February 6, 2023 • 36 mins
One evening in March, 2003, a fire broke out in Deborah Nicholls' Colorado Springs, CO home, killing her three children. Her husband suffered significant burns, but escaped. After a 2-year investigation, it was determined that the fire was not accidental, and that Deborah and her husband started it for the insurance money. The trial was a battle of the experts – one presenting the junk science of arson evidence, one asserting that the science was outdated. The former triumphed, and Deborah was sent to prison for the murder of her children. Maggie speaks to Deborah Nicholls, Deborah's father, Douglas Baumgardner, and Deborah's attorneys, Anne-Marie Moyes, Director of the Korey Wise Innocence Project and Kathleen Lord, Staff Attorney at the Korey Wise Innocence Project.
To learn more and get involved, visit:
https://lavaforgood.com/podcast/149-wrongful-conviction-junk-science-arson-evidence/
https://www.colorado.edu/outreach/korey-wise-innocence-project/
https://giving.cu.edu/fund/korey-wise-innocence-project-fund
District Attorney John Newsome:
https://gazette.com/news/newsome-i-sincerely-apologize/article_4886ac0d-fb7c-5c21-b7a2-15ea6c12ef4e.html
Assistant District Attorney Amy Mullaney:
Attorney Representing Tim Nicholls:
May 07, 2010 20/20 episode Burned, The Amanda Gutweiler story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X8Bk8oBNG8
If you'd like to write to Deborah, send mail to:
Deborah Nicholls #144097 PO BOX #392005 Denver, Co 80239
Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
The evening of March six, two three was a typical
Thursday for the Nichols family. That night, Deborah Nichols put
her three energetic kids to bed. After her husband Tim
got home, she left the house to interview an employee
for their karaoke business. When she returned home, her world
had been turned upside down that night. I went from
(00:30):
just needing to hire someone to still shift to losing
my whole little family. It was a mother's worst nightmare.
And when it was over, all three of Deb's children
had died in a terrible accident. She was so stricken
(00:50):
with grief that she couldn't bring herself to attend their funeral.
I was trying to get ready to go to the funeral,
and my my body was breaking down and I was
shaking so bad, and I just had to sit down
and give in and surrender. And I can't go. I
(01:12):
can't do it. I couldn't imagine seeing three, three caskets.
It was too much, It was too much. My name
is Dead Nichols. I'm currently serving three life sentences at
(01:33):
Denver Women's Correctional Facility from LoVa for Good. This is
wrongful conviction with Maggie freeling today dead. Nichols Deborah Nichols
(01:56):
was born May fourth, nineteen sixty seven in d Were born, Michigan.
She grew up in a large, blended family. Having seven
brothers and sisters was a blast. We had a great childhood.
Northern Michigan has beautiful weather, like the perfect fourth seasons,
(02:17):
so we as children's took full rain with all of
it and did a lot of skating and skiing and
swimming and or just going down to the end of
the street to the bay and planing in the water
all day, all summer long. We had so much fun.
(02:38):
So can you tell listeners about Debra? What's she like?
What was she like growing up? Well, as you probably
gathered talking to her, she's a pretty strong girl. This
is Deb's father, Doug bomb Gardner. Pretty strong will and
has no problems doing things her way and trying to
(03:00):
a taint what she's headed for. She was always that
way all of her life. Her family later moved to Colorado,
but for college, deb carved her own path and moved
out to California. After studying at San Diego for a year,
Deb left the West Coast and joined her family in Colorado.
(03:21):
When deb was twenty four, she gave birth to her
first child, a son. They called him j J J J.
His nickname was Peanut, and he was just absolutely beautiful,
like he was my little my little buddy, my little man,
and we did everything together. Deb went on to have
(03:45):
a second son, Spencer, but tragically, when he was three
months old, Spencer passed away from sudden infant death syndrome,
also known as SIDS. Despite her loss, Deb continued to
try and be the best mom she could. You J J. By,
She was living in a suburb of Colorado Springs, working
(04:05):
two jobs and going to school. One night, she went
out to a local bar to let loose and indulge
in one of her passions, singing karaoke. What is your
karaoke song? Do you have a go to? UM? I
really liked What's Up with Foreignan Blonde? I do love
that song. Yeah, it's a good one. When Deed walked in,
(04:30):
a man was already at the mic. She recognized the
song right away. And you are My Shining Star, which
was one of my favorite songs in eighth grade. And
he was really cute and he was new and I
had never seen him before, and I was like, hey,
that's one of my favorite songs, you know, come fit
by Me. His name was Tim Nichols and they hit
(04:53):
it off. We talked all night long and we basically
never left each other's side after that. Yeah, described him
to me, what what is he like? Kim is uh
a lot of powerhouse and a little guy. He's like
(05:14):
five nine five ten. Um. He had integrity, which is
something that was so hard to find in such a
rare quality nowadays. And because he's just such a good guy,
do the right thing no matter what. And I that
was the kind of guy I wanted to be with forever.
(05:44):
Tim and Deb were best friends, and Tim loved JJ
like his own son. Him and j J were just
like so bonded. Um that Tim adopted j J and
we got married and started our family. I have to
(06:05):
say I loved getting married. I loved being married. Um.
It really does take your relationship to a different level.
Soon after that, their daughter Sophia was born. She was
absolutely amazing. She loved people to be happy. She was
(06:26):
always smiling. She was she was the asking for joy.
Two years later, their second daughter, Sierra came They nicknamed
her ra Ra. That little girl was just so calming,
and so peaceful, and she would just like go around
the room and check everything out. She was just so
(06:49):
little and delicate and beautiful. J G was my passion,
Sophia was my joy, and Rarah was my piece. They
were my absolute world. I was so blacked. The family
(07:14):
was thriving. Deb was working on getting her real estate license.
They had started a construction business and even bought a house.
They were busy, but they found time for each other too.
