#418 Maggie Freleng with Nikki Zinger

Joy is essential and it's also elusive, but now there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101, it's a new podcast hosted by me, Hota Kotby. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid uplifting and moving on air chats. Open your free iHeartRadio app search, Joy 101 and listen now. Joy 101 with Hota Kotby is presented by CVS. I'm Jake Brenn and on the Disgraceland podcast I explore the wild lives of rock stars and unbelievable true crime stories for music history. These are the stories you haven't heard, the kind you'll end up telling someone else. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in a notorious prison or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga's Accused Up, where that time blondies Debbie Harry escaped Ted Bunny. Listen to Disgraceland on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you give your podcasts. My first guest is Paris Totten, Shakira, Luke and Yerin. I have surprises, many surprises. Welcome to the Sweet 305 podcast where the new tech comes to life. You're the only person I know that loves a yellow starburst. Lemonade. This is Sweet 305. Here, oversharing is encouraged. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lille Ponds on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. One Friday morning in 1991, Nikki Zinger and her boyfriend Daniel Risher decided to drive down to Shreveport, Louisiana for the day. The couple were both in their 20s and they lived in Magnolia, Arkansas. Daniel was in a band and he needed to take his guitar amp to ever pair shop in Shreveport about an hour and a half away. They stopped off to pick up some magazines at the home of Nikki's mother Linda Holley. Linda was already at work so Nikki left her a note and the two set off. When they got back that night, they drove past Linda's trailer. I didn't even think about my father because it was a little late. I figured she was in the bed because when we at the house, the house was dark but I thought that the car was in the front yard. The next day, Saturday, Nikki called her mother over and over but was unable to reach her. On Sunday, Nikki and Daniel drove over to Linda's house and when they got there, cops were everywhere. When we pulled up, the NIH spoke was wrong and when they told me that my mom was dead, I didn't understand why. Because it just didn't make any sense. She couldn't be dead because she wasn't dead when I left. Linda Holley had been viciously murdered, stabbed and bludgeoned to death and Nikki and Daniel were soon the primary suspects. On my mistake, he's angered and I've been locked up for 31 years for a crime I have not committed. From Lava for Good, this is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling. Today, Nikki's Zinger. To accept this free call, press 1 to reduce the thank you for using Securus. You may start the conversation now. Hi, Nikki. Are we ready? Yeah. I'm here. It's Maggie. Hey, we really don't get ketchup on something. Us, Nikki, yeah, we do, but let's get this interview. Okay, and then we'll catch up because we don't want to we don't want to miss this. Nikki's Zinger has been incarcerated at the McPherson Unit in Newport, Arkansas since 1992. And Nikki and I have been friends since I first covered her case in 2020 for my podcast, "Unjusted and Unolved." Nikki's story has haunted me since then. And after listening to this episode, I think you will hear why. All right, Nikki, so let's start at the beginning. Can you tell me about growing up? I know you were born in Chicago, but you moved to Arkansas. My mom left my dad when I was just a baby. I mean, we went to, it was my grandmother who lived in Magnolia at the time. Nikki's Zinger was born in 1963. After they moved to Magnolia, her mother Linda Holley raised Nikki on her own. My dad was never a part of my life because he was always drinking and drugging. He was mentally and physically abusive to both. And I got older. I tried to come see me a few, but he was always drunk and my mother asked him, "Can you not come see your only child sober?" It was pushing me one day and he pushed me out of the swing. And he just left me there. Linda was a nurse and worked as a director with the health department, but Nikki says she could have done more with her life. She was part of the doctor. She just did and I think because of me, because of my problem. I was born with a club foot in a flick drum and I was born paralyzed in a stroke with a brain. And that meant that Nikki needed constant care. I mean, I mean, I've been off a little for like three or four months. With my foot, I'm almost upside down because I got to have pins in my knee, and pins in all my toes and the calves. And I got to have upside down so I won't get a blood clot. So, you really can't do anything. I missed a lot of the childhood being in the hospital. Even when she was home in between operations, Nikki had to wear a cast day and night. She really went to school, so Linda homeschooled her. I had no friends because I had to go everywhere the year for so many years. You're freeing with me one year and I'm out the next year. You're not going to keep, you know, you're a child, so you're not going to keep trying to be my friend. So, I really never need to get hosting, because I was never in school. So, tell me about growing up with your mom. You guys