Stone-Cold

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Speaker 3 Tonight on Dateline.

Speaker 4 He was my Superman. He was always my protector.

Speaker 3 My fiancé, I think he's been killed after he'd been shot. He was just laying there and he was just full of bullet holes.

Speaker 4 This is the man I'm supposed to marry. This was just not possible.

Speaker 5 It's a stone-cold assassination.

Speaker 7 Somebody hated Nick so much that they shot through his window.

Speaker 3 Then came in through the window and shot him some more. Yes.
There are a lot of people you might want to be talking to at the office.

Speaker 9 The list was very long.

Speaker 10 People complained complained of how Nick talked to them, which was, let's go, get the job done.

Speaker 5 He's dated a number of women.

Speaker 3 Maybe he made the wrong one angry?

Speaker 11 That's what we thought.

Speaker 3 What do you think the motive was here?

Speaker 5 Obsession and hatred.

Speaker 12 We wanted answers.

Speaker 13 A killer full of rage. A case full of twists.

Speaker 5 People are no good at getting away with murder.

Speaker 3 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 14 Here's Josh Mikowitz with Stone Cold.

Speaker 3 Put people together in a workplace and things can develop.

Speaker 3 Friendships, rivalries, sometimes even love.

Speaker 3 Most of the time, it's not a problem.

Speaker 3 But in this case, it was deadly.

Speaker 15 911, do you have an emergency?

Speaker 3 Right in there, and look for you the bullet hole in his head.

Speaker 5 This is a stone-cold assassination.

Speaker 4 It was like our house was turned into a shooting gallery.

Speaker 3 One man's militant style of doing business that left a trail of bruised egos in his professional life.

Speaker 12 If you're not doing what your job requires, he's going to let you have it.

Speaker 3 And a trail of broken hearts in his personal life.

Speaker 16 At work, I could tell that he was probably a pretty good womanizer.

Speaker 3 By the end of it, investigators would discover a world of grudges and a hotbed of affairs and messy love triangles.

Speaker 3 And it all began with this man, Nicholas Morelos.

Speaker 12 We were constantly teasing and messing with each other.

Speaker 3 John Morelos and his brother Nick grew up outside Tucson, Arizona. What was he like in the little brother?

Speaker 12 A prankster. He was either going to get in trouble or he had already done something that would have gotten him in trouble.

Speaker 3 Or he was going to get you in trouble. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 Just 18 months apart, John and Nick were close. Partners in crime.
Brothers who had each other's backs. And just like his brother, Nick served in the military.
At 18, he enlisted in the Marines.

Speaker 3 In 1990, he fought in Operation Desert Storm.

Speaker 12 He came back a changed person, very motivated, very dedicated.

Speaker 3 Maybe he was a little less of a jokester and a little more of a straight arrow.

Speaker 12 Very much so. Definitely more

Speaker 12 serious.

Speaker 3 After the war, Nick returned to Tucson and settled down. He married and had a son, Nicholas Jr.

Speaker 3 And while Nick loved being a father, the marriage didn't last.

Speaker 12 It really hurt him for many years. He told me that he would never get married again.

Speaker 3 Actually, he did, but that marriage didn't work out either. And Nick focused on work.
Starting as an aircraft mechanic, he quickly rose to director of maintenance at what was then Marana Aerospace.

Speaker 16 That's the fastest I've seen anybody move up through the ranks.

Speaker 3 Bob Welsh was a client who brought aircraft to Marana for service.

Speaker 16 He was not a, per se, people person.

Speaker 3 Within the walls of Marana Aerospace, Nick was tougher than an IRS audit and every bit as unforgiving. But at the same time, he wasn't devious or sneaky.
Nick Morelos would stab you in the front.

Speaker 16 He didn't know how to approach people and just have a conversation about, hey, maybe you should do it this way rather than this way.

Speaker 3 It was, you're doing it wrong. If you're doing it this way, start doing it right.

Speaker 16 And if you don't do it this way, go home.

Speaker 3 John, a lieutenant colonel in the Army, worked at the same air park as Nick. What would people say about him?

Speaker 12 He was tough. He was, excuse the language, a hard ass.

Speaker 3 Very vocal.

Speaker 12 intimidating to some.

Speaker 3 There was one area where Nick seemed quite popular with women. And conveniently, Marana Aerospace employed some.
Do you have any idea how many women at Marana he dated? How many of his coworkers?

Speaker 16 He only admitted to me two.

