BONUS: Nadya Swartz and Justin Hooker (Snapped: Killer Couples)

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Speaker 3 A serene community in northern Georgia is rattled by a horrible tragedy.

Speaker 2 I think we've run up on a dead party. There's what he's like really cared.

Speaker 2 Here's four shots.

Speaker 2 Three in the head, one in the body.

Speaker 2 This was an execution, just an ambush.

Speaker 3 With no clear leads, investigators must examine the lives of several individuals on the fringe of society.

Speaker 5 A lot of people just like thought, oh, well, this guy's just a drug addict, but it wasn't like that.

Speaker 1 He didn't like people in judging.

Speaker 8 He couldn't stand it.

Speaker 5 He was an outsider. Nobody really gave him a chance.

Speaker 3 The search for the truth will unravel a twisted romance and expose the lengths two desperate people would go to fulfill their darkest desires.

Speaker 5 She wanted to find somebody that would do anything for her.

Speaker 9 Basically, we had to do to make sure I didn't die.

Speaker 2 They're romanticizing what they've done. And that part of their outlaws together.

Speaker 5 She didn't care which one of them died. She just wanted someone to kill for her.

Speaker 8 That's pure evil, I think.

Speaker 3 In the shadows of the Appalachian Mountains, Murray County, Georgia is an idyllic place to get away from it all.

Speaker 2 There's just a lot of places that you can just get by yourself and enjoy nature.

Speaker 3 But on March 16th, 2020, a disturbing 911 call sends ripples across the county. Sorry, no one?

Speaker 2 Um, yeah, I think we've ran up on a dead body.

Speaker 2 Do you think you've run up on a dead body?

Speaker 2 Yeah, he was on the trail and was

Speaker 2 the body laying there. He's not responding.
I mean, what what did I do? Do you see his chest moving at all?

Speaker 2 No, there's blood.

Speaker 2 There's no hope. He's like really pale.

Speaker 2 All right so just stay right there okay I got EMS fire department and all abortion on the way

Speaker 3 Investigators with both Murray County and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation race to the scene

Speaker 2 Some of our investigators had already arrived and there is a walkway down the shoulder of the road to just a common fishing area near the bridge

Speaker 2 and that's where we'd seen the dead body.

Speaker 2 I received a phone call from the Murray County Sheriff's Office. I said, Adam, we need you.
We've got a white male, unidentified, deceased. He was found by fishermen.
I made my way down the trail.

Speaker 2 I come across this male laying on the ground.

Speaker 2 All black, black boots, black pants, black shirt, black hair, fingernail polish. polish.

Speaker 2 Not to be stereotypical, but maybe like a goth type person, which in Murray County is not normal. Murray County is more, you know, country boys, it's gonna be a lot of denim,

Speaker 2 outdoor wear, that type of things, especially if you're at the river.

Speaker 2 He did have some distinguishing tattoos.

Speaker 2 I believe on the right arm it was a skull tattoo with an emblem in the skull.

Speaker 2 We noticed that there's blood pooling around the head.

Speaker 2 It was apparent that there was some type of injury to the head and there was a wound on the torso.

Speaker 2 It was apparent that the body hadn't been thrown off the bridge. It was too far away.
There were no drag marks, anything like that around the body. So it was kind of like, how did you get here?

Speaker 2 There's no wallet. There's no identification.
There's no cell phone. There's nothing else around him that would suggest who this person is.

Speaker 2 So I'm at a disadvantage at this point.

Speaker 3 Investigators immediately shift their focus to the men who discovered the victim.

Speaker 2 We don't know who done it and whoever was on scene was the suspect.

Speaker 2 You know, it's not uncommon for people who have killed people to call the police and say, oh, look what I found.

Speaker 2 My mind is thinking, who are they? What are they? Why are they here?

Speaker 2 they were in their late teens early 20s three of them had went down this trail beside the bridge

Speaker 2 one had separated to go to a better fishing area and this is where he finds this body

Speaker 2 and his friends hear him scream for help and they run to him and call 911

Speaker 2 Their story was adding up for where they were at, what they were doing, and why they were there. So they were pretty quickly removed from suspicion for having anything to do with this death.

Speaker 2 So that question of who is my victim, that's just ringing in our heads at this point. Like we got to figure out who you are to see what happened to you.

Speaker 2 We're checking local counties for missing person, even Tennessee, like, hey, do you have anybody meeting this description that's been missing for a couple of days? We're just striking out every turn.