really were each other's people. She was kind of your best friend. She took care of you when you were having all your health problems. So, tell me about that. She was my, she was my roommate. She was my everything. I didn't know any other way. I was a homie. I couldn't work. So, you know, I stayed home and did a little thing to you know what I'm saying? We just got to do everything. If we went to the sauna or went to the drive, whatever drive through, we stayed in a park a lot sometimes and just got a picnic and just walk everybody. If me and my mother traveled, it was just me and my mother. She did the lane and the bed and play video games with me or the TV or the movies or just outside playing. You know what I'm saying? And that was just happy with me. Nikki and her mom did everything together. They were happy in each other's company, but still Linda wanted more for her daughter. I have a good career, I have a good life. I'm not to worry about things. She didn't want me to have to work hard like she did. She didn't want me to have to worry about the things that she worried about. All the men that she had been, like my mother. As a teenager, Nikki was interested in boys. She was curious about dating, but she wasn't quite ready to strike out on her own. Did you figure out how to speak to you? Making my mother, making my mom go dragon. So we could look at boys. She would take me to the clinic and we would look. Just look, you own science, just drive around and I don't know. So I actually never knew this. So you and mom would go look for boys together. Yeah, just go look on my nut. I didn't date a lot because I always moved with so shot because of the scars on my leg or because when the leg was bigger than the other. So my mom would say, well, let's just do this then. Then in her early 20s, Nikki did meet someone. When they got married, she thought Larry would take care of her. But that's not how it turned out. I didn't know a lot of things about Larry and Chalife. I got married then. He drank a lot. I knew he drank some. I didn't know that he had drank that bad. And he would want to leave and come in late at two o'clock and one night said, we can't do that. This is my mom's house. So when he did leave, he would try to bang on the door and my mother wouldn't let me in. And he just got out of hand and he was getting real verbal abusive stuff like that. And I thought, so I just got a divorce. I don't ever regret it. How long were you married for? Not even six months. With Larry out of the picture, Nikki and her mom went back to their quiet life together. By now, they had sold her grandparents' house and moved into a new place, a brand new, double-wide trailer. They had two bedrooms, two bedrooms, a living room, a TV room, and then the master bedroom had a sell bathroom called TV room, like a little apartment. Linda continued with her job at the health center and Nikki pitched in by babysitting and working at a nursery when she wasn't watching TV or listening to her favorite music. So Nikki, I know that you in your past maybe still are a bit of a rocker. What kind of music did you use to like? Hey me? Yeah you. Oh my god. I was like ACD say Irvane Hailey and or Journey. That was back when I was a little bit of a young person. And then when Linda was 45 something happened that would upset the balance of their life together. Linda struggled with how to tell her daughter the devastating news. And I happened to come home early and I was like why is the type of worship on my bed? So I turned it out and it was her talking. That's when she told me that she had cancer. I was devastated because I had to know how to act and to deal with the feelings because cancer makes you so there's so much. Their lifetime roles were reversed and Nikki became her mother's caretaker. What kinds of caretaking things did you have to do for her? I'd make the bed or cook. We went and got her a wig. We learned how to eat better. You think she had to change when she ate to get the vitamins that the chemotherapy and the radiation was taken out of her so we had bought a steamer so I learned to steam the vegetables that she liked. So I was cooked and she still worked because she wanted to because she did and she said she would drive her crazy. So when she come in I would fix her bed, have her dinner ready and we would just watch they be or whatever she if she wanted to go outside and walk some we would go out there and walk around the road because we lived in the country anyway. It was hard for Nikki to watch her mom going through chemotherapy. I don't know if the cure is worse than Kevin came through because you know I'd watch her mom go through so much spinal tap, hair coming out, losing one of her breasts which really upset her. It's very very hard. Nikki also had to process the fact that the worst might happen that she might lose her mother, her best friend. Because by this time she had been through chemotherapy radiation twice. Sometimes she would feel better and sometimes she wouldn't. I just couldn't think about this in the end of my mom because I don't have any family. This has been my only family, my whole life. I've just been thinking my life just staying after my mom's ill. And then when she was in her mid-20s someone knew came into Nikki's life. She had met a few people around the area and one day one of the girls invited her to a