Speaker 16 There was a lot of rumors. But he told me of two.

Speaker 3 And one of them changed everything. In 2016, Nick met Christy.

Speaker 4 I liked that he was such a hard worker and just he was so smart.

Speaker 3 No immediate fireworks, but as Christie and Nick got to know each other, they realized they both loved books, dogs, and plants.

Speaker 4 He was the tough guy at work, and here he is, you know, tending to these delicate plants and

Speaker 4 talked about how much he loved his dog.

Speaker 3 His dog, Smokey, an American pit bull terrier.

Speaker 4 To look at Smokey, you would think, oh my goodness, there's this big scary dog. And

Speaker 4 this is the most gentle dog you'll ever know in your life.

Speaker 3 Christy fell not just for Smokey, but for Nick too. And hard.
You sound kind of swept off your feet.

Speaker 4 I was. Absolutely.
Never,

Speaker 4 never knew a man like that in my life. He was

Speaker 4 my Superman. He was always my protector.

Speaker 12 You could see it in his eyes. He was happy.
His heart was full. He spoke to my parents about things that we'd never thought he'd talk about.
Like what? A marriage.

Speaker 3 The serial monogamist. Yes.
Finally settling down. Yes.

Speaker 3 Before that, Nick and Christy came to an agreement that the past was the past. He dated a lot of women in that same company, some of your co-workers.
That gives you any pause at all?

Speaker 4 Oh, absolutely. You know, my outlook was, look, we both have a history.
You know, you're single. He's allowed to date who he wanted to.

Speaker 3 Nick and Christie got engaged. By July 2016, they were making plans to move in together.

Speaker 4 He just looks right at me

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 he just said, I just want you to know how much I love you and appreciate everything you do for me.

Speaker 4 I just remember walking into the kitchen and thinking, God, I am so lucky.

Speaker 4 I am so lucky.

Speaker 3 24 hours after that moment came this call. My fiancee, I think, has been killed after he's been shot.

Speaker 4 When we come back, I zeroed in on him and

Speaker 13 he was just laying there. What had happened to Nick?

Speaker 17 Curious clues in the garage and blood in the bedroom.

Speaker 8 We felt that whoever did this tried to clean up whatever tracks they left.

Speaker 4 This is the man I'm supposed to marry.

Speaker 4 This was just not possible.

Speaker 4 I just felt like, I can't believe I get to be his bride. I was just,

Speaker 18 I was excited. I waited 40 years for him.

Speaker 3 Christy and Nick were engaged to be married.

Speaker 4 Every morning started with either a text or a call. Good morning.
I love you. Have a great day.
Every night, same thing.

Speaker 3 So when Christy awoke Monday, July 18, 2016, and saw that Nick, an early riser, had not called, she was immediately concerned.

Speaker 4 Of course, I'm rationalizing, oh, maybe he got stuck on a call with his boss or

Speaker 4 maybe he slept in a little bit, you know.

Speaker 3 A few hours later, still no word from Nick. So Christy drove to to Nick's house and went up the stairs to the bedroom.
The door was barely open.

Speaker 4 I zeroed in on him.

Speaker 4 He was just laying there and he was just

Speaker 4 full of bullet holes.

Speaker 3 He's just laying there and you literally have a bullet hole in his head.

Speaker 4 This is the man I'm supposed to marry. This was just not possible.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 the police arrived and

Speaker 4 the nightmare began.

Speaker 6 We received a message advising that there was a homicide on the north side and that the whole unit needed to respond.

Speaker 3 Pima County Sheriff's Detective Jennifer Garcia had been in the homicide unit for all of seven months. This was a call she'd prepared for.

Speaker 3 ever since she was a little girl and saw her grandfather in uniform.

Speaker 7 It was just something that I've always wanted to do, you know, sort of my dream job.

Speaker 3 And now here she was, lead detective in the biggest murder investigation in Tucson. She began by methodically walking through the scene, Nick's house, starting in the garage.

Speaker 7 Immediately, I noticed a bucket full of water and some carpet fibers, which at the time I thought was odd.

Speaker 3 Inside, the cabinet under the kitchen sink was open. In the living room, cleaning products left out.
and in the backyard was a large pit bull.

Speaker 3 Presumably, whoever lived there had let the dog out.

Speaker 11 Possibly, yes.

Speaker 3 Or the killer had.

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 3 As Detective Garcia went up the stairs, she saw bullet holes in the wall. At the top, the bedroom door was ajar.