You know, once I have was done nursing, we started
going out, you know, on date nights, and we went
to a karaoke bar and like it was so fun,
(07:36):
it's like soul food. Deb and Tim decided to start
aside business together, doing something they loved, the thing that
had brought them together, a karaoke business. We took the
plunge and started our own and got really good equipment
and you know, I got all those songs like that,
greased duets and stuff. Um, it was just really fun.
(07:59):
It was for is pure enjoyment. Just go be a little,
let loose and enjoy yourself. Deb Tim and their family
had everything going for them, living the American dream basically,
but that dream soon came to a crashing Halt. On
(08:20):
the evening of March six, two three, Deb was home
with her three children, getting them ready for bed. JJ
was going to a birthday party on Friday with this
lady was taking ten little twelve year old skiing. So
I got a bunch of you know, chips and stuff
and bought the girls some sparkly tattoos, little temporary tattoos,
(08:44):
because you can't get one kid stuff without the other
kids getting stuffed too. She says. The kids were really
hyper that night, but I had to put them back
to bed like three or four times, because you know,
the girls were excited about these sparkly tattoos and j
J was excited about his birthday party excursion. The next day,
(09:05):
the kids finally fell asleep, which gave Deb time to
catch up on some chores around the house. Tim got
home from work around eleven that night, and he was tired.
I knew he had worked really hard all week, and
I told him, you know, I'd cleaned the house, I
can of lit candles for the ambiance, and I literally
had dinner in the raven and his favorite beer in
(09:27):
the freezer so he could just have a beer and dinner.
Deb had an appointment to go meet a new karaoke
jockey for their business, and I was like, you know,
I have to go do this kJ interview. Make sure
you blow up the candles and I left. After the interview,
DEB hung around the bar like she usually did. She
(09:48):
had a few drinks and sang some karaoke, and because
I had a drink or two, I didn't want to drive.
So when the bar was closing around two am, DEB
asked one of her employees, Carl, for a ride home.
Everything was business as usual until they turned onto Depp Street.
You could see the emergency lights as we were coming
(10:10):
up the street, and um, the closer we got to
my street, the more emergency vehicles that we could see,
and so I started to panic and I just asked
Carl to stop the car and I got out of
(10:30):
the car and started rounding around the corner and saw
it was my house and it was on fire. And
the closer I got, you know, there's probably two hundred
people in front of my house. And I kept hearing
everyone go, you know that's her, that's the mom. You know,
(10:52):
the panic was setting me in. I was literally terrified,
and my brain was like I just I needed to
get to the back and make sure the kids are okay.
And and these cops and these firemen were like pushing
me back from the sand. It was almost like they
were wrestling us as a crown because I'm like, you know,
(11:16):
I need to go see if my children are okay.
I need to get back to the house. Officials told
her she needed to go to the hospital, but they
weren't telling her what was going on. It looked really bad,
but it's the only way I could get information was
to go to the hospital. It was like fine, and
(11:36):
so I went. And the whole ride to the hospital,
like the policeman didn't tell me anything. This episode is
underwritten by a i G, a leading global insurance company.
(12:00):
A i G is committed to corporate social responsibility and
to making a positive difference in the lives of its
employees and in the communities where they work and live.
In light of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance,
and in recognition of a i g s commitment to
criminal and social justice reform, the a i G pro
Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to
(12:22):
underrepresented communities and individuals. When deb got to the hospital,
she was taken to a room to wait for the
doctor to come and talk with her. You know. He
walked in and she said, J jus dead, isn't I
(12:45):
remember saying dead? It no anything about dead. And then
he said, um, Sara made the youngest. She died off,
and I felt my mind leave my body and the
(13:07):
adrenaline and my body took over, and I ran out
of hospital and my only thought was I just need
to go go. I mean walk to the Pacific Ocean,
and that's it doesn't make any sense. But I now
look back and like that was the adrenaline and the
(13:31):
panic and where I always feel the safest, on the
beach by the water. It turns out Sophia was still alive,
but she didn't have long to live. And I went
back in the hospital and they led me to Sofia's
(13:52):
room and she was had troops everywhere. There was a
little clear spot on her little chest, and I was
able to put my head on her chest and put
my ear to her heart, and I could hear a heartbeating,
and it was beating so fast. Tim was also in
(14:25):
critical condition. In the process of trying to save him,
the doctors had taken Tim's wedding ring off. Deb asked
if she could keep it, and then she was confronted
with more agony. And then they asked me to say
goodbye to Sierra, me my baby girl that we called Rara,
(14:45):
and then went and I got told burn say goodbye.
And she didn't look hurt or burned or anything. She
just looked like she was sleeping. Robert was a real
big daddy's girl, and she loved her daddy so much.
And I looked at the wedding ring in my hand
(15:06):
as Kim's, and then I decided to put that on
her so that she could be buried with it. Sierra
and JJ had both died of smoke inhalation. Sophia was
(15:27):
still hanging on for dear life, and Tim had been
transferred to a burn unit in Denver, and Dad's family
and friends were starting to arrive at the hospital. They
all wanted to help me, but there was no helping me.
I was devastated. I was terrified, was panicked, and I
(15:51):
didn't want anyone to touch me. I was just so
sick of everyone trying to hug me, like you No,
I have to figure this out. By morning, Deb was
informed that Sophia had also died. And I put my
wedding ring on Sophia's little finger, and I got to
(16:12):
say goodbye to Sofia, and then I went into the
hospital up in Denver, and it was with him and
my family and we just we sat vigil with him.
Tim's injuries were serious, but eventually he was able to
leave the hospital. With no home to go back to,
(16:35):
the two of them lived out of a motel room.
Deb's father and stepmother stayed close to help. Tim was
still recovering from his injuries, and Dug took charge of
his care, tending to his burns and changing his bandages.
I was the only one that could take care of
the burns without pilkingting getting sick. So anyway, that was
(16:56):
my job for the rest of the time we were there.