party. And told my mom about it and she said, "It was like a heart. You might meet somebody here and play it." So I go and there was Daniel. Nikki was 26 and Daniel Risher was four years younger. She was attracted to him right away. His hair looked like a little haircut when I first made him. Dark brown in straight. He had big puppy-dow brown eyes. He was kind of shy like me. He was just, "I don't know, just different from everybody." One day not long after that, to Nikki's surprise, Daniel showed up at their trailer. Linda was on her way to work. My mom said, "Who is this? An eye and a ghost." And everything. She was talking about she didn't want to leave me and he said, "Well, how about if I just come up and keep recovering during the day? Why are you at work?" And that's what he did. And that's where it started. What stood out to you about him? I mean, it wasn't like my ex-husband. It was, it was, it was sweet. Because it was like a slow build. That makes sense to you? Mm-hmm. It was, since he helped with everything. It was just, it was just so natural. Not only that, Daniel was into rock music, like Nikki. Music was one of the things they bombed it over. You know, he played the guitar and he had his own little personal band. And he was good at it. And I thought that was kind of neat to have a boyfriend that played the band. It's kind of not necessarily a first-dead or whatever you want to say, but it was kind of neat. Before long, Nikki and Daniel were inseparable. They went back and forth between their homes, staying some nights at Linda's place, and others with Daniel's parents, Albert and Rachel. At first, Nikki says Rachel wasn't sure how she felt about her son's new girlfriend. When she got to know me, things changed because, you know, she didn't think I was trying to take a baby to her son or anything else. She thought I was really not because I helped with the dishes and I helped cook when we all liked down there. I helped everything that she did. Did your mom like him? I think so. Our end of Daniel really got along. She had asked that, you know, what I thought about maybe a school and a vacation one time, all of us together. Oh, where would you have gone? Well, my mom, she was a very history buff. And we went to Mississippi together and seen no battlefields. She wanted to go to the Alamo and see all the stuff in Texas. As things progressed with me and him, we talked about maybe getting married one day, maybe starting a family. One Friday morning, about a year and a half into their relationship, Daniel needed to take his guitar amp to a repair shop in Shreveport. It was about an hour and a half away and Nikki decided to go along for the ride and make a day of it. On their way out, they stopped by Linda's to pick up a few magazines for the drive. Linda was already at work. I left her note on the bar, the tailor, the Louisville-Gown Shreveport. It was still daytime when we got there. So we went to amp place and they said it was closed for lunch. So we went to the mall and he decided he was hungry, so we went night at the sandwich place and he bought me some perfume, a couple bottles of perfume. They walked around the mall for a bit, then went back to the shop to drop off Daniel's amp. As it was starting to get dark, they headed back to Magnolia, arriving in the late evening. We stopped by Etymark, we had dinner at Sonnyk and we went home. On the way, they drove past Linda's house. Didn't think my father could wait. It was a little late. I figured she was in the bed. I mean, because when we had by the house, the house looked dark, but I thought the car was in different yards. The next day, Saturday, Nikki called her mom and left multiple messages. But that's when she used to go to store. That's her day. She goes to the grocery store, to the farmer's market, came on and it's just her day. They do all that and I didn't take everything. So, John, can you introduce yourself for listeners? Sure, my name is John Harden. I'm a private investigator and for 10 years, I ran the nonprofit Proclaim Justice. Can you walk us through what happens back on March 8th, 1991? What did we know that happened, basically? What we know happened is on Friday, March 8th at 4.35 o'clock, something like that. Linda Holly was seen at her mailbox by her neighbor, Carol Lee Davis. She was in her scrubs. She was checking her mail. They had a brief conversation about, "Maybe we'll go to the store together tomorrow, do a little shopping tomorrow." And that's the last sighting that we know for sure of Linda Holly alive. That's on Friday afternoon. You fast forward to Sunday and Carol Lee Davis, the neighbor, was concerned because she had left a couple of messages for Linda that were not returned, but her car was still there. So, she, Cara, becomes concerned. She calls her friend Jan Tarrill, who is also Linda Holly's friend. And they call a police officer who they knew named Buddy Height, the three of them go over. Buddy enters enough to see that there's a bad scene going on there. And he calls the police officers who were on duty. So, once the police arrive on the scene, what was the investigation like? The first couple of officers, they don't know what they're walking into. So, they go through the back utility room door of the trailer. And they're walking through broken glass, they're walking through blood. And you can't blame