Speaker 7 I immediately saw a bloody foot of Nick Morelos.

Speaker 9 I opened the door.

Speaker 7 and saw his naked body laying there, riddled with bullets.

Speaker 3 A lot of people will tell you that when their time comes, they want to die at home.

Speaker 3 Very few will say they want to go the way Nick Morelos did, in his bedroom, alone with his killer, in a hail of bullets. Nick had been shot eight times, including once in the middle of his forehead.

Speaker 6 They shot through his window and assassinated him.

Speaker 3 Then came in through the window and shot him some more.

Speaker 7 Yes, until he was finally dead.

Speaker 3 Detective Garcia believed the killer climbed onto the roof outside Nick's bedroom. That's where she found blood on broken panes of glass and on the stucco.

Speaker 3 So maybe the killer cut him or herself coming in through that window?

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 3 There was blood throughout Nick's bedroom, in his closet, and on a mouthwash cap in his bathroom.

Speaker 11 The floor was very sticky and it smelled very heavily of mouthwash.

Speaker 7 So we felt at the time that whoever did this this tried to clean up whatever tracks they left.

Speaker 3 In the bedroom, more evidence the killer tried to clean up.

Speaker 8 It appeared that the rug under the bed was cut, like half of the rug was gone.

Speaker 3 Detective Garcia believed the killer bled so heavily on the rug that he or she cut the rug and took it right out of Nick's house. There was also evidence the killer failed to get rid of.

Speaker 3 Garcia's team recovered 11 shell casings, each with a unique five-star stamp. And this was odd.
11 shots, yet none of the neighbors called 911.

Speaker 7 Very early on, the detectives that I were working with who have done previous homicides, they believe that a silencer was used.

Speaker 3 One neighbor said she heard a noise around 4 a.m. but wasn't sure what it was.
Investigators thought that could well be Nick's time of death.

Speaker 3 While Detective Detective Garcia worked the scene, two other detectives went to John Morales' office to tell him what had happened. Then John had to break the news to his mother.

Speaker 3 It's a tough conversation to have.

Speaker 12 Oh, most definitely. That was probably one of the toughest things I've ever done in my life.

Speaker 3 Christy also wrestled with her new reality, a life without Nick.

Speaker 4 I went from this amazing life

Speaker 4 to

Speaker 4 just, you know,

Speaker 4 being traumatized and just complete disbelief.

Speaker 3 While Nick's family faced the loss of a man they loved, investigators began to learn what Nick's co-workers and exes already knew. He was not beloved by everyone.

Speaker 3 Not by a long shot.

Speaker 14 Coming up.

Speaker 10 People complained of how Nick talked to them.

Speaker 14 Angry colleagues on the job.

Speaker 3 Were any angry enough to kill? There are a lot of people you might want to be talking to at the office.

Speaker 9 Yes, the list was very long.

Speaker 2 When dateline continues.

Speaker 15 Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities deserve recognition too.

Speaker 15 I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling.

Speaker 15 Set in my home state of Maine and the greater New England area, it's my goal to dig through the archives to bring the stories of the people at the heart of these cases to light.

Speaker 15 Listen to Dark Down East, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 3 Often at Dateline, we tell you the stories of murder victims who lit up a room or who didn't have an enemy in the world. Well, not so much with Nick Morales.

Speaker 3 He definitely knew how to light up a room, but depending on which room it was, there might have been people in it who actively wished him ill.

Speaker 3 That was true in his personal life, and it was true here at work.

Speaker 3 The question for investigators, which side of Nick's life had caught up with him? Detective Garcia quickly began to find out how much Nick's leatherneck exterior had rubbed people the wrong way.

Speaker 3 Jeff Johnson was HR director at Marana Aerospace.

Speaker 10 I did have some exit interviews that people complained of how Nick talked to them.

Speaker 3 Except the way Nick talked to them was kind of what Nick was being paid for. Correct.
Which was, let's go.

Speaker 10 Get the job done and get it done on time and on budget.

Speaker 3 He was brought in to sort of be the hammer. Exactly right.
But when you're hired to be a hammer, sometimes everything and everyone. starts looking like a nail.

Speaker 3 Feels to me like maybe there are a lot of people you might want to be talking to at the office.

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 9 the list was very long.

Speaker 3 A lot of them had petty grievances, like a safety inspector named James LaPan.

Speaker 22 We never got along.