Speaker 2 We're trying to identify who this individual is.

Speaker 2 We've just ran everything that we can and we all go home. About five to six hours later, you know, I'm trying to rest, get settled in for the evening and I get an interesting phone call.

Speaker 2 It was forwarded from Whitfield County 911.

Speaker 2 Pat Culvert's calling advising that her 27-year-old grandson, Kenny Bunn, hasn't been seen and she had heard that their body had been found on Carleton Petty Road, which is not far from where Kenny's mother, Trina Wilson, lives.

Speaker 2 So we immediately follow this lead down.

Speaker 2 We go to Miss Pat's house.

Speaker 8 They sent detectives up there to talk to us. They just introduced herself and everything.
And I mean, I was in shock.

Speaker 2 That was kind of a huge aha when we got to talk to Pat

Speaker 2 because she describes Kenny to pretty much a T.

Speaker 10 He had a pair of black pants on.

Speaker 10 He had a black shirt on. He had black rimmed glasses on.

Speaker 10 He had a little tattoo on his shoulder.

Speaker 8 I showed a picture of him, his most recent picture that he had taken of himself.

Speaker 8 I could tell it was him by the look on the detective's face.

Speaker 2 We were able to establish that Kenny lived with Pat.

Speaker 2 And you could tell a great deal of concern was there. and love.

Speaker 2 After speaking with Pat and Trina, I'm very confident that our

Speaker 2 John Doe at the bridge is going to be Kenny Bunn.

Speaker 10 It was like a nightmare. It just didn't seem right.
It still don't seem right, you know.

Speaker 3 Born in 1992 in Dalton, Georgia, Kenneth Bunn was a shining light to his large and loving family.

Speaker 2 He was a handful when he was little. I mean, mean

Speaker 2 he was always curious and he'd do anything I'd done. I mean he just

Speaker 2 right on my heel all the time, following me everywhere I went.

Speaker 8 You couldn't ever get him to settle down. He would always want to do something

Speaker 8 and he was just like a little red light.

Speaker 8 He was always there to protect me. No matter what.
You didn't talk about his mama.

Speaker 8 And I always took up for him no matter what.

Speaker 2 Kenny spent a lot of time at my mom's when I'm always working.

Speaker 10 I felt like he was my son, you know, because he stayed there so much. We always called him little Kenny.
He was a sweetheart.

Speaker 3 As close as Kenny was with his family, he didn't always feel like he fit in with his peers.

Speaker 8 He started doing the Pearsons and stuff and everything.

Speaker 8 I think about seventh and eighth grade.

Speaker 8 They say a lot of gothic, that's how they feel like they're loners or isolators or whatever. They're just different.

Speaker 8 I think he was trying just to express how he's feeling in the inside.

Speaker 5 To people around here, somebody who looks like Kenny looked would be very scary, but they would have no idea that on the inside he is the sweetest person that you could ever meet.

Speaker 3 After struggling to find himself, Kenny had gotten his life on track by his mid-20s.

Speaker 5 He's doing so well. He has a car.
You know, he's got his blue Mustang that he was obsessed with. He loved his Mustang.

Speaker 5 He got a really good job in construction. He was making a ton of money.

Speaker 5 He really liked his job.

Speaker 3 But something was missing.

Speaker 5 Kenny was obsessed with love.

Speaker 5 He wanted to find somebody that could love him as much as he could love them.

Speaker 8 He was struggling with a broken heart because his two girlfriends cheated on him.

Speaker 8 He was looking for a soulmate and he wanted even a little family and stuff.

Speaker 8 He had a life ahead of him that he wanted and he was out to seek it.

Speaker 3 But Kenny's life is tragically cut short

Speaker 3 when investigators find his body near the banks of the Conessauga River.

Speaker 10 I didn't want to believe it, you know.

Speaker 10 I couldn't believe anybody do that.

Speaker 2 You're numb.

Speaker 2 You don't know what to do.

Speaker 8 You're just sitting there thinking that's not... It's not him.

Speaker 3 Detectives request an autopsy immediately. The medical examiner confirms that Kenny has been dead for nearly 12 hours and died from multiple gunshot wounds.

Speaker 2 It was four shots, three in the head, one in the chest, I believe, torso area.

Speaker 2 They were able to confirm that it was a small caliber.

Speaker 2 He didn't have any defensive marks on him.

