- Two young women chasing fame...
- Nikki was never not going to go to new york.
That was, for her, the mecca.
- Brittany, she always had this energy.
She was crazy with dreams.
- Dragged into a times square nightmare...
- It was very dangerous. It was a dangerous place to be.
[suspenseful music]
- My boys didn't like him. My husband didn't like him.
- He could be abusive to her,
Not only verbally, but physically.
- That ends in a brutal double murder.
- There's a body submerged in the tub,
And there was nikki, deceased on the bed.
- Detectives race across new york city...
- Handwritten directions lead to
Brittany and nikki's apartment.
- To track a mystery phone call.
[phone rings]
- Crime scene finds the broken answering machine,
But there's no tape inside.
- He told us he saw males go down the staircase
Two different times.
- Who really killed these two girls?
That's the question.
♪ ♪
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
[siren wailing]
[cheering]
[upbeat music]
[horn honks]
- The bubbling energy and creativity of new york city
Attracts people from across the country
And around the world.
♪ ♪
They arrive with big city dreams,
Hoping to make their mark and make it big.
[downbeat music]
♪ ♪
This story hits me with the tragedy of stolen dreams
And the two young women who never had the chance
To achieve them.
And it was a tough case to solve.
Our detectives only had a slender thread of evidence,
But they pursued it all the way to the end.
♪ ♪
It was the holidays in new york;
A joyous time for most, but not all.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
- On December 19th, 1992, most of us did a day tour.
That night we were gonna have our annual christmas party.
That particular day, we're in the office,
And the call comes in that
We have a suspicious death on west 109th street,
Considered the upper west side.
[siren chirping]
In 1992, we were still dealing with
A heavy crack epidemic. Homicides were up.
Assault rates were very high at the time.
But the block was a very quiet block.
A lot of educated people, college students on that block.
[birds chirping]
- But on this December morning,
One building's quiet is interrupted
By a steady dripping sound.
- The super was receiving complaints about water
Leaking into apartments inside the building.
Based on where the water was leaking,
He determined that it was coming from apartment 5a.
[suspenseful music]
He knows that there are two females that lived there:
Brittany rojas and nikki silas.
- He was getting no response from knocking on the door,
So he goes up to the roof and comes down the fire escape
Until he gets to the fifth floor landing
And peers through the window.
- And what he sees makes him call 911 immediately.
[suspenseful music]
[sirens wailing]
Detectives respond within minutes
And make their way into nikki and brittany's apartment.
- As we entered the apartment, you could see that the water
Worked its way out into the hallway in the apartment.
And upon closer look in the bathroom,
There was a flood.
And then we see--
There's a body submerged in the tub.
♪ ♪
There's a ligature around her neck.
And you could see that there was a major struggle.
A lot of items that might have been sitting on the sink
Was on the ground.
You saw that the toilet had been somewhat shifted.
[suspenseful music]
During the initial conversation
That detectives had with the super,
It was determined it was brittany rojas.
We weren't sure if brittany was killed in the bathroom
Or was placed in there after her death.
As we go past--
Out the bathroom and make a left down the hall--
It's like a railroad flat.
You walk past the living room,
Straight into one of the two bedrooms
That existed in the apartment,
And there was another female deceased
On the bed, partially naked.
♪ ♪
It was brittany's roommate, nikki.
[suspenseful music]
Looking at the bodies up close, our thoughts were
Maybe both girls were strangled and raped.
In reference to nikki silas,
It was determined that there was possible dna
That was found on her.
But that was going to be determined by
The medical examiner's office upon the autopsy.
[downbeat music]
- The building management confirms that
The victims are roommates,
19-year-old brittany rojas
And 20-year-old nikki silas.
- So during the initial investigation
Of the crime scene,
It looked like there was a card game
Or some type of social event took place in the apartment.
[indistinct chatter]
But we couldn't determine if anything was missing or stolen
Because we don't know what the apartment looked like prior.
[mid-tempo music]
Because there was a phone there, we wanted to know
When the last call or last call coming in took place.
That required a subpoena to be given to the phone company.
- It will likely take weeks for the phone records
To come back.