Speaker 3 LaPan told investigators Nick had given him a hard time for parking his car in a restricted area and had accused him of using a personal tablet computer during working hours.

Speaker 5 Anyone you know that wants to kick his ass?

Speaker 22 Kick his ass.

Speaker 22 No.

Speaker 3 Maybe not over a parking spot, but then Detective Garcia started learning for herself about the other part of Nick's life. This was a guy who made a lot of women angry.

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 3 His second ex-wife once threatened to kill him. An ex-girlfriend slipped into his house, and Nick woke up to find her watching him and a new girlfriend while they slept.

Speaker 3 And then there were Nick's romantic entanglements at work.

Speaker 10 We did not have a fraternization policy.

Speaker 3 And Nick, I think, took advantage of that.

Speaker 10 I think so. From what I've heard.
Anytime I questioned Nick on it, he would deny it to me.

Speaker 3 For good reason, I'm sure. Because you were the HR director.
I'm thinking that might be the reason. Correct.

Speaker 3 Long before Nick met Christy, he was involved in a relationship that now caught Detective Garcia's attention.

Speaker 23 He was a really, really, really hard worker.

Speaker 3 Claudia Banks worked in administration at Marana Aerospace. She and Nick dated for six months.

Speaker 23 He was awesome. He really was.

Speaker 3 Claudia told Detective Garcia she'd had a good relationship with Nick. However, that came at the expense of someone else, her ex-boyfriend, Justin Skinner.

Speaker 3 Claudia moved in with Nick and broke up with Justin almost in the same breath.

Speaker 9 Yes, that's right.

Speaker 3 Claudia told Detective Garcia she tried to cut off all contact with Justin.

Speaker 7 And shortly after the breakup, it was reported that he had followed Claudia while she was driving her vehicle and Nick was in the vehicle.

Speaker 3 Claudia also said Justin unexpectedly came by her home a couple of times. Then the day Nick's body was discovered, Claudia said she went out with her mom.

Speaker 23 Me and her went to Circle S.

Speaker 3 The Circle S saloon, the proverbial bar on the outskirts of town, where she saw Justin.

Speaker 24 Did he have any marks on him at all?

Speaker 23 I saw him and pretty much walked, just walked right by.

Speaker 25 I totally had dealing with him.

Speaker 3 The next day, Claudia said Justin left a note on her front gate about her ex-boyfriend, Nick.

Speaker 23 Saying, hey,

Speaker 23 I heard what happened, and I'm really sorry. If you need anything, let me know.

Speaker 3 And Claudia directed Detective Garcia's attention to yet another ex-girlfriend from Nick's past. Before me,

Speaker 15 he was dating a girl,

Speaker 9 Jessica. I don't know if you've spoken to her yet.

Speaker 3 Jessica Stilwell, another of Nick's girlfriends from Marana Aerospace. She and Nick dated for about six months, even lived together for a while.

Speaker 12 She seemed nice, never saw him argue. They always seemed happy and giggling together.

Speaker 3 Detective Garcia learned that didn't last. Nick abruptly kicked Jessica out of his house and his life and moved Claudia into both.

Speaker 3 And then Garcia heard about something that happened shortly after Claudia and Nick started dating.

Speaker 7 Claudia was at his house and Jessica showed up seeing her vehicle in the driveway area and was very upset, banging on the door, saying, I know she's in there, let me in.

Speaker 3 Nick had told his brother John about the dust-up with Jessica. And he thought that was, what, amusing, alarming?

Speaker 12 He was like, man, it's going to be drama, I can already tell.

Speaker 3 And then, a day after Nick's murder, John's kids snapped these pictures of a woman poking around Nick's house.

Speaker 12 My children were adamant that it was Jessica.

Speaker 3 Does it seem at all significant to you that Nick was murdered, like, almost exactly a year from the time of his breakup with Jessica?

Speaker 12 I found it very odd.

Speaker 3 Or very coincidental. Correct.

Speaker 3 The number of scorned lovers in Nick's past was enough to warrant a scorecard, and investigators weren't even done counting.

Speaker 3 There were more answers to be discovered in the place where so much of Nick's social life was centered: Marana Aerospace.

Speaker 14 Coming up,

Speaker 14 that mystery woman at Nick's house was it an angry ex?

Speaker 26 Some of the family identifies you as being the one that was at the house.

Speaker 2 A lover's triangle at a tightening circle of suspects.

Speaker 3 In the days after Nick's murder, his fiancé, Christy, was living in fear.

