- Hi. [man laughs]
Say hi.
[Laurie] She was kind.
She would do anything for anybody.
[Faith] Nikki Halpin had a big heart.
She was in love with love.
- She was just a flirty individual,
as social as they come.
- She said, "I just saw the most handsome man walk in
in a uniform."
- When they were first married,
Nikki and Don's relationship was magnetic.
[Faith] But sometimes, love just isn't enough.
- Everything was stacked against both of them.
- After their divorce, she's involved in
other relationships with other people.
- She was lucky to find somebody who was decent.
[Faith] Nikki gets back on her feet,
but is struck down once again.
- He hears his mom screaming
and then all of a sudden,
there's no more screaming.
- I've been in law enforcement a lot of years.
It was a bad scene.
[Faith] How did one woman's search
for their perfect partner...
- He was not ever what I expected Nikki to end up with.
- He showed classic signs of a stalker.
[Host] turn into a killer relationship.
- I told her not to be afraid,
and that's the last time I saw her.
[dramatic music]
- What happens to us in life is largely beyond our control,
but how we react to what happens?
Well, it makes us who we are.
Nikki Halpin is a fighter,
for herself and for her family.
She's been that way since she was little,
and when it comes to romantic relationships,
she hopes love will win the day.
But love, as I've seen time and time again,
can't conquer all.
[dramatic music]
[upbeat music]
[Laurie] My daughter, Niccole Gomm Halpin,
was born in 1971.
She was a good baby,
but once she got a little bit older,
she had to be the boss of everything.
- As a big sister,
she was always very protective of me.
I was quiet and shy,
but she is as social as they come.
[upbeat music]
[Laurie] When Nikki was in middle school,
she was so studious,
but as she got into high school,
she became very friendly with all the boys.
- She was just a flirty individual.
[Faith] After high school, Nikki enrolls at the
University of Massachusetts,
but she is eager to get a taste of the real world.
- She wanted to make money,
so she came home from college
and got a job at the bank,
and one day she said,
"I just saw the most handsome man walk in in a uniform."
"He is a prison guard,
and he looks just like Arnold Schwarzenegger."
- Thank you.
[Faith] The Schwarzenegger-lookalike
is a man named Don Halpin,
and 22-year-old Nikki falls head over heels for him.
- She liked the fact that he had a steady job,
and he could have fun,
it was like a great combo.
- He seemed to adore her.
[Faith] Love is in the air,
but there's an elephant in the room.
Don is 41 years old, nearly twice Nikki's age,
and Nikki's mother is more than a little concerned.
[Laurie] He was 18 years older than her.
Five years younger than me,
and he had been married several times,
and he had two kids.
I said to her,
"That's a lot of baggage to deal with, Nikki."
He was not ever what I expected Nikki to end up with,
but she wasn't listening to anything we said.
Nothing.
And then, not even six months later,
she comes home and she said, "We got engaged."
And then a month later, she says, "I'm pregnant."
And I just said, "Well, Nikki, you're gonna be married,
and then instantly have a child to raise.
That's gonna be difficult for you."
[Faith] But when you're young and in love,
potential problems are the last thing on your mind.
In the summer of 1994,
Nikki marries Don.
She's three months pregnant.
- When they're first married, Nikki and Don's relationship
was like magnetic, they just connected.
And they were totally great together.
[Man] Where are we?
- Where are we?
We're at the pier.
[Man] Where?
- St. Petersberg.
- She loved being pregnant.
And then Nikki went into mom mode.
[dramatic music]
- Max was born on November 21st, 1994.
If you looked at him, you would say,
"What a beautiful baby."
You could not tell outside, visibly,
that anything was wrong with him.
[Jenn] Max is born with Hydrocephalia.
He had too much water on the brain.
It was very bad.
It was like life or death.
[dramatic music]
They had to make a decision to treat him and try to give him
shunts to release the pressure on his brain,
and then he had to go on a machine,
and I guess that affected his brain.
[Laurie] The doctor said, babies that go on this,
usually they end up with issues for life.
- Learning that your newborn has a serious medical condition
with long-term implications would be devastating
for any mother,
but the battle for Max's health has just begun.
During one of his treatments, one of the medical staff
mistakenly gives him the wrong medication,
with potentially detrimental effects.
Max recovers, but Nikki and Don file a lawsuit
against the hospital,
and while it winds its way through the courts,
there's a bright spot in the fall of 1996.
