised in Lillian, Texas.
(06:35):
Right before she started her freshman year of high school,
she moved to Fayettville, Arkansas, with her mom and two
of her brothers. Even though her father and other brothers
stayed behind in Texas, she stayed in close contact with them.
Detectives talked to police at the walmart where Nina worked.
They determined she was well liked by most of the staff.
(06:55):
A friend of hers named Freddie Hollingsworth told detectives he
wondered if Nina could have been targeted by someone she
busted for shoplifting, but detectives found that unlikely. Of course,
they wanted to talk to Nina's boyfriend, Josh. Pretty Much
everyone said Nina and Josh were very happy together and
had a great relationship. A friend of Nina said they'd
(07:16):
considered moving in together, and Nina had even talked to
one coworker about possibly marrying Josh, though things weren't perfect.
Another coworker told police Josh had recently gone through Nina's
phone to see who she had been talking to. When
detectives interviewed Josh, they asked about the night of Nina's death.
(07:36):
Josh said that on April twenty first, Nina called him
from work. She told him she would come by his
place afterwards and some food.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
He said.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
She arrived shortly after her shift at Walmart with Firehouse
subs and a Taco Bell bag. Josh said Nina ate
the Taco Bell food and he ate the Firehouse sub food.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
He said they hung out for a little while.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
He estimated she left his place between ten thirty and
eleven PM. Throughout the investigation, Josh was completely cooperative. He
also voluntarily gave his DNA to police. He let investigators
know he was available to talk with them at any time.
Law enforcement quickly cleared him. One big question that detectives
(08:19):
had was how did the killer get in. Detectives began
formulating a theory that Nina's attacker had lay in wait
for her near her door when she came home that night.
And then rushed her as she went into her apartment.
When Nina's brother Noah arrived, the door was locked. He
specifically told detectives he had to unlock two locks, both
the regular door lock and the dead bolt to let
(08:42):
chat in. No signs of struggle Inside Nina's apartment, there
seemed to be nothing out of place, but to be fair,
the living room was barely sparse, with just a love seat, barstool, bookshelf,
and a few other items, so it is possible the
killer could have forced Nina inside that apartment and back
to her bedroom without necessarily knocking things over. Nina had
(09:05):
been brutally strangled, but there were no signs of sexual
assault and nothing had been taken from her apartment, at
least nothing obvious. Nina's purse was found near her body.
There was five dollars inside that purse, so the motive
did not appear to be robbery. There was a cigarette
butt found in a flower pot outside. Detective said it
(09:28):
appeared to have been there for some time. Nina's keys
with her key ring were also found inside the apartment,
so we're wondering how did the killer get in, but
also how did the killer get back?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Out.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
The cracked window at Nina's apartment had a screen on it.
Noah had removed it to crawl through the window because
the door was locked. After he was done, he left
the screen lying outside. Police noted the back bathroom window
was also unlocked, but detectives said it was difficult to
open and they didn't see any of the dust there undisturbed,
(10:03):
so the killer likely came in and out through either
the front door or front window. Unfortunately, police found no fingerprints.
They did find something in a dumpster outside, a single glove.
They tested a hair on that glove and found that
it didn't match Nina's DNA and they were unable to
find a match for it. Detectives noticed a footprint that
(10:25):
seemed to be out of place against the back of
the front door. They saw a scuff mark about thirty
one inches from the bottom of that door, but they
were unable to find more footprints from the interior in
the front kitchen. In the report, it stated that was
possibly because there were layers of dust and cat hair
on the kitchen floor, which made it difficult to get
any imprints. Did Nina's assailant kick the door shut behind him,
(10:50):
or could that have been a random print from some
time before this. Detectives had no idea that surveillance footage
in Nina's apartment complex showed her arriving home in Josh's
white pickup truck just before ten fifteen pm. However, according
to the police report, the quality of the footage was
(11:10):
so poor detectives couldn't really identify any other vehicles in
the parking lot during that crucial time period. The detectives
did ask the FBI to enhance a couple of images,
but there's no indication that that led to anything. When
Nina got out of her car, it appeared on that
surveillance tape that she was alone, but the surveillance footage
(11:32):
did not reach her apartment door. One thing that Josh
said about his and Nina's last night together was that
she seemed to be in a little bit of a
quiet mood that night, and several other people she saw
that day said she was acting like something might be wrong.
Josh also told detectives before Nina left his house that night,
(11:53):
she used his computer to communicate with someone. He did
not know who that person was, so police got search
warrants for both Josh and Nina's computers, a Compact Presario
twenty one hundred laptop.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
They also took Nina's cell.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Phone and looked through it, but apparently they found nothing
of evidentiary value in any of those devices. There was
one odd thing, which we'll come back to later. There
was a message from someone named Joey. It read quote,
I see be careful, be one hundred percent sea and
they wrote sea like cya end quote. So who was
(12:30):
Nina communicating with? Could Nina have been talking to her killer?