Meanwhile, as detectives continue to comb through
The apartment, clues begin to emerge.
[mid-tempo music]
- We found a note at the foot of nikki's bed
That was directions from queens
To their apartment on west 109th street in manhattan.
- There was no broken windows or locks.
So in theory,
Nikki and brittany must have known their killers
And let them in.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
- Detectives canvassed the neighborhood
Looking for witnesses who may have seen something,
And they find a neighbor
Who shares a critical detail with them.
- There was a person on the block that determined
That nikki was actually out that morning walking the dog,
About 6:00 in the morning, with an unknown male.
- We now know that at least one of the women
Was still alive at 6:00 am.
Detectives pressed the superintendent.
Did he see or hear anything unusual
Before he found the victims around 9:00 am?
And then he remembers something he saw
About one hour before that.
- He told us, two different times,
He saw males go down the staircase.
One male, black, leaving the building
Looking like he might be upset,
But didn't pay it no mind.
About 30 to 40 minutes later, another black male came down,
But this individual was coming down the staircase in a rush,
And a full, packed duffel bag with a mini safe sticking out.
[suspenseful music]
He just said, "well, maybe somebody's moving out."
- A team of detectives scours the neighborhood
For any signs of the mystery men
While others reach out to the victim's families.
Brittany rojas was a new york city native
With a tough childhood.
- When brittany's mother, dalis, was pregnant,
Brittany's father died.
So brittany was born, her father was already dead.
She was often described by her family members as "fearless,"
But she was a new york city kid.
She was taking the trains, taking them at night,
She was comfortable in the streets.
[horn honks]
Brittany dropped out of high school at 10th grade
And went to get some work.
She was saving, saving, saving for her dreams.
♪ ♪
- Brittany's roommate, nikki silas,
Was a small town girl from pembroke, massachusetts.
She had moved to new york less than 18 months before
To follow her dream of being in show business.
- Nikki was never not going to go to new york, you know?
That was, for her, the mecca.
She knew that she wanted to be there,
To be in the limelight, to make a name for herself.
- I was fine with nikki going to new york.
But nikki was very trusting of people.
Too much so.
♪ ♪
- On December 19th, nikki's family gets the news
That nikki will never reach her dream.
- My husband and I were watching tv,
And there was a knock at the door.
It was 9:30 at night.
[knocking on door]
They said "pembroke police."
♪ ♪
They just said, "there's been an accident in new york.
It's your daughter, nikki."
And then they told me what happened,
And, um, my husband lost it. That was it for him.
[somber music]
♪ ♪
- I remember hearing my dad cry.
He usually kept his emotions very close to the vest.
So if he's crying, I knew something was wrong.
♪ ♪
- I was just in shock, you know?
♪ ♪
It--it just doesn't even seem real.
♪ ♪
[tense music]
- Brittany's family doesn't have any idea
Of who may be responsible for the young women's deaths,
But nikki's family does--
Nikki's ex-boyfriend.
- When I first heard about nikki being murdered,
That was who I automatically assumed
Might be the person who did this.
♪ ♪
- Nikki told me that he was physically abusive.
My boys didn't like him.
My husband didn't like him.
And it was just an uncomfortable feeling.
There was something off.
- An ex-boyfriend with a history of abuse?
[siren wailing]
We had to find him and find him fast.
[sirens wailing]
- Coming up...
- They were dancers at a peep show called show world.
Somebody was upset and yelling and screaming that
Somebody wants to rob somebody in that apartment
And rape them.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[downbeat music]
♪ ♪
- The double murders of nikki silas and brittany rojas
Have stunned their friends and families.
But through her grief, nikki's mother identifies
Someone she thinks detectives should talk to:
Nikki's ex-boyfriend, a guy known as coolie.
- When the police told me that nikki had died,
The first person I thought of was coolie.
He lived in new york.
- I remember she brought him home that easter.
She was in love with him.
He was funny, he was cool,
But I also know that there were times
When he could be abusive to her,
Not only verbally, but physically.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
- A record check was done, and it was determined that
He had been arrested in the past
And he had served time.
