Felicia Johnson and the Fugitive Sought for Her Murder

In April of 2022, Felicia Johnson flew to Houston, Texas from San Diego, California to celebrate her 24th birthday and look for work in the area. Upon booking a client late one night, Felicia disappeared. Law enforcement, volunteers, and Texas Equusearch performed searches around the areas she was thought to possibly be, but the efforts were fruitless. Though the public strongly believed Felicia was the victim of sex trafficking, Houston Police Detectives were following leads of a different kind – leads that would uncover an aspiring serial killer was responsible for her disappearance. Eventually, Felicia’s remains were recovered, but the man who allegedly murdered her remains a fugitive from justice.

If you have any information about the murder of Felicia Johnson or the whereabouts of Chukwuebuka Chibundo Nwobodo, please contact the Houston Police Department’s Homicide Division at [phone] or Crime Stoppers at (713) 222-TIPS.

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Sources: nownyc.org, nih.gov, theguardian.com, KHOU.com, ABC13.com, fox26houston.com, houstontx.gov, mctxsheriff.org, and Chukwuebuka Nwobodo arrest warrant affidavit 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Gone Call podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter.
Listener discretion is advised. According to the National Organization for Women,
and estimated, sixty three percent of sexual assault cases go unreported,
though the number is likely much higher. In eight out
of ten rape cases, the victim knew the perpetrator, and

(00:24):
in about half of the cases the perpetrator was an
intimate partner. Fifteen percent were perpetrated by a stranger. That
number is slightly less when the crime studied is homicide.
Although specific data for virtually every category is significantly lacking,
for female sex workers, these numbers increase exponentially and the

(00:49):
data points vary considerably. Sex workers have a forty five
to seventy five percent chance of experiencing sexual violence on
the job, according to the Sex Workers Project, with the
chances increasing for those who work the streets as opposed
to what's referred to as indoor work, or that which

(01:10):
is solicited and closed spaces. Rape and sexual assault are
far from the only dangers that sex workers face. In
a study titled sex Work Related Homicides Insights from the
National Violent Death Reporting System twenty twelve to twenty twenty,
published in November of twenty twenty three, out of three

(01:31):
hundred and twenty one sex worker homicides studied, fifty four
percent were females. Among those, the perpetrator of the homicide
was a client fifty four percent of the time. This
means that generally speaking, female sex workers are more often
killed by strangers than victims who are not sex workers.

(01:52):
There is no clear cut data that analyzes the prevalence
of sex workers being the victims of serial killers. In fact,
in a profession that is well known for being victimized
by those whose motive is the actual murder itself, the
lack of statistical information is confounding. Throughout history, sex workers

(02:13):
have been the target of serial killers for a multitude
of reasons, from the societal stigma attached to the work
and lack of resources, to their often lack of consistency
keeping in touch with family members, and simply the work
setting itself, and that fact hasn't changed in modern times.

(02:34):
In twenty twenty two, twenty four year old Felicia Johnson
was targeted by a client, a disturbed individual who by
all indications, was looking to start a career as a
serial killer. Felicia Marie Johnson was born and raised in

(03:16):
San Diego, California. Her father, Kevin, described her as loving,
kind and beautiful, the type of person who brought joy
to everyone she met. As a child, Felicia was responsible,
so responsible, Kevin said that she had curated and maintained
a routine at a young age. Felicia set her alarm,

(03:39):
woke up in the morning, got dressed, and made her
bed all by herself. She was five years old going
on thirty, her father added. As a young adult, Felicia
set her sights on the modeling industry, with dreams of
becoming a model or dancer, anything that had to do
with glamour. Loved doing hair and makeup. Her generous and

(04:03):
charitable nature too, remained intact. Felicia was a very sweet person,
Kevin said, a kind heart gives you the shirt off
her back. That's basically who she was. In the spring
of twenty twenty two, Felicia was doing sex work, apparently
booking clients through OnlyFans and other social media websites. Three

(04:28):
days after her twenty fourth birthday, on Wednesday, April thirteenth,
twenty twenty two, she flew to Houston, Texas from San Diego, California,
to both celebrate by visiting family and look for work.
Felicia booked a room at the Intercontinental, a four star
hotel located on the sixty seven hundred block of Main