A question detectives were trying to answer was was Nina's
killer a stranger or someone she knew. There were a
(12:53):
lot of men in Nina's orbit, male friends, co workers,
and people who passed through the store every day, her
friends told detectives. Because Nina was an attractive woman and
she was a nice person, she got hit on a lot.
Police talked to a census worker named Jianne Marillo. She
had talked to Nina at her door on April nineteenth.
(13:14):
Janne said before she talked to her, she had seen
a tall, white, slender man with dark hair go into
the apartment with Nina. She said the guy stayed in
the back bedroom while she and Nina spoke. The census
worker also said that every day that she was at
that apartment complex, Nina's window was cracked open, and every
time there was a cat sitting at the window. It's
(13:36):
not clear whether or not police ever identified who this
man was at Nina's apartment complex.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
We wondered if it.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Could have been her boyfriend, Josh, but police talked to
Josh and he said that he had not been to
Nina's apartment complex in months. Normally Nina would stay at
his place. It could have been Nina's brother, but nothing
that we saw in the case file addresses this issue,
so we don't know. Everyone in Nina's life was baffled
about who could want to hurt her. Everyone seemed to
(14:05):
love Nina. She seemed to have a truly kind heart,
and she always went out of her way to help people.
At the same time, some people who knew Nina described
her as a loner. Police talked to her professors at school.
They said that she was friendly, she would interact in class,
but they said she didn't seem to have one particular
friend or group of friends, that she mostly stayed to herself.
(14:29):
At work, it was the same story. She was friendly
and professional, but also no nonsense. We talked to Nina's cousin, Danielle,
and she said Nina was a little bit misunderstood that way.
It wasn't that she was standoffish, she was just a
little bit shy. Danielle said that Nina genuinely cared about
people and she was a very good listener.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
The summer that she was fifteen, she came down and
lived with us for the summer in Douglas. Came down
from Arkansas and at the time, my mother had a
pizza restaurant, and Nina and I spent that whole summer
working for my mom making pizzas, and we had so
much fun. That was probably the best summers ever. And
Nina was always a hard worker, though she never never
(15:10):
shied away from doing a job.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
I wouldn't call her.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
An introvert her. She was a very social person, but
she didn't need to be the spotlight. She was a
really good listener. She didn't feel the need to have
a lot of attention on her. But because of that,
everyone really trusted her and wanting to be friends with her,
because she just had a way of putting people at ease.
She just made people feel comfortable in their own skin.
She didn't have to impress her or you know, put
(15:34):
on a mask with her. She was just like, whoever
you are, I love you.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Reading between the lines of these police reports, it seemed
like a lot of the men who knew Nina were
attracted to her and wanted to ask her out, but
either she was oblivious to it or she didn't want
to encourage it. A co worker gave an example. They
said one day, Nina had to go to court for
some reason. Afterwards, she went straight to work her shift.
(16:02):
They said that on that day, Nina was dressed up
more formally. The co worker told investigators he made some
kind of comment about her looking good that day and
asking why she didn't dress like that every day. Nina
said something about not wanting to be hassled. She didn't
want people to ask her out. She just wanted to
do her job. The coworker, by the way, was not
(16:22):
the one who made the comments to Nina.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
He was just telling police what happened.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Police spoke with the assistant manager at the walmart Nina
worked at in Rogers, Bobby Blackbird. She talked about an employee,
Casey Ake. Bobby said Casey played online poker with Nina
and that quote, everyone knew he was crazy about her.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
End quote.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Bobby said she believed Casey was in love with Nina.
Casey had talked about asking Nina out, but then seemed
to back off once Nina started dating.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Her boyfriend Josh.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
After Nina died, detectives searched Casey's home and found nothing.
But I did see when they talked about the search
in their reports, they specifically mentioned taking a look at
his shoes and then putting them back in the closet.
They didn't find anything on that search, but they seemed
to be clearly trying to figure out who left that
footprint scuffed on Nina's door. According to Nina's autopsy, her
(17:19):
cause of death was ligature strangulation. The manner of death
was homicide. The medical examiner, doctor Charles Kocis, said that
Nina was strangled with some type of ligature, something between
one sixteenth and one eighth of an inch wide. The
autopsy provided a few more clues. Whatever happened inside that apartment,
(17:39):
it seemed to have been a violent struggle. Nina was
five feet nine inches tall and weigh one hundred and
fifty one pounds, so depending on how large her killer was,
this might not have been an easy fight. By the
time her body was found, rigor mortis had left the
body and there was marked lividity. Police believed her killer
(18:00):
murdered her on the bed and then left her there,
and the time of death was consistent from when Nina
got home on the night of the twenty first. Police
believed her body had not been moved since then. The
autopsy noted Nina had several scratches on the front of
her neck, and scratches around the mouth and chin, mostly
on the left side of her face, and distinct ligature
(18:22):
grooves on both sides of her neck. One rumor that
started going around after the murder was that Nina's throat
had been slit. This was not true, but it was
one that was repeated by people for years. I'm guessing
that rumor might have started because of those marks that
were found on Nina's neck at the crime scene. Chat
(18:43):
said that they looked like cuts. According to the autopsy report,
Nina had another heavy abrasion just below her left ear,
and there were two more abrasions on her chest near
the clavicle. Those two big bruises on her clavicle were unexplained.