them. They've got their weapons drawn. They don't know if somebody still in that trailer or not. They go in, they find Linda dead. It was multiple stab wounds, 12 stab wounds, as well as blunt force trauma, some evidence of some strangulation as well. John says that the investigation was a mess from the beginning. That crime scene was not secured at all. There were very quickly, multiple people, multiple officers, kind of all over the place there. Going in and out of the trailer was sort of the first thing that went wrong with this investigation. So, you guys on Sunday, you're calling her. She's not answering. So, at what point do you go over to the house? I guess about lunch, maybe maybe a little after lunch. The come around the corner and there was a whole bunch of cars in the yard. Someone pulled up and everybody was coming out from behind my house and I asked what was wrong. And when they told me that, I met my mom was dead. I just remember thinking that they're lying, so I run around behind the house and they call me. They told me that I couldn't. I couldn't go around there. And by this time I was crying, you know, I didn't understand why, because it just made any sense that they're telling me that my mom was dead and she couldn't be dead because she wasn't dead when I left. I just. No. That's when I just laid on the grass and I didn't do nothing because it was just my whole life was gone. I have no life now. That didn't happen anymore. Who would do something like this? I mean, I just been knowing about it in life, my mom like that. That's still don't know. I know I didn't. Why would I take my life away from me? Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. You can listen to this and all the Lava For Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava For Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Hey, I'm Hota Kotby, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hota Kotby. Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support, and useful tools to help maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're going to have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Sean Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnast. There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me. It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. Listen to Joy 101 with Hota Kotby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My first guest is Karen Sotin, Shakira, Luke and Yerin. Samirai, Greicy! I'm so excited! I'm so excited! On the bouncy bed. You have surprises. Many surprises. Welcome to Sweet 305 where the good chat comes to life. What up? It's like a form of a friend. Hello friend. Hello friend. Hello sister. Look, I've never seen it with anyone. Except with my children. My children know. Yes. Sit me amante. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. It's incredible. You're the only person I know that loves the yellow starbursts. I love that. No one should miss you as you say, I would like to work with this person. This is Sweet 305. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Pans as part of my tour of Podcasts Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brennan. And on the disgrace land podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars in unbelievable true crime stories for music history. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in one of the world's most notorious prisons. Imagine that. Your Paul McCartney. It's 1980. You're an ex-beetle. And you're doing time in one of Japan's worst prisons right there alongside Yakuza Gangsters and for a ridiculous charge. Or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga is accused of. Who is the artist Lady Gaga is being accused of doing the unthinkable to after allegedly stealing her music and style to become famous? And what about that time blondies Debbie Harry escaped a serial killer? The man who had given her that ride she barely escaped from was Ted Bundy. Listen to disgrace land on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Within days of finding out her mother had been murdered, Nikki was told that she had to leave their home. Nobody was paying for it anymore. We had like 10, 15 days to get everything out of the house. So me and Daniel and my friend Debbie went up there and we would try to clean it up some during the day and keep the thing out that I wanted to keep. We would do it through the day because I couldn't do it in their not-time. It stretched me out too bad and I had not made it from it. The day after Linda was found murdered, Daniel and Nikki were allowed to go into the home unsupervised. They're cleaning all this stuff up from the murder. Before the crime scene folks got there before the state crime lab arrived, three days before the state crime level arrived. Nikki says that at one point officers asked her if there was anything missing from the house. We found them up with missing. Her gun was missing, hammer was missing, money was missing, jewelry was missing and they did not one thing about any of that. As it turns out, the detectives were concerned about something else entirely. They weren't looking for valuables that were missing or anything like that. Officers testified at trial that immediately once they found Linda Holley murdered in her home, they immediately started looking for insurance and other important