Speaker 4 Jumped at every sound.

Speaker 4 My family was scared for me.

Speaker 3 Did he ever express any indication that some relationship that he had before was something that he was concerned about now in terms of his safety or your safety. No.

Speaker 4 And Nick was my protector above all else. So

Speaker 4 I don't know that he would have said

Speaker 4 anything to me not wanting to worry me.

Speaker 3 But perhaps there had been reason to be worried. Detective Garcia now spent some time charting the romantic geometry of Nick's love life, pre-Christie.

Speaker 7 It all comes back back to their employment. They all worked at the same place, Mirana Aerospace.

Speaker 6 Nick had been dating Jessica,

Speaker 7 very quickly began to date Claudia.

Speaker 3 Bob Welsh, Nick's friend and a client of Mirana Aerospace, remembers how Jessica reacted to the breakup.

Speaker 16 Whenever Nick was in the same room, There was no smiles out of her. I could tell it was not a good atmosphere between the two.

Speaker 3 Nick ever say why they broke up? No.

Speaker 16 No. And they're none of my business.

Speaker 3 It was Detective Garcia's business. She eventually interviewed Jessica on tape.

Speaker 27 I know he was shooting on me with Claudia when he got caught with her

Speaker 27 and when he kicked me out

Speaker 27 and then her in.

Speaker 3 That's the kind of speed that's going to make people feel bruised and angry.

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 3 And maybe vengeful?

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 27 He kept denying it.

Speaker 27 So I drove by his house and I took a picture of her truck back up trying to confront him with it.

Speaker 3 Was the Morelos family right? Was she the woman they saw poking around Nick's house just after the murder?

Speaker 26 Some of the family identified you as being the one that was at the house. It wasn't me.
Why are they family with you? I have no idea.

Speaker 3 I haven't been to his house in almost a year.

Speaker 3 It turned out she was telling the truth. Detective Garcia ran the mystery woman's license plate and found it belonged to a mother who was looking for her missing son, not Jessica.

Speaker 27 Do you think that this should have happened to Nick?

Speaker 26 No, this shouldn't happen to anybody. Nobody deserves that.

Speaker 3 Jessica told detectives she was home with her young daughter at the time Nick was killed, which was not exactly an airtight alibi.

Speaker 3 Detectives also needed to speak with the other scorned lover in this story, Claudia's ex-boyfriend, Justin Skinner. In the Nick Jessica Claudia triangle, he was the square who didn't fit.

Speaker 24 So you were in a relationship with Claudia? When was that?

Speaker 3 She left almost on the day,

Speaker 3 a year ago. Detective Garcia and her colleagues spoke with Justin at his home.
Justin told them he loved Claudia, had plans to marry her, and then she ended things.

Speaker 25 I never really expected it to go as south as it did, so I was really, you know, I I was really hurt by it.

Speaker 3 He's certainly showing all the earmarks of

Speaker 3 somebody that you might want to be wary of.

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 3 Justin's alibi the night Nick was killed? The Circle S saloon. The same bar where Claudia saw him the night after Nick was murdered.

Speaker 25 I got to Circle S at 6 o'clock, and then at midnight, I ended up leaving.

Speaker 3 When you left, where did you go? Home.

Speaker 3 Video from the Circle S confirmed Justin's presence until midnight. However, his story that he'd then gone home was somewhat harder to prove.

Speaker 7 His roommate stated that he wasn't quite sure if he was actually in his room or not.

Speaker 3 And then there was this.

Speaker 24 I'm seeing a few scratches on your arm. How did those happen?

Speaker 25 Landscaping.

Speaker 3 When she asked to photograph those scratches and take a DNA sample, Justin said, no.

Speaker 3 That had to make you sit up a little straighter.

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 14 Coming up.

Speaker 12 We wanted answers and we just weren't getting them.

Speaker 2 Nick's brother is about to turn detective.

Speaker 17 Could he give the true detectives the lead they need?

Speaker 12 He said, Johnny, you're not going to believe this. I just dealt with that guy a few months ago.

Speaker 15 Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities deserve recognition too.

Speaker 15 I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling.

Speaker 15 Set in my home state of Maine and the greater New England area, it's my goal to dig through the archives to bring the stories of the people at the heart of these cases to light.

Speaker 15 Listen to Dark Down East, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 3 Pima County Sheriff's Detective Jennifer Garcia was suspicious of Nick's ex's ex,

Speaker 3 Justin Skinner. He seemed to have both opportunity and motive to kill Nick.