This is just a guess on my part. I think
(19:04):
it is possible that Nina's killer could have sat on
her or pressed their knees down onto her chest. The
medical examiner noted she had petikia or hemorrhaging in her eyes, face,
left leg, and left arm that were consistent with strangulation
or asphyxia. Particial hemorrhaging was also present on the interior throat, muscles,
(19:24):
and larynx. In addition, her hyoid bone was damaged. There
were no defensive wounds on Nina's hands and no trauma
to any part of the body except the neck, chest,
and face. The contents of her stomach were consistent with
her last meal from Taco Bell. More and more in
investigators were thinking Nina came home and right when she
(19:47):
was at her door, or right after she came inside,
the killer pounced. Her cell phone was found still in
her pocket, so she never had a chance to even
try to call for help. The attack must have come
as a complete shock, and detective still had.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
No murder weapon.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
They found a belt in the kitchen trash can, but
there was no DNA found on it except for Nina's.
Presumably it was also ruled out as the murder weapon
because it was too wide. Remember the murder weapon was
one sixteenth to one eighth of an inch wide. They
also tested other things in the house, including the mini
blind cords, but again they found no foreign DNA. All
(20:26):
of the fingerprints they found in the apartment were Nina's
except for one partial palm print, and it was not
a match to anyone in the DNA database. So, along
with no murder weapon, police still didn't have a motive.
It did not appear that Nina had been sexually assaulted.
She was found fully clothed, wearing a blue Royals T shirt, jeans,
(20:47):
and a jogging suit jacket. She had her broad and
underwear on. They appeared to have been undisturbed. There was
semen found in Nina's vagina, but the fluids were found
to have been a mixture of her DNA and Josh's DNA.
He told the investigators they had consensual sex the night
before when she stayed over at his place. Again, there
were no signs of sexual assault or of trauma to
(21:09):
her vaginal area. There was no blood or semen found
rectley or orally. Investigators also found no blood or semen
on her t shirt, jean jacket, shoes, bra or underwear.
They tested other items, including the bedding, the bed and
her miniblinds for blooder semen, but found no trace on
any of them either. Detectives did find some hairs inside
(21:31):
the apartment, but forensic testing showed they were all either
Nina's hairs or her cat's hairs. Detectives were canvassing the
apartment complex because maybe her killer didn't rush her inside
the apartment. Maybe it was someone she knew and they
knocked on the door and she let them in. Did
her killer lock the door behind themselves, because if so,
(21:54):
that would presumably mean they would need a key. Police
obviously considered this possibility. They were trying to figure out
who had keys to Nina Ingram's apartment. On April twenty third,
the day after Nina's body was found, police talked to
the management company for the apartment complex, Mansfield Properties. They
found out that the maintenance worker for that complex was
(22:15):
a thirty one year old man named Billy Gray. They
went to his house and he voluntarily agreed to come
to the Fville Police Department for an interview. They asked
Billy about service request for Nina's apartment apartment number one.
Billy Gray said he had been to that apartment complex
in recent weeks to make repairs to apartments number five
and number forty two. Apartment five, by the way, was
(22:36):
Nina's upstairs neighbor, but he said he did not remember
making any repairs in apartment number one. He said all
repairs were documented by the property management company and that
before repairs were made they had to fill out work orders.
They also kept a record of problems that were reported
by tenants. Billy said on April fourteenth, he checked out
(22:57):
the law Quad Master keys to make some repairs in
the complex. Billy Gray showed detectives the place where the
master keys were kept at the Garden Park apartment shop.
He also voluntarily gave DNA samples. Police searched Billy's residence
after he gave his consent. They found nothing of evidentiary value,
so he was also cleared. When detectives talked to the
(23:18):
manager of Mansfield Properties, he also said something else that
I found interesting. He said that Nina's unit, apartment number
one had been rented to a construction company for two
months and then it sat vacant for a month before
Nina moved in. Police got the name of the guy
who rented the apartment for the company. His name was
Henry Jordan Junior. They apparently did more investigating into the
(23:41):
company and its records, but they didn't see to find
any leads there. They found one glove in that dumpster
outside Nina's apartment, but the DNA on the glove was
never identified, another dead end. The investigation seemed to stall,
but in twenty twelve, six years after Nina Ingram was murdered,
(24:02):
someone was arrested. Nina's family laid her arrest in a
pastel high neck dress, probably to camouflage the ligature marks
(24:23):
on her neck. Over the years, her mother, Judy Ingram,
spoke out about the devastating loss of her daughter. She
encouraged people to keep Nina's memory alive. She wrote a
book about Nina's life and death called The Brightest Star.
