REOPENED: DNA SPEAKS: A Fatal Path

0:00This program contains disturbing accounts of violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only 1% are ever sold. This is one of those rare stories. It's June 7, 1995. Aquanelia Smith lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her three daughters. We lived in Landrum Arms Department. It's off of Camington Road. It wasn't a very safe neighborhood, but I was a single parent. I was always told it ain't where you live is how you live. I have three kids, including Nicole. I have an older daughter, Nikita, a younger son, Aubrey. My whole life was my kids. I lived for them. Nicole tutored the kids in a neighborhood. She loved taking care of kids.

1:02Nicole, she wanted to be a pediatrician. She was graduating from middle school, going into high school. This is Cassandra Bolding, Nicole Smith's best friend. Nicole wanted to be a major red and the major red are the twirlers. Friday night lights, though everyone would get together and the major reds would be out front and center. Also, she was on the major red team. So Nikita comes home. She says she don't have the rhythm. She'll never make it. So Nicole, when she was reaching for something, she went forward. She made the major red team. Nicole and I were eighth grade student. And it was the last week of school, so very much looking forward to high school life. That morning, I told her, Nicole, do not put your hair in a ponytail. Because she had lots of hair. And now she wants to just push it back and put it in the ponytail. She looked at me, she said, my, you're so crazy,

2:02but I love you. And Nicole and Nikita, they got dressed, and they left out. 14-year-old Nicole and her 16-year-old sister, Nikita, had to school. About 920, I heard these gunshots by head being to hurt. Couldn't understand why. It just wouldn't stop hurting. Dispatch sends officer Reginald Boone to investigate. I received the call of a person who was down in the woods at need medical attention. I thought it was somebody who probably got in drunk and had a few too many and was laying out in the woods. As I approached the scene, I noticed a backpack. I saw clothing in the body of a young girl. She was partially clothed. I could see a wound in the back of her head. And I knew she was gone. Former Atlanta Police Department detective Vince Velasquez takes up the case. So homicide detectives arrive and they see

3:02a very young teenage girl. She's laying on her back. This young girl shot twice, two times to the face. These wounds are close contact. They know right away. This was an execution and the way she's positioned. It has all the appearances of a sexual assault. What kind of person does that? Who puts a gun to a child's face and just execute her? The detectives do. They were dealing with a monster. Investigators found two nine millimeter shell casings and they found a projectile close to where this young girl was found. They can clearly see a pattern on a bottom or a victim's shoes. But what was more interesting is intermixed with those impressions that they felt belong to this young girl were other shoe impressions. What they were able to determine was these other shoe impressions were from a brand of sneaker called Case Swiss. In 1995, it was a very popular sneaker

4:02worn by a lot of young people. Detectives then take a closer look at the red backpack found near the body. Investigators actually find her school ID. To have an address, she literally lives just 50 yards away from when she was killed. She's 14 years old. Her name is Nicole Smith. Two officers knocked on my door. They asked me did I have a daughter about a name with Nicole Smith? And I was like, yes. And they said, we found a body in the woods. And he said, we need a pitch up in the cold. And I stood there for a second. And I went back to my bedroom, locked myself in the bathroom. And I started praying, God, please not let it be Nicole. I got myself together. Went back up front with the officers. We called the school. They said that she wasn't there. And I just was not willing to accept that it was Nicole. So I lied in that bed in the feeder position. I remember being in class. And I remember there being a lot of conversation

5:03about something has happened in the neighborhood. And one of the assistant principals came to the class. And what she looked over at me is like my heart just sank. It wasn't until we made it to Nicole's house. And I saw people there, police officers. I just kind of knew I do remember going home after that. And just being in my room in the bed in just like a zombie, I could not fully process that this was what has happened. It was so unbearable for me. The neighbors told me they heard her screaming, saying, please don't hurt me. People hurt her being for her life. And nobody went to her rescue. Nobody. Investigators interview Aquinelia, looking for the timeline of the hours leading up to Nicole's murder. That morning, Nikita and Nicole, they both asked me.