Speaker 2 You can just kind of tell he just crumpled up and fell.

Speaker 2 I don't think he ever really knew what was happening.

Speaker 2 I'm not a medical examiner.

Speaker 2 I would say execution.

Speaker 5 Since Kenny's personal belongings were missing from the crime scene, investigators couldn't rule out if he had been ambushed for robbery or it was something more personal.

Speaker 3 Coming up, a witness exposes skeletons in Kenny's closet.

Speaker 9 There's a bunch of people that wanted to beat him up and then they want him dead.

Speaker 5 He was going to go buy weed from a drug dealer. It caused a fight between them.

Speaker 3 And a suspicious couple elicits concern from investigators.

Speaker 9 Kenny do something.

Speaker 2 We know y'all were camping out around the bridge, and you know something happened down there.

Speaker 3 Investigators in Murray County, Georgia have identified the body found on the banks of the Conessauga River as 27-year-old Kenny Bunn.

Speaker 3 Now, authorities need to determine how Kenny ended up there.

Speaker 2 As an investigator, my next thing is, who did this person hang out with? Who was an integral part of their life? Who did they spend a lot of time with? Was there anyone that didn't like them?

Speaker 5 Kenny's family had no idea who would want to hurt him. Kenny's grandmother had last seen Kenny leaving her house about 7.45 the previous evening.

Speaker 2 Pat gives us information that apparently Kenny had left to walk to a store that's not far from Pat's house.

Speaker 10 He said, Mama, he said, I'll be back.

Speaker 10 Kenny, come back.

Speaker 3 Kenny's family informs detectives that shortly after he left, Kenny's ex-girlfriend, 20-year-old Nadia Swartz, had shown up at the house looking for Kenny.

Speaker 8 Kenny and Nadia got together around in October of 2019.

Speaker 8 He met her on social media,

Speaker 8 browsing after he had split up from his last girlfriend.

Speaker 3 According to Kenny's family, the couple got serious fast.

Speaker 5 He felt strongly about Nadia. I think Kenny just really, really wanted to be in a loving, committed relationship.

Speaker 10 They lived with me three to four months, and she broke up with him.

Speaker 10 They were split up three or four months, and she kept coming up.

Speaker 10 I reckon giving him hope, he'd tell me anything I'd say. I love her.

Speaker 2 So asking Pat where she believed Kenny had went when he had left the house, Kenny liked to go to Harry's convenience store. It's about three quarters of a mile away from Pat's house.

Speaker 2 Harry's has surveillance cameras and we go and the clerk allows us to review the video

Speaker 2 and sure enough we see Kenny wearing the clothes that he had on at the bridge on foot by himself walk into the store

Speaker 2 and a couple of minutes later you see a blue Honda CRV pull up and you see Nadia Swartz.

Speaker 2 She parked at the gas pump and she walked in and there's no audio recording but you can see that they're talking

Speaker 2 And at the end of the transaction, Kenny goes and gets in Nadia's car and you see them drive out of the parking lot.

Speaker 2 Nadia being the last person with Kenny, I know that I need to find Nadia Swartz. We need to have a talk.

Speaker 2 So I re-approached Trina, Kenny's mom. She gives us a brief description.
of where Nadia's mother lives in Murray County.

Speaker 3 When investigators arrive at Nadia's mother's house, they learn Nadia lives nearby with her new boyfriend, 20-year-old Justin Hooker.

Speaker 2 We're able to establish that Nadia and Justin have their own apartment. We just tell Nadia's mother, hey, you know, we really need to talk to them about something serious, the murder of Kenny Bunn.

Speaker 5 Nadia's mother called Nadia, and she and Justin came over to speak to investigators.

Speaker 2 They appeared to be almost like a gothic type.

Speaker 2 Just black clothing, clothing, hair in the eyes, kind of maybe one-eye showing, so to speak. So we just go in and interview Nadia and Justin.

Speaker 2 How long have y'all two been together? We've been together two months, but we've known each other for about five years or more. Did y'all go to school together? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I kind of ease into the whole relationship with Kenny and eventually what I end up asking Nadia

Speaker 2 is if she had had contact with Kenny. Nadia does say that she went and she met up with Kenny.

Speaker 2 Well, when I ask that, you see Justin like

Speaker 2 that tension.

Speaker 2 You can see the veins in his arm.

Speaker 2 So at this point, I'm thinking, okay, is he upset that Nadia has went and visited an ex-boyfriend and he's just now finding out about it.

