Chapter 1: What is the story of Marilyn 'Niqui' McCown?
Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Brit. If you're like me and you're ready to dive into even more cases, there's another podcast I think you're going to love. Park Predators. In Park Predators, host Delia D'Ambra dives into the haunting crimes that happen in some of the most beautiful and unexpected places across the globe.
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Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today I am bringing you a special episode. If you recognize the name Marilyn Nikki McCown, then you've either been with us since the very beginning or you've made it all the way through our archives. Because Nikki's story was the very first one I ever told on Crime Junkie back in December of 2017.
before we even knew what this show would become, before the millions of you listening now, and long before we had a team of investigative reporters digging into these cases. And her case really shaped the future of what this show would become because I remember, Britt, I'm sure you do too. I can tell you where I was standing.
The day after that episode dropped, Nikki's daughter Peyton reached out to me, said that she listened, said she was grateful for the attention, but, you know, there was more to the story. Mm-hmm. I drove all the way up to Richmond, Indiana. I met with her. And I held that conversation with me every day for the next eight years.
This reminder that even when we had no following, the people who lived these stories would be listening to these stories. I never forgot her. I never forgot her mom. And I kept tabs on the case the whole time. But not much had changed eight years later. So I had this idea. Back in 2017, this show was a lot different. It's evolved so much over that time.
And maybe it's hard to notice unless you binge. So I wanted to really show everyone how far we've come to thank you, our listeners, for showing up every week, for caring and for giving us the resources to grow. And I want to show you how we put those resources to work.
Because what started out as me and Britt here just retelling a story that's already been told, like many true crime shows do, this is now a full-fledged investigative reporting operation with a team of people, a team of reporters to bring you never-before-heard details on cases that you thought you knew, like this one.
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Chapter 2: What new details have emerged about Niqui's disappearance?
So on July 22nd, 2001, Nikki and her fiance Bobby Webster went to church with plans to wrap up their wedding invitations together later that day. After the service, Nikki went back to the apartment that she shared with Bobby.
She changed into some casual clothes like a pink top and biker shorts, loaded up Bobby's GMC with dirty clothes, and then drove to the Richmond Coin Laundry on South E Street, something that had become kind of like a weekly ritual. Now, just before 2 p.m., a witness saw Nikki inside the building, the laundromat.
Then, 15 minutes later, security footage captured her at the nearby Village Pantry convenience store getting changed. I'm assuming for the laundry machines. Now, before she left, she looked totally normal. Things seemed fine. But they obviously didn't stay that way.
Because just a little while later, we know that Nikki got back in her car and drove this short distance to her parents' house where she told her mom that she felt uncomfortable. Some guys at the laundromat had been bothering her, like wouldn't leave her alone.
Well, and her mom even offered to finish the laundry up at her place, right?
Yeah, she said she could like take it out, dry it there or whatever because she had a machine at her place. But Nikki didn't. So she goes back and according to the Dayton Daily News, at about 3 p.m., someone sees her back at the laundromat.
But I don't think they're like, whoever's seeing her, the witness, they're like staying there or have eyes on her for a long time because we just have this like brief confirmation that she's there at three and then that's it. We don't know when she finished or if she left or when she left or if she left alone.
We just know that as the afternoon wore on, she never made it back to her apartment, didn't return to her parents' house to pick up her then nine-year-old daughter, Peyton. And by early evening, her family had started to worry and they began calling around trying to find her. And with no luck, they end up filing a missing persons report with the Richmond police that next morning.
And even though she was in the prime of her life with a daughter, she was about to get married. Like, I mean, the wedding was just around the corner. She had no history of disappearing like this. For some reason, the family said the police didn't initially think that something bad had happened. They kind of figured that she would just come home when she was ready.
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Chapter 3: What was Niqui's last known activity before she went missing?
Which kind of just left everyone with a lot of questions about Bobby, but no physical proof tying him to a crime. Well, and he had an alibi, right? Kind of. I mean, that's what I remember knowing back then. Like after church, he said that he met up with a cousin and his cousin drove them to the Richmond Square Mall to get fitted for wedding tuxes.