6:04Could they walk with their friends that morning? I hesitated. And what I said to her was only if you don't go through the path. That wooded area, a but to two apartment complexes. It's a path that's just worn out by people cutting through the woods. A lot of the kids just made that little path so they could go to school. For me to say to them, do not go through the path. Usually, Nicole will listen to me. So I feel they would be safe for Nicole to walk to school with Nikita. Nicole's sister Nikita tells police everything she in Nicole did that morning. Nicole Smith left home with her sister, Nikita, to go to school. They met with another friend. They decided to go into the convenience store to get some snacks or some drinks before they continue on their way to school. Nicole realized she forgot her homework. So she tells her sister and friends, you go ahead, head to school. I'm going to go back home. I'm going to grab my homework and then make it back to the bus stop.

7:06Nikita was watching her go over the hill. And she said Nicole waved a whole time, telling her by and she would wave and back at her until she couldn't see her anymore. Nicole takes a shortcut, the path through the woods. It's the last time she's seen alive. Near the end of her interview with detectives, Nikita tells police something that grabs their attention. Nikita remembered someone at this convenience store being in line who she described as a black male around 20 years old, ish, light skin. As she said, he was wearing white case Swiss tennis shoes. So right away detectives are thinking, this person that's in line at this convenience store, more than likely is the killer. We know where a killer is wearing case Swiss tennis shoes. And now we have a witness, Nikita, who basically says as she saw somebody in the store wearing the same type of tennis shoes, it all made sense. I feel that that person saw Nicole leave the store,

8:07followed her into the woods and did what he did. Police soon have a second witness. A landscaper working in the area says he too saw the man in the case with sneakers. I asked the landscaper what he had seen. And he said that he heard screams and he heard shots. And then he saw a light skin, black male, run down the trail carrying a gun. This is a critical witness. He actually sees the suspect almost exactly as Nikita described the guy in the store. 5, 10, light skin, khaki pants, white tennis shoes. He's running out of the woods, holding the weapon wrapped in his bloody t-shirt and then disappears. Police scour the neighborhood's searching for the suspect. For hours, that entire day, you had upwards of 100 people literally fanning out from Nicole's crime scene. And just knock on them on every single door they could find.

9:08And they came up with nothing. As police continue to hunt for the mystery man, the medical examiner performs an autopsy on Nicole's remains. The Fulton County Medical Examiner conducted Nicole's autopsy. They had a rape kit performed. They recovered semen from the sexual assault. Investigators send the rape kit off for DNA analysis, hoping that it will produce a DNA profile that will help find the killer. Many of the deer field apartments, they picketed in anger saying crime is out of control, while police brought in a small army to search for clues on the path in the woods, even in garbage dumps. Nicole's murder makes news in Atlanta. Nicole Smith was 14 years old, her life ended just before 930 this morning when they were search shouting, then two gunshots. Once this got out, Nicole became Atlanta's daughter. Everybody felt that we failed to protect this young girl. Most people had kids. They wanted to come in to be safe. And when that happened to Nicole, it hurt a lot of people.

10:11Everyone at school was really terrified, even people who did not know Nicole definitely wanted this to be solved and quickly. Three days after the murder, as the investigation continues, 14-year-old Nicole Smith is laid to rest. My church, Saxon Memorial, it holds about 3,000 people. People had to stand in the lobby to hear the service. So many people came out to support again. Those who knew Nicole, those who just heard of the story and wanted to come out and be supportive. The mayor spoke, my girlfriend, Jackie Davis, she spoke, and she read the poem that Nicole had written about me. Her beautiful black queen, which was me. And the way a friend of her was, she would thought it was the first lady of the president service. She was well loved. Six months after Nicole's murder,