But Doug was also having a hard time. His daughter
had lost her children and he had lost his grandchildren.
Can I show you a picture of the kids? Have
you ever seen one? Show me? I gotta reach it
up there, I see. And anyway, this was the last
(17:22):
picture of them. This was taken just before they all died.
When was that Christmas? Just after? Yeah, in March, I guess.
But they had little halos on even I went from
just needing to hire someone to fill a shift to
(17:48):
losing my whole little family. Ebb and Tim had lost
their children, their home, and everything they owned, and as
they struggled with their grief, their marriage was deteriorating. We
(18:11):
weren't doing well at all. Actually, our souls were broken.
We weren't He wasn't the same man. I wasn't the
same woman. You're fighting constantly, and it was horrible. You
were in different places with the grieving, you know, like
he would want to remember the kids and I would
(18:33):
be like and denial, and we just couldn't get on
the same page. And we were actually doing more damage
to each other than we were helping. None of any
of it made any sense. I was not thinking clearly.
I literally would buy boxes of wine and put them
in my window sill, and when I'd wake up in
(18:55):
the morning, I'd start drinking white Zin and I'd drink
it all day. She ended up coming home here with us,
and she was still basically in trauma. I mean we're
talking months after the fire, and you know, I, me
and her would go down to her bedroom until she
(19:16):
cried herself asleep, and it was about to get a
lot worse. Because Tim was the sole survivor from inside
the house fire, police were suspicious. One day, the police
called him into the station, saying they needed him to
pick up some property from the fire, but Deb says
it was a ruse to get her alone. As soon
(19:37):
as he left, the doorbell ring and it was Derek
Graham and another detective and they were like, you know, oh,
we need to talk to you. We think your husband
did this. And I remember telling them absolutely not. They
didn't know what they were talking about. My husband loved
his children more than his own life. They said, we
(20:00):
have evidence. I said, no, you don't, and if you do,
it's wrong. And then I asked them to leave, and
I thought that would be the end of it, but
it wasn't. Detective Graham was also scrutinizing Deb's behavior, particularly
at the hospital, and then he put like his notes
that I wasn't crying properly or whatever. And I'm thinking,
(20:24):
you didn't think I was crying properly. I couldn't even
remember to breathe or closed my mouth and you're judging
me like that. But the way Detective Graham saw it,
these two parents had something to do with the deaths
of their children. After a two year investigation, on July
(20:48):
twenty one, two thousand five, the grand jury indicted Tim
Nichols for the murders of eleven year old j j,
five year old Sophia, and three year old Sierra. Deb
was also indicted that day for minor counts from before
the fire, including drug use, but more than two years later,
in November two thousand seven, she too was indicted for
(21:11):
the murders of their children. Deb and Tim were tried separately.
Tim's trial came first before Deb's trial even began. He
was convicted of three counts of first degree murder. Deb's
(21:31):
trial started on October four, two. The prosecutors, Assistant district
attorneys Amy Mulaney and David Lindsay, presented the theory that
Deb had developed an addiction to meth amphetamine and needed
money for drug related debts, so she conspired with Tim
to burn down their house and family for the insurance money.
(21:52):
They said that math users would do anything to get
more meth and according to the prosecution, that would include
killing their three children to get more methamphetamine, and there
was very little evidence to support that at all, but
that was their theory. This is Kathleen Lord. She's a
staff attorney at the Corey Wise Innocence Project at Colorado Law.
(22:16):
Kathleen says that while Deb did do drugs occasionally, there's
not evidence that she was a meth addict. She was
first turned on to meth um by one of the
state's witnesses as a way to lose weight, and there
was a lot of speculation on the prosecution's part. The
(22:38):
state had one major problem with its case. Deb wasn't
home the night of the fire, so the state argued
she had to have an accomplice. They said she planned
it with Tim, who had already been convicted. There's something
that we're uncomfortable with, and I think that we're uncomfortable
with the fact that there was a father at home
with his children and he escaped the fire, his children didn't.
(23:01):
Anne Marie Moyez is the director of the Corey Wise
Innocence Project. She says that right from the beginning, the
police focused on Deb and Tamas suspects. There's a real
impulse to blame him and to embrace narratives that put
him at fault for what happened. And so I think
that was the colonel that started all of this, and
then the confirmation bias sets in, and then every piece
(23:26):
of evidence is seen through this lend of that expectation.
Here's how the state's case began. Somewhat early in the investigation,
they led an arson dog through the fire scene and
the dog was trained to alert to the possible presence
of an ignitable liquid, and the dog did alert at
(23:49):
multiple locations in the living room in the stairway of
the house. They said, okay, well we found zylenes and um.
Zilenes are a chemical compound in it innitible liquids. Zilenes
are also commonly detected when furniture and other household items
burn in a fire. Yet, the prosecution argued that the
presence of zylenes showed that the fire was deliberately set
(24:13):
using an ignitable liquid. They had an expert. His name
is John dohn and Um. He testified that he was
able to determine that only a fire set at multiple
locations simultaneous in the living room could have grown large
enough to engulf the entire room. So it was beyond
dispute that the living room did go to flashover, meaning
(24:37):
that the entire room was engulfed in flames, but his
theory was that only a deliberately set fire could have
produced that result, and to further bolster this theory, the
state brought in a jailhouse snitch. When Tim was in jail,
he was placed next to a notorious informant named Hiram
(24:57):
Church with in a day or two of being in custody.
Mr Church claimed to have heard Tim confess to him,
and then they were able to use the jailhouse snitch
to tie it together because the jailhouse snitch said that
Tim had admitted to him to using an ignitable liquid
called goof off to start the fire, and zilenes are
(25:19):
primary ingredient of goof off. The state said that Tim
put goof off, a household cleaning product, all over the
furniture and had the kids sit on it that evening.