In two thousand and nine, Nina's mom told a local
news station quote, I know it's been three years, but
I'm not giving up in any way, shape or form.
(24:45):
I know someone out there knows something, and that person
needs to come forward.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Nina deserves it. End quote. Police didn't say much. Over
the years.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
There would be updates on anniversaries of the murder, but
detectives would simply say, as they often do, this case
was an open and active investigation. The detective working the
case at the time said, quote, we just need that
one break end quote. Detectives identified several people of interest
over the years, but in the end made no arrests.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
They talked to.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Neighbors, friends, family members, and a lot of other people,
including a guy who lived nearby in the woods and
someone who randomly fired a bullet into a nearby apartment.
They took DNA from a lot of people, but as
I read through this case file, I wondered what DNA
they were comparing because they got cheek swabs from a
(25:38):
lot of different people, but it's really not clear in
the case file what those swabs were being compared to.
It's one of the things that we're going to try
to figure out as this investigation goes forward. Danielle, Nina's cousin,
said she grieves for the life that Nina lost.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
So I could imagine her and josphing together and having
a beautiful family, and like, those are just things I'll
never know now, and we probably would have been raising
kids together and going through life together. And I'll never
know how she would have been there for me going
to my divorce, how she would have been there to
celebrate my kid's smile, so what her kids would have
been like like, I'll just never know those things.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Over the years, the case grew cold, even though it
was a big deal in northwest Arkansas, one of the
only unsolved murder cases in that region since the nineteen seventies.
One of the other cases was the University of Arkansas
student known a Dirkmeyer. Her name will come up later
in this investigation in a way that I never saw coming.
(26:43):
Six years passed with no big breaks, and then in
April twenty twelve, after the new detective was assigned to
the case, suddenly there was an arrest of someone who
no one with knowledge of the case had ever heard of,
a man named Rico Cone. How Rico Cone got onto
the police radar is very controversial.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
It's something that to my knowledge, has not been reported
on in full.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Next week, we're going to cover the arrest and trial
of Rico Cone, the evidence against him, and a crazy
connection to the murder of Nonah Dirtmeyer, who some people
believe was murdered by a serial killer who killed Nina Ingram.
Was it someone random, a stranger she offended in some
way as the police in twenty twelve seemed to believe,
(27:33):
or could it have been someone much closer to her,
someone she let in, someone she trusted, And finally, is
her killers still alive and out there?
Speaker 3 (27:47):
I'm Katherine Townsend.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of
Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced
by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her
research assistance and James Wheaton for legal review. Noah Camera
mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is by
Ben Salek, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and
LC Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing
(28:17):
to the iHeart True Crime Plus.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Channel on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
If you were interested in seeing documents and materials from
the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at
Helen Gone Pod. If you have a case you let
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's six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
School of Humans
School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
from family and community members, their statements should not be
considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
(01:10):
inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It was April twenty first, two thousand and six, and
twenty one year old college student Nina Ingram was coming
home after a long day.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Nina had a very busy life. She was two years into.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Her business degree at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
She also worked at Walmart.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
She was part of the Lost Prevention team, basically a
security officer. That night, Nina had worked her shift at
the Walmart supercenter on Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard in Fayetville.
She got off work at nine pm, picked up some
fast food, and then went to hang out with her
boyfriend Josh Stewart at his apartment. They hung out for
(02:07):
a little while, but Josh later told detectives that Nina
seemed quiet, like something may be on her mind. She
said that nothing was wrong, she was just tired. When
she left Josh's house between ten thirty and eleven pm,
she was driving Josh's pickup truck. Josh later told police
they often swapped vehicles. Surveillance camera showed that Nina pulled
(02:29):
into her apartment complex a little after ten pm. She
got out of her vehicle and walked toward her unit,
Unit one on the ground floor of the Law Quad
apartment complex. The officer would later observe from what he
saw on camera that as Nina left the vehicle and
walked toward her apartment that nothing seemed to be out
of the ordinary. But the next day, April twenty second,
(02:52):
no one heard from Nina. She didn't respond to her
boyfriend's text. Josh also tried to call her and left
several boys mails, but Nina never replied, and then she
didn't show up to give her brother Nelson a ride
to school, which Nina did often. When she failed to
show for her shift that day at Walmart that was
supposed to start at one pm, her family started to
(03:13):
get seriously worried. At around two pm, Nina's other brother, Noah,
and his roommate Chad Williams, drove over to Nina's apartment
to check on her. They knocked on the door, but
Nina didn't answer. Nina had two cats, family members later
told police she had a habit of opening the front
window just a crack so that the cats could get
(03:35):
some mayor. The window to the right of the front
door was open about two to three inches and unlocked,
so her brother pushed the window all the way open
and crawled into the kitchen. Chad waited outside why Noah
unlocked the door and the dead bolt, which were both locked.