(04:49):
Street in downtown Houston. On Friday, April fifteenth, she called
an uber to take her to Cover Girls nightclub, located
in the city's northwest. Cover Girls is a place that
touts itself as Houston's premier gentleman's spot, where the clientele
can unwind with drinks while enjoying the performances and company

(05:11):
of the club's dancers. Felicia reportedly auditioned to be a
dancer there and left sometime late that afternoon. At five pm,
she arrived back at the Intercontinental Hotel. There, Felicia was
active on social media until approximately eleven PM. Shortly thereafter,

(05:31):
Beginning in the early morning hours of Saturday, April sixteenth,
twenty twenty two, she stopped using her phone. By ten
thirty am, Felicia's lack of phone activity was noticed. It
was both unusual and concerning, as Felicia, like a majority
of folks these days, never went long without using it

(05:52):
for something to log on to social media, text, etc.
At that time, family members back in California became worried.
They called Felicia's cousin's girlfriend, Adriana, and asked her to
drive to Bear Creek Park to look for Felicia, as
the app Find My Phone was showing that her cell

(06:13):
phone was in that area. After being directed to a
location near the corner of North Eldridge Parkway and Clay Road,
twenty two miles west of the Intercontinental Hotel, Adriana found
Felicia's iPhone lying screen down just off the street. At
twelve twelve pm, Adriana called nine to one one to

(06:35):
report what she'd found and that Felicia was missing. As
she waited for officers to respond to the scene, she
noticed what looked like blood on the sides and bottom
of the phone, as well as on the back and
inside of the case. The police never came. At some point,

(06:55):
presumably after another call to police, Felicia Johnson's phone was
turned over and Houston p D Missing Persons Unit Detective
d Steigerwald began working the case as they sought to
retrace Felicia's steps. Video surveillance footage was obtained from the
Intercontinental Hotel. On the footage at two fifty four am,

(07:18):
a gray colored Porscha Macon and Suv was captured pulling
into the driveway of the hotel. Captured on another camera
at two fifty five, Felicia is seen entering the elevator
on the fifteenth floor. A minute later, her cell phone
and purse in hand, she is seen exiting the elevator

(07:38):
in the lobby. She then walked out the doors of
the hotel. After that, Felicia entered the Porsche Macan, which
drove off and out of range of surveillance. By the
time the footage was being reviewed by detectives, family friends,
and volunteers had been searching relevant parts of Houston. Social

(08:00):
media presence was created almost right away, including a Facebook
group by far the most active. Many there speculated that
Felicia was the victim of sex trafficking. Her father, Kevin,
began to lean that way as well. The fact that
his daughter had just interviewed at one of the city's
most popular strip clubs only exacerbated the suspicion. The theory

(08:25):
was a justifiable one, since Houston is in, if not
at the top of the list of US cities with
the most cases of sex trafficking. At this point, anyway,
no one knew HPD detectives were hot on the trail
of someone not connected to the club, someone whose motive
was entirely different. Next detectives Steigerwald enlisted the help of

(08:50):
HPD's Human Trafficking unit. There a recent post was located
on skipthegames dot com, an escort service site. On the site,
Felicia posted an advertisement at twelve twenty eight am on
April sixteenth, twenty twenty two, just a couple hours before
she was last seen on surveillance footage. Because of the

(09:14):
direction the investigation was going, it was transferred over to
Houston PD's Homicide Division. On April twenty first, detectives Blake
Roberts and Logan Lang of Houston PD's Homicide Division arranged
a Harris County Grand Jury subpoena to Uber requesting records
pertaining to Felicia Johnson. Uber ultimately supplied detectives with that information,

(09:40):
more specifically, that an Uber driver was dispatched to sixty
seven to fifty Main Street or the Intercontinental Hotel. The
Uber driver drove a gray Portia Macan, the same vehicle
Felicia was seen entering on surveillance footage. According to uber records,
she was to be dropped off at thirty two thirty

(10:01):
three wind Chase Boulevard or the wind Chase Hamlet apartments,
about sixteen miles west of the hotel. Felicia was dropped
off at the apartment gate at three twenty eight am.
The records showed the person who requested the uber was
named Chuku Ebaka Nu Bourdoo. Upon arriving in Houston from