Then when the fire ignited, the children would already have
the flammable substance on them them And what was critical
is that Mr Church, the jailhouse informant, said not only
(25:40):
that Tim had confessed, but that he had implicated Deb
in the crime. The state also criticized Deb's behavior following
(26:02):
her children's deaths. They called in an insurance adjuster to
testify that when she showed up at their office, she
had on a white track suit with freshly manicured nails,
implying that she was dressed inappropriately for a bereft mother.
The state relentlessly picked apart her grieving process. I get
it because I didn't know how to do it either.
(26:26):
I don't know. Things like that come in waves, like
you just can't you sob uncontrollably, and then you can't
think or sob or do anything for a while, and
then it'll hit you and I don't know, it's like
a cycle of denial and devastation. They also brought up
the fact that deb didn't attend her children's funeral. How
(26:49):
come you didn't attend the funeral? Um, I had lost
my second son, Spencer, when he was three months old,
and I had to have a funeral. It's a little
tiny casket and I barely made it through that, and
(27:11):
I just I was trying to get ready to go
to the funeral, and my my body was breaking down
and I was shaking so bad. And you know, my
daughters loved to me get ready in the morning and
they would be like, you know, mom, we went pretties
and I was trying to get ready for the funeral,
(27:32):
but I just had to sit down and give in
and surrender. And I can't go. I can't do it.
I didn't want to go to the funeral, and how
it be about me breaking down instead of people getting
takeod bye to my beauty of children. Soaks, I went
(27:56):
and I sat out in the car until after the funeral,
and then I went and I thanked people for coming.
I couldn't. I just couldn't. I couldn't imagine seeing three,
three caskets. It was too much. It was too much.
(28:33):
Deb's defense attorneys were Deputy Public Defender Cindy Jones and
Jeffrey Schwartz. They called multiple witnesses to refute the prosecution's
idea that deb wasn't grieving properly, and as Anne Marie
Moyez explains, they also called in the prominent fire expert
John Lentini. He disputed all of the prosecution's evidence and
(28:55):
their interpretation of the evidence, but at the end of
the day, it was his word against multiple experts on
the prosecution side, and the prosecution did a pretty good
job of characterizing Lentini as some sort of hired gun
that the defense had paid. It wasn't a fair characterization,
but it was a success. They were successful in portraying
(29:17):
him that way. Over a month later, on November eight,
Deb Nichols was convicted of three counts of first degree murder.
She was sentenced to three consecutive life terms in prison.
Deb has passed her time in prison trying to come
to terms with what has happened in her life. I
(29:40):
tried to do the things that I know will help,
like journaling and singing and working out and going to
church at Red Rocks, got behind bars, and keeping my
heart open so that I can feel that pure love
with my children, and fighting to clear arm Aimes because
(30:02):
we had nothing to do with that fire in. Kathleen
and Marie and the Corey Wise Innocence Project joined experienced
criminal defense lawyer Janine McCabe in taking on Deb's case.
So the main thing that we've done is brought on
(30:23):
new leading experts and fire science to explain the changes
in fire science that have taken place since the time
of trial. And not only that, in the time since
the trial happened, the state's expert, John Dihan has been discredited.
He for many years was considered one of the leading
experts and fire science in this country. But what we
(30:45):
know now is that he acted unethically in other cases,
and in fact, the American Association of Forensic Science voted
to expel him from membership because of that unethical conduct.
Don who passed away in you, continued to stand by
his testimony. This is him speaking in nineteen about the case.
(31:07):
I've read sammon Um, the data and the findings a
number of times over the years, and U I UH
still hold to my conclusions expressed in the technicals A
trial as well as UH Deborah Nichols that the fire
was deliberately started in the living room of the residents. However,
(31:28):
the science to Han was touting has also been discredited.
The defenses trial expert John Lentini also maintains his trial
testimony and emphasizes these changes in science. To this day.
He defends Deborah's innocence. It's not up to Timothey or
Deborah to prove what caused that fire. What we have
(31:51):
learned about the behavior of fire since the Nickels fire
um is that the patterns that we read after a
big fire like the are not reliable evidence. We can
now say definitively that the samples that were taken from
the Nichols living room show that they were just the
natural byproduct of the fire, that they did not come
(32:13):
from an ignitable liquid. So there's absolutely no evidence anymore
that there was an ignitable liquid president at the fire scene,
and that new science just exposes the prosecution's case for
what it is, which is just a house of cars
that just doesn't stand up under any sort of inspection.
The jailhouse informant, Hiram Church, has also been discredited. We
(32:36):
see that in cases of wrongful convictions that sometimes when
these jailhouse informants are used, what we find out about
their history is that they miraculously have heard confessions in
a number of other high profile murder cases, and that
was true of Mr Church. The Corey Wise Innocence Project
submitted a motion for a new hearing to the courts
in October of If accepted, there will be an evidentiary
(33:00):
hearing where Deb can present this evidence to the court.
In the meantime, she tries to keep healthy and stays
in touch with the family she has left. Although Deb
and Tim are divorced, they've remained friends and write letters
to each other in prison. UM, we're both just trying
to grieve and heal and get our names cleared and
(33:21):
get the truth out and take it day by day.
At this point, it's hard to talk about trauma. It's
hard to talk about losing my babies. But I was
hoping that people, especially women that get wrongly convicted, UM,
(33:49):
can find some type of strength to get through it
and keep fighting. Deb thinks back to night of the fire,
often remembering her kids rumbunctious energy at bedtime. Now she
thinks of that night in a new way. I'm so
(34:10):
glad that I got to put him back to bed
four or five times, because I didn't realize that would
be the last time I got to kiss him good night.
And I'm really really grateful I got a bunch of
her kissers and them that night. M If you want
(34:34):
to help Deb and the Corey Wise Innocence Project, go
to the links in our bio Next time, Unwrongful Conviction
with Maggie Freeling Ashley Jordan's. He was about to say
he did it just so I can go home and
won't go to jail, and I looked at him and
(34:54):
I grabbed his hand and I said no, you're not.