Seconds later, he heard Noah scream. Chad went in through
(03:56):
the now unlocked front door and raced back into Nina's bedroom.
He and Noah saw her lying face up on the
bed with what Chad described as very visible red scratches
and bruises around her neck. Chad told police he knew
immediately that Nina was dead. This case involves a lot
(04:18):
of twists, and turns. But we're going to try to
figure out was Nina Ingram murdered by a serial killer?
Was this a random attack, or was it someone she knew.
I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years of making
my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned that there's
no such thing as a small town where murder never happens.
(04:39):
I've 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
can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder
line at six seven eight seven four four six one
four or five. That's six seven eight seven four four six,
(05:01):
one four or five. Or you can send us a
message on Instagram at Helen gonepod. This is Helen Gone
Murder Line. Immediately after Nina's brother Noah and Chad found
(05:56):
Nina's body at around two nineteen pm, Chad called the police.
Detectives raised to the scene at the Law Quad apartments.
They started taping up the crime scene and canvassing residents,
but it was a pretty quiet apartment complex.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Police found out.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Only a few neighbors knew Nina and they hadn't seen
anything out of the ordinary. Nina was very close to
her family. Her mother, Judy, told a local news station
that her daughter did not drink or do drugs. She
called Nina quote an outstanding Christian girl with no enemies
end quote. Nina Ingram was born and raised in Lillian, Texas.
(06:35):
Right before she started her freshman year of high school,
she moved to Fayettville, Arkansas, with her mom and two
of her brothers. Even though her father and other brothers
stayed behind in Texas, she stayed in close contact with them.
Detectives talked to police at the walmart where Nina worked.
They determined she was well liked by most of the staff.
(06:55):
A friend of hers named Freddie Hollingsworth told detectives he
wondered if Nina could have been targeted by someone she
busted for shoplifting, but detectives found that unlikely. Of course,
they wanted to talk to Nina's boyfriend, Josh. Pretty Much
everyone said Nina and Josh were very happy together and
had a great relationship. A friend of Nina said they'd
(07:16):
considered moving in together, and Nina had even talked to
one coworker about possibly marrying Josh, though things weren't perfect.
Another coworker told police Josh had recently gone through Nina's
phone to see who she had been talking to. When
detectives interviewed Josh, they asked about the night of Nina's death.
(07:36):
Josh said that on April twenty first, Nina called him
from work. She told him she would come by his
place afterwards and some food.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
He said.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
She arrived shortly after her shift at Walmart with Firehouse
subs and a Taco Bell bag. Josh said Nina ate
the Taco Bell food and he ate the Firehouse sub food.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
He said they hung out for a little while.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
He estimated she left his place between ten thirty and
eleven PM. Throughout the investigation, Josh was completely cooperative. He
also voluntarily gave his DNA to police. He let investigators
know he was available to talk with them at any time.
Law enforcement quickly cleared him. One big question that detectives
(08:19):
had was how did the killer get in. Detectives began
formulating a theory that Nina's attacker had lay in wait
for her near her door when she came home that night.
And then rushed her as she went into her apartment.
When Nina's brother Noah arrived, the door was locked. He
specifically told detectives he had to unlock two locks, both
the regular door lock and the dead bolt to let
(08:42):
chat in. No signs of struggle Inside Nina's apartment, there
seemed to be nothing out of place, but to be fair,
the living room was barely sparse, with just a love seat, barstool, bookshelf,
and a few other items, so it is possible the
killer could have forced Nina inside that apartment and back
to her bedroom without necessarily knocking things over. Nina had
(09:05):
been brutally strangled, but there were no signs of sexual
assault and nothing had been taken from her apartment, at
least nothing obvious. Nina's purse was found near her body.
There was five dollars inside that purse, so the motive
did not appear to be robbery. There was a cigarette
butt found in a flower pot outside. Detective said it
(09:28):
appeared to have been there for some time. Nina's keys
with her key ring were also found inside the apartment,
so we're wondering how did the killer get in, but
also how did the killer get back?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Out.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
The cracked window at Nina's apartment had a screen on it.
Noah had removed it to crawl through the window because
the door was locked. After he was done, he left
the screen lying outside. Police noted the back bathroom window
was also unlocked, but detectives said it was difficult to
open and they didn't see any of the dust there undisturbed,
(10:03):
so the killer likely came in and out through either
the front door or front window. Unfortunately, police found no fingerprints.
They did find something in a dumpster outside, a single glove.