[upbeat music]
- Drew was born two years after Max,
and he was a perfectly healthy, active baby.
[Nikki] What else do you see?
[Laurie] But Nikki was wrapped up in, in Max,
because for years,
Max couldn't walk, he couldn't talk.
It was awful.
[Faith] In 1997, when Max is three and Drew is one,
Nikki and Don decided to make a big change.
For Max's health, they moved from the cold of Massachusetts,
to the warmth of Florida.
- The atmospheric pressure would not cause him
as much pain down there as it would up north.
[Nikki] Yay!
[Man] Cheese!
[Faith] Max does show signs of improvement,
but there are new struggles.
- Don retired from the prison system.
So Nikki was out there working probably 35, 40 hours a week.
- Bye Max, bye Mom.
- He was supposed to be watching the kids,
and she'd come home
and nothing was done at the house.
So she was really aggravated.
Don was working nights as a bartender,
then he started drinking.
[Jenn] I think everything was stacked
against both of them.
Their world was just like,
just colliding, colliding, colliding.
[Faith] In 2001, after eight years of marriage,
29-year-old Nikki reaches her breaking point,
and the couple separates.
But Nikki doesn't give up on life, or love.
Just a few months later,
she has a new man in her life,
a 31-year-old air conditioning repairman named Dan Welch.
- Nikki thought Dan was Mr. Right for her,
'cause he was checking all the boxes.
Cute, blue eyes, fixes things.
[Laurie] What impressed her the most was
he loved her kids.
She was falling in love with him,
and she wanted him to fall in love with her.
[Faith] Nikki's divorce from Don is finalized in 2003,
and she's granted primary custody of eight-year-old Max,
and six-year-old Drew.
Months later, the hospital where Max was treated
as an infant settles the lawsuit.
A 1.5 million dollar trust is set up for Max,
and a judge designates Nikki as the sole custodian.
- Eeeeeeee!
[Jenn] Whoever has custody of Max,
has this trust helping them for a house and a car,
for the rest of Max's life.
[Laurie] I'm sure Don was upset.
He probably thought Nikki set it up that way,
but she didn't.
[Faith] With money from the settlement,
Nikki buys a home for herself and her boys in Safety Harbor.
It's also the perfect place to settle down,
and Nikki hopes Dan feels the same.
[Laurie] Two years into the relationship, Nikki said,
"Dan, I would like to get married."
And he said he wasn't ready for that yet.
So, Nikki called it quits.
[Faith] Again, Nikki forges ahead.
Hoping the third time's the charm,
in September, 2003, she begins seeing a man she meets
on a dating website,
32-year-old engineer Chris Catuogno.
- She was looking to find somebody who was decent,
and had a job,
and liked her kids.
Chris was a nice guy.
[suspenseful music]
[Faith] On the night of January 8th, 2004,
Chris goes out with Nikki and her boys.
Then, just before 10:00 PM, Chris makes a call
to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Dispatch.
[phone ringing]
[dramatic music]
- Time's ticking.
I need to get inside the house.
- We asked Drew if he knew who the man was,
and he did say it was the man who knocks on the windows.
- This is something that is gonna play over and over
in his head for the rest of his life.
- On January 8th, 2004, just before 10:00 PM,
Chris Catuogno calls the Pinellas County, Florida
911 center from his home.
He has 32-year-old Nikki Halpin on the other line.
Chris had just been out with her and her two boys
a half-hour ago before she dropped him off at his home.
But now, she's at her house
and something is desperately wrong.
[Officer] I'm patrolling the Safety Harbor area
a little before 10:00 PM.
I receive the call over the radio.
[sirens wailing]
[dramatic music]
I start pounding on the door.
Time's ticking.
I need to get inside the house.
By that time,
the neighbor had come over,
and as soon as he yelled,
the boys actually appeared,
because they were familiar with him.
[Faith] Nikki's terrified seven-year-old son Drew
unlocks the door.
Nine-year-old Max follows close behind.
- I asked Drew, "Hey, where's your mommy?"
And he looked at me and said,
"Mommy's in her room, and she's hurt."
I had a backup with me.
Whoever did it could still be there.
The backup cleared the house,
I move in the direction that Drew pointed out.
When I get into the room,
I find Niccole.
And it's not a good scene.
There's a lot of blood.
Nicole's laying on the bed.
I can see trauma to the side of her head.