They're together for like an hour and a half or so. And then Bobby said that he made a couple of pit stops at people's houses before going home between like 530 and 545, where he expected to meet Nikki. They were going to finish up those wedding invites, but she just never showed. So, yes, he has an alibi. You know, there's a little bit of wiggle room in there.
And with that, with the quote unquote failed Polly, after he gets talked to by police, he kind of just remains in this gray space that investigators like to call person of interest.
Mm hmm.
Now, while searches continued for Nikki, detectives went back to the laundromat a week later to interview regulars. No one saw anything that was suspicious, not even in hindsight. And more importantly, no one seemed to know anything about the men who may have been messing with Nikki.
By this point, Indiana State Police stepped in to help a little by putting up a helicopter to sweep across Richmond, Indiana and the surrounding area. They're hunting for the vehicle she was in, a 1990 black and gray GMC Jimmy. The thinking was, find the car, find Nikki, or at least be one step closer to where she is. But week after week, the sky, the ground, it all offered nothing.
And it turns out that's because the car wasn't in Indiana. You see, Richmond, Indiana, you know this, is right on the eastern border of the state bumping against Ohio. So it's not uncommon for people who live in Richmond to work in Dayton, Ohio, because that's the closest big city. Nikki is one of those people. She worked at a prison there, even lived in Dayton before.
Yeah, and this is all kind of in the same bubble for Richmond locals, I think.
Yes, but jurisdictional lines are pretty solid. And so since every indication pointed to Nikki going missing from the laundromat in Indiana, no one was really paying much attention to Ohio. I mean, they could go like talk to people in Ohio who knew her and stuff. And I think they did what they could, like getting a hold of her ex, her co-workers, her friends.
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Chapter 4: How did the police initially respond to Niqui's case?
Yeah. Well, as detectives dug into her life in Dayton, one name kept coming up in their interviews. Someone who worked with Nikki and lived nearby. 34-year-old Tommy Swint, who is a corrections officer at the facility where Nikki was employed, the Montgomery Education and Pre-Release Center. Now, Tommy had a reputation for being close to her, maybe too close.
Some co-workers, friends, family described his behavior as protective, innocent, like a big brother figure. Someone she had known for like five plus years. But others called his behavior or feelings toward Nikki obsessive. Nikki's sister, Michelle McCown Luster, said that Tommy had actually even sent lingerie to Nikki's bridal shower just weeks before she disappeared, if you remember.
She also said that one time, years before... She walked in on Tommy, pinning Nikki against a chair, and Nikki had her, like, foot on his chest screaming for help, something that Tommy tried to, like, laugh off as just playing around. And this is all sus, but kind of like with Bobby, it didn't go anywhere.
They couldn't prove that he'd moved the car or did something to Nikki, so he didn't stay in the hot seat. And that's really kind of where Nikki's case seemed to stall.
Did they end up getting any physical evidence from the GMC that they could use?
Well, early on, they never said too much publicly. But if they got anything, like when you think about it, if it came back to either of the two persons of interest, Tommy or Bobby, I don't think it would have helped much. Like it's Bobby's car in the first place. Like, yeah, of course, there's going to be like some sign of him in the vehicle.
And Tommy had been friends with her for five or so years. Like he could easily write that off, too. But they weren't writing him off completely. They had over the years kind of been keeping tabs on him. And lo and behold, in 2007, this dude pops back up on the radar. Not in Nikki's case or even for another crime. No, they got word that he was employed as a police officer in Trotwood, Ohio.
So Richmond police decide that they probably need to phone a friend here. They call up Trotwood PD and they're like, hey, don't know if this came up in like the interview process, but that guy you just hired, he is a person of interest in one of our cases. Like maybe not somebody you want on your squad. They agree, and basically they force Tommy to resign. But this man did not want to go quietly.
He filed a lawsuit against Richmond PD and several officials, multiple newspapers, along with two reporters alleging defamation. His whole thing was like, he says he was never informed that he was a suspect or a person of interest in Nikki's case, and that pretty much everyone from the prison where they all worked had been questioned. So he just thought that was par for the course.
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Chapter 5: What evidence was found related to Niqui's vehicle?