Speaker 3 So, when Justin didn't want to give a DNA sample, I thought that he might be the guy.

Speaker 3 But then, after a little persuasion,

Speaker 3 his cooperation, plus statements from people at the bar and Claudia, were enough for Detective Garcia.

Speaker 7 We were able to rule him out pretty quickly as a suspect.

Speaker 3 The Morelos family was waiting impatiently for an arrest.

Speaker 12 Your loved one had just been murdered. We wanted answers, and we just weren't getting them.
Not quickly enough for us, anyways.

Speaker 3 Too small Tucson is how some refer to this city. It's a place where everyone seems to know everyone else.

Speaker 3 While detectives were examining Nick's romantic past, Brother John started doing a little detective work of his own by talking with Nick's coworkers.

Speaker 3 He told HR director Jeff Johnson how the suspect had apparently been cut while going through Nick's window.

Speaker 12 Jeff Johnson called me and said, hey, you're not going to believe it, but this guy that I've had concerns about and who had filed a grievance against Nick,

Speaker 12 has bandages on his left arm.

Speaker 3 What's his name?

Speaker 12 James LaPan.

Speaker 3 James LaPan. One of Nick's co-workers police had already spoken with.

Speaker 22 We never got along.

Speaker 3 Jeff Johnson said just 11 days before the murder, LaPan had come to him with a complaint about Nick.

Speaker 3 And with it, a warning.

Speaker 10 He said that if I don't handle it, he has his own way of handling things and just bolted it right out of my office.

Speaker 3 You knew the name James LaPan. I didn't.
Nick had talked about him as having somebody he'd had problems with. Yes.
But not being afraid of. No.

Speaker 3 Detective Garcia now interviewed LaPan again at Mirana Aerospace.

Speaker 3 He told her he spent the Sunday before the murder with his family and said he and his wife went to bed around 9 and got up around 5 a.m.

Speaker 3 Which would have been an hour after Nick's murder.

Speaker 24 If I contact your wife, she's going to tell me this is where you were on Sunday.

Speaker 3 I would hope so.

Speaker 19 Okay.

Speaker 7 He pretty much answered all the questions that we had.

Speaker 21 The interview ends.

Speaker 3 But then, maybe two minutes later, there was a knock on her door.

Speaker 6 And it's James. He came back.

Speaker 7 And he tells us, I basically need to tell you the truth.

Speaker 3 The truth? Like a confession?

Speaker 3 Well, yes, but not to murder. James LaPan owned up to slipping.

Speaker 8 What was the part you were not forthcoming?

Speaker 12 Jessica and I have

Speaker 3 slipped.

Speaker 3 Slipped, as in had an affair with Nick's ex-girlfriend, Jessica Stilwell.

Speaker 7 She broke it off pretty quickly because she did not want to be the other person and he didn't want to leave his family.

Speaker 3 Now Detective Garcia had someone new she wanted to talk with. James LaPan's wife, Serena.

Speaker 32 I know he's been...

Speaker 32 fell off the marital bandwagon, so to speak.

Speaker 3 Serena said James had told her about the affair weeks earlier. They were going through counseling, she said, and working on the marriage.

Speaker 3 And when Detective Garcia asked her about the night of Nick's murder, her statement was exactly the same as James.

Speaker 3 They hung out together during the day. They went to bed together.
They woke up together.

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 3 So she alibis him?

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 31 You wouldn't try to be covering up for him for anything?

Speaker 31 Okay.

Speaker 3 If Serena was telling the truth, James could not be the killer. As Detective Garcia pondered that, Nick's brother John kept up his own investigation.
He mentioned La Pan's name to a childhood friend.

Speaker 3 Remember how Tucson can be a big, small town?

Speaker 12 He said, Johnny, you're not going to believe this. I just dealt with that guy a few months ago.

Speaker 3 John's friend owned a machine and fabrication shop. He said James LaPan had come in looking for a tool, one he could use to fix a silencer.
He's repairing a silencer. Correct.

Speaker 3 Just a couple of months before your brother's murdered with perhaps a silencer. Correct.

Speaker 12 So I contacted the detectives, gave them the information.

Speaker 3 Detective Garcia obtained a search warrant for James LePan's home. In his garage, her team found 18 boxes of 45-caliber ammo, all with the distinctive five-star stamp.