You will not lie for these people because we didn't
do anything wrong. Thanks for listening to Wrongful Conviction with
Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and go
to the links in our bio to see how you
can help. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason
(35:17):
Flom and Kevin Wurtis, as well as our senior producer,
Annie Chelsea, producer Lila Robinson, and story editor Sonja Paul.
The show is edited and mixed by Annie Chelsea, with
additional production by Jeff Cleburne and Connor Hall. The music
in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Jay Ralph. The news clips heard in this episode we're
(35:38):
reported by Laura Martin at kk TV. Be sure to
follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at
Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as
well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
you can also follow me on both Instagram and Twitter
at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a
(36:00):
production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
Company Number one
The evening of March six, two three was a typical
Thursday for the Nichols family. That night, Deborah Nichols put
her three energetic kids to bed. After her husband Tim
got home, she left the house to interview an employee
for their karaoke business. When she returned home, her world
had been turned upside down that night. I went from
(00:30):
just needing to hire someone to still shift to losing
my whole little family. It was a mother's worst nightmare.
And when it was over, all three of Deb's children
had died in a terrible accident. She was so stricken
(00:50):
with grief that she couldn't bring herself to attend their funeral.
I was trying to get ready to go to the funeral,
and my my body was breaking down and I was
shaking so bad, and I just had to sit down
and give in and surrender. And I can't go. I
(01:12):
can't do it. I couldn't imagine seeing three, three caskets.
It was too much, It was too much. My name
is Dead Nichols. I'm currently serving three life sentences at
(01:33):
Denver Women's Correctional Facility from LoVa for Good. This is
wrongful conviction with Maggie freeling today dead. Nichols Deborah Nichols
(01:56):
was born May fourth, nineteen sixty seven in d Were born, Michigan.
She grew up in a large, blended family. Having seven
brothers and sisters was a blast. We had a great childhood.
Northern Michigan has beautiful weather, like the perfect fourth seasons,
(02:17):
so we as children's took full rain with all of
it and did a lot of skating and skiing and
swimming and or just going down to the end of
the street to the bay and planing in the water
all day, all summer long. We had so much fun.
(02:38):
So can you tell listeners about Debra? What's she like?
What was she like growing up? Well, as you probably
gathered talking to her, she's a pretty strong girl. This
is Deb's father, Doug bomb Gardner. Pretty strong will and
has no problems doing things her way and trying to
(03:00):
a taint what she's headed for. She was always that
way all of her life. Her family later moved to Colorado,
but for college, deb carved her own path and moved
out to California. After studying at San Diego for a year,
Deb left the West Coast and joined her family in Colorado.
(03:21):
When deb was twenty four, she gave birth to her
first child, a son. They called him j J J J.
His nickname was Peanut, and he was just absolutely beautiful,
like he was my little my little buddy, my little man,
and we did everything together. Deb went on to have
(03:45):
a second son, Spencer, but tragically, when he was three
months old, Spencer passed away from sudden infant death syndrome,
also known as SIDS. Despite her loss, Deb continued to
try and be the best mom she could. You J J. By,
She was living in a suburb of Colorado Springs, working
(04:05):
two jobs and going to school. One night, she went
out to a local bar to let loose and indulge
in one of her passions, singing karaoke. What is your
karaoke song? Do you have a go to? UM? I
really liked What's Up with Foreignan Blonde? I do love
that song. Yeah, it's a good one. When Deed walked in,
(04:30):
a man was already at the mic. She recognized the
song right away. And you are My Shining Star, which
was one of my favorite songs in eighth grade. And
he was really cute and he was new and I
had never seen him before, and I was like, hey,
that's one of my favorite songs, you know, come fit
by Me. His name was Tim Nichols and they hit
(04:53):
it off. We talked all night long and we basically
never left each other's side after that. Yeah, described him
to me, what what is he like? Kim is uh
a lot of powerhouse and a little guy. He's like
(05:14):
five nine five ten. Um. He had integrity, which is
something that was so hard to find in such a
rare quality nowadays. And because he's just such a good guy,
do the right thing no matter what. And I that
was the kind of guy I wanted to be with forever.
(05:44):
Tim and Deb were best friends, and Tim loved JJ
like his own son. Him and j J were just
like so bonded. Um that Tim adopted j J and
we got married and started our family. I have to
(06:05):
say I loved getting married. I loved being married. Um.
It really does take your relationship to a different level.
Soon after that, their daughter Sophia was born. She was
absolutely amazing. She loved people to be happy. She was
(06:26):
always smiling. She was she was the asking for joy.
Two years later, their second daughter, Sierra came They nicknamed
her ra Ra. That little girl was just so calming,
and so peaceful, and she would just like go around
the room and check everything out. She was just so
(06:49):
little and delicate and beautiful. J G was my passion,
Sophia was my joy, and Rarah was my piece. They
were my absolute world. I was so blacked. The family
(07:14):
was thriving. Deb was working on getting her real estate license.
They had started a construction business and even bought a house.
They were busy, but they found time for each other too.
You know, once I have was done nursing, we started
going out, you know, on date nights, and we went
to a karaoke bar and like it was so fun,
(07:36):
it's like soul food. Deb and Tim decided to start
aside business together, doing something they loved, the thing that
had brought them together, a karaoke business. We took the
plunge and started our own and got really good equipment
and you know, I got all those songs like that,
greased duets and stuff. Um, it was just really fun.