11:11fall turns to winter and police have yet to name a suspect. They focus on ballistics and the shell casings found at the scene. Detectives tested every single 9mm and APD's inventory. They test fired them. Just in case, one of those guns was found and maybe there's a name connected to it. They compared them to shell cases that were recovered at other scenes where people were shot or murdered. The ballistics lead nowhere and detectives hit another dead end with the DNA. The rape kit does produce a full DNA profile, but when investigators uploaded to the national database, Kodas, they draw a blank. They put Nicole's sample in Kodas and got nothing. The suspect in this case had not committed a crime worthy enough of getting his DNA taken and placed into Kodas. Almost seven months after Nicole's murder, just as the case stalls, investigators develop a new witness based on a tip from Nicole's mother. Detectives identify another witness

12:14that saw the man running from the woods. From this witness, they created a computer-generated composite of a suspect just from the chin up. It were dropping these flyers on people's doorsteps, stopping people on the street and conducting canvases and passing these flyers out. While police investigate, Aquinelia leads her own search with the help of family and friends. Getting the suspect's sketch out to the public. I would make flyers, make phone calls. The community was helping a lot. They supported me with that. Some of them would go with me knocking on doors. They would go look for guys. You know, the description they had, they found this one particular guy, Levin McNext, or to the wooded area. And they cout him in the complex, and they began to beat the guy. Because they thought he was the one to kill Nicole. The Atlanta police are called out because there's a guy that literally is in a fist fight

13:16with Nicole's family because they felt he so closely resembled this composite sketch that he had to be the person that killed Nicole Smith. When police arrived, they literally rolled up on scene and they have to separate Nicole's family from this guy, Jamar Hendrix. They see this guy that looks like this composite sketch and lives nearby where Nicole was killed. So detectives dug in on who Jamar Hendrix was. Detectives learned Jamar Hendrix worked at a local cemetery. Several witnesses testified to his whereabouts that morning. He was at work. He was not Nicole's killer. For months, the sketch circulates around Atlanta. I was expecting that case to be solved within the first week, but it didn't happen. Less than a year after the murder on March 26, 1996, Nicole Smith's case file is as cold as a Georgia winter phrase. I had been fighting so hard.

14:16It was just so hard to give up. I just honestly weren't paying to go away. And it doesn't. The investigation is at a standstill, but Nicole's mother keeps the case in the public eye. It's always kept the media in to deal with her story. I was fighting for information, fighting to get this person off the street. You know, that's all I had to give her. I couldn't save her life. What happened to Nicole will haunt the community. Every time you went someplace, people were talking about it. Kind of made me feel badness happened on my watch. And I felt that I should be able to find out who didn't. I am still looking for that miracle for her to walk through the door. So unbearable for me. Suddenly, you brought into this world and you never thought you would be here to see them leave the world. That's a mother's job to protect her kids. And I couldn't protect her that morning.

15:20Every day is a reminder. I just didn't want to leave anymore. August 14, 2002, seven years after Nicole's murder. I get a call from Don Scully, the District Attorney's Office received a letter from an inmate in Calhoun State Prison. And in this letter, this inmate is given information that he is incarcerated with someone that he feels may have killed Nicole Smith. Don Scully and I drive 180 miles one way to Calhoun State Prison. We meet with an inmate named Bernard Carr, who goes on to explain an inmate sitting right next to him in a day room named Rhodes. Blurred's out. I killed a little girl back in the day in the 90s in the woods. So Bernard Carr wanted us to talk to Rhodes. So Rhodes says I was in a shootout with another guy. And the little girl was caught in a crossfire.