You are out searching for your missing sister and you walk in on her unhelpful fiance watching The Gift. Michelle said she remembers standing there just like in shock, watching him just like play this same movie, thinking like, why this one? Why now? Why repeatedly? Over and over. And he's not even hiding it. But like nothing he was doing felt normal or appropriate for the situation.
I mean, she told us that his emotions never seemed to match the moment. One minute he would be sobbing and then the next he seemed totally fine. Like he could switch it on and off. It didn't feel real to her. In 2024, news outlet Dayton 24-7 Now obtained Bobby's 2001 interview with Richmond PD. And there is this moment where, in my opinion, I hear what Michelle is talking about.
And I'm actually going to play a little snippet for everyone here.
Any thoughts where she could be at all? Nothing at all. I mean, give me that. I don't want to sit and go, maybe another guy. I do hope it's another guy. I can deal with that pain. Pain that I can't deal with is not knowing. I don't know if she's hungry. I don't know if she's... If she's what? If she's sitting somewhere and just can't eat. I don't know this.
And I'm sitting around trying, hoping it's another guy. I can deal with that pain. I just don't. I'm sick of everyone going to psychics.
Oh, they've done that too?
It's okay until the phone rings at her sister's. I can't stay at my house. It's okay until the phone rings. And it's like, what is it now? What dead end are we headed on now?
There are a few moments like that where he sounds like he wants to cry, but then maybe doesn't. Though, like, I can't tell because it's audio only. But he even tells police he's all cried out because he's just been crying for three days straight before they came to talk to him. Now, Michelle didn't see that in the first three days.
And when she tried to press him about the day Nikki went missing, July 22nd, she said that his answers seemed very surface level. It was like the same basic outline repeated again and again. Church, wedding errands, back home. But he does get more detailed with police in his interview. He says that after church, he and Nikki went home. She changed into her casual clothes.
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Chapter 6: Who were the key suspects in Niqui's case?
But a few days later, after word about Nikki was out, he showed up at her door and something just felt wrong. She said that she remembers he was wearing Nikki's engagement ring and wedding band around his neck. Even though Kim swears that she saw Nikki wearing them on the day that she disappeared, like she was wearing them at church.
Are we talking about one of the rings that he returned to the jewelry store or something else?
No, yeah. He ends up returning her engagement ring on the 27th. So they're like five days between her disappearing and then him returning it. And Bobby's at her door only like days after or whatever. And listen, it was weird to her. There could be a straightforward explanation here.
I mean, according to Bobby himself in his interview with police, he said that Nikki took her rings off before she would do laundry. And he said she did that day. And this seems likely because in the case report that we have, it mentions that Nikki wasn't wearing anything on her left hand from what detectives could tell in the surveillance footage. But still, Kim couldn't make sense of it.
Because the explanation that Bobby gave her at first didn't match the one that he gave her later. Like at first he said the rings were too loose. So she was worried about them like falling off while doing laundry. But then in 2002, he told her that she'd taken them off because she'd gained weight and they were too tight.
Which isn't just like a different explanation. It's the opposite.
Right. And Kim also said that when she offered to help search for Nikki, Bobby told her not to bother, that it would be a waste of time. And what really spooked her... was when Bobby started saying that Nikki was already dead, talking about her being an angel.
And Kim just could not understand why he would be talking like that, especially when, in her opinion, it was early on enough where there was still every reason to hope that she was going to be coming home. Yeah. So with all her uneasy feelings like building up, eventually when they were seeing each other, Kim did something that I think most people in her position might not have the nerve to do.
She looked square at Bobby and asked him point blank if he killed Nikki. According to Kim, Bobby didn't answer. He didn't deny it. He didn't defend himself. He just broke down crying. Kim told us that moment stayed with her for years and deeply disturbed her. She didn't ask him again, and they ended things shortly after this. Yeah. Obviously.
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Chapter 7: What connections exist between Niqui's case and other unsolved cases?
But it's been almost 25 years, and maybe to find Nikki, we have to kind of wade through all of that. Starting with a totally out-of-left-field allegation that came about two years after Nikki disappeared, when someone tried to inject a brand new theory into the case. One so pointed that if it were true, would turn the entire investigation on its head.