They tested a hair on that glove and found that
it didn't match Nina's DNA and they were unable to
find a match for it. Detectives noticed a footprint that
(10:25):
seemed to be out of place against the back of
the front door. They saw a scuff mark about thirty
one inches from the bottom of that door, but they
were unable to find more footprints from the interior in
the front kitchen. In the report, it stated that was
possibly because there were layers of dust and cat hair
on the kitchen floor, which made it difficult to get
any imprints. Did Nina's assailant kick the door shut behind him,
(10:50):
or could that have been a random print from some
time before this. Detectives had no idea that surveillance footage
in Nina's apartment complex showed her arriving home in Josh's
white pickup truck just before ten fifteen pm. However, according
to the police report, the quality of the footage was
(11:10):
so poor detectives couldn't really identify any other vehicles in
the parking lot during that crucial time period. The detectives
did ask the FBI to enhance a couple of images,
but there's no indication that that led to anything. When
Nina got out of her car, it appeared on that
surveillance tape that she was alone, but the surveillance footage
(11:32):
did not reach her apartment door. One thing that Josh
said about his and Nina's last night together was that
she seemed to be in a little bit of a
quiet mood that night, and several other people she saw
that day said she was acting like something might be wrong.
Josh also told detectives before Nina left his house that night,
(11:53):
she used his computer to communicate with someone. He did
not know who that person was, so police got search
warrants for both Josh and Nina's computers, a Compact Presario
twenty one hundred laptop.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
They also took Nina's cell.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Phone and looked through it, but apparently they found nothing
of evidentiary value in any of those devices. There was
one odd thing, which we'll come back to later. There
was a message from someone named Joey. It read quote,
I see be careful, be one hundred percent sea and
they wrote sea like cya end quote. So who was
(12:30):
Nina communicating with? Could Nina have been talking to her killer?
A question detectives were trying to answer was was Nina's
killer a stranger or someone she knew. There were a
(12:53):
lot of men in Nina's orbit, male friends, co workers,
and people who passed through the store every day, her
friends told detectives. Because Nina was an attractive woman and
she was a nice person, she got hit on a lot.
Police talked to a census worker named Jianne Marillo. She
had talked to Nina at her door on April nineteenth.
(13:14):
Janne said before she talked to her, she had seen
a tall, white, slender man with dark hair go into
the apartment with Nina. She said the guy stayed in
the back bedroom while she and Nina spoke. The census
worker also said that every day that she was at
that apartment complex, Nina's window was cracked open, and every
time there was a cat sitting at the window. It's
(13:36):
not clear whether or not police ever identified who this
man was at Nina's apartment complex.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
We wondered if it.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Could have been her boyfriend, Josh, but police talked to
Josh and he said that he had not been to
Nina's apartment complex in months. Normally Nina would stay at
his place. It could have been Nina's brother, but nothing
that we saw in the case file addresses this issue,
so we don't know. Everyone in Nina's life was baffled
about who could want to hurt her. Everyone seemed to
(14:05):
love Nina. She seemed to have a truly kind heart,
and she always went out of her way to help people.
At the same time, some people who knew Nina described
her as a loner. Police talked to her professors at school.
They said that she was friendly, she would interact in class,
but they said she didn't seem to have one particular
friend or group of friends, that she mostly stayed to herself.
(14:29):
At work, it was the same story. She was friendly
and professional, but also no nonsense. We talked to Nina's cousin, Danielle,
and she said Nina was a little bit misunderstood that way.
It wasn't that she was standoffish, she was just a
little bit shy. Danielle said that Nina genuinely cared about
people and she was a very good listener.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
The summer that she was fifteen, she came down and
lived with us for the summer in Douglas. Came down
from Arkansas and at the time, my mother had a
pizza restaurant, and Nina and I spent that whole summer
working for my mom making pizzas, and we had so
much fun. That was probably the best summers ever. And
Nina was always a hard worker, though she never never
(15:10):
shied away from doing a job.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
I wouldn't call her.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
An introvert her. She was a very social person, but
she didn't need to be the spotlight. She was a
really good listener. She didn't feel the need to have
a lot of attention on her. But because of that,
everyone really trusted her and wanting to be friends with her,
because she just had a way of putting people at ease.
She just made people feel comfortable in their own skin.
She didn't have to impress her or you know, put
(15:34):
on a mask with her. She was just like, whoever
you are, I love you.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Reading between the lines of these police reports, it seemed
like a lot of the men who knew Nina were
attracted to her and wanted to ask her out, but
either she was oblivious to it or she didn't want
to encourage it. A co worker gave an example. They
said one day, Nina had to go to court for
some reason. Afterwards, she went straight to work her shift.