Speaker 3 But Nadia explains that her visit with Kenny was anything but romantic.

Speaker 3 She tells investigators that he had asked her for a ride to a friend's place on the night of March 15th.

Speaker 5 She met up with Kenny because she still considered him a friend. And when he told her he was going to go buy weed from a drug dealer, it caused a fight between them.

Speaker 9 I didn't take him there.

Speaker 2 He got mad at me. He's like, well,

Speaker 9 stop here and I'm going to get out. I'm like, no, you're not going to go there either.
He's like, I don't care what you say. Just drop me off here and just leave me.
So that's what I did.

Speaker 9 I pulled over. He got out of the car and started walking.

Speaker 9 He would be like, so mad at me if I don't get his next face, so I just drove off.

Speaker 3 Nadia claims she has no idea where Kenny went because she returned to the home she shared with Justin.

Speaker 5 According to Justin, he had stayed home most of the day and went to visit his brother and his girlfriend around seven or eight that evening.

Speaker 5 Justin claimed he stayed at his brother's house most of the evening and then returned home around midnight.

Speaker 2 Justin and Nadia, they maintained that they were together just hanging out at their apartment that night.

Speaker 2 Do you know anybody that you're talking about him hanging out with drug dealers? Do you know anybody that was willing to hurt Kenny?

Speaker 9 Kenny

Speaker 9 told me there's a bunch of people that wanted to beat him up and then want him dead. And he would never give me news.
It's just a lot of people.

Speaker 2 Did you know any of them or have you ever seen any of them?

Speaker 9 I really don't know.

Speaker 3 Still, Nadia insists that Kenny's death could be connected to a drug deal gone bad.

Speaker 2 I appreciate y'all's time. Y'all have any questions for me?

Speaker 3 I don't think so. Okay.

Speaker 3 Very good.

Speaker 3 Without evidence to connect Nadia or Justin to Kenny's death, investigators reach out to Kenny's closest friends.

Speaker 3 They confirm that Kenny had dealt with conflict in the small community because of his lifestyle.

Speaker 5 When me and Kenny met, it was kind of like

Speaker 5 we were just going into middle school. So what people thought of us is that we were just really weird.
We dressed different, we acted different.

Speaker 5 I think Kenny acted like he didn't care, but I'm sure deep down

Speaker 5 a lot of the bullying and stuff got to him.

Speaker 8 He didn't like people to judge him. He couldn't stand it.

Speaker 8 I think he tried to show people that you don't judge people by their looks. You need to get to know them first.

Speaker 5 Kenny gets out of high school and immediately gets in a long-term relationship with the girl he was dating before, Nadia.

Speaker 5 And they are like not good for each other. They were doing drugs together.
Kenny was like really big into weeds. I think a lot of people just like thought, oh, well, this guy's just a drug addict.

Speaker 5 But it wasn't like that.

Speaker 3 Kenny's friends explained that he struggled with depression. So in 2019, he decided to make a change.

Speaker 5 Kenny finally gets out of this relationship, finally gets off of these drugs, and he's doing so well. He was finally

Speaker 5 a little less depressed. He was sending me videos and you know, pictures of him smiling and dancing and having a good time.

Speaker 3 Kenny's friends and family tell police there's no way Kenny had relapsed, ostensibly ruling out the theory that Kenny may have been involved in a drug deal gone wrong.

Speaker 8 I don't believe that because my son, he was sober.

Speaker 8 He was getting his life back together.

Speaker 3 So why would Nadia make that allegation?

Speaker 5 She knew that he had a problem with drugs in the past.

Speaker 5 Given Kenny's prior history, investigators couldn't rule out the theory. But there wasn't any drug dealer and there wasn't any connection to the drug world investigators could find at that time.

Speaker 3 With few leads to go on, investigators head back to the crime scene the next day.

Speaker 2 We did just a quick neighborhood canvas, stopping cars that were traveling the road. hey did you have you seen anything between this time and that time trying to get anything and everything

Speaker 2 we've actually talked to the farmer who owned the property and he was like hey at one point there was a guy with a shopping buggy with an orange chainsaw in it

Speaker 2 there was a white female with him i'd been seeing them in the bridge area a lot

Speaker 5 This guy had been acting erratic and he carried what could be considered an extremely dangerous weapon.

Speaker 5 This area of Georgia is just off U.S. 411, which is a highway that runs from Tennessee through Georgia and into Alabama.