- Nikki's family had told us that coolie,
Who was nikki's ex-boyfriend,
Had worked at the apollo theater.
- The apollo theater is a legendary live venue
In the heart of harlem.
Everyone from james brown to bruno mars has played there.
- I realized that I can call my daughter who worked at
The apollo to see if she knew that name, "coolie."
And she said, "oh, yeah, coolie still work here."
I went there. He was there.
Brought him to the station house.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
He didn't hide the fact that he had hit nikki in the past,
And that they had a rough relationship,
And that he was a control person trying to control her.
- We asked him if he's willing to give us a dna sample.
Dna testing had only been around for a few years
And when it came out, it was a game-changer
For our investigation.
- He said, "yeah, I ain't got nothing to hide."
And he gave us his dna.
[suspenseful music]
- Coolie also gives detectives his whereabouts
On the morning that nikki and brittany were killed.
- When the detectives went to verify it,
It was determined that he had a sound alibi.
Then that dna came back to be negative,
And coolie was no longer a person of interest.
♪ ♪
- At that point, the autopsy results come back.
They confirm detectives' first impressions
From the crime scene.
- It was determined that nikki silas and brittany rojas
Both died from strangulation.
- Detectives dig deeper into the victims' lives,
Hoping for any insight that could help them
Track down the men seen fleeing the murder scene.
- When you look at both victims,
We tried to ascertain
Where they come from, how they grew up,
Anything that might help us determine
What caused their death.
[downbeat music]
- Investigators learned that
Brittany had moved in with nikki only a month before,
And nikki's family didn't know her and never met her.
Nikki was a military kid,
And the family moved around a lot
Before settling in nikki's mom's native state
Of massachusetts.
♪ ♪
- Nikki was in dancing lessons.
And then as she got older,
She was in plays and talent shows
Because she wanted to be an actress.
[upbeat music]
- She always loved the thought of going to new york.
She wanted to go and try to be,
In some way, shape, or form, in the music industry.
She wanted to be in videos so badly. [laughs]
[applause]
- It seemed like nikki was doing good.
She was going to parties and hanging out with, like,
Rappers that I was listening to at the time
'cause it's 1991, '92.
Like, she's telling me, "oh, I was at this party with nas."
♪ ♪
- Nikki's charisma and beauty opened doors for her
And it wasn't long before her talents were noticed.
- She was in a mariah carey video.
♪ ♪
Certainly, the shabba ranks video was a very big deal.
♪ ♪
[hip-hop music]
- Like nikki, brittany's beauty was magnetic
And infectious.
- Brittany was a live wire. Brittany had sparks.
Brittany would walk down a street
And every car would be honking at her.
She always had this energy. She had so many dreams.
Like, she was crazy with dreams.
- But both women struggled to pay the bills,
And each found their way separately
To the same solution,
A notorious times square business where they met.
- They were dancers at a peep show called show world
Located in times square
On west 42nd street and 8th avenue.
♪ ♪
Brittany and nikki became friends,
And nikki allowed brittany to move in with her
Because brittany needed a place to stay.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
- Back then, times square was tawdry.
There were porn theaters everywhere.
You had lots of men skulking in and out of these places.
[suspenseful music]
- For both young women, show world was a place
To make good money and fast.
- I remember talking to her at length about
Her working in the industry where she was stripping.
We cried about it and we talked at length about it.
That was tough for her.
She didn't want to-- to do that.
It was very dangerous.
It was a dangerous place to be.
♪ ♪
- We had homicides, serious assaults, rapes.
[sirens wailing]
- Were they involved with, like, a customer at show world
Who had gone a little crazy?
- A team of detectives went out to show world
To interview coworkers.
They mentioned that there was a particular male
That had a lot of interest with brittany
That they nicknamed a sugar daddy
Because he was spending a lot of money on her.
♪ ♪
We need to go and interview this individual.
♪ ♪
- Detectives conduct a long-shot stakeout,
Hoping to snare him when, or if, he comes in.
- And guess what?
While staking out show world,
He walks right through the door.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[suspenseful music]
- The investigation into the murders of nikki silas
And brittany rojas has led detectives
Into the sordid heart of times square,
To a strip club known as show world.