Speaker 3 They also found two spent shell casings that matched the ones found at Nick's house. So the same gun fired, the bullets at the crime scene, and a couple of casings that you found in La Pan's garage?

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 3 Inside the house, investigators didn't find the gun itself, but they did find this empty box for a para-ordinance Black Ops Combat 45,

Speaker 3 which they believed was the murder weapon. The search warrant also turned up an empty box for a silencer that would fit on that gun.

Speaker 3 What's more, investigators found carpet fibers in the back of the LaPan family vehicle that matched both fibers found in Nick's garage and the cut-up rug in Nick's bedroom. And there was this.

Speaker 7 In the master bedroom closet on a very, very top shelf, detectives noticed a pair of work pants that looked like they had blood on them.

Speaker 3 That same day, James LaPan was arrested while carpooling to work. In the driver's seat was, of all people,

Speaker 3 Jessica Stilwell. She said she was giving him a ride.
Four days after Nick's murder, newly minted homicide detective Jennifer Garcia had made an arrest. How'd that feel?

Speaker 8 Pretty good.

Speaker 9 Pretty good that I had gotten the right person for this crime.

Speaker 3 Maybe, but this case still had to go to trial. And James LePan still had an alibi.

Speaker 3 That is, until a lifetime movie changed everything.

Speaker 14 Coming up,

Speaker 5 she calls and says, I've got a new story to tell.

Speaker 17 A lie told in fear.

Speaker 3 You didn't want to tell that lie, did you?

Speaker 32 No, I did not want to tell that lie.

Speaker 17 And the courage to reveal the truth.

Speaker 30 I actually slept all night without nightmares.

Speaker 20 There's always more to the story. To go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, listen to our Talking Datelines series with Josh and Dennis available Wednesday.

Speaker 32 I assumed he was a Marine because he carried himself with such confidence and attitude.

Speaker 3 Serena met her future husband, James LaPan, at a weekly dance class.

Speaker 32 Every single time I came in, he comes sliding up again and he's like, so when do I get to

Speaker 32 throw my name in the hat? And I'm like,

Speaker 32 maybe never.

Speaker 3 You know, there's the door. Go away.
But he wouldn't go away. No.

Speaker 3 Serena, a sergeant first class in the Army and a self-described alpha female, was happy to have met a man who wasn't a pushover.

Speaker 32 With James and his strong personality and my strong personality, we were on the same page and we got a lot. Things were going amazing.

Speaker 3 In 2010 at james's request they entered into a covenant marriage what's a covenant marriage covenant marriage is recognized before god and state and quite frankly it's a lot harder to get divorced less than a year into their marriage james's father died and serena says something in her husband changed He became, she said, controlling and frightening.

Speaker 3 Serena recalled a disagreement in which she wanted to step away from him to check on their children.

Speaker 32 He was physically holding on to

Speaker 32 my

Speaker 32 biceps at that point in time. He's just like, we're going to finish this discussion.

Speaker 32 Immediately following that, he said, the children are replaceable. We can make more.
I'm not.

Speaker 32 And at that, I'm like,

Speaker 32 oh, you're replaceable, but not like I, it's not like I can say it, you know, because at that point.

Speaker 3 If you had said it, what would have happened? I don't want to know.

Speaker 32 So I don't want to know what would have happened. So then it it became the issue of pick your battle.
And the battle I picked was protect the children.

Speaker 3 Which is why she says she turned a blind eye to her husband's affair with Jessica. Even when James invited Jessica home for dinner.
What kind of hostess did your husband expect you to be for Jessica?

Speaker 32 The same hostess as anybody else. If they're invited over to dinner,

Speaker 32 I'm going to be the one cleaning up the kitchen.

Speaker 3 For your husband's mistress. Yep.
You get some sense that James enjoyed humiliating you like that?

Speaker 32 Absolutely. I think it was a power thing.

Speaker 3 Serena cooked dinner for her husband and his lover and listened to James and Jessica talk about Nick Morelos.

Speaker 32 It was all demeaning and hateful stuff. James used to pick on her and poke at her about, why don't you go back to your, go back to Nick.
You guys were such a, such a couple and a thing.

Speaker 32 Go back to Nick.

Speaker 3 So there was some jealousy there. Definitely.
Now, Now James LaPan's only possible hope at trial was Serena and her statement to police that her husband was asleep next to her when Nick was killed.

Speaker 31 You wouldn't try to be covering up for him for anything.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 But now a little bit of drama was about to spawn a lot more.