(07:59):
It was for is pure enjoyment. Just go be a little,
let loose and enjoy yourself. Deb Tim and their family
had everything going for them, living the American dream basically,
but that dream soon came to a crashing Halt. On
(08:20):
the evening of March six, two three, Deb was home
with her three children, getting them ready for bed. JJ
was going to a birthday party on Friday with this
lady was taking ten little twelve year old skiing. So
I got a bunch of you know, chips and stuff
and bought the girls some sparkly tattoos, little temporary tattoos,
(08:44):
because you can't get one kid stuff without the other
kids getting stuffed too. She says. The kids were really
hyper that night, but I had to put them back
to bed like three or four times, because you know,
the girls were excited about these sparkly tattoos and j
J was excited about his birthday party excursion. The next day,
(09:05):
the kids finally fell asleep, which gave Deb time to
catch up on some chores around the house. Tim got
home from work around eleven that night, and he was tired.
I knew he had worked really hard all week, and
I told him, you know, I'd cleaned the house, I
can of lit candles for the ambiance, and I literally
had dinner in the raven and his favorite beer in
(09:27):
the freezer so he could just have a beer and dinner.
Deb had an appointment to go meet a new karaoke
jockey for their business, and I was like, you know,
I have to go do this kJ interview. Make sure
you blow up the candles and I left. After the interview,
DEB hung around the bar like she usually did. She
(09:48):
had a few drinks and sang some karaoke, and because
I had a drink or two, I didn't want to drive.
So when the bar was closing around two am, DEB
asked one of her employees, Carl, for a ride home.
Everything was business as usual until they turned onto Depp Street.
You could see the emergency lights as we were coming
(10:10):
up the street, and um, the closer we got to
my street, the more emergency vehicles that we could see,
and so I started to panic and I just asked
Carl to stop the car and I got out of
(10:30):
the car and started rounding around the corner and saw
it was my house and it was on fire. And
the closer I got, you know, there's probably two hundred
people in front of my house. And I kept hearing
everyone go, you know that's her, that's the mom. You know,
(10:52):
the panic was setting me in. I was literally terrified,
and my brain was like I just I needed to
get to the back and make sure the kids are okay.
And and these cops and these firemen were like pushing
me back from the sand. It was almost like they
were wrestling us as a crown because I'm like, you know,
(11:16):
I need to go see if my children are okay.
I need to get back to the house. Officials told
her she needed to go to the hospital, but they
weren't telling her what was going on. It looked really bad,
but it's the only way I could get information was
to go to the hospital. It was like fine, and
(11:36):
so I went. And the whole ride to the hospital,
like the policeman didn't tell me anything. This episode is
underwritten by a i G, a leading global insurance company.
(12:00):
A i G is committed to corporate social responsibility and
to making a positive difference in the lives of its
employees and in the communities where they work and live.
In light of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance,
and in recognition of a i g s commitment to
criminal and social justice reform, the a i G pro
Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to
(12:22):
underrepresented communities and individuals. When deb got to the hospital,
she was taken to a room to wait for the
doctor to come and talk with her. You know. He
walked in and she said, J jus dead, isn't I
(12:45):
remember saying dead? It no anything about dead. And then
he said, um, Sara made the youngest. She died off,
and I felt my mind leave my body and the
(13:07):
adrenaline and my body took over, and I ran out
of hospital and my only thought was I just need
to go go. I mean walk to the Pacific Ocean,
and that's it doesn't make any sense. But I now
look back and like that was the adrenaline and the
(13:31):
panic and where I always feel the safest, on the
beach by the water. It turns out Sophia was still alive,
but she didn't have long to live. And I went
back in the hospital and they led me to Sofia's
(13:52):
room and she was had troops everywhere. There was a
little clear spot on her little chest, and I was
able to put my head on her chest and put
my ear to her heart, and I could hear a heartbeating,
and it was beating so fast. Tim was also in
(14:25):
critical condition. In the process of trying to save him,
the doctors had taken Tim's wedding ring off. Deb asked
if she could keep it, and then she was confronted
with more agony. And then they asked me to say
goodbye to Sierra, me my baby girl that we called Rara,
(14:45):
and then went and I got told burn say goodbye.
And she didn't look hurt or burned or anything. She
just looked like she was sleeping. Robert was a real
big daddy's girl, and she loved her daddy so much.
And I looked at the wedding ring in my hand
(15:06):
as Kim's, and then I decided to put that on
her so that she could be buried with it. Sierra
and JJ had both died of smoke inhalation. Sophia was
(15:27):
still hanging on for dear life, and Tim had been
transferred to a burn unit in Denver, and Dad's family
and friends were starting to arrive at the hospital. They
all wanted to help me, but there was no helping me.
I was devastated. I was terrified, was panicked, and I
(15:51):
didn't want anyone to touch me. I was just so
sick of everyone trying to hug me, like you No,
I have to figure this out. By morning, Deb was
informed that Sophia had also died. And I put my
wedding ring on Sophia's little finger, and I got to
(16:12):
say goodbye to Sofia, and then I went into the
hospital up in Denver, and it was with him and
my family and we just we sat vigil with him.
Tim's injuries were serious, but eventually he was able to
leave the hospital. With no home to go back to,
(16:35):
the two of them lived out of a motel room.
Deb's father and stepmother stayed close to help. Tim was
still recovering from his injuries, and Dug took charge of
his care, tending to his burns and changing his bandages.
I was the only one that could take care of
the burns without pilkingting getting sick. So anyway, that was
(16:56):
my job for the rest of the time we were there.
But Doug was also having a hard time. His daughter
had lost her children and he had lost his grandchildren.
Can I show you a picture of the kids? Have
you ever seen one? Show me? I gotta reach it
up there, I see. And anyway, this was the last
(17:22):
picture of them. This was taken just before they all died.
When was that Christmas? Just after? Yeah, in March, I guess.
But they had little halos on even I went from
just needing to hire someone to fill a shift to
(17:48):
losing my whole little family. Ebb and Tim had lost
their children, their home, and everything they owned, and as
they struggled with their grief, their marriage was deteriorating. We
(18:11):
weren't doing well at all. Actually, our souls were broken.