Speaker 5 More than 300 miles of often rural highway where vagrants and drifters can almost go undetected by law enforcement.

Speaker 5 Sometimes these drifters turn out to be dangerous fugitives and seek these rural mountain communities to escape capture.

Speaker 2 I'm thinking maybe we got a witness or maybe the person who killed Kenny.

Speaker 3 Investigators immediately begin the task task of searching for the man. The following day, they make a crucial discovery when they drive past a small gas station.

Speaker 2 We see a shopping cart with an orange chainsaw in it.

Speaker 2 We go inside and ask the clerk, who does that cart belong to?

Speaker 2 Now the clerk directs us to an individual that's outside attempting to wash a vehicle for money.

Speaker 2 What are the odds of finding this guy in this rural area at at this gas station where we just happen to be driving by?

Speaker 2 We approached this individual and right off the bat. He's nervous.

Speaker 2 He's very elusive in his answering our questions. What's your name? Sir? What's your name? Jesse.
Jesse, what's your last name? I don't get out of my name, sir.

Speaker 2 As an officer, it's automatically like, this guy's hiding something from me.

Speaker 2 There was some dead body found down there. We're just trying to see if somebody saw it.
Very seriously, it's true.

Speaker 2 Was it a man or a woman? It was a man. I mean, I was...
I'm going to influence old y'all because I've been like, oh god, they're going to think I killed a son of a bitch.

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Speaker 3 Less than 48 hours after 27-year-old Kenny Bunn was found shot to death, investigators are speaking with a suspicious person who was seen near the crime scene in the days leading up to the murder.

Speaker 2 You live around here?

Speaker 2 How do you get down here?

Speaker 2 Wall.

Speaker 2 Hey Jesse, did you say that we could look through your buggy for the free buddy?

Speaker 2 Jesse was in fact wanted out of Tennessee and that's why he did not want to give us his full name, date of birth, things of that nature.

Speaker 3 As investigators continue questioning Jesse, his girlfriend arrives.

Speaker 2 What's your name? My name? I'm Adam Jones with the GBI State Police. This is my partner, Agent Wilson.

Speaker 2 We know y'all were camping out around the bridge and you know something happened down there. Did there?

Speaker 2 And we were just wondering if you had seen anything, anybody down there.

Speaker 3 The woman is quick to offer an alibi for the Sunday night Kenny was killed.

Speaker 2 His girlfriend explained to us that they had been staying under the bridge, but on this Saturday and Sunday, they had been in Tennessee conducting some illegal activities.

Speaker 2 They were stealing copper from an abandoned house, which did give them a good alibi.

Speaker 2 That allowed us to eliminate who he was, why he would have been out there at the bridge.

Speaker 2 We did let local law enforcement for Tennessee know who we were dealing with and they were glad to have Jesse come stay at their facility in Tennessee.

Speaker 2 We're probably three days into it at this point.

Speaker 2 We had already done like the best you could do in neighborhood canvas on a stretch of highway with, you know, with a handful of houses and

Speaker 2 just talking to people.

Speaker 2 I remember going back to the office. We're trying to figure out what to do at this point, what direction.
I remember Adams on a whiteboard, you know, we kind of jot down everything.

Speaker 2 And I remember receiving a phone call.

Speaker 2 from one of our local attorneys.

Speaker 2 And the local attorney said, hey, I have a client that I've just been talking to, and he knows something about the case that you're working on. That's when things really started moving.

Speaker 2 We hightailed it straight to this law office and speak to this client.

Speaker 2 He wanted to provide information on a possible murder weapon for Kenny's death.

Speaker 2 So you sold a gun, it may have been used in the commission of a crime we're looking at.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 It was a 22 LR Hitch.

Speaker 2 I got it at the Academy like

Speaker 2 five, six months ago. What's the guy's name? Justin.

Speaker 2 Justin Hooker.

Speaker 2 So let me ask you, when did you sell it to him? I saw it to him Saturday, man. This last Saturday.
Yeah, the day before it happened.

Speaker 2 We know that Kenny was shot. with a small caliber weapon, which is what the.22 was.

Speaker 2 And so this was huge. This was paramount to our investigation.

Speaker 2 This person tells us, Justin said it was for home defense where him and Nadia were staying at their apartment. They've been having some issues and he just wanted to have this gun for self-protection.

