[sniffles] Oh.
Yeah, you can keep that one.
I don't want to look at that picture.
This picture just shows,
it's just a cold,
blank...
stare with almost a smirk on his face.
I know this look. I've seen it.
I know it.
There's no emotion here.
There's no, it's almost like it's a shell of a person.
This is, this is a very hateful,
cruel...
human being.
I mean, if he even deserves that title.
This picture says a million words, and it says it all.
So, no, I don't like to look at that one.
The amount of times I heard, "Oh, he's just a kid.
Oh, that poor child."
It makes me sick.
They don't know what the hell they're talking about.
They don't know the story.
They don't know what lies behind him.
They don't know what he did.
That's not a scared kid. It's a [bleep] demon.
[The Paper Chase's "What's So Amazing About Grace?" plays]
[strings continue playing sinister tune]
[static crackling]
-[knock at door] -[creaking]
-[banging on door] -[creaking]
[water dripping]
-[banging on door] -[creaking]
[sinister chord strikes]
This is a picture of Nita and Chance.
He was probably almost two years old in this picture.
And you see how happy she was as a mom.
And these were the good times when, you know,
Chance was the love of her life, and her whole world just
revolved around him.
Nita was so young.
She was 17 years old when she got pregnant with Chance.
She was 18 when she gave birth to him.
Chance did not get his name by mistake.
You know, she was dealing with trauma from her past,
trauma from our childhood,
and she named him that because she said that
he was her second chance at life, and that she was gonna do
this right, because it meant something to her.
But now looking back I don't think he deserves his name.
[sinister tone strikes]
Nita battled demons for years due to the trauma of being
trafficked, of being abused. It was an ongoing,
daily struggle.
During that time period, Nita was working and trying to
better her life.
As soon as she would start to pick herself back up,
something would knock her back down.
Chance was about two years old when Nita first
lost custody of him. She was not OK.
She was devastated.
At that point, our mother and stepfather
actually did end up with temporary custody of him.
Nita used to always ask me, "Is he OK?
"Promise me you'll take care of him.
Promise me you'll look out for him."
I mean, it was almost like a desperation for her.
And so I promised her that I was...
[breath catching]
I promised her I'd always look out for him.
[ominous tone playing]
I think the effect on Chance, living with my mother
and my stepfather, was probably very significant.
Nita saw chance every opportunity she could.
She would call and want to see him and...
"Oh we're out of town this week, you can't come,"
or, "We're busy this weekend, you can't come."
And so I'm sure Chance felt that repercussion.
Maybe he thought his mother abandoned him.
I would have to explain to him, "It's not that your mom doesn't
"want to see you.
There's things going on."
Luckily, I only lived like, two streets
over, and so I would go see him every day, you know.
We used to do a lot together.
We went, you know, to the movies, four-wheeling.
We were just always together, and I could never fill the void
of his mother, but the least I could do was at least be there.
So we had this family dog that grew up with Chance.
He would pet her and, you know, spend time with her
and she slept with him a lot when he was living there.
She got old and she passed away.
Chance was around nine at the time.
I'm thinking, how do I say this to him?
How do I let it...
...play out so that way, he'll understand,
and let him know it's OK to cry.
Have a seat, bud.
[Betty] So we sat him down, and I told him, you know, that she had
passed away and it was strange because it was just like
a blank, a blank stare. Just...
...nothing.
I expected him to ask questions,
"What happened?" or, "Where is she?"
You know, I expected something. He didn't really care.
Anything you want to ask me?
[Betty] And I think it's something that kind of took me by surprise.
In that time, I thought, OK, well, maybe this is how
he's going to deal with it.
He's just going to put it in the back of his head,
and he'll deal with it on his own.
I look back and I'm like, what Chance did
was just not normal.
It's a lack of emotion, a lack of empathy.
And we saw that
as Chance was growing up. We just didn't,
we didn't think anything of it then.
And now looking back, it was definitely a pattern.
[ominous tone]
I always rooted to see them together.
I always wanted to see them together.
So, I mean, I was happy.
And at that point, she was in the early stages of pregnancy
with her second son.
And so, you know, she was excited that she would
have both of her boys, and she would get to raise
them together.