(10:34):
California to help look for his daughter, Kevin Johnson gave
multiple interviews to local media and, with the help of
activists and leader of the New Black Panther Nation in Houston,
quanel X, put pressure on the Houston Police to fully
investigate the case. Quantel X lamented to reporters about the

(10:54):
recent epidemic of missing and murdered black women involved in
the sex industry in the past five months. Due to
this pressure from both Kevin Johnson and quonell X, Texas
Ecusearch and the FBI were asked into the investigation. Kevin
hired a private investigator and partnered with the organization Crime

(11:16):
Stoppers to offer a five thousand dollars reward for information
leading to Felicia's whereabouts her description went out everywhere through
both traditional media and social media. After determining Felicia Johnson
was dropped off via an uber at thirty two thirty
three wind Chase Boulevard, the address listed on the driver's

(11:39):
license of twenty eight year old Chukuubuka Nuwuvoodoo, the man
who requested the uber. Detectives began looking into the man.
He no longer lived at an apartment at that address.
Nuu Boodoo had since moved a couple miles west to
an apartment on the one thousand, forty nine hundred block
of South Richmond Avenue. On April twenty second, twenty twenty two,

(12:03):
detectives Roberts and Lang found and reviewed homeowners Association surveillance
video footage that showed Nuu Boodoo arrive at the front
entrance of the wind Chase Hamlet apartments at three eighteen am,
ten minutes before Felicia arrived. When she got out of
the uber, the Portcha Macan, Felicia headed toward and then

(12:25):
entered Nu Boodoo's vehicle, a silver two thousand and nine
Honda Accord, which proceeded to drive north toward South Richmond Avenue.
The uber pulled off At three twenty nine am on
the same day, detectives were reviewing the homeowner's association surveillance footage.
A volunteer with Texas ECUSEARCH discovered Felicia's purse near where

(12:49):
Adriana had located her cell phone. Felicia's California driver's license
and credit cards were still inside, as was a face mask,
eventually off of which they would pull Felicia's DNA. Crime
scene investigators processed the area surrounding the purse. It's unclear
if any clues were found. Meanwhile, the cops were looking

(13:12):
into Chuku Ebuka nwu Boodoo's background. They learned that he
was originally from Nigeria, but had lived in the Fort
Bend County area of Texas since childhood. In twenty eleven,
he graduated from high school and moved to Houston. A
prior offense detectives discovered shone some light on the type

(13:34):
of individual they were dealing with. In the early morning
hours of November eleventh, twenty twenty, a woman who will
refer to as Hope was at the Lodge at West
Oaks apartment complex waiting for a friend. That friend apparently
never showed. Nwou Boodoo approached Hope in his car and

(13:55):
began a conversation with her. He gained her trust and
she got into a car. Nuo Boodoo drove off, and
minutes later they ended up parked on a dark, unlit,
dead end street nearby. They both climbed into the back
seat of the car, where Nuo Boodoo fondled Hope. She

(14:15):
decided to get out of the vehicle and began to
flee the scene on foot. Nwoo Boodoo jumped out of
the car and chased Hope down the street. When he
caught up to her, he grabbed her by the wrist.
Hope was able to break free. She ran away and
called the police to report the attempted rape. Nwoo Boodoo's

(14:36):
story was different. He told police that he and Hope
met at the apartment complex. They left in his car
and then went to a gas station to use an ATM.
He got out one hundred and fifty bucks. They drove
to the unlit street and he placed the money on
the dashboard. N Woo Boodoo claimed Hope then took the money,

(14:57):
the man said, and they crawled into the back seat.
She then left the vehicle without returning the money. Nuu
Boodoo told officers, so he chased her down to get
it back. According to him, Hope ran off and he
returned to the place he met her and waited for
officers to arrive. When it was all said and done,

(15:20):
Hope declined to press charges. She just wanted to go home,
she told police. A lot more was learned in the
days to come as detectives continued to piece things together.
They obtained Felicia's cell phone data. Her phone connected to
a tower near the apartment of Chuku Ebuka Nuu Voodoo,

(15:43):
they learned, but it was video footage that continued to
break the case. Police were able to maintain a trail
of surveillance video on which the suspect's movements can be traced.
After picking Felicia up, Nuuvoodoo's car is seen heading toward
his then current residents at the Richmond Estates apartment complex.