Speaker 3 But as news spread about Kenny Bunn's murder, the informant tells investigators that he became suspicious about Justin's motives.

Speaker 2 So I had to call Justin. I asked him, I said, so did you f ⁇ ing do it? Was it with my f ⁇ ing gun, dude?

Speaker 2 And he said, don't worry. And I said, was it with my goddamn gun? And he said, yeah.

Speaker 2 And I said, why the would you do that?

Speaker 2 He didn't know that's what he was going to do, but he is terrified that he's going to get drunk into this.

Speaker 2 He thought he was going to be in trouble for providing a murder weapon to Justin. I mean,

Speaker 2 I can't be all. I don't want any trouble.
You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3 Investigators theorize that Justin may have acted out of jealousy due to the fact that Nadia and Kenny kept in touch.

Speaker 2 It appeared to be maybe a lover's triangle,

Speaker 2 so to speak.

Speaker 3 Detectives are beginning to believe that Nadia may have initially lied to them, so they press the informant for more details.

Speaker 2 Did he say that his girlfriend was with him when he did? Yeah.

Speaker 2 and what we want to know is the elements around who killed who and why i have no idea what he did with the gun after i have no freaking clue man

Speaker 2 after the interview was over i said hey it's uh the the son ain't gonna say it today

Speaker 2 before we catch them

Speaker 2 it really took off at that point

Speaker 3 coming up the hunt for justin hooker and nadia swartz intensifies leading investigators to face conflicting stories.

Speaker 2 Y'all got the wrong people who didn't do anything.

Speaker 9 Well, I can't lie anymore because of Gil just giving me up.

Speaker 3 Three days into the murder investigation of Kenny Bunn, Authorities have zeroed in on Justin Hooker as their primary suspect.

Speaker 2 We're able to determine that Justin works for Witco Produce in Dalton, Georgia, and this company is actually owned by Justin's family.

Speaker 2 We went there to try to find him.

Speaker 2 He went there.

Speaker 2 We start accelerating at this point. I've got all these agents and detectives and investigators from Dalton Police Department, Murray County Sheriff's Office, special agents with the GBI.

Speaker 2 We're all out working.

Speaker 2 Units went to where Justin lives and then kind of set up surveillance on the house.

Speaker 2 We had other units looking for Miss Nadia.

Speaker 3 When investigators reach out to Justin's friends and family, they say they haven't seen him. But authorities do learn more about the troubled young man.

Speaker 3 Like Kenny Bunn, Justin had always been an outsider.

Speaker 5 Justin, when he was in high school, he would get picked on a lot

Speaker 5 just because of how he was dressed, just because of how he talked.

Speaker 5 Justin loved wearing black and growing his hair out long, you know, and he enjoyed chains and stuff. Justin really wanted to shock people with how he was dressed.

Speaker 5 He wanted people to look at him, but not look at him.

Speaker 2 At one point, Justin was homeless in his late teens. He was living out of a vehicle.
He'd gotten a few run-ins with law enforcement for theft.

Speaker 2 And he was just kind of generally having a hard time making good decisions.

Speaker 3 Despite the hardships, Justin never had a problem with romance.

Speaker 5 I found Justin to be just like very empathetic, you know, he was very sweet with it.

Speaker 5 I had very, very deep emotions for Justin.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 when we broke up and I found out he was dating Nadia within a month and a half of us breaking up,

Speaker 2 it hurt.

Speaker 3 Friends tell detectives that Justin's infatuation with Nadia had developed quickly and intensely.

Speaker 2 At this point, you're getting leads about this relationship with Nadia and Justin and Kenny. And we're able to learn that there was an altercation between Justin and Kenny.

Speaker 5 The altercation had taken place a few months earlier, not long after Kenny and Nadia had broken up.

Speaker 5 Words were exchanged, and allegedly, Justin had threatened to blow Kenny's head off if he didn't leave Nadia alone.

Speaker 5 I really don't know exactly why Kenny and Justin didn't get along other than Nadia.

Speaker 5 So that was the common factor they two had together is

Speaker 5 in between Nadia.

Speaker 3 Despite the threats, Kenny wasn't willing to give give up on Nadia.

Speaker 5 I remember him telling me about her, and I think that Kenny knew that she's a toxic person and that it was a toxic environment and relationship, but he was also just in love with the idea of being in love.

Speaker 5 So, you know, he would do anything to try to keep that connection and that relationship together.