- It's kind of grimy,
But the lights are always bright.
They had an adult bookstore,
They had live nude entertainment,
And they had peep shows.
And anything you can imagine
Took place on those four floors.
[downbeat music]
- The coworkers in show world made a point of letting us know
That brittany had a strong admirer
That really liked her.
And about a week after brittany and nikki's murder,
We had a team stay out there
To see if this individual would show up.
And while they were out there, he did show up at show world.
[suspenseful music]
He was shocked.
He was overcome with emotion
To find out she was a victim of a homicide.
♪ ♪
He admitted that he had a strong feeling for her
And liked her.
He had no ill feelings towards her.
Always thought she was a sweetheart.
♪ ♪
During the interview,
We wanted to see if there was any wounds or any old injuries
That might say that he might have been involved in a fight.
♪ ♪
But we couldn't come up with anything.
- Detectives asked him about his whereabouts
On December 18th going into December 19th.
- And he said he had an alibi that can prove
He wasn't the one involved.
A team went out to verify,
And it was determined that he was not able
To have committed the homicide.
It ruled him out.
♪ ♪
- One week after nikki and brittany were murdered,
The investigation is back at square one.
- Well, during the course of the investigation,
We started re-looking at the case in different ways.
Did we overlook something in the apartment
That might help us?
Amongst us, as detectives, we were wondering,
Is this going to turn into a cold case?
♪ ♪
- With multiple persons of interest ruled out,
Detectives hoped the phone record
From nikki and brittany's apartment
Might give them a lead.
♪ ♪
- Around midnight, two weeks after the murder,
The phone company finally delivers the phone records.
♪ ♪
It was the last outgoing call on December 19th,
The morning of the murders, that stands out.
- The call was made from the apartment
To an address in queens at 8:00 am on December 19th.
Around the same time, the super remembers
Seeing the first of two men running down the stairs.
- Obviously, we needed to go out there
And speak with whoever was the recipient of that call.
We arrived somewhere between 2:15 and 2:30 in the morning
To the residence.
We knocked on the door,
And a young lady opened the door.
We told her we were here investigating a homicide
That took place in manhattan
And that a phone call was placed to this residence
On December 19th,
And it lasted, give or take, less than two minutes.
"do you recall that phone call?"
And she said, "I can't tell you who made the call.
I remember somewhat of it."
[phone rings]
- Her phone had an answering machine.
She never picked up the phone.
She just listened to the caller leave a message.
[answering machine beeps]
- She said to us that somebody was upset,
And yelling and screaming, but she didn't pay it no mind.
All she remembered, it was some male on the phone.
But she couldn't say a name.
- Detectives believe that upset caller from
Nikki and brittany's apartment
Could very well lead to their killer.
They ask to be shown the answering machine.
She gives them some bad news.
- When her boyfriend came home later on
And she was having an argument with him,
She wound up throwing the phone against the wall, breaking it.
She said, I threw the phone down the incinerator.
[suspenseful music]
We asked emergency service to come in
And take a look to see if they could recover the phone
With the receiver, phone, and tape.
♪ ♪
- So crime scene finds the broken answering machine,
But there's no tape inside.
♪ ♪
Maybe the tape fell out.
So now you're still going through the garbage
To try to find the tape to this answering machine.
♪ ♪
- We couldn't come up with the tape.
- Detectives pressed the woman about
Who the mystery caller was trying to reach.
- She said it would have been her boyfriend, timothy brown.
She said he was out of town,
But she would call his beeper number.
We said, "look, if he reaches out to you,
We need to speak to him."
- With every other lead gone cold,
It's critical to find out who made that phone call
From brittany and nikki's apartment.
And then the phone rings at the precinct.
It's timothy brown.
He tells the detectives something
That puts the investigation back on track.
He had listened to the message
Before his girlfriend smashed the phone.
- We asked him, "do you know who placed that call?"
And he said, "yes.
I know who placed the call."
[phone rings]
♪ ♪
- Coming up...
- This is your chance to tell us what happened.