(16:04):
He arrived at his unit there at three fifty one am, Felicia,
of course with him. More than an hour later, at
four fifty four am, Nuu Boodoo's silver Honda Accord can
be seen leaving his apartment heading toward Highway six. Eighteen
minutes later, at five twelve Felicia's phone connected to a

(16:25):
tower located near Bear Creek Park, the same area where
her purse and bloody cell phone would later be found
a little more than twenty minutes later, Nu Boodoo arrived
back at his apartment at eight fourteen am. He bought
a pack of nitrial gloves at home Depot. A couple
hours later, at ten twelve am, Nu Boodoo visited a

(16:49):
medical clinic for a cut on his hand. He told
the treating physician that he'd cut himself while opening boxes,
but of course, detectives Robert and langnew oh it was
common for the perpetrator of a violent crime to cut
themselves upon the act or during an attempt to cover
their tracks. Police determined the man also purchased a flashlight

(17:11):
and t shirt on April sixteenth and on the seventeenth,
four hand towels, thirteen gallon trash bags, and thirty gallon
trash bags. Footage obtained from Walmart showed Nuu Voodoo wearing
a bandage around his right hand during both purchases. Also
on April seventeenth, he purchased an eighteen inch pruning saw

(17:35):
from home Depot. After reviewing her snapchat records, detectives learned
that Felicia Johnson was going to be paid five hundred
dollars for meeting up with someone, an amount that matched
two ATM withdrawals Chuku Ebu Ka Nuubudu had made one
for three hundred dollars and another for two hundred. On

(17:58):
May thirteenthly a month after Felicia vanished, detectives obtained a
search warrant for Nuu Boodoo's car, as well as a
warrant for his arrest. Later that day, Nu Boodoo was
pulled over during a routine traffic stop and taken into custody.
When executing the search warrant on his car, officers found

(18:20):
a nine millimeter handgun, home depot receipts, a wal Mart receipt,
several loose latex gloves, a large kitchen knife, and a shovel.
Blue Star, a blood visualizing agent based on luminol was
used on the car itself and on several items within.

(18:40):
It lit up on the large kitchen knife and on
the trunk and in the back seat. A search warrant
was also issued on Nuboudou's apartment. There, crime scene investigator
k Busak found blood stains on the floor, in the hallway,
just outside the bathroom, on a flip flop in the bedroom,

(19:01):
on the bottom of an office chair in the bedroom,
on the bedroom floor, on the bottom of the bedroom
door jam, on the bottom of the exterior bedroom door,
and in front of the bedroom nightstand. Using blue star reagent.
In addition, and perhaps the most telling, large areas of
the bedroom floor and hallway just outside the bedroom and

(19:24):
the bathroom lit up, indicating they were positive for the
presence of blood. Blood found just outside the bathroom in
the hallway was later determined to belong to both Felicia
and Nuuburdoo, but blood in the other locations proved to
belong only to Felicia. Their theory was a simple one

(19:45):
to come to their suspect they believed had killed and
then dismembered Felicia Johnson. Ultimately, the Houston Police claimed they
didn't have enough evidence to charge him just yet, and
nu Voodoo was released. Then he disappeared, becoming a fugitive.

(20:17):
Though there were no direct phone calls between Felicia Johnson
and chuku Ebuka Nuubudu on their cell phone numbers, Detective
Roberts notes in his second affidaphit for the man's arrest
that sex workers often use Google voice phone numbers or
communications through Snapchat or Facebook Messenger to book meetings with clients.

(20:39):
At the time of the affidavit, Roberts was still waiting
on records from Google pertaining to Felicia's Google voice phone number.
Upon obtaining a warrant for records associated with nuu Budou's
Gmail address, damning Google searches were found. On April twentieth,
twenty twenty two, four days after Felicia Johnson disappeared, n

(21:03):
wu Boodoo performed the following searches. Does bleach denature blood?
Can bleach destroy DNA? What does bleach do to blood?
What does vinegar do to blood? Does vinegar destroy blood DNA?
The following day, he asked Google for the most forested

(21:26):
part of Houston. On April twenty seventh, twenty twenty two,
nu Boodoo typed in the search bar how to delete
your history completely, and on the twenty eighth, he was
looking for more chilling information as follows. How to be
a serial killer, fifteen cheapest places to live in the