Speaker 3 As investigators widen their search for Justin, they uncover one more important detail.

Speaker 5 Investigators spoke to Justin's brother and his brother's living girlfriend. They told authorities that Justin did not come by their home the night of the murder.

Speaker 5 In fact, they hadn't seen Justin in weeks, which totally undermined his alibi.

Speaker 3 On March 19th, three days after Kenny's murder, the GBI's surveillance pays off when agents finally apprehend Justin Hooker as he tries to sneak back into his apartment.

Speaker 2 Law enforcement goes and and takes Justin in custody, transports him to Murray County Sheriff's Office for us.

Speaker 3 When Nadia learns that Justin has been arrested, she turns herself in.

Speaker 2 I wanted to interview them apart from each other

Speaker 2 because you could kind of tell that together they were stronger. So I wanted to divide and conquer.
It is Thursday, March the 19th, 2020. Time is 5.05 p.m.

Speaker 2 Special Agent Adam Jones conducting an interview with Justin Hooker at the Murray County Sheriff's Office interview room.

Speaker 2 Justin, he looked apprehensive, scared,

Speaker 2 thinking, I wonder what he's going to say.

Speaker 2 Would I be able to see my girlfriend knows she's okay? Why do you want to see her? Just because if they picked me up, I'm sure they picked her up, and I'm sure she's scared. She got anxiety.
Alright.

Speaker 2 Do you have any idea why we're here? I'm guessing this is what, or about what y'all talked to me, and her about here that y'all got the wrong people living. Why is that? Why do you say that?

Speaker 2 Because we didn't do anything. Okay.
You didn't buy a pistol. Or you did buy one a while back, right? Yeah.
What kind of pistol was it?

Speaker 2 It was a 20 or 20

Speaker 2 the smaller.

Speaker 2 He starts to say 22, but catches himself and says 20 and stops. Listen, what you got to realize is

Speaker 2 we're not here just by chance. We just did pick you up by random.

Speaker 2 Right? We know,

Speaker 2 and the best thing to do is

Speaker 2 just come clean with it.

Speaker 2 I confront him with that, and I kind of see Justin's posture, his shoulders sink in, and it's kind of like a defeat posture.

Speaker 2 And I'm kind of at the edge of my chair, waiting for him to say the next thing. And he's like, I want an attorney.

Speaker 2 It's just like

Speaker 2 I'm deflated.

Speaker 3 In another interrogation room, investigators hope Nadia Swartz is more willing to speak.

Speaker 2 Alright, so tell me about what happened on Sunday.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 9 Well, I can't lie anymore because Gil's just eating me up. I was talking to Justin about what Kenny was basically did to me in the past.

Speaker 9 How much he put me in depression.

Speaker 9 Because he was threatened to kill me ever since I got with him. Like, constantly threatening to kill me.
I've been telling him how Kenny basically had a knife to my leg right here.

Speaker 11 And he's like, if you try to leave, I'm going to cut your leg off.

Speaker 2 I like to just let people tell their version of facts. But then, while we're interviewing Nadia, some of the things we're not adding up.

Speaker 5 Kenny wasn't an abuser.

Speaker 5 That's not who he was.

Speaker 3 Nadia claims that on the night of Kenny's murder, she she and Justin decided to confront Kenny together.

Speaker 9 That night, I just want to know why he did that.

Speaker 9 I just want to know what I did so wrong for me to go through all that with him for four months.

Speaker 5 Nadia claimed that when she picked Kenny up from the gas station, Justin was in the car.

Speaker 9 Justin was in the backseat. He's like, remember, I'm here with you.

Speaker 2 So, when you guys go to this, to the river, did Justin stay in the back seat?

Speaker 9 Justin stayed in the car. Okay.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 me and Kenny got out and

Speaker 9 Kenny said,

Speaker 9 he wanted me back. He was begging and pleading for me back.

Speaker 9 Saying, if you don't come back with me, I'm going to kill you.

Speaker 9 And that's when he ran up to me and scared me. So I punched him in the stomach.

Speaker 9 And Kenny was like, you're going to regret that movie. And he had that death stare in his eyes like everything was blank.

Speaker 9 He came at me like that, like he was going to strangle me.

Speaker 9 Justin freaked out and basically defended me.

Speaker 2 How did he defend you?

Speaker 9 He that's when I noticed he had the gun.

Speaker 9 And Justin basically did what he had to do to make sure I didn't die.