And when we told him we had dna from the crime scene,
He knew then that he had a problem.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[downbeat music]
[sirens wailing]
- The investigation into the double homicide of nikki silas
And brittany rojas has frustrated detectives
With its many dead ends.
But now, two weeks after their bodies were found,
Phone records have led detectives to a person
Who may break open the case.
His name was timothy brown.
[downbeat music]
[line rings]
- Timothy brown was the recipient of
The last call going out from the apartment
Around the same time
That brittany and nikki were being killed.
[indistinct radio chatter]
- When speaking with timothy brown,
He remembered that the call came in
From his friend, antoine atterbury.
♪ ♪
What timmy recalls is basically that
There's a lot of screaming on the phone from his friend
That somebody is wanting to rob somebody in that apartment
And rape them, and he wanted no part of it,
And he was leaving and he hung up.
When we asked him, "do you know where antoine lives?"
He told us, "yes."
Gave us the address of where they lived in queens.
- When detectives look up the address,
A chill of recognition hits them
As they remember a scrap of paper
Found at the crime scene.
[tense music]
- The hand-written directions found in
Brittany and nikki's apartment matched perfectly.
They start at the subway nearest to atterbury's home
And end at the west 109th street apartment building,
Brittany and nikki's apartment.
[suspenseful music]
- So we go out to queens.
And once we got there, we rang the doorbell.
[doorbell rings]
And the door was answered by antoine.
[suspenseful music]
We said, "we're investigating the homicide of two girls
"that took place on 109th street in manhattan,
"and we have strong indication that a phone call was
"placed out of that residence to a location in queens.
Do you know who timothy brown is?"
And he said, "no, I don't know what you're talking about."
- And then something catches detective hayes' eye.
- I saw what appeared to be a mini safe.
[suspenseful music]
- The safe appears to match the description
The superintendent gave the detectives
The morning of brittany and nikki's killing.
- And I asked him, "where did that come from?"
He said, "oh, my roommate brought it in."
"who's your roommate?"
And he mentioned kevin ladson.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
"how did that come here? What else did he bring?"
And he gave us a rundown on different things.
And he mentioned jewelry, music cds,
At which time we realized that some of this is
Items that might be from the crime scene.
We decided, "hey, we're gonna take this back
"to the 2-4 precinct so we can sit down in detail
And get everything about what you know."
♪ ♪
When we brought antoine atterbury
From queens into manhattan,
At that time, he wasn't placed in handcuffs.
We wanted to make it look like, "hey, you're helping us,
And we're helping you."
♪ ♪
He was brought into a interview room.
And we said, "hey, this is your chance
"to tell us what's going on because two girls got killed.
"and if you didn't have anything to do with it,
It's your best interest to tell us what happened."
It didn't matter about
Antoine saying he was or wasn't in the apartment.
The phone call put him in the apartment.
- But antoine refuses to explain why he made that call
And denies knowing anything about the murders.
♪ ♪
So while antoine is in custody,
A team of detectives stakes out his apartment,
Hoping to catch his roommate, kevin ladson.
- And as kevin was approaching the apartment,
He was apprehended and brought back to the precinct.
[siren chirping]
[suspenseful music]
When kevin ladson is brought into
The 2-4 detective squad room,
The interview room that antoine atterbury was in,
The door was left open so that he could see him walk by.
♪ ♪
We know that kevin saw antoine, and antoine saw kevin.
Our objective was to let kevin know,
The reason you here is because antoine told us about you.
We want him to see that we've got antoine.
Whoever talks first gets the best deal
And we wanted that put in his head.
♪ ♪
- Kevin is not cooperative,
But he doesn't point the finger at antoine.
He just keeps saying, "I didn't do what you say I did."
- With kevin clamming up,
Detectives hope the more talkative antoine
Will let something slip about what actually happened.
- We wanted to make it as convenient for him
To talk to us freely
Without feeling threatened that he's gonna go to jail.
♪ ♪
And as we went deeper into it,
He got more comfortable with telling us
"this was what happened."
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[downbeat music]
- A little more than two weeks after the nikki silas
And brittany rojas murders,
Detectives have two suspects in custody,
Kevin ladson and antoine atterbury.