Speaker 3 In December 2017, As James LaPan sat in a Pima County jail cell,

Speaker 3 his wife of seven years sat in a hotel room during a work trip watching a lifetime movie about an abusive, controlling husband.

Speaker 32 Seeing that made me fully realize the fact that it's a pattern that's going to continue to get worse.

Speaker 32 And if he had not been arrested, this would probably be a direction in which my life would be going.

Speaker 3 It took months, but eventually Serena found the courage to pick up the phone.

Speaker 5 She calls and says, I've got a new story to tell.

Speaker 3 Pima County Chief Trial Counsel Jonathan Mosier.

Speaker 5 We bring her in for an interview with recorders running.

Speaker 23 When you talked to police previously. I lied.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 What did you lie about?

Speaker 32 The fact that he had left the house, because he did.

Speaker 3 Serena told prosecutors what really happened the night Nick Morales was killed. She said she and James went to bed about 9 o'clock.

Speaker 32 And then he got up and he had left the house.

Speaker 3 And later that night, Serena said she rolled over and saw James in bed. Then when she woke up in the morning, he was gone again.

Speaker 32 While I was in the shower, he had come in, and when he had come in, his arm was bloody. And he just looked at me and he said, I was home all night.
We worked out this morning.

Speaker 3 He didn't tell you why he needed that alibi.

Speaker 32 Nope.

Speaker 3 And when James ordered her to lie to investigators. You didn't want to tell that lie, did you?

Speaker 32 No, I did not want to tell that lie.

Speaker 3 But you did.

Speaker 8 Out of fear, yes.

Speaker 3 Until that movie made her want to tell the truth. How'd that feel?

Speaker 3 For the first time in a long time, I actually slept all night

Speaker 32 without nightmares.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 32 it was terrifying and relieving at the same time.

Speaker 3 After James was arrested for Nick's murder, the case against him only got stronger. His DNA was found all over Nick's bedroom, and Nick's blood was on the pants recovered at the LaPan home.

Speaker 3 With the overwhelming DNA evidence, plus Serena's testimony and the firearms analysis evidence, jurors didn't need much time to reach a verdict.

Speaker 30 We, the jury, do find the defendant, James LaPan, guilty of the offense first-degree murder.

Speaker 3 You're not required to offer a motive.

Speaker 3 But what do you think the motive was here?

Speaker 5 Obsession and hatred. It's all tied up around Nick and Jessica.

Speaker 3 Jessica Stilwell, James LaPan's mistress and Nick's former girlfriend.

Speaker 3 Prosecutor Mosier called her as a witness.

Speaker 3 But his interest in her was not so much about what she said

Speaker 3 as what she might have done.

Speaker 5 I can't prove that she had involvement, but I can't rule it out either. We have these texts from the evening of the murder that are really pretty disturbing.

Speaker 3 At 6.36 p.m., James LaPan sent this text to Jessica, Pit Bull.

Speaker 3 To which Jessica replied, his dog. His name is Smokey.

Speaker 3 And then James instructed Jessica to delete all their texts.

Speaker 5 Why are you talking about Nick's pit bull the night he's murdered?

Speaker 3 Jessica testified she and James had talked about her getting a dog like Smokey for her daughter. That said, investigators still wonder if Jessica was feeding James information about Nick.

Speaker 3 Remember, after the murder, Smokey was found in the backyard. Did James put him there? And was he able to pacify the dog based on help Jessica provided? We wanted to ask Jessica about all of that.

Speaker 3 She declined to be interviewed. If she committed a murder or played a part in committing a murder, she's getting away with it.

Speaker 31 We We cannot find any evidence.

Speaker 3 Or she's not guilty. Correct.

Speaker 3 As for Serena and James and their covenant marriage, it's over now. They divorced in 2019.

Speaker 3 But Serena still worries about what effect James might still have on her and her children's lives. You ever going to be free of this guy?

Speaker 32 When God hits his off switch.

Speaker 3 James LePan will most likely be in prison when that happens. He was sentenced to life.
Christy, who had waited 40 years to meet Nick, now faces the rest of her life without him.

Speaker 4 He'll always be my Superman. I'll always love him.

Speaker 4 That doesn't change.

Speaker 3 And even in the midst of mourning his brother, John Morellos takes some comfort in how he helped solve Nick's murder. You've still got his back, don't you?

Speaker 3 Absolutely.

Speaker 3 I guess that never ends.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 13 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 14 Thanks for joining us.

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