He was excited to show the books, and told me how
he was gonna read to the baby.
He was really excited to be a big brother.
That was the most excited I'd ever seen him.
And of course,
we were all excited, you know, to welcome this new
little boy into the world.
[ominous tone]
I do know there was allegations of drug abuse,
and so they stepped in,
and they took the baby.
Based on the allegations, very false allegations,
they took him. But Nita still had Chance.
They left Chance in place.
And Nita immediately hired an attorney,
and she prepared for a fight.
And I remember being in court.
And one of the caseworkers had said to her, the best thing
you can do is just let them adopt this baby.
Because if we have to keep coming to court, have to keep
doing this, we're gonna come get your oldest,
meaning Chance.
You are in no condition to raise a newborn.
[Betty] I remember
seeing her, she slammed her hands down.
These are false charges.
Nita.
She said, "How do I do this?"
She was so devastated.
I can't do this!
She was just crying.
And I remember her taking that pen
[deep breath]
and signing that paper and walking away.
Signing those papers really broke Nita.
The papers were soaked in tears
because she had just been told, "If you keep fighting,
we're going to take them both."
She felt like she didn't have any choice.
[sniffling]
I think...
...she felt defeated,
and she felt that that's what she had to do to
protect Chance.
[sinister chord strikes]
When Chance found out what happened, I know Chance
was devastated, completely heartbroken.
I'm sorry, honey.
They're taking the baby away.
[Betty] I think that's the most emotion, looking back,
that I had ever seen out of Chance.
And I think it was the first time I ever saw him cry.
Um, and I mean really cry,
was with that baby.
Chance knew that Nita had to make a choice that day.
That's when you would see the flares of anger.
How could you let this happen?!
It didn't take long for Chance to start throwing it in
her face and telling her how she should have fought
for the baby. He used it as almost a weapon.
That was his weapon against her.
was saying, you know, "You lost, you lost my brother."
And he knew. He knew what to say to hurt her.
Chance, the kid I used to know
versus the kid that he became was so
dramatically different.
It's like something had switched in him.
So one day, when I went to see them and when I got there,
Nita was upset.
What's going on?
[Betty] She told me that that Chance had gotten
in trouble at school.
"Chance told me that he stabbed somebody in the neck
with a pencil." And I was like, "What?"
Oh my god.
And I asked her, you know, well, "Is he suspended?
"Were the cops called?
Was this person seriously injured?"
I'm asking these questions.
And even she was like, "No, the cops weren't called."
And I mean, think about it.
If somebody is stabbed in the neck with a pencil,
there's absolutely gonna be cops called.
At this point, we came to the conclusion
this didn't really happen.
But the most concerning part was that he had come up with
this story, and in coming up with the story it means he was
fantasizing about hurting somebody.
I learned, you know,
from his friends that he's saying he beat somebody
with the butt of a gun, or he was in these, you know,
altercations that never happened.
So he was most was definitely having fantasies of
death and destruction.
When I stopped by Nita's to check in,
they were in an argument.
You can't treat people like that, Chance.
[Betty] She was upset with him because he was
getting in trouble at school.
He was being disrespectful to teachers.
I can't remember exactly what it was, but Nita, for the first
time that I know of, finally stood her ground
and actually grounded him.
No video games, no internet, you're cut off.
He started getting, like, really just disrespectful,
and Chance had a habit of yelling. -Do you think I respect you?!
He said something like, "I don't give a [bleep] what you say."
She told him, she said,
"You're not going to talk to me that way."
-I hate you. -No!
You cannot talk to your mother like that!
Then he said, "You know, you're the reason that
I don't even have my brother."
Chance was looking at her with, like, this cold, angry...
...stare.
No emotion behind it.
It was almost as if it was a warning.
She kind of looked back at him, and I remember
her walking backwards.
It was like he had this switch that he could just turn.
And I mean, just the look and the smirk, it's almost like
he was so almost cocky, confident.
In that moment, I was a little stunned.
It was kind of shocking.
I think that was one of those moments I went,
"Is Nita safe with Chance?"
[Betty] Around this time, Nita had began a relationship with
a great man who treated her right.
You know, Nita was really in love.
He was just one of those men that, if I could handpick
somebody, it would have been him.