(16:02):
They said that on that day, Nina was dressed up
more formally. The co worker told investigators he made some
kind of comment about her looking good that day and
asking why she didn't dress like that every day. Nina
said something about not wanting to be hassled. She didn't
want people to ask her out. She just wanted to
do her job. The coworker, by the way, was not
(16:22):
the one who made the comments to Nina.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
He was just telling police what happened.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Police spoke with the assistant manager at the walmart Nina
worked at in Rogers, Bobby Blackbird. She talked about an employee,
Casey Ake. Bobby said Casey played online poker with Nina
and that quote, everyone knew he was crazy about her.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
End quote.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Bobby said she believed Casey was in love with Nina.
Casey had talked about asking Nina out, but then seemed
to back off once Nina started dating.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Her boyfriend Josh.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
After Nina died, detectives searched Casey's home and found nothing.
But I did see when they talked about the search
in their reports, they specifically mentioned taking a look at
his shoes and then putting them back in the closet.
They didn't find anything on that search, but they seemed
to be clearly trying to figure out who left that
footprint scuffed on Nina's door. According to Nina's autopsy, her
(17:19):
cause of death was ligature strangulation. The manner of death
was homicide. The medical examiner, doctor Charles Kocis, said that
Nina was strangled with some type of ligature, something between
one sixteenth and one eighth of an inch wide. The
autopsy provided a few more clues. Whatever happened inside that apartment,
(17:39):
it seemed to have been a violent struggle. Nina was
five feet nine inches tall and weigh one hundred and
fifty one pounds, so depending on how large her killer was,
this might not have been an easy fight. By the
time her body was found, rigor mortis had left the
body and there was marked lividity. Police believed her killer
(18:00):
murdered her on the bed and then left her there,
and the time of death was consistent from when Nina
got home on the night of the twenty first. Police
believed her body had not been moved since then. The
autopsy noted Nina had several scratches on the front of
her neck, and scratches around the mouth and chin, mostly
on the left side of her face, and distinct ligature
(18:22):
grooves on both sides of her neck. One rumor that
started going around after the murder was that Nina's throat
had been slit. This was not true, but it was
one that was repeated by people for years. I'm guessing
that rumor might have started because of those marks that
were found on Nina's neck at the crime scene. Chat
(18:43):
said that they looked like cuts. According to the autopsy report,
Nina had another heavy abrasion just below her left ear,
and there were two more abrasions on her chest near
the clavicle. Those two big bruises on her clavicle were unexplained.
This is just a guess on my part. I think
(19:04):
it is possible that Nina's killer could have sat on
her or pressed their knees down onto her chest. The
medical examiner noted she had petikia or hemorrhaging in her eyes, face,
left leg, and left arm that were consistent with strangulation
or asphyxia. Particial hemorrhaging was also present on the interior throat, muscles,
(19:24):
and larynx. In addition, her hyoid bone was damaged. There
were no defensive wounds on Nina's hands and no trauma
to any part of the body except the neck, chest,
and face. The contents of her stomach were consistent with
her last meal from Taco Bell. More and more in
investigators were thinking Nina came home and right when she
(19:47):
was at her door, or right after she came inside,
the killer pounced. Her cell phone was found still in
her pocket, so she never had a chance to even
try to call for help. The attack must have come
as a complete shock, and detective still had.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
No murder weapon.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
They found a belt in the kitchen trash can, but
there was no DNA found on it except for Nina's.
Presumably it was also ruled out as the murder weapon
because it was too wide. Remember the murder weapon was
one sixteenth to one eighth of an inch wide. They
also tested other things in the house, including the mini
blind cords, but again they found no foreign DNA. All
(20:26):
of the fingerprints they found in the apartment were Nina's
except for one partial palm print, and it was not
a match to anyone in the DNA database. So, along
with no murder weapon, police still didn't have a motive.
It did not appear that Nina had been sexually assaulted.
She was found fully clothed, wearing a blue Royals T shirt, jeans,
(20:47):
and a jogging suit jacket. She had her broad and
underwear on. They appeared to have been undisturbed. There was
semen found in Nina's vagina, but the fluids were found
to have been a mixture of her DNA and Josh's DNA.
He told the investigators they had consensual sex the night
before when she stayed over at his place. Again, there
were no signs of sexual assault or of trauma to
(21:09):
her vaginal area. There was no blood or semen found
rectley or orally. Investigators also found no blood or semen
on her t shirt, jean jacket, shoes, bra or underwear.
They tested other items, including the bedding, the bed and
her miniblinds for blooder semen, but found no trace on
any of them either. Detectives did find some hairs inside
(21:31):
the apartment, but forensic testing showed they were all either
Nina's hairs or her cat's hairs. Detectives were canvassing the
apartment complex because maybe her killer didn't rush her inside
the apartment. Maybe it was someone she knew and they
knocked on the door and she let them in. Did
her killer lock the door behind themselves, because if so,
(21:54):
that would presumably mean they would need a key. Police
obviously considered this possibility. They were trying to figure out
who had keys to Nina Ingram's apartment. On April twenty third,
the day after Nina's body was found, police talked to
the management company for the apartment complex, Mansfield Properties. They
found out that the maintenance worker for that complex was
(22:15):
a thirty one year old man named Billy Gray. They
went to his house and he voluntarily agreed to come
to the Fville Police Department for an interview. They asked
Billy about service request for Nina's apartment apartment number one.