16:21Though there wasn't a shootout at the time of Nicole's murder, investigators stay focused on Rhodes. This is the first thing we've seen in this case since this thing went cold in 96. It's 2002, DNA science is advanced. So there's one quick way to figure out whether Rhodes is involved in this case. Let's check Kodis. It was in two days later when we get notified, it's not a match. There's absolutely no way he could be the killer of Nicole. Nine years after Nicole's murder, in 2004, Fulton County forms a cold case unit, which detective Velasquez immediately joins. The only case I took with me was Nicole's case. What better place to introduce a case to a team of seasoned homicide detectives? We must have had over 100 years of experience collectively in that room. We knew that Nicole's DNA profile was already in Kodis. We were tasked with finding old rape kits and reworking them to modern DNA standards

17:22so we could uplift them into Kodis. And then hopefully get a match. It's August 26, 2004. And I remember coming to work that day. And Sheila Ross is already in our office. When she saw me come in, she literally ran out of our office and says, you are not going to believe this. We just got a hit on the Nicole Smith case through DNA. That means Nicole's rapist and killer has struck again exactly nine years and 13 days after he killed Nicole. Hello, and welcome to Pluto, foe. If you know the name of the movie you'd like to see, just stream it for free on Pluto TV. We're all your blockbuster favorites are landing all summer long. Catch anchor man, the legend of Ron Burgundy. Fantastic. The Matrix trilogy. Welcome to the real world. Mean girls. Side up. Tite and ink. From the key in the world. And so much more for showtime's press nothing. They're free 24-7.

18:23That is so a fact on Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never. It's June 20th, 2004 in East Point, Georgia, nine years after Nicole Smith's murder. 13-year-old Betty Brown plans to spend the day with friends. I headed up to my friend's house. We end up going to our family's function. It was like a barbecue like a cookout at a park. When the cookout ends, Betty heads back home. As I'm walking, this gentleman, he approaches me. He just comes out and over. And he starts talking. Why are you out here so late? Where are you going? It was just a bad vibe. So we started coming up on this little empty area. Like it's just all grass and wood. And he just grabbed me. And he pulled me into the wooded area. He and me threw me on the ground. And we were real hustling.

19:24And so he raped me. He says, don't say anything. I'll kill you. So in my mind, I'm like, oh my god, this is it. I don't know if I'm going to make it. But then something came over me. And I just was like, if we make it out of this, we've got to remember what he looks like. Eventually, he got up and I started running in the direction towards my house. One of my mom's friends, she saw me running and crying. They drove me to my house. And when I got there, I immediately broke down and told my mom what happened. Betty's mom calls 911, police, including deputy chief Russell Popham, immediately searched for suspects. We did go door to door in the area, where the rape occurred, as well as where Betty was at the Father's Day party. The canvas and the neighborhood did not turn up anything.

20:26Police submit Betty's rape kit to Kodas to see if there's a DNA match. Two months later, the results come back. I got a call if there was a Kodas match with the rape of Betty Brown that occurred on June 20, 2004 to the rape and murder of Nicole Smith that occurred on June 7, 1995. Of course, you want to know a name, but it's an unknown offender. The police came by and told me that there was a DNA match from my to another victim, but that victim had been killed. I didn't know anything about Nicole Smith at the time. I felt like me and Nicole both went through something that I know I would ever understand. So I felt like we would always be connected. When I found about Betty, I was just angry all over again because I thought they had found them.

21:26It just had a DNA. I didn't want to hear anything else. I wanted the person. Investigators Velasquez and Popham analyzed the similarities between Nicole and Betty's cases. They were both females that were walking alone. Betty was 13 at the time. Nicole was 14 when she was killed from the crime scene or the other crime scene. The distance is about 3.2 miles. My thought was that this was a local person. Although we don't have a name, this is the biggest lead we've had in this case since June 7, 1995. Police need a composite sketch of the perpetrator. So Betty is paired with a forensic artist. He looked to be between his late 20s, early 30s brown skin. Had a ball head. He worked a little round, wire, real glasses. Had a gap in between his front teeth. I just remembered everything. Everything I saw.