I distinctly remember shouting over my shoulder
to the neighbor, "Take the boys and go to your house, now!"
[Faith] Deputy Ferguson can tell Nikki Halpin
is still alive,
barely.
- Fire rescue was there within a minute.
She was transported by helicopter
to the trauma center.
[dramatic music]
- I received a call from my sergeant explaining that
a woman had been attacked in a small town called Safety Harbor.
After getting briefed,
my urgency is to talk to the boys,
who can tell me what happened inside that house.
- Any time a young child is an eyewitness
to a violent crime, it's traumatizing.
I can't imagine how frightened Nikki's sons must have been.
And the last thing investigators want to do
is have them relive the trauma.
But detectives need to ask the boys some questions
while the events of the night
are still fresh in their minds.
They'll need to tread lightly.
[dramatic music]
- Whenever we're talking to children,
especially young children,
what we need to do is make sure that they understand
the differences between a truth and a lie.
- Max is not able to communicate,
so then, we met Drew.
He said they dropped mom's boyfriend off at his house.
They came back to their house,
where he was starting to do homework.
- Drew tells us that his mom went with Max,
and at some point,
he hears his mom scream.
He then sees someone dressed in all black,
wearing a ski mask,
and he thought that person had
a silver baseball bat in his hand.
He hears her scream again,
and then all of a sudden, there's no more screaming.
- Drew said he got down on the ground and hid,
and after the man left,
he got up, he went into the bedroom,
his mom was lying on the bed on her back.
- Then he sees his brother Max hiding behind the bed.
At that point, they ran to the bathroom,
locked the door,
and they hid in the tub.
[somber music]
He's seeing all of this,
the worst things that you can possibly see as a child.
This is something that is gonna play over and over
in his head for the rest of his life.
- We asked Drew if he knew who the man was,
and he did say, "It was the man who knocks on the windows."
When we said, "Who's the man that knocks on the windows?"
He leaned forward,
and there was a clock on the nightstand
and he said, "Hey Ed,
this is the latest I've ever stayed up in my entire life."
And it was 1:41 on that clock.
That's the end of the interview.
[Faith] Detectives plan to circle back with Drew later,
hoping to find out more about the
"man who knocks on the windows."
In the meantime,
they learned that Nikki is
still unresponsive in the ICU.
- We knew she had been hit in the head with a blunt object.
From the bruising, the weapon could have been
something round.
Nikki was in critical condition.
She was in a coma,
and the prognosis was not good.
- Next, investigators turned their attention to the man
who was with Nikki a few hours before, and called 911,
Chris Catuogno.
- Christopher Catuogno is 32 years of age.
He was an engineer for a local company.
[Robert] Chris begins to take us through the night.
After going out with Nikki and her boys,
she dropped him off at home
and told him that she was headed straight home.
Now, she lives approximately 15 minutes away
from where he lives.
[Faith] Chris tells detectives that at 9:33 PM,
less than five minutes after Nikki and the boys
dropped him off at his house,
he received an instant message from her home computer.
[dramatic music]
- It's her handle,
and it's the letter "H" and the letter "B".
So, he answers it thinking that she was typing "hi"
and just hit the B and said,
"Hey, how did you get home so fast?"
Later, he gets a another message from Nikki and says,
"Hey, I didn't write that.
I'm gonna look around."
[suspenseful music]
[Robert] He then receives a phone call from Nikki,
and she's saying something weird is going on.
I just want you to stay on the phone with me
while I check the house.
Then at some point,
he hears her scream.
[Faith] As detectives listened to Chris's story,
something doesn't sit right.
- If I'm on the phone with my girlfriend,
and I hear an attack,
I'm in my car.
I'm going to,
wherever this person was.
[Faith] At this point, the investigators aren't sure
what to make of Chris.
At 3:00 AM, they end the interview
and detectives follow Chris back to his house.
- When we asked Chris about taking his computer,
he was hesitant,
so I explained to him that,
"Hey, you know you don't want to give this to us,
you don't have to, but not doing it, you know,
raises our suspicions."
And he thought about it for a few seconds
and then he agreed to allow us to have the computer.
[Faith] Meanwhile, in northeastern Massachusetts,
Nikki's parents are blissfully unaware of
the unfolding tragedy 1,500 miles away.
That is, until local police knock on their door.
[Laurie] He says, "I'm very sorry to tell you,
somebody attacked your daughter, Nikki."