papers. Linda's two life insurance policies, which added up to $90,000. They all forced that there were all these papers on the floor and scattered about and Nikki was gathering papers and putting them in this box. The day after Linda was murdered, they'd take them to Daniel's house. At this point, the investigation had already begun to turn towards Nikki and Daniel. I guess the old adage that you always look at those, you know, they look at those closest to you, rings true to some degree here. And in that way, you sort of can't blame on me either. So when did they start questioning you about what happens? Tell me what you remember about when you started realizing like, oh shit, I think they might think I did this. They interviewed me and Daniel maybe right after they let us go in, the trailer to get things. And then I think that day or that next day, they called us up there. They read Daniel's hits right, but they never read mine. Robert Warren talked to Daniel and GM talked to me. He told me that they had a whole bunch of suspects and they're not asking him who he wouldn't tell me. And they asked where we'd been and I told him where we'd been. And he said, did I have any seats? And I showed him any picture of my receipt from where he bought that perfume and I've never seen that sense. They pulled hair out of my head. 10, 15, maybe 20. His friends in my hair and I asked why are they doing that and they said they had to. I don't know why. It's just very day. Didn't match anything, didn't not match anything. They cut her fingernails off because they said it was something under her fingernails. Did that match something? What was it? I tried to find out and no one told me. On March 14th, officers got a warrant to search Daniel's parents' home for evidence. And they found this insurance box. That in my opinion is when they came to form this theory that it was done for insurance. And I honestly believe that there's a strong probability that these officers conspired to testify that they were immediately looking for insurance papers. So that's why the insurance papers became so significant at trial. In addition to the box with the insurance papers, they seized a hunting jacket and some boots belonging to Daniel. The investigators also zeroed in on Daniel's rock and roll lifestyle. This is 1991. This is at the height of satanic panic era. It became a lot of this stuff of Daniel was this weird aggressive guy that listened to all this heavy metal music, played heavy metal music, that kind of thing. So I think that those things are what sort of got the police's focus on them to start with. They also scrutinized things like Nikki's rock posters and an iron maiden t-shirt of Daniels, which to them seemed suspect. In fact, some of that stuff was seized as evidence. It wasn't used at trial, but shows you where their minds were at as they were investigating. So there was strong indication, and even some comments made about this could be something to do with the occult. Ultimately, what the state decided on was that Daniel and Nikki murdered her mother for a night. $90,000 life insurance payout. About a month later, on April 18, 1991, Nikki and Daniel were both arrested and charged with first degree murder. What were you thinking when that happened? - I don't remember. I don't think I was thinking because who does that? - Who, who thinks that they would kill their mom? Who, who really thinks that they would kill their mom? I think that everybody was just put in every kind of rumors. And I think a lot of them come from the share of all this. I do. - So when they arrest you, when they actually put handcuffs on you and you wind up in the jail and you're waiting for trial, the only person you have now at this point is Daniel and were you even able to talk to him? - They were letting me count to Daniel, but they were listening to everything that we said, just in case I said something or he said something or they would take him outside and they wouldn't take me. They did a lot of horrible things to me in the county jail. Trying to make me say that I did and I keep telling him that if I'm not gonna say that, I did now, while breastly I'm gonna do it now because I haven't done anything wrong. I got sick with walking pneumonia. They tell me they don't take me to the hospital and then they wouldn't take me or they laughing me or they'd give me water with the fraction. I got pretty much in them because the food was rotten that they gave me. They wouldn't take me outside. They would put people in there and tell me that I was gonna die. They'd make fine noises like they was gonna find me in the lecture chair. Then I couldn't sleep. Couldn't eat. Sitting in jail awaiting trial, Nikki had nothing but time to think about her mother's life and what happened to her. First of all, I love my mom very dearly. Even as broken as she was, I would have never tried it for a definite world. When you don't have anything and you were raised up like me with a dad that was so mean and hateful. And he's already gestoring one life. My mom's. And she was trying to play it all back together and you have a child that was born with such terrible disability. She had to swallow her life because of mine because she couldn't be what she ended up being in fixed veins. All right, let's try to work a walk and have a decent life. And it's just very hard. Hey, I'm