22:27When you look in that person's eyes and you see a soulless individual, you see evil. The sketch gives investigators new hope. We have a composite sketch. And this is the first time since I picked this case up, I get to see what likely is Nicole Smith's killer. With a sketch of the suspect in hand, police canvass Betty's neighborhood. And unlike the earlier sketch, this one produces a solid lead. We were actually right in front of where Betty was at. The father's day cookout. And one of the detectives called me. He said, I've got a guy that looks just like the sketch. I get there and I see a person with a ball head, a round glasses, and a predominant gap in the front teeth. He told me his name was Terence. They told me where he lived. Terence lives close to where Betty Brown was raped and where Nicole Smith was murdered. This guy was the only person that I've seen

23:28that looked exactly like the sketch. Instantly, Terence becomes a suspect and investigators Velasquez and Popham need to get his DNA. We were wanting him to give us a musical swab. He said no. With no probable cause to take Terence's DNA, he's free to go. If you got nothing to hide, you didn't do this crime. Why wouldn't you give me a sample of your DNA? My suspicions were through the roof. So we have to do what we call a seraptitious sample. To do that, detectives begin to surveil their suspect. I sat on the house for days, almost two weeks. If he takes his trash out, we can go through his trash and see what we could find. This guy didn't come out of his house. He didn't take his trash out. We were literally packing up to come up with another plan. I got to call that this guy is coming out of his front door. White G-shirt was some riding on the front head and toward you right now. He should be coming to Clearview where he gets to the intersection. When he takes a step out of his house and starts to walk,

24:29I see him light a cigarette. And I am like, this is it. That's our sample. You see him smoking? He's gonna throw that out any second. I literally had a handheld camera and finally Terence afflicts the butt. There he is, right? And I'm zooming in on you right there. You're looking at the cigarette butt, Woody? It's Bernie? Then get any better than that. Detectives send that cigarette with Terence's saliva and DNA to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for Testing. Then the waiting begins. I was prepared to call his mother. Russell Popham was prepared to call Betty Brown and to say we got him. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation calls the investigators with the news. I looked at my phone and I realized that it was a GBI number calling. I'm like, oh, this is it. So I answered the phone and got the sad news that there was no way that the DNA compared to the crime scenes of Nicole Smith or Betty Brown.

25:33And absolutely floored. Terence is not our guy. It's now December 2005, 10 and a half years after Nicole's murder. The billboard that we put up in December of 2005 was close to the crime scenes. Really about a quarter mile from where Nicole was killed. We wanted to make sure that everybody in that neighborhood saw this composite sketch. We had now a $10,000 reward for information leading to the rest of this person. The reward helps attract national attention. And in 2006, cold case files, which was looking to focus on an unsolved murder, picks up Nicole's case. We were approached to see if we would be willing to actually have them air the Nicole Smith homicide, Betty Brown rape case on an episode of cold case files. And we felt we got to do this. One of the things that they wanted to do was actually show us working, you know, working the case

26:37as tips came in. This is the absent tartly list for Thera High School on the day Nicole Smith was killed. While we're filming the original cold case file episode, we get a tip on a guy named Stephen Burris. Right now, he's wanted by Douglas County for probation violation. As we look into this tip on the sky, he's got similarities to the composite. He's got glasses on in the photograph. Gold, gold glasses. He's familiar through association of the area, both where Betty Brown was raped. And when Nicole Smith was killed, and he had an active parole warrant outstanding. So we're going to lock him up. That gives us an opportunity to vet him and figure out how he plays into this. What we're doing is this. So we're asking everybody that was either on that list, that was after that incidental swab. So what that means is it's a cute tip. We put it in your mouth. Rubby side.