We weren't He wasn't the same man. I wasn't the
same woman. You're fighting constantly, and it was horrible. You
were in different places with the grieving, you know, like
he would want to remember the kids and I would
(18:33):
be like and denial, and we just couldn't get on
the same page. And we were actually doing more damage
to each other than we were helping. None of any
of it made any sense. I was not thinking clearly.
I literally would buy boxes of wine and put them
in my window sill, and when I'd wake up in
(18:55):
the morning, I'd start drinking white Zin and I'd drink
it all day. She ended up coming home here with us,
and she was still basically in trauma. I mean we're
talking months after the fire, and you know, I, me
and her would go down to her bedroom until she
(19:16):
cried herself asleep, and it was about to get a
lot worse. Because Tim was the sole survivor from inside
the house fire, police were suspicious. One day, the police
called him into the station, saying they needed him to
pick up some property from the fire, but Deb says
it was a ruse to get her alone. As soon
(19:37):
as he left, the doorbell ring and it was Derek
Graham and another detective and they were like, you know, oh,
we need to talk to you. We think your husband
did this. And I remember telling them absolutely not. They
didn't know what they were talking about. My husband loved
his children more than his own life. They said, we
(20:00):
have evidence. I said, no, you don't, and if you do,
it's wrong. And then I asked them to leave, and
I thought that would be the end of it, but
it wasn't. Detective Graham was also scrutinizing Deb's behavior, particularly
at the hospital, and then he put like his notes
that I wasn't crying properly or whatever. And I'm thinking,
(20:24):
you didn't think I was crying properly. I couldn't even
remember to breathe or closed my mouth and you're judging
me like that. But the way Detective Graham saw it,
these two parents had something to do with the deaths
of their children. After a two year investigation, on July
(20:48):
twenty one, two thousand five, the grand jury indicted Tim
Nichols for the murders of eleven year old j j,
five year old Sophia, and three year old Sierra. Deb
was also indicted that day for minor counts from before
the fire, including drug use, but more than two years later,
in November two thousand seven, she too was indicted for
(21:11):
the murders of their children. Deb and Tim were tried separately.
Tim's trial came first before Deb's trial even began. He
was convicted of three counts of first degree murder. Deb's
(21:31):
trial started on October four, two. The prosecutors, Assistant district
attorneys Amy Mulaney and David Lindsay, presented the theory that
Deb had developed an addiction to meth amphetamine and needed
money for drug related debts, so she conspired with Tim
to burn down their house and family for the insurance money.
(21:52):
They said that math users would do anything to get
more meth and according to the prosecution, that would include
killing their three children to get more methamphetamine, and there
was very little evidence to support that at all, but
that was their theory. This is Kathleen Lord. She's a
staff attorney at the Corey Wise Innocence Project at Colorado Law.
(22:16):
Kathleen says that while Deb did do drugs occasionally, there's
not evidence that she was a meth addict. She was
first turned on to meth um by one of the
state's witnesses as a way to lose weight, and there
was a lot of speculation on the prosecution's part. The
(22:38):
state had one major problem with its case. Deb wasn't
home the night of the fire, so the state argued
she had to have an accomplice. They said she planned
it with Tim, who had already been convicted. There's something
that we're uncomfortable with, and I think that we're uncomfortable
with the fact that there was a father at home
with his children and he escaped the fire, his children didn't.
(23:01):
Anne Marie Moyez is the director of the Corey Wise
Innocence Project. She says that right from the beginning, the
police focused on Deb and Tamas suspects. There's a real
impulse to blame him and to embrace narratives that put
him at fault for what happened. And so I think
that was the colonel that started all of this, and
then the confirmation bias sets in, and then every piece
(23:26):
of evidence is seen through this lend of that expectation.
Here's how the state's case began. Somewhat early in the investigation,
they led an arson dog through the fire scene and
the dog was trained to alert to the possible presence
of an ignitable liquid, and the dog did alert at
(23:49):
multiple locations in the living room in the stairway of
the house. They said, okay, well we found zylenes and um.
Zilenes are a chemical compound in it innitible liquids. Zilenes
are also commonly detected when furniture and other household items
burn in a fire. Yet, the prosecution argued that the
presence of zylenes showed that the fire was deliberately set
(24:13):
using an ignitable liquid. They had an expert. His name
is John dohn and Um. He testified that he was
able to determine that only a fire set at multiple
locations simultaneous in the living room could have grown large
enough to engulf the entire room. So it was beyond
dispute that the living room did go to flashover, meaning
(24:37):
that the entire room was engulfed in flames, but his
theory was that only a deliberately set fire could have
produced that result, and to further bolster this theory, the
state brought in a jailhouse snitch. When Tim was in jail,
he was placed next to a notorious informant named Hiram
(24:57):
Church with in a day or two of being in custody.
Mr Church claimed to have heard Tim confess to him,
and then they were able to use the jailhouse snitch
to tie it together because the jailhouse snitch said that
Tim had admitted to him to using an ignitable liquid
called goof off to start the fire, and zilenes are
(25:19):
primary ingredient of goof off. The state said that Tim
put goof off, a household cleaning product, all over the
furniture and had the kids sit on it that evening.
Then when the fire ignited, the children would already have
the flammable substance on them them And what was critical
is that Mr Church, the jailhouse informant, said not only
(25:40):
that Tim had confessed, but that he had implicated Deb
in the crime. The state also criticized Deb's behavior following
(26:02):
her children's deaths. They called in an insurance adjuster to
testify that when she showed up at their office, she
had on a white track suit with freshly manicured nails,
implying that she was dressed inappropriately for a bereft mother.
The state relentlessly picked apart her grieving process. I get
it because I didn't know how to do it either.