Nita was actually living with her boyfriend at the time.
When you see your sister go through so many bad
relationships, and then you see this glow in her,
I think at that point,
Nita had, um, [sniffles]
for once, found...her happiness.
And she deserved that.
Everything just kind of
changed the night that Nita called me.
When I got there, she was a complete wreck.
She told me that the night before, her and Chance had
gotten into an argument in the driveway.
I can't believe you!
-I told you I was going to dinner with my friend -- -You lied!
[Betty] And Chance was in her face
and was screaming at her,
and I think had pushed her.
I hate you!
Her boyfriend got in between them and told Chance,
you know, you're not gonna disrespect
your mother that way.
And Chance punched her boyfriend in the face.
What?! What?!
[Betty] At this point, she's crying.
And he is, like, pumped and hopping around
and just screaming.
What are you gonna do about it, huh?!
He had been enraged and out of control and cussing before,
but this is the first time that he had actually
assaulted someone.
It just kind of goes to show just how out of control he was,
and how almost fearless he was.
And then, you know, he was scared that the cops
were going to show up, and so Chance took off.
I think as
a mother, I think it was just easier for her to think that
he was going through a phase, than to realize that he was
actually becoming dangerous.
She blamed herself a lot for how he was acting,
but she also believed that with enough
encouragement, he could straighten out,
is how she put it.
I mean, we're sitting here today, so things definitely
didn't get better.
With Chance being willing to actually hit somebody like
Nita's boyfriend,
it tells me that he had no fear of anybody.
We knew that he was being a bad kid,
but things were escalating.
By the time we put it all together, it was just too late.
When Chance ran away that night, we tracked his phone.
We called all the friends that we knew of, and we eventually
found out that Chance was at a friend's house.
So I get him in the car, and Chance is like, he's quiet,
but the way he's just staring with his arms crossed,
he wasn't happy.
We stopped at the gas station to fill up and get some snacks.
While we're at the gas station, Nita's boyfriend called her.
Hello?
Yeah, we found him.
[Betty] So when Chance realizes who's on the phone,
it's like he switched.
You hear me?! I'm gonna kick your ass!
If I find you, I'll kill you!
[Betty] He said, "I'll give you another effing black eye!"
And so like, he was making threats to the boyfriend
on the phone, and I mean, he was just really just kind of
out of control, and in Nita's face and screaming.
You hear me?!
I'm gonna kick your ass!
I'll find you! If I find you, I'll kill you!
Nita was crying and she was asking him you know, "Why would
you do this? I was worried about you."
And Chance was just, like, so angry.
And he was screaming at her.
He was in her face, telling her, "Why can't you let
me live my [bleep] life?"
You're the worst mother ever!
I mean, just right in her face.
I mean, you're talking forehead to forehead, screaming at her.
He kind of pushes her.
And I grabbed him, and I pulled him back.
I was honestly kind of in shock and disbelief on how
he was reacting. And I remember telling him,
"You can't be disrespectful to your mom like that.
This is not OK. She's doing everything she can."
Everything she does is for you!
And Nita's crying,
and that's when she told me, Chance just doesn't want me
with him.
He didn't care about her and her happiness, or how she felt.
I think he felt like he had won.
And that's the first time I ever saw him be physical
with his mother.
And there was something more going on.
I just didn't want to push too hard.
And now I look back, and I wish I would have.
Chance doesn't want to go back to the boyfriend's house.
Nita's not going to leave her son.
And so I took them to a hotel, and I paid for it.
She did what she always does.
She kissed me on the forehead.
She said, "I love you. I'll call you tomorrow."
And I drove off, and um... [voice breaking]
I remember seeing her, driving off,
and I look in my rear mirror, and she turned her head.
And she looked back... [voice breaking]
it's almost like, we made eye contact
in the mirror.
I think that moment is heavier now
because it was the last time I ever saw her.
[sniffling] And I left him with her.
And I knew things weren't good.
I knew he was progressively getting worse.
I knew he was dangerous, I knew it.
And I live with that,
that I left him there.
I could have changed,
I could have changed the story that night.
And I didn't.