27:37Right? OK, we're going to compare it to evidence found at the crime scene. Basically what that means is this, if you have absolutely nothing to do with the murder of the coast man, right? I'm worried about that. I ain't going to know that. That's what I'm saying. Or a rape of another young girl, and he's point. The cold case files crew and the investigators watch as Stephen Burris submits a DNA sample. We submitted to the state crime lab like so many times before, it's not a match. In 2010, six years after it started, the multi-agency cold case unit dispans. But a new detective, Scott Demeister, offers one last way to try to find Nicole's killer. I remember when we read the news article about how they solved the Golden State Killer case out in Northern California, the first case that we thought of that we could potentially try to do something like that was Nicole Smith's case. One of the most heinous, unsolved murders

28:40in the Savilandas history. It's now April 2018, 22 years and 10 months after Nicole Smith's murder. Myself and a couple of my coworkers were sitting at our desks reading the article about how the Golden State Killer case had been solved through genealogy. Maybe we can try this. We immediately started contacting those investigative agencies out in California. And they directed us to the genealogy services that were used. Investigators take the suspects DNA, compile a profile, and upload it to genealogy databases, hoping to find relatives. And finally, in October 2021, 26 years and four months after Nicole's murder, there's a promising lead. We were directed to a potential match on the trees to the Arnold family.

29:43This is the first lead connecting someone to Southwest Atlanta. According to his genealogist, he's able to zero in on irrelative by the name of Kelvin Arnold. He appeared to have been living in the area when Nicole was killed and when Betty was attacked. He looked very, very close in resemblance to the sketch. Kelvin Arnold has also been arrested numerous times and was once charged with felony aggravated assault. In 2002, between the time that Nicole was killed and when Betty was attacked, a at the time girlfriend had accused him of a sexual assault. Detective Scott Demeister needs Kelvin Arnold's DNA to compare to the known suspects DNA. I was able to find a piece of evidence that had his DNA on it and then they compared it to our known offenders DNA and it was a match.

30:44Kelvin Arnold is a 100% match to the rape of Betty Brown and the rape and murder of Nicole Smith. This was a moment that culminated in every resource you've ever put into this case. We know who we're looking for now. We know who he is. Police move into arrest Arnold, but discover they're too late. Kelvin Arnold died at the age of 49 of liver and kidney failure. Apparently for alcoholism, he's dead. Kelvin Arnold's dead. We got him, but we don't got him. I told Ms. Smith as soon as possible. He says, I'm gonna tell you the good news first. We haven't been caught in the colds killer. And when he said the bad news, I knew he was dead. And he said, his name is Karen Arnold. I just screamed and I cried. Here's this man. It's gotten away. With murder.

31:45We felt cheated. She's never gonna be able to lay eyes on the man who took her daughter. Betty Brown will never have the day to look at her attacker in the eye. We didn't get that moment to confront him to almost make him suffer the way I suffered. In January of 2022, Atlanta police give the city one last update on Nicole and Betty's cases. We have Nicole Smith's family who is here with us today. Who has been incredibly resilient and solving what's been a 26 year mystery to this point. No one at the press conference even utters the name of Kelvin Arnold. We don't want to give any relevance to him as an individual. It says all about the family and just their incredible resilience. Today for me, as a bit of sweet moment, I never imagined this person to be deceased.

32:47So many unanswered questions that I had for him. I'm happy that I'm finally here. That he's no longer out there able to do the things to me and Nicole to others. It's like my fight is over. I'm really glad. Because I have granddaughters in. When we thought he was still out there, I didn't feel safe for them. He was a must and he won't hurt anybody else. Nicole will never be forgotten. So many people still love her and miss her. She cared about people. She loved unconditional. That made her special. She was my special girl. She will always be special. Hello and welcome to Pluto Fo. If you know the name of the movie you'd like to see, just stream it for free on Pluto TV.

33:48We're all your blockbuster favorites are landing all summer long. Catch anchor man, the legend of Ron Burgundy. Fantastic. The Matrix trilogy. Welcome to the real world. Mean girls. Side up. Tite and egg. I'm the key in the world. And so much more for showtime. Express nothing. They're free 24-7. That is so a f**k. Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never.