(21:46):
world one thousand dollars a month, How to get away
with murder, How to kill without getting caught. Perhaps the
most disturbing search was next on April thirtieth, when he
typed in Houston Escort. He was back on the prow,
likely keeping up with the news and perhaps social media

(22:07):
regarding Felicia Johnson. Nu Boodoo googled the following on May third,
twenty twenty two. Can police check phone records of a
missing person? Can police check victims text messages? Can police
check text messages of a dead person? Can police unlock
a phone during an investigation? And there was other disturbing

(22:32):
evidence beyond the Google searches. Nu Boodoo's cell phone remained
in evidence after his release. Once a warrant was signed
to search the Android device. What was found was shocking.
In the gallery were the photographs of a dismembered woman
and three dead bodies that have not been identified, at

(22:55):
least not publicly. There was no meta or EXIF data
associated with these photographs. Often, in missing persons cases where
the victim is believed to be deceased, police and perhaps
particularly those in political positions i e. District attorneys, are

(23:16):
reluctant to file murder charges even when ample evidence exists.
In the case of Felicia Johnson, However, the evidence against
chuku Ebu Khan Nuwubodoo was overwhelming. On June ninth, twenty
twenty two, while remaining at large, he was charged with

(23:36):
murder and tampering with evidence, namely a human corpse. At
that point, the case had long been investigated as a murder. Nuubudoo, however,
was nowhere to be found. The Houston Police utilized both
the press and social media to try and locate the man,
but if they received any information or tips, they ultimately nowhere.

(24:02):
Seven months after the warrant for Nuubudu's arrest was signed
by a Harris County judge. On February seventh, twenty twenty three,
at about noon, a landscape contractor hired by the Texas
Department of Transportation called authorities to report they'd found human remains.
The bones were discovered near the intersection of Flamingo Lakes

(24:25):
Road and Highway one forty nine, in an area of
the Sam Houston National Forest in Montgomery County. The Sheriff's
office there later released a statement regarding the remains, relaying
that they were sent out for dental record comparison and
DNA analysis. Twenty days later, on February twenty seventh, twenty

(24:46):
twenty three, the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office issued a press
release stating that the remains had been positively identified as
Felicia Johnson. Her family and friends, though always fearfu of
this outcome, were devastated. When her father, Kevin, finally spoke
with the media about a week after the discovery, his

(25:08):
heartbreak was apparent. It was very difficult for me as
a father to just know that I'm not going to
see my daughter ever again and ever talk to her again,
he told reporters. I can't sleep, I can't stop before
my daughter is found and this man is found. Kevin's
frustration was also evident. He believed the Houston Police dropped

(25:33):
the ball by releasing Nubodoo from custody without surveilling the
man after he contemplated filing a lawsuit against the department
or the state. On a go fund me set up
to help the family with expenses such as flying into
search and hiring the private investigator, Kevin said he'd received

(25:53):
a tip that Nuuburdu had fled to Nigeria. Now I'm
faced with the dilemma. What do I do as a father?
He posted on the gofund me page. Do I depend
on the police, do I hire a bounty hunter? Or
do I put a price on his head in Nigeria?
Once I find out what village he is in, I

(26:14):
will not stop until everyone involved is brought to justice.
Chuku Ebuka Nuubudu remains at large. He's a black man
with black hair and brown eyes, stands six feet one
inch tall and weighs two hundred and sixty pounds. If
the tip Kevin Johnson received is correct, nuu Budo might

(26:37):
still be in Nigeria, a country with which the United
States has an extradition treaty. He is considered extremely dangerous.
If you have any information about the murder of Felicia
Johnson or the whereabouts of Chuku Ebuka Nuuboudo, please contact

(26:58):
the Houston Police Department's Hamas Side Division at seven to
one three three zero eight thirty six hundred or crime
Stoppers at seven one three two two two tips. We'd
like to thank Hayley Gray and the podcast Moms and
Mysteries for their help researching this episode. If you'd like

(27:21):
to join gon Cold's mission to shine a light on
unsolved homicides and Missing Persons cases. Get the show at
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(27:44):
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Thanks for listening, y'all,