HotaCottby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with HotaCottby. I've gone through breast cancer and it helped my mother through breast cancer and that was more difficult. Olympic champ Sean Johnson revealed why she had no choice. But to be a gymnast, there was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me. Listen to Joy 101 with HotaCottby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Samirai, Gracie. I'm so excited. You're on the bouncy bed. You have surprises. Many surprises. Welcome to Sweet Pio 5, where the good chat comes to life. What up? [SPEAKING SPANISH] [SPEAKING SPANISH] [SPEAKING SPANISH] Except for my kids, my kids, they know. [MUSIC PLAYING] Yes. [SPEAKING SPANISH] [APPLAUSE] [SPEAKING SPANISH] You're the only person I know that loves the yellow starbursts. [SPEAKING SPANISH] [SPEAKING SPANISH] [SPEAKING SPANISH] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] This is Sweet Pio 5. Listen to Sweet Pio 5 with Lele Ponds as part of my Tultura Podcasts Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brennan. And on the Discretsland Podcasts, I explore the wild lives of rock stars in unbelievable true crime stories for music history. Imagine that. Your Paul McCartney, it's 1980. You're an ex-beetle. And you're doing time in one of Japan's worst prisons, right there alongside Yakuza Gangsters and for a ridiculous charge. Who is the artist Lady Gaga is being accused of doing the unthinkable to after allegedly stealing her music in style to become famous? And what about that time Blondie's Debbie Harry escaped a serial killer? Listen to Discretsland on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. [MUSIC PLAYING] In January of 1992, Daniel and Nikki went to trial. They were tried together, but with separate attorneys. The trial lasted just three days. The most damaging testimony for the prosecution came from Arkansas's state criminologist, Don Smith. He had done luminal testing on the camouflage hunting jacket and boots that have been taken from Daniel's home. I'm sure your listeners know, but luminal is a chemical that is an agent that reacts with blood, but it reacts with a bunch of other materials, too. So if there's blood on something you can spray luminal on it, put a black light over it, and it will essentially glow. It doesn't tell you, even if it's blood number one, number two, it doesn't tell you what species of animal the blood comes from, much less whose blood it is if it's human's blood. So the prosecutor really led him into this about the strong implication without outright saying during his testimony that the blood that reacted to luminal on Daniel's shoe and jacket was Linda Holley's blood. That was the clear implication given to the jury. In fact, Daniel has always maintained that the blood on his hunting jacket came from a deer. But against the expert criminologist testimony, all but saying the blood was lindos, it added up to a powerful argument for conviction. In fact, I've interviewed multiple jurors since then, and that's the first thing any of them ever brought up was the blood on the jacket. Because besides that, I mean, what other evidence was there against them? It was the life insurance. The life insurance and the blood. I mean, that was it. That was truly it. The defense didn't seem to have much to present either. Although they did try to introduce the possibility of alternate suspects. There was a man named Lewis Burris. He, with regularity, would see people at Linda's home that he thought were out of place. Let me put it that way. One of them was the same guy that he would see there very often and he saw him there that Friday morning. Saw him outside Linda's place on that Friday morning. According to Nikki, Linda was dating a police officer at the time and he sometimes stayed overnight. Both Lewis Burris and Linda's neighbor, Carol Lee Davis, testified that they'd seen a police car parked in front of her house on a regular basis. He would come at night. Because shoot out with say, if the car's in front yard, police just don't stop and come back. And there'd be a lot of time his car would be in the yard at that time. Another set of people that Lewis Burris saw with regularity there were, as he described them, two black guys, the same black guys that were there, almost every Saturday morning is what he said. And I only really bring that up because there was a similar crime that happened in a town just 30 miles away just a few days before Linda Holley's murder that was very similar. And the strongest suspects in that case were some African-American males. That was the case of a woman named Bernice Rankin. She was found murdered in her home, stabbed, bludgeoned. So very similar crime, similar enough to the point where I'm detected. named Jimmy Morgan felt strongly that these two crimes were similar enough that he wanted real work done in comparing notes, comparing potential suspects, that kind of thing. In fact, Jimmy Morgan came to the trial. He was prepared to testify about the similarity between those two murders, but the prosecution objected. The jury left the room and you know there was a argument back and forth of ultimately the judge decided that he should not be allowed to testify in front of the jury. The other thing that the defense did bring up, Nikki was the primary beneficiary of that $90,000 life insurance upon her