Kevin isn't talking,
But antoine is starting to sink.
♪ ♪
- So during the interview of antoine atterbury,
We asked how did he know brittany or nikki.
He informed me that maybe three weeks ago,
Kevin ladson, after getting a haircut,
Came out the barber shop and he bumped into
A young lady named brittany,
Who we now know was brittany rojas.
He was informing her that he would like to take her out,
He thought she was attractive,
And they exchanged phone numbers.
♪ ♪
- Kevin ladson reaches out to brittany,
Sometime probably on the 18th,
And asks if he can come over and he can bring a friend.
And the friend is antoine atterbury.
- We remember that that direction note
Was there in the apartment.
And it was a possibility that--
The thought might have been that kevin brought that there.
♪ ♪
So about 6:00 to 6:15 on December 18th,
Antoine and kevin get on a train in queens,
And they come into manhattan.
♪ ♪
So they wound up going to the apartment,
And the girls let them in.
And so they decided to play hearts, play cards,
Have a couple of drinks.
♪ ♪
- 11:00 at night turns into 3:00 in the morning,
Turns into 5:00 in the morning.
- Nikki said, "hey, you know, I got to get ready for school.
"I'ma walk the dog, and then we can all leave
And, you know, do this another time."
♪ ♪
- Antoine says, that morning,
He went with nikki to walk the dog.
♪ ♪
Witnesses saw nikki that morning
With a person, a male.
So antoine's story checks out.
♪ ♪
- Antoine says that when he came back up to the apartment,
Kevin told him, "I'm taking nikki in the room.
"I'ma make her have sex with me,
Then I'm taking the safe."
- Antoine claims he didn't see brittany
When he came back from walking the dog.
[suspenseful music]
Was she in the bathroom? Was she dead or alive?
He says he doesn't know.
And that's when he made the call to timothy brown.
- When nobody picks up,
Antoine leaves the message that
Brown was able to listen to
Before their answering machine was destroyed.
- Well, all right, we can understand
You making the call to timothy.
But you got out.
You left kevin behind. Why didn't you call 911 then?
You can do it anonymously.
- Why didn't he try to stop him?
Why didn't he scream out the window?
Why didn't he, like, take something in the apartment
And smash him on the head?
I mean, all of us want to somehow, like,
Dive into that murder scene and stop it.
Maybe if he had called 911,
Nikki and brittany would still be alive.
- But detectives need more than antoine's word
To build a solid case,
And kevin isn't talking.
- He didn't say a word.
But when we told him we had dna from the crime scene
And we wanted to get his dna,
He knew then that he had a problem.
♪ ♪
- While detectives wait for the dna results to come back,
They bring the building superintendent
Into the station house.
- We went to conduct a lineup
With both antoine atterbury and kevin ladson
To see if he would be able to identify them
As who he saw come down the stairs on December 19th.
He positively identified antoine atterbury
As the first person coming down the stairs,
And he identified kevin ladson as the second person
Coming down with a duffel bag
With a mini safe that was sticking out.
♪ ♪
When we finally got the dna results back,
It came back positive.
Kevin ladson's dna was on nikki.
We had no dna we can use with brittany
Because she was submerged in water and at that time,
There was no way to extract
Any possible dna to match against kevin ladson.
- Does that mean brittany wasn't raped?
There's no way to know for sure.
♪ ♪
- We now have enough probable cause
To arrest kevin and antoine
And charge them with the murders of brittany and nikki.
- The da's point of view was this:
Both girls were a victim of asphyxiation homicide.
There is a strong belief that both girls were raped.
♪ ♪
[downbeat music]
♪ ♪
- I got a call one day from the detective,
And he said he had arrested
Kevin ladson and antoine atterbury.
- And at that point, there was relief
That at least they were off the street,
That I didn't have to have this worry anymore of, like,
This looming monster in the-- in new york city.
- I was, I guess, relieved, but more like anger.
And, like, now I want them to pay.
Like, "good, you got 'em. Make 'em pay."
So... [sniffles]
[determined music]
- With two trials coming up,
Prosecutors have the challenge of building cases
On circumstantial evidence alone.