Billy Gray said he had been to that apartment complex
in recent weeks to make repairs to apartments number five
and number forty two. Apartment five, by the way, was
(22:36):
Nina's upstairs neighbor, but he said he did not remember
making any repairs in apartment number one. He said all
repairs were documented by the property management company and that
before repairs were made they had to fill out work orders.
They also kept a record of problems that were reported
by tenants. Billy said on April fourteenth, he checked out
(22:57):
the law Quad Master keys to make some repairs in
the complex. Billy Gray showed detectives the place where the
master keys were kept at the Garden Park apartment shop.
He also voluntarily gave DNA samples. Police searched Billy's residence
after he gave his consent. They found nothing of evidentiary value,
so he was also cleared. When detectives talked to the
(23:18):
manager of Mansfield Properties, he also said something else that
I found interesting. He said that Nina's unit, apartment number
one had been rented to a construction company for two
months and then it sat vacant for a month before
Nina moved in. Police got the name of the guy
who rented the apartment for the company. His name was
Henry Jordan Junior. They apparently did more investigating into the
(23:41):
company and its records, but they didn't see to find
any leads there. They found one glove in that dumpster
outside Nina's apartment, but the DNA on the glove was
never identified, another dead end. The investigation seemed to stall,
but in twenty twelve, six years after Nina Ingram was murdered,
(24:02):
someone was arrested. Nina's family laid her arrest in a
pastel high neck dress, probably to camouflage the ligature marks
(24:23):
on her neck. Over the years, her mother, Judy Ingram,
spoke out about the devastating loss of her daughter. She
encouraged people to keep Nina's memory alive. She wrote a
book about Nina's life and death called The Brightest Star.
In two thousand and nine, Nina's mom told a local
news station quote, I know it's been three years, but
I'm not giving up in any way, shape or form.
(24:45):
I know someone out there knows something, and that person
needs to come forward.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Nina deserves it. End quote. Police didn't say much. Over
the years.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
There would be updates on anniversaries of the murder, but
detectives would simply say, as they often do, this case
was an open and active investigation. The detective working the
case at the time said, quote, we just need that
one break end quote. Detectives identified several people of interest
over the years, but in the end made no arrests.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
They talked to.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Neighbors, friends, family members, and a lot of other people,
including a guy who lived nearby in the woods and
someone who randomly fired a bullet into a nearby apartment.
They took DNA from a lot of people, but as
I read through this case file, I wondered what DNA
they were comparing because they got cheek swabs from a
(25:38):
lot of different people, but it's really not clear in
the case file what those swabs were being compared to.
It's one of the things that we're going to try
to figure out as this investigation goes forward. Danielle, Nina's cousin,
said she grieves for the life that Nina lost.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
So I could imagine her and josphing together and having
a beautiful family, and like, those are just things I'll
never know now, and we probably would have been raising
kids together and going through life together. And I'll never
know how she would have been there for me going
to my divorce, how she would have been there to
celebrate my kid's smile, so what her kids would have
been like like, I'll just never know those things.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Over the years, the case grew cold, even though it
was a big deal in northwest Arkansas, one of the
only unsolved murder cases in that region since the nineteen seventies.
One of the other cases was the University of Arkansas
student known a Dirkmeyer. Her name will come up later
in this investigation in a way that I never saw coming.
(26:43):
Six years passed with no big breaks, and then in
April twenty twelve, after the new detective was assigned to
the case, suddenly there was an arrest of someone who
no one with knowledge of the case had ever heard of,
a man named Rico Cone. How Rico Cone got onto
the police radar is very controversial.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
It's something that to my knowledge, has not been reported
on in full.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Next week, we're going to cover the arrest and trial
of Rico Cone, the evidence against him, and a crazy
connection to the murder of Nonah Dirtmeyer, who some people
believe was murdered by a serial killer who killed Nina Ingram.
Was it someone random, a stranger she offended in some
way as the police in twenty twelve seemed to believe,
(27:33):
or could it have been someone much closer to her,
someone she let in, someone she trusted, And finally, is
her killers still alive and out there?
Speaker 3 (27:47):
I'm Katherine Townsend.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of
Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced
by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her
research assistance and James Wheaton for legal review. Noah Camera
mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is by
Ben Salek, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and
LC Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing
(28:17):
to the iHeart True Crime Plus.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Channel on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
If you were interested in seeing documents and materials from
the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at
Helen Gone Pod. If you have a case you let
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's six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
School of Humans
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