mother's death. The secondary beneficiary was leading Jan Terrell, who was Linda's friend. And Jan was one of the first people to go to the house on that Sunday morning, along with Carol Lee. And later, after Nikki was convicted, the $90,000 went to Jan Terrell. We don't know what she did with that money. We don't know anything like that, but we do know she was the beneficiary. So in addition to Nikki and Daniel, John believes there were several people in Linda's life that police could have looked into, but they didn't. She's a nurse for the county. They're strong rumor that she would take prescription pads that were pre-signed by doctors and fill prescriptions for people for money. That's not anything that we've ever been able to prove definitively, but there is very strong indication that that's the case. So you know, that puts you around some shady people sometimes, especially in Southwest Arkansas, 1991. I'm wondering, do you have any thoughts on who might have killed your mom? Mom, mom, didn't always know the best people in her life, or didn't always sometimes take the best people in her life like me. I guess that's where I got it from a lot. I didn't always take the best people in the world either before Daniel, you know what I'm saying? But sometimes there were people that would drive real slow about the house at night time, or they would call the house when 12 we had to have her phone number changed. Who do you think that was? I mean, what kind of people did your mom know? Was she involved in anything? Well, she worked for the Sheriff's Department when she wasn't working for the health department. After after she passed away, I've had a few people tell me that I guess just the people that you work with, you know what I'm saying? That she didn't necessarily hang with all the best people in the world, but I've never heard anybody's name. On January 13, 1991, Nikki Zinger and Daniel Risher were both convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. When the realization came that I had a lot of sentence, it was just, I just quit. I've sat in bed. I didn't know he didn't shower because I didn't know how I was going to do this. The first five years of my prison stay was really bad because I had to learn how to survive. I learned that you couldn't be who you are. You don't be nice to everybody. You can't give your shoulder or try to say, "Can I be here? Do you need somebody to talk to?" Because I've learned that it would stab people in the back. I didn't think I would ever survive as long as I have, because I have the horrible things that I've seen. Because people get beat up or stabbed or cut. And it sprites my heart because I wasn't raised up that way. But Nikki turned out to be stronger than she ever knew. She did survive and even earned her GED while in prison. And eventually she found herself becoming a mentor, helping others to adjust the way she wish someone could have helped her. When I first came to prison, I didn't have anybody that was there for me. Nobody to tell me that it was okay to pat on the back or I'm very proud of you that you've survived another day. I try to be there and listen to them. I'll help many, and I do it for the simple mind that if we all make peace of mind, because there's none in here. And when we get something, we have to hold it very dear. Through the years, Nikki has tried to keep up on how Daniel's doing. I would ask Rachel, would she okay? Because I wasn't okay. You know, I used to hear from Rachel all the time about Daniel. In 1993, Nikki and Daniel filed an appeal with the Arkansas Supreme Court requesting a new trial. But the court upheld the conviction. Daniel and his family continued to pursue every avenue they could to prove their innocence. Which is how John Hardin learned about Nikki's case in 2016. So when we first launched Proclaim Justice, I got a message from the cousin of Daniel Risher. And she asked us to look into it. And so I started looking into it really on Daniel's behalf. And that's what got me into the case to start with. But of course, you can't investigate Daniel's case without investigating Nikki's. Daniel had already gotten the innocence project of New York involved. And they had agreed to have DNA testing done on the blood found on his jacket. The test results showed that it was not definitively human blood. And it's what Daniel was saying all along. It's my dear hunting jacket. It's a dear blood. And there's something else that John keeps thinking about. The lack of a motive. When she was killed, remember Linda was still battling cancer. She had gone into remission and then the cancer had come back. There was strong belief in indication that this could very well be terminal cancer this time around. And so if we're talking about the motive to murder her mother to get $90,000 of life insurance money and this sounds crass. But if you want your mother dead to collect $90,000 and she's got almost certainly terminal cancer, why not just wait it out and not take a risk of being convicted and sent away for life. So it's just illogical on its face. In 2016, based on the new DNA findings, Daniel and Nikki were granted a parole hearing. The parole board unanimously recommended them for parole, which does not happen very often at all. No. And then they get denied by the governor. That's right. Governor A. S. Houcheson denied parole. Yeah. Proclaim