In November 2003, detectives received something completely unexpected, an anonymous letter claiming investigators had missed a crucial relationship in Nikki's life. No name was signed to this letter, just a set of accusations sharp enough to ruin a career or derail an entire investigation.
According to the case report, this letter alleged that Nikki had been romantically involved with someone from work and not Tommy Swint, not even just an officer like Tommy. This letter named the guy presiding over the entire prison. Like the warden? The warden.
And the letter claimed that the two had some sort of secret relationship that they had argued before she disappeared and that there were rumors he didn't want her getting married. And just to make things even stranger, this letter was signed only with the number 634-5789.
What is that? Like an inmate number? A badge number? Like employee ID?
That's what I thought at first too, but it probably is none of the above. The best guess, according to the case report, is that it's referencing a Wilson Pickett soul song where that number is the title. It's a made-up phone number, basically, like, that you can call when you want someone to, like, come over and give you some attention.
So if that's what it is, I don't know if the author was doing this as a nod to being anonymous or, like, trying to give some clue that, like, we're not picking up on. Or if this is just, like, a super weird coincidence and the number actually is something else. I mean, there wasn't, like, a dash in it, like the song title or, like, a phone number actually would be. Yeah.
Could it be something else? Maybe. But just look at this as a whole. The whole thing, to me, feels designed. And not like someone trying to help. More like someone trying to steer the investigation. Almost like a diversion. Yeah. And the case report states that investigators followed up on this, but they didn't find anything to support it. But did they?
Because we reached out to the warden and he agreed to answer our questions via text. And he was quick to shut down the rumor. And according to him, he had never heard of this letter. Now, it's unclear to me whether, like, police had talked to him or not talked to him. But he was clear that the letter, at least, like, that this had never come up. He was surprised by it.
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Chapter 8: What are the current efforts to find Niqui and uncover the truth?
And so that's where all the focus ends up going. But before we circle back to him, I have to tell you about something tucked so far down in the narrative of this report, I almost missed it. But the second my eyes hit one name in particular, I froze. Like, I couldn't believe what I was seeing in the case report because this name was one I knew well.
So, you see, after they found the GMC in Dayton, police made a concerted effort to really try to talk to everyone in Dayton who knew Nikki, right? Well, one of the people that they get in touch with tells them that some woman named Kay told her she ran into someone else. I know this is getting a little confluded. But this someone else told Kay that they were Nikki's godmother.
And this godmother said that Nikki had just got cold feet. And oh, by the way, Kay has this boyfriend named Jeff Moore. And Jeff actually just happened to be friends with this disc jockey who was murdered in Ohio the year before Nikki's disappearance. Her name was Kelly D. Wilson.
That stopped me in my tracks because if anyone's listened to my other podcast, The Deck, they might remember that I covered Kelly's case years ago. And that case is still unsolved. Now, the next note in the report says that they talked to this Jeff guy who's like mentioned. And he's like, yeah, I work construction at the apartments where Kelly was killed and we were friends. That's it.
Like that's like the end of the summary of their conversation. This Kelly, Jeff, Kay, none of it sticks. But I was over here freaking the F out because another weird detail I already knew because I lived in that case is that Kelly's on-air disc jockey name was Nicky. And the apartment where this Jeff guy worked, the apartment where Kelly was killed in 2000, was Meadows of freaking Catalpa.
The same place where Nikki once lived, where her GMC that she was driving ends up being found. Something about these Meadows of Catalpa apartments. I know. It keeps pulling us back. Everything comes back to these apartments. And guess who frequented those apartments? Tommy Swint. And we're back.
Apparently, he used to pick Nikki up from that complex when she and her ex Stephen would be like fighting. This is before Bobby. So my big question, did Tommy know Kelly? Like we know he hung around that area, but we can't seem to confirm if Tommy was in the same circle of friends as Kelly. We tried asking around, but so far we can't find anyone who can say for sure either way.
And are we sure Kelly knew her killer?
No, not necessarily. I'm actually going to put Kelly's deck episode here in the Crime Junkie feed the day after this one drops. So anyone not familiar with that case, you really need to listen. It is a truly wild case. But at least in my opinion, it's totally possible she could have been killed by someone who just saw an opportunity.
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