Kevin ladson has taken the fifth,
And antoine claims he doesn't know what happened
After he left the apartment.
♪ ♪
- We said, "antoine, you heard kevin say that
"he wanted to take the safe.
"you see the safe in your house.
"he comes in with music cds, you don't question that?
"he comes in with jewelry, you don't question that?
"all right. You're guilty of something.
We can't prove it, but this is
What you're gonna get charged with."
♪ ♪
Antoine was shaken to his boots
That he knew he might be going to jail,
And he was trying his best to not get locked up.
♪ ♪
- The detectives know they need more
To strengthen their case.
And then antoine gives them the key.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Antoine atterbury and kevin ladson
Have been arrested and charged with the murders
Of nikki silas and brittany rojas.
♪ ♪
While kevin is still not talking,
Antoine has one final piece of information to share.
- Atterbury tells detectives of an item that ladson stole
From brittany and nikki's house.
- He mentioned a specific coat
That kevin ladson gave to his girlfriend
Who was attending borough of manhattan community college.
And we sent a team of detectives.
And when they finally went there
And met with her,
She happened to be wearing the coat.
We said, "who gave you that coat?"
She said, "my boyfriend."
I said, "well, that coat belongs to a homicide victim."
Right there, on the campus ground,
Threw it down on the ground.
Said, "oh, my god! I didn't know that."
♪ ♪
- Nikki's family confirms that the coat was hers.
This final piece of evidence places kevin
Physically inside the victim's apartment.
There is no other way he could have gotten the coat.
Detectives are confident they have the right suspects
And a strong case.
- Kevin ladson, a slam dunk.
You raped nikki. You killed her.
♪ ♪
In reference to brittany rojas,
The question was, did you kill her
Or did antoine atterbury?
We all agreed that it was kevin ladson.
♪ ♪
- Based on the dna found on nikki silas,
And the superintendent's and antoine's statements,
The prosecutors try ladson for robbery, rape, and murder.
They believe that atterbury was not responsible
For the murders, and he is only tried for robbery.
- Kevin ladson was convicted and was given 40 years.
Antoine atterbury was convicted
And got a sentence of 17 to 21 years.
- I was happy,
But it didn't take everything off my shoulders
Like I thought it would.
[somber music]
- Brittany's mother was also relieved
That justice had prevailed.
But for her, the pain would also never go away.
- Her mother, dalis,
She said, "there's no justice in this life.
You're a piece of sand. You're nothing."
[somber music]
- For damon, nikki's death changed the direction
Of his whole life.
- After going to undergrad at howard university,
I ended up going to grad school
And I majored in clinical psychology,
Primarily working with children and adolescents.
I really wanted to work with juveniles, with youth,
Who could potentially go down the same path
That antoine and kevin went.
♪ ♪
- He said, "I had to do this for my sister.
"because if I don't do something for her,
Then it'll be in vain that she died."
♪ ♪
- And then, in 2015,
Nikki's family went one step further in their journey.
- One day, damon called me and said,
"I hope you don't think I'm crazy,
But I've been thinking about
Going to see kevin in the prison."
I said, "well, you know what? If you are, I am."
- In 2015, my mom and I went to the prison
In upstate new york to visit kevin ladson.
What was more important to me and my mom was
To let him know that when he took nikki's life,
He impacted all of these people.
He impacted her friends and family,
And the ripple effect that taking her life
Had on so many people.
♪ ♪
- We started talking, and I told him,
"I don't hate you, but I hate what you did to me
And my family."
And I said, "you took a lot of things away from me
That I'll never have."
He started crying.
He apologized.
He told me how sorry he was.
He didn't intend to do what he did.
I believed him.
And the fact that it made me feel better,
That's all that was important to me.
[downbeat music]
♪ ♪
- So at the end of that conversation,
We--we all actually hugged. [chuckles]
We hugged and cried together.
And he was crying a lot through it.
We were, my mom and I.
- Because it was just a phenomenal feeling.
I don't even know how to describe it.
It was just almost like, ok, all that pain went away.
- It was almost like this closing of an old chapter
Or a closing of a book to start a new chapter.
♪ ♪