justice was started by John Hardin and Jason Baldwin, one of the infamous West Memphis 3. John was a pivotal member in helping to exonerate the three wrongfully convicted men after 18 years in prison. After Jason's release in 2011, the two decided to start an innocence organization together. They have worked on many wrongful conviction cases, one of the most well-known what's their work exonerating Daniel Villegas. But after years of running a nonprofit, the pace was taking its toll on John. In 2023, he made the difficult decision to disband proclaim justice. It was just time. I mean, it's fucking hard starting an organization and keeping, you know, a several hundred thousand dollar budget together every year and I'm still active in the investigations in our current cases. I'll be able to keep some of my fundraising network in place to do this kind of good work. And he has no intention on giving up on Nikki's case. I promised Nikki when I called her and explained what was going on with me and proclaim justice. She was very supportive of me on a personal level just because she's sweet like that. She's kind and caring and compassionate and she wants to make sure I'm okay, which is always strange to hear from somebody who's dealing with what she's dealing with on the inside. You know, you would like to talk about that, John. Like anytime Nikki calls, it's like, are you okay? Is her first question? Absolutely. How are you doing? And so I know to some degree, she's mostly it's because she truly cares about me. To some degree, it probably helps her just be thinking about somebody else's life. So she's absolutely 100% completely innocent of this crime. And we just can't rest until we've got her out. Where we're at is we have to have a status hearing. We have this order for all these items to be tested, DNA tested. We can't really proceed in the courts until we have a decision on whether or not we can forego testing on all those other ones. So now we're we're left with waiting on a judge's order telling us what we've got to do. Nikki has been behind bars since she was 28. She's now 60. Her health has never been great, but she admits that As she gets older, things are getting even harder. [MUSIC] I have diabetes, real bad. I have haplac pressure. My head takes a worse from the stress. I can't remember when the last time I felt good. Yeah. It gets real depressing. And I try not to cry. Because I don't worry about how old the food for baby thing. What do you want for your future when you get out? What do you think about? I don't want a perfect life because there's no such thing as perfect. I just want to learn to be okay with me all over again. Learn to be okay with the world. Because I don't even know what the world looks like. I don't. The world is so big now. I don't know. Maybe travel. Maybe tell my story. Write a book. I just want people to get a chance to know who I am. To like who I am. I want people to know that I'm capable of doing good. I'm capable of doing things more than what I've ever thought about. I don't even know what's out there to do exactly. But I just want people to know that I want to have that chance to do it. I got to know Nikki really well while covering her case for unjust and unsolved. And after learning about her case in her life and speaking with her at length, I felt compelled to be a friend to Nikki, rather than just a journalist, using her as a source. What gives you hope, Nikki? You, Maggie. Why did I know you were going to say that? You heard me get this bad before and you get on to me and tell me that. You have all these people out here just because you don't say them doesn't make you're not there. Even the people in here though will tell me that. It's okay Nikki. I wouldn't say I'm a best person. I would say I've learned to be a better person than I was before. My heart always hurts. You know? Since Proclaim Justice has closed its doors, Nikki is in need of a new team to pick up where they left off. Please reach out if you can help or can connect her with someone who can. It's been over 30 years now and it is time to get her out. In the meantime, Nikki would love to have your support, a donation to help with prison expenses or even just a letter or card to let her know you've heard her story would mean the world to her. There is also a fundraiser for Nikki since she doesn't have family or friends to put money on her commissary. It's up to us so we will put that link and how to write her in the episode description. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freelink. Please support your local Innocence organizations and go to the links in the episode description to see how you can help. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flom, Jeff Kempler and Kevin Wurtis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beal and researcher Shelby Sorrows. Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Polly with additional production by Jeff Clyburn and Connor Hall. The music in this production is by three time Oscar-nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms at LavafordGood and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freelink. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freelink is a production of LavafordGood Podcasts in association with Signal Company number one. 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