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[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Lost Girls podcast, where we tell the stories of missing and murdered women and girls whose case is still deserve attention.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Amy Smith, and I'm LaDonna Humphrey.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Today we're talking about Asian Nicole Martin, known to her family and friends as Nikki.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was only 19 years old when she disappeared from Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Asia was born on November 5, 1985, and she spent several of her teenage years living with her father in Slidell, Louisiana.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She attended Slidell High before moving to Mississippi in 2003.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that would have been during her junior year at high school.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After moving to Mississippi, Nikki attended Petal High School, and she graduated from there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She later enrolled at Pearl River Community College.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But when her mother became ill, Asia, who was called Nikki by her friends and family, so I think I'll just refer to her as Nikki through the rest of the podcaster.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She took a semester away from school, and she decided she was going to help care for her.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That decision tells her something very important about her connection with her family.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Nicky was building her own future that she was also willing to interrupt those plans when someone that she loved needed help.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's admirable.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely not everybody would do that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No they wouldn't.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So by May of 2005, Nikki was living with a roommate at the Robinson Place apartments in Hattiesburg.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And on the evening of Friday, May 27th, her roommate said that Nikki appeared to be behaving normally, and she gave no indication that anything was wrong.
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[SPEAKER_01]: At approximately 840 that same evening, Nikki communicated with her mother by telephone.
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[SPEAKER_01]: want to count describes it as a conversation while another says that Nicky left a message on her mother's answering a shame saying that she would get back in touch.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So we're not sure if she actually spoke with her mother or just left a message for her mom.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and either way, it was still the last known communication between Nicky and her mother.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There was nothing in that contact to suggest that Nicky intended to disappear or cut ties with her family.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And Nicky's roommate said that she left the apartment that evening to take a walk, and she never came home.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A Mississippi missing person's organization has also reported that Nicky may have planned to attend a graduation party with a man whose name is Kevin Kennedy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But that detail that's not appear consistently across all the available accounts that we have.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that difference is worth noting because going for a walk and leaving to attend to party could actually point investigators toward very different witnesses and locations.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And anyone who attended a graduation gathering in the Haddy'sburg area that night or who knew someone named Kevin connected to Nikki could remember information that was never fully explored.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So three days before she disappeared, Nikki purchased a bus ticket to Denver, Colorado, where her mother was lily.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that bus was scheduled to leave approximately one week later, but when departure day arrived, Nikki did not board.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So that ticket suggests that Nikki was making plans beyond that night she disappeared, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think she planned to go anywhere.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And
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[SPEAKER_00]: like you mentioned, she expected to travel to Denver to see her mom, which makes it difficult for her family to accept the idea that she's simply abandoned her life without telling anyone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I agree, that doesn't make a lot of sense.
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[SPEAKER_01]: No, especially since she'd already put her life on hold to take care of her mom.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that doesn't make any sense.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She just wouldn't have just jumped into it at all.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She would have continued living her life.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, authorities, they considered the possibility that Nicky left voluntarily, but her loved one strongly disagree.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They had been in frequent contact with her and believed that remaining silent while they are worried would have been completely out of character for Nicky.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and it's true, you know, adults have the right to leave and begin again somewhere else.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But that possibility should not become an easy answer when the circumstances remain and resolved.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Nicki left behind family members that she cared about and they cared about her.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She left behind that plan trip to see her mother who was ill. And it's been more than two decades of complete silence.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It just doesn't add up something I think really bad must have
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[SPEAKER_01]: and her mother eventually passed away without learning what happened to her daughter.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Nicky's father and other loved ones that continued living with that uncertainty.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're just waiting around for a phone call or maybe a piece of information that has never come forward.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's so sad.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, just knowing that her mom knows now, you know, but it's so sad that she had to go through that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that there are still fundamental questions about the evening of May 27.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm asking myself, did Nicky really leave alone?
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[SPEAKER_00]: is that true?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, where did she intend to go and did she meet up with someone as she was walking away from the apartment?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Did she ever really truly leave the apartment?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don't know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's a lot of questions.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Molly also don't know whether she have any money on her.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe her identification.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Did she actually have that best ticket with her
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[SPEAKER_01]: So no publicly available description tells us what she was wearing or whether any personal belongings disappeared when she did.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that's important.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that those missing details make the memories of people who knew Nikki, especially important, a neighbor may have seen her leaving Robinson place, a driver may have noticed her walking nearby or someone at a gathering may remember whether she arrived with another person or maybe they would know what she was wearing that night.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's just right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to see this case file.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I know we do the majority of our podcasts without the case files, but this one is just it's really made me curious.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's so it's so scattered with very little information.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What we do know is Nikki is a black woman with black hair brown eyes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And at the time of her disappearance, she stood between five foot one
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[SPEAKER_01]: as she waited approximately 120 pounds.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She also had several distinctive physical characteristics that could possibly help identify her.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nikki could not bend her left pinky finger.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her ears are double pierced.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her navel was pierced.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And there were reports that her lower teeth were crooked.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They had not been corrected with braces, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And she also had an unspecified medical condition.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Although we couldn't find any other information regarding that had been released.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She is classified as endangered missing and her case remains open with the Hattiesburg Police Department.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nicky would now be around 40 years old and her appearance may have changed significantly since 2005.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, I mean, of course it has absolutely two decades here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So the features described in her case could, you know, therefore be more useful than relying on a photograph taken when she was 19.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, not everybody has,
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[SPEAKER_00]: the inability to bend their left pinky finger.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, that's, that's a tell.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's a sign.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, I'm hoping that people that are listening remember this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Nicky's case is also recorded in Nainus and that number is N. P. 438.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It is also listed in the Mississippi Statewide Repository under the
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[SPEAKER_01]: 2-005-06-62-79 and it remains active more than two decades after her disappearance.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And what this case needs, I think, is information from someone who remembers Nikki's final days in Hattiesburg.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps she discussed that graduation party and there's more details, maybe she gave an address to someone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe she talked more about her upcoming trip to Denver, or a relationship that nobody knew about, or maybe she was having problems that nobody knew about.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe someone she expected to meet was up to no good.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's got to be somebody out there that might have a little bit of information that they didn't realize could be important.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody has to know something.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you lived at Robinson Place in 2005 or even attended Petal High School with Nicky.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you knew her through Pearl River Community College.
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[SPEAKER_01]: that that moment would become part of a missing person investigation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So please, if you have first-hand information, please share it directly with investigators, call on enforcement, call local law enforcement.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of maybe posting accusations or theories online, we see that happen a lot and we're really trying to remind our listeners not to do that with a tip.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After all these years,
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just a small amount of information is all that's needed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A name, a conversation, something that could help Nicky's final movements be clearer to law enforcement.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Nicky was only 19.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She was standing at the beginning of her adult life when she walked away from her apartment and simply vanished.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She had already lived in Louisiana and Mississippi.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and stepped forward to help when her mother became sick.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her story did not end outside Robinson Place on May 27, 2005, simply because the trail did.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She deserves to be remembered as the young woman she was while her family deserves an honest answer about what happened to her.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So if anyone listening has information about the disappearance or whereabouts
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[SPEAKER_01]: known to her friends as Nicky.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Please contact the Hattiesburg Police Department at 601-544-
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[SPEAKER_01]: seven nine zero zero.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So please share Nikki's name, her photograph, her story, particularly with people who lived in Hattiesburg, Petal, or Slide L in 2005.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Someone still knows something, and after more than two decades, it's time to bring Nikki home.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We will continue telling these type of stories because the passing of time is not making the same woman less important.
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[SPEAKER_01]: because every girl deserves justice.