On the morning of June 21, 2015, a young mother of one, Lindsay Nichols was found dead in her car at the corner of Lake Forest and Michoud boulevards in Louisiana.
Nichols, 31, a single mom, had spent the night out with some of her friends at a club in New Orleans East, but by morning, she was discovered dead in the trunk of her car which had been set on fire. Later, the medical examiner found that Nichols' body had been through a significant amount of trauma. She had been shot many times, had been manually strangulated and had also been battered in the face. The severity of the injuries led investigators and detectives to believe that it had been a personal crime and someone who knew her had killed her.
24 days post the victim's body being found, as part of an investigation into her murder, detectives were able to access her phone records. It was upon looking through Nichols' phone records that New Orleans Police Department Homicide Detective Sgt. Robert Barrere learned that Nichols had made a desperate 911 call that day. A man was outside her car threatening her.
Barrere heard the call and learned how that 911 call could have saved her life had it been managed properly. On the call, Nichols was heard pleading for her life, screaming, with sounds of physical violence in the background. The operator could hear her screaming while a man in the background demanded that she open her mouth so he could place a gun inside of it. Then the line went dead. The 911 dispatcher did not immediately send anyone to help her. After a good eight minutes after Nichols made her call, the dispatcher sent a police officer who was three blocks away from the scene. By the time officials arrived to investigate a "low-level response", the killer had left with Nichols.
During the 911 call, Nichols had described her environment, she had described the suspects, she also shared that the suspects had a gun. The 911 operator made what seems to have been a fatal omission which is she never told the responding officers about the gun.
However, while detectives tried to trace leads and find out what happened to her, the phone records drew eyes on a number she had called several times a little bit before calling 911. That number belonged to Thayon Samson. Between 4:11 a.m. and 4:18 a.m. on June 21, Nichols made two calls to Samson, according to an arrest warrant signed by Barrere. A friend of Nichols revealed Samson and Nichols had met at a bar where they had hit it off around three months before her murder. After looking into Samson, authorities found that he was an exotic dancer who went by the stage name 'Bonafyde' or 'Bone'. Somehow, after clubbing that morning Nichols wound up in the parking lot outside of Samson’s apartment in the 6000 block of Chef Menteur Highway, near Downman Road. Detectives in due course found that he lived next to a car dealership - the same place that Nichols had described in her frantic 911 call.
The exact sequence of events that followed after her 911 is still unclear. But according to the arrest warrant, Samson stood outside of Nichols’ Honda Accord and accused of her having shared his address with someone else. Text messages exchanged between the two showed that Samson had wanted Nichols to engage some sexual activity with him and Varnado to which she had disagreed. The two then beat her up and killed after she tried to run.
Meanwhile, the police had tried to find Nichols based on what the 911 operator had told them but he was unable to locate her. But the police spent at most 14 minutes looking into her call. Her call for help was marked as “unfounded” at 5:10 a.m. By 5:13 a.m., according to dispatch records, the lead officer on the scene had moved on to a traffic stop. Witnesses and anonymous tipsters told authorities that Samson was seen standing over the open trunk of Nichols’ car at Lake Forest and Michoud boulevards about 7 a.m., The woman's body was later found in the trunk of the car. It was severely burned and was marked by several gunshot wounds.
As part of the investigation, Samson was brought in for questioning where he revealed he was at home with his girlfriend and friend, Troy Varnado. He acknowledged talking with Nichols at the club but claimed he then returned to his apartment and did not go anywhere else. The detectives, later on, found that evidence collected in the car which was a pair of bloodied shorts, gym socks, and a white shirt had matched an outfit that Samon had worn and shared on social media. They were able to secure an arrest warrant for Samson. As for Varnado, a witness had seen the two around the crime scene and had identified Samson who proceeded to shift the blame on Varnado. Samson was arrested and booked for Nichols' murder.
Samson pleaded guilty to an amended charge of manslaughter and guilty as charged to second-degree kidnapping, obstruction of justice and solicitation for murder in connection with the murder. He was given 40 years in prison while Varnado decided to go to trial and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Oxygen's new documentary 'Murdered by Morning' looks at how Nichols' neglected 911 call in the early hours of June 21 helped the detectives ultimately catch her killers
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