Speaker 2 What did Justin do? Shot him.

Speaker 9 It was self-defense.

Speaker 3 But investigators aren't buying Nadia's claims.

Speaker 2 We were able to disprove that Kenny got physically violent with Nadia by doing a search warrant to photograph Nadia's body.

Speaker 2 She had no injuries on her that would suggest that she was being strangled or had been gripped violently, anyway.

Speaker 2 So I knew Nadia was lying to me.

Speaker 3 Nadia Swartz and Justin Hooker have been arrested for the shooting of Nadia's ex-boyfriend, 27-year-old Kenny Bunn.

Speaker 3 While Nadia has implicated her new boyfriend, Justin, as the killer, she claims that the murder was committed in self-defense.

Speaker 2 Well, there's a lot of force that comes with strangulation. There should be some marks on her body.
She didn't have any injuries.

Speaker 3 Kenny's friends and family are also adamant that Nadia's allegations of abuse are fabricated.

Speaker 5 I think it's important for everybody to know who Kenny really was.

Speaker 5 Kenny was not violent to her or anyone.

Speaker 8 She is a manipulator.

Speaker 2 She was, I think she controlled the relationships. I think she actually was the abuser in the relationships.

Speaker 5 Justin Hooker had very strong feelings for Nadia and seemed devoted to her.

Speaker 5 If he believed her accusations, he would have had a very strong motive to commit this crime.

Speaker 3 Investigators charge Nadia Swartz and Justin Hooker with murder. Facing a mountain of evidence, they both decide to take plea deals.

Speaker 2 If they were going to accept this plea, they were going to have to provide the court with information that the investigators needed, mainly where was this firearm.

Speaker 2 And they also have to tell what they did that caused Kenny to be murdered.

Speaker 3 Nadia and Justin agree to the terms.

Speaker 3 Based on their subsequent statements, authorities believe Kenny's murder was premeditated.

Speaker 2 My opinion with Nadia is that she weighs on the jealousy of Justin to hype him up to say, hey, if we're going to have a good relationship and love each other forever, Kenny can't be in the picture.

Speaker 2 And I think she came up with this plan to ambush and execute Kenny.

Speaker 5 I think Nadia had a very weird, dark, romantic fantasy about murder and it seemed to me like she was just playing a game of who would kill for me.

Speaker 2 What we believed is Nadia took Justin to the bridge with his gun and left him there.

Speaker 2 Nadia then goes and picks Kenny up.

Speaker 2 She was able to lure Kenny back to the bridge with the understanding that they were going to try and get back together.

Speaker 2 Using this ruse, gets Kenny down the path to the bridge, and then that's where Justin comes out.

Speaker 3 Due to the lack of defensive wounds, investigators do not believe there was any sort of confrontation between Kenny and his killers.

Speaker 2 This was an execution, just an ambush. Kenny didn't know that it was coming.

Speaker 2 We're able to learn later that Justin sold the gun,

Speaker 2 but we were never able to establish where that firearm went.

Speaker 3 In March 2021, Nadia Swartz and Justin Hooker receive their fates.

Speaker 3 The 21-year-olds are each sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Speaker 10 I hope to God they don't ever get out.

Speaker 5 In less than a year, the Justin that I knew went from being a loving and sweet guy

Speaker 2 to a killer.

Speaker 5 within six months. It's shocking.

Speaker 5 I believe we all have the potential to kill somebody, but I believe that Nadia is the one that brought it out of him.

Speaker 5 Gave him that whole, I can do this. You know, I can go and shoot a guy.
And so he did.

Speaker 5 Nadia was very insecure.

Speaker 5 And so she wanted to find somebody that would do anything for her, including killing someone.

Speaker 5 She didn't care which one of them died. She just wanted someone to kill for her.

Speaker 2 She was a puppet master with the strings, so to speak. I don't think Nadia is remorseful for Kenny's death at all.

Speaker 2 I just, I think she's evil.

Speaker 8 They left him in that.

Speaker 8 Like he was garbage.

Speaker 2 My son went garbage.

Speaker 10 Lord mercy, I wish Kenny Hanton went off with him that night.

Speaker 10 I lost my everything.

Speaker 8 I want him to be remembered by his good heart and his helpfulness, the way he made people smile.

Speaker 8 He was more than a murderer.

Speaker 2 He was a person.

Speaker 4 Justin Hooker and Nadia Swartz will be be eligible for parole consideration in 2050.