(26:26):
I don't know. Things like that come in waves, like
you just can't you sob uncontrollably, and then you can't
think or sob or do anything for a while, and
then it'll hit you and I don't know, it's like
a cycle of denial and devastation. They also brought up
the fact that deb didn't attend her children's funeral. How
(26:49):
come you didn't attend the funeral? Um, I had lost
my second son, Spencer, when he was three months old,
and I had to have a funeral. It's a little
tiny casket and I barely made it through that, and
(27:11):
I just I was trying to get ready to go
to the funeral, and my my body was breaking down
and I was shaking so bad. And you know, my
daughters loved to me get ready in the morning and
they would be like, you know, mom, we went pretties
and I was trying to get ready for the funeral,
(27:32):
but I just had to sit down and give in
and surrender. And I can't go. I can't do it.
I didn't want to go to the funeral, and how
it be about me breaking down instead of people getting
takeod bye to my beauty of children. Soaks, I went
(27:56):
and I sat out in the car until after the funeral,
and then I went and I thanked people for coming.
I couldn't. I just couldn't. I couldn't imagine seeing three,
three caskets. It was too much. It was too much.
(28:33):
Deb's defense attorneys were Deputy Public Defender Cindy Jones and
Jeffrey Schwartz. They called multiple witnesses to refute the prosecution's
idea that deb wasn't grieving properly, and as Anne Marie
Moyez explains, they also called in the prominent fire expert
John Lentini. He disputed all of the prosecution's evidence and
(28:55):
their interpretation of the evidence, but at the end of
the day, it was his word against multiple experts on
the prosecution side, and the prosecution did a pretty good
job of characterizing Lentini as some sort of hired gun
that the defense had paid. It wasn't a fair characterization,
but it was a success. They were successful in portraying
(29:17):
him that way. Over a month later, on November eight,
Deb Nichols was convicted of three counts of first degree murder.
She was sentenced to three consecutive life terms in prison.
Deb has passed her time in prison trying to come
to terms with what has happened in her life. I
(29:40):
tried to do the things that I know will help,
like journaling and singing and working out and going to
church at Red Rocks, got behind bars, and keeping my
heart open so that I can feel that pure love
with my children, and fighting to clear arm Aimes because
(30:02):
we had nothing to do with that fire in. Kathleen
and Marie and the Corey Wise Innocence Project joined experienced
criminal defense lawyer Janine McCabe in taking on Deb's case.
So the main thing that we've done is brought on
(30:23):
new leading experts and fire science to explain the changes
in fire science that have taken place since the time
of trial. And not only that, in the time since
the trial happened, the state's expert, John Dihan has been discredited.
He for many years was considered one of the leading
experts and fire science in this country. But what we
(30:45):
know now is that he acted unethically in other cases,
and in fact, the American Association of Forensic Science voted
to expel him from membership because of that unethical conduct.
Don who passed away in you, continued to stand by
his testimony. This is him speaking in nineteen about the case.
(31:07):
I've read sammon Um, the data and the findings a
number of times over the years, and U I UH
still hold to my conclusions expressed in the technicals A
trial as well as UH Deborah Nichols that the fire
was deliberately started in the living room of the residents. However,
(31:28):
the science to Han was touting has also been discredited.
The defenses trial expert John Lentini also maintains his trial
testimony and emphasizes these changes in science. To this day.
He defends Deborah's innocence. It's not up to Timothey or
Deborah to prove what caused that fire. What we have
(31:51):
learned about the behavior of fire since the Nickels fire
um is that the patterns that we read after a
big fire like the are not reliable evidence. We can
now say definitively that the samples that were taken from
the Nichols living room show that they were just the
natural byproduct of the fire, that they did not come
(32:13):
from an ignitable liquid. So there's absolutely no evidence anymore
that there was an ignitable liquid president at the fire scene,
and that new science just exposes the prosecution's case for
what it is, which is just a house of cars
that just doesn't stand up under any sort of inspection.
The jailhouse informant, Hiram Church, has also been discredited. We
(32:36):
see that in cases of wrongful convictions that sometimes when
these jailhouse informants are used, what we find out about
their history is that they miraculously have heard confessions in
a number of other high profile murder cases, and that
was true of Mr Church. The Corey Wise Innocence Project
submitted a motion for a new hearing to the courts
in October of If accepted, there will be an evidentiary
(33:00):
hearing where Deb can present this evidence to the court.
In the meantime, she tries to keep healthy and stays
in touch with the family she has left. Although Deb
and Tim are divorced, they've remained friends and write letters
to each other in prison. UM, we're both just trying
to grieve and heal and get our names cleared and
(33:21):
get the truth out and take it day by day.
At this point, it's hard to talk about trauma. It's
hard to talk about losing my babies. But I was
hoping that people, especially women that get wrongly convicted, UM,
(33:49):
can find some type of strength to get through it
and keep fighting. Deb thinks back to night of the fire,
often remembering her kids rumbunctious energy at bedtime. Now she
thinks of that night in a new way. I'm so
(34:10):
glad that I got to put him back to bed
four or five times, because I didn't realize that would
be the last time I got to kiss him good night.
And I'm really really grateful I got a bunch of
her kissers and them that night. M If you want
(34:34):
to help Deb and the Corey Wise Innocence Project, go
to the links in our bio Next time, Unwrongful Conviction
with Maggie Freeling Ashley Jordan's. He was about to say
he did it just so I can go home and
won't go to jail, and I looked at him and
(34:54):
I grabbed his hand and I said no, you're not.
You will not lie for these people because we didn't
do anything wrong. Thanks for listening to Wrongful Conviction with
Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and go
to the links in our bio to see how you
can help. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason
(35:17):
Flom and Kevin Wurtis, as well as our senior producer,
Annie Chelsea, producer Lila Robinson, and story editor Sonja Paul.
The show is edited and mixed by Annie Chelsea, with
additional production by Jeff Cleburne and Connor Hall. The music
in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Jay Ralph. The news clips heard in this episode we're
(35:38):
reported by Laura Martin at kk TV. Be sure to
follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at
Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as
well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
you can also follow me on both Instagram and Twitter
at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a
(36:00):
production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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