It's not my fault, what he did,
but I always wonder, if I had made
a different decision that night,
if I had taken him back with me,
just anything, anything, if I would have done anything
different, could it have prevented this?
It's like the last picture, I believe,
of them two together.
Even though there were issues going on in the home,
you clearly see how much she still loved him.
And it's written all over her face.
But if you look at him, he's smiling, but it's not like
a real smile.
Just knowing
that this was one of the last pictures of them two together
and knowing what followed it, it's tough.
She wanted to have this baby.
She was genuinely excited to have this baby.
But Nita definitely knew that Chance was possessive of her.
And she knew that this could kind of complicate things.
She did tell me that she had told him, that he wasn't happy.
And there was a big, like, explosive argument.
[indistinct yelling]
[Betty] He says that he didn't want any other siblings,
and that he would, um...
...I think the words were...
"beat the [bleep] out of the baby."
He had threatened her that he was going to kill
her and the baby.
And so, he had pretty evil intentions to hurt this
unborn child.
That's most definitely the worst thing I'd ever heard
him say up until that point.
She openly expressed that she was genuinely scared
of Chance, and she was scared for her safety.
I wish I would have put it all together sooner.
You know, I didn't realize, I guess, the escalation,
and how things were, um, building.
[ominous tone]
It was Sunday morning, and there's this knocking
on our door.
And there was, uh.
two cops standing there.
And the one said, "I'm sorry,
[voice breaking] your sister's been murdered."
And I don't think at that time, I even had kind of a reaction.
I think I just kind of stared at him, because these words
that are coming out of his mouth just are not making
any sense at all.
I think my knees got weak. I'm still kind of
in and out of it. He starts asking me questions.
"Who would want to do this to her?"
And, "When was the last time you saw your nephew?"
And, "Have you heard from him in the last couple of days?"
And then I remember him saying, you know,
"Would her son do this?"
Then everything just kind of started slamming together on
me, you know, all the warning signs
and all the red flags, the violence, the threats,
the manipulation, the lack of empathy, all of it's just
coming together at one time.
Who's the person that can get that close to her?
Who's the one person that she wouldn't hurt?
It was him.
It was -- it was Chance.
And the detective called.
[phone ringing]
He said,
"Hey Betty, we found him."
And he asked me, "Are you sitting down?"
And he said,
"Chance confessed to the murder of your sister."
And I said, "Oh God, OK."
Um, and he said, "Do you want to know how?"
And I said, "I need to know. I need to know.
I need to know what happened."
And he said, "An autopsy is going to have to be done,
"but we believe that
your sister was stabbed to death."
I said, "OK."
And he said, "Are you OK?"
I remember saying something like,
"I'll never be OK."
I knew that night
we didn't just lose Nita.
We didn't just lose the baby.
We lost Chance.
We lost three people that day in one act.
Three lives were, were gone.
there was no relief and there was no peace in that.
The murderer is caught, and he's my nephew.
[clears throat]
So that is, um...
...that's her autopsy,
and I don't want to see that.
[emotional instrumental music]
What he did to her,
it's ten times worse than what you could ever imagine.
After eight years you think you're ready
to finally see it, and I wasn't.
I don't think I'll ever be at that place.
That drawing bothers me because it's depicting every injury,
every stab wound.
Nita had actually been stabbed 57 times.
Think about that. Count 57 times.
Count raising and lowering your hand 57 times.
That's 56 times that you could have stopped.
That's 56 times you consciously made a decision to keep going,
over, and over,
just relentlessly, no mercy.
He had intentions of inflicting as much pain on
her as he could.
It's really hard to imagine
what she went through in those final moments.
The pain
that she felt, and I don't mean that physically, I don't mean
physical pain.
I think the pain that she went through emotionally...
The last face she saw was the person she loved the most
in the world.
There's not a single day I don't think about it.
And I will --
I will probably think about it for the rest of my life.
[indistinct whispering]
So that video was taken by
a store surveillance camera.
It was probably taken 20 or 30 minutes before he killed her.
It's really eerie knowing
that was the last hour of her life.
The moment that he kind of dances and spins around,
I don't know why that part bothers me so much.
Maybe for me, because I know what comes next.
He's just acting like nothing's wrong, but I believe he knew.
I don't think this was a provoked attack.
I don't even believe they had an argument.
I actually believe this was meticulously planned out.
I believe he knew what he was going to do.
His plan was to
get home, get it done, take her money, take her car,
and go pick up his friends and go party.
That was his plan.
[Betty] They had gotten home, and she was putting
up groceries.
He went and changed clothes, got the knife from
his dresser drawer, where he says he kept it.
He walked into the kitchen where she was, and he attacked
her from behind.
I absolutely believe he caught her unaware.
The cabinets were still open
above her.
The groceries, some of them were still in the bag.
What he did was so violent.
He could have done it quickly, and he didn't.
But then we found out that's not what killed her.
She was still alive.
And that he had wrapped a cord around her throat.
And he strangled her until she did die.
This is a woman
that is lying on the ground.
Her son had just stabbed her 57 times.
She's clearly in a lot of pain.
She's obviously scared. She's still awake.
She's still very much conscious.
And her one goal
is to tell the person who did this to her that it's OK.
She knew she was going to die.
And, um...
she still loved him so much.
To try to comfort him,
him... in her dying moments.
It's just evil.
That's just
almost satanic
to do that to her.
He stayed calm and got dressed and went and partied
with his friends.
This was a life he wanted, and he killed her to get it.
But I never, never, ever
would I imagine that
the person she gave life to would take hers,
just knowing how much she loved him.
I'd always promised Nita that I would take care of him.
I was so angry at him. I was so mad and so hurt,
but I still had to take care of him, and I did.
I felt like
I had to.
And at that point, it was more about the love for her
and the promise that I made her.
It took four and a half years to get to trial.
So for four and a half years, I continued to put money on
his books because it was the only way I knew how to take
care of him when, you know, he's in jail.
And that's when I finally said, "I'm gonna ask
the hard questions. We're gonna dig into this."
Like, I need to know
what the hell happened.
And I said, "Why?"
There was no really, answer to it, and I'd asked him why
he just didn't stop after he had already stabbed her 57
times, and she was still alive. He told me...
"Because she wouldn't [bleep] die."
He wanted her to die.
[whispers] That little bastard.
I can still hear his voice in my head saying it.
I still remember him saying it and a fire was lit at that
point, and I knew I couldn't stop until she had justice.
Chance will never be a part of my life again.
There's nothing he could say to me that would heal the pain
that he's caused.
The moment he stuck that knife in her was the moment
I lost my nephew.
It's weird because I still love him.
I will never deny that I don't love him, but I love him
from a distance.
That last phone call that I took from him, um,
my last words to him were,
"Chance, I want you to know I love you.
"I will always love you.
"I'm hurt about what you did,
but I do love you."
I needed him to know
that I loved him, and I just stopped taking his calls.
Since Nita's murder, my life has been, honestly, just kind
of split into the before and after.
I was working in corporate America for a major oil
and gas company.
I was going to work nine to five every day, and coming home
to my family. And when this happened,
Nita had just started her nonprofit, and she wanted to
help victims of human trafficking.
And that was her goal, and that was her dream.
I knew that I couldn't let that die with her.
She had a legacy, and she had a dream, and it was up to us to
keep that going.
I ended up leaving my corporate job and opening up, going back
to school, and opening up
my own private investigations firm.
I've been able to bring home 48 missing and exploited kids
to their families.
And so...
I see Nita
in all of them.
You see her while they're going through that healing process,
and you see a part of her when you see how broken they are.
And then they start to heal, and you start to see
her smile in them.
So she might be gone, but she's still very
much alive.
He only thought he killed her.
But he just made her legacy stronger.
♪♪
Her son just stabbed her 57 times
and went and partied with his friends.
That's not a scared kid...
that's a [bleep] demon.
His eyelashes were missing
because she rubbed hot sauce on his face.
The field mentioned this is probably the worst
child abuse case they've ever seen.
My brother did horrible things.
Hm. You're a sorry piece of [bleep].
You're nothing but a monster.
He took a family that had so much hope
and could have done so good and he just killed us all.
Oh, my God! He looks like the devil.
Look at him. That's not my dad!
Oh, my God.
And my mom, she was screaming on the ground
and blood was everywhere.
He's gone! [sobbing]