And I said, "Oh my God, is she all right?"
And he says, "She's alive right now.
That's when he asked me, "Do you know any of the men
in Nikki's life who would wanna hurt her?"
I said, "Well, if I had to guess,
I'd put my money on Don.
He's the ex-husband, the father of her kids.
He would get control of the estate
that was being held for their son."
- Once we hear the fact that there's a large settlement
involved and we're actually talking 1.5 million dollars,
and basically the only one who has control of
that trust is Niccole.
There would be 1.5 million reasons why Don
might want to have Nikki disappear.
[dramatic music]
- Six hours after Nikki Halpin was brutally attacked
in her own home in front of her young boys,
the 32-year-old mother clings to life at a trauma center
in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Back at the crime scene,
detectives continue to search for clues,
but will they find anything that points them
towards Nikki's attacker?
[dramatic music]
- Any potential evidence in that residence,
we're sending off to the lab,
but there was no smoking gun.
It was very interesting, 'cause there's no signs of
any forced entry, so, you do have to suspect
any paramour, boyfriend, husband, ex-husband,
would be statistically what you're gonna focus on.
[Faith] Some of that focus is on Chris Catuogno,
Nikki's current boyfriend.
Detectives plan to track his digital footprints.
- We're gonna pull his cell phone records.
We're gonna pull his cell tower to see where that phone was,
within, you know, three to five miles.
[Faith] But detectives also need to look into
Nikki's ex-husband, Don Halpin,
who stands to gain a lot
from the settlement Nikki received from the hospital
where Max was born.
Around 5:00 AM, detectives arrive at Don's townhouse
in Clearwater.
- We sat down at his kitchen table,
and we had a long interview with him.
- After their divorce, she's like immediately involved
in other relationships with other people.
Is that enough to drive him over the edge?
[Faith] Then detectives ask about the 1.5 million dollar
settlement for Max.
- We said to Don, "Well if something happens to Niccole,
who becomes the guardian?"
And he says, "Oh, I do."
There's definitely a motive there to commit this crime,
which would be taking charge of that large amount of money.
[Faith] Finally, detectives asked Don if he has an alibi
for the time Nikki was attacked.
- The Don CeSar is a nice hotel down on St. Pete Beach.
That is probably a good 45-minute drive
from the Don CeSar to where Nikki lives.
We needed to verify he was at work.
[Faith] Just before leaving, detectives asked Don
if he has anything else to add to his statement.
- He says, "Let me tell you who was stalking her."
And he tells us about Dan Welch.
- That's why he said if anybody did this to her
that knows her,
it's Dan, the ex-boyfriend.
- He's all of a sudden now blurting out the fact that it's
Dan, is there something that he's trying to mislead us on?
But we're hearing all of this stuff, it's like,
you know what?
We need to take a close look at Dan.
[Faith] Detectives need to track down Dan,
but they're still keeping Don at the top of the list.
After all, jealousy and money are two of the biggest reasons
that marriage has fail,
and murders happen.
But at this point, Nikki is still holding on,
and her parents and sister catch the first flight
from their home in Massachusetts
to be by her side,
and to check on Max and Drew, who are being cared for
by a family friend.
[Jenn] The boys were not saying much.
Drew just looked straight upset,
'cause he comprehended what was going on.
Max looked like
he just saw a ghost.
He was kind of shut down.
[Faith] But as Nikki's family keeps vigil,
hope begins to fade.
[somber music]
- I said, "This is, this is not good."
My mom was trying to still be like, the pillar.
- Her hair was shaved up to a certain point
and she had bandages wrapped around her head.
She was on the breathing tube.
I knew she was not gonna live.
- It's Friday morning, January 9th,
12 hours after Nikki Halpin was savagely attacked
in her own home.
Her family and friends are holding vigil by her side,
hoping she'll be strong enough to survive the
toughest battle of her life, and wondering,
who did this?
Detectives have three possible suspects,
all of them with romantic ties to Nikki.
- We were concerned with Chris.
He hears the attack and he doesn't respond immediately.
It sure looks suspicious.
Don is still a viable suspect because of the benefits
that he's gonna receive from Nikki's death.
Cell phone records, financial records,
all these have to be subpoenaed and reviewed.
And then there's Dan Welch,
the ex-boyfriend of Niccole Halpin.
We had received information about stalking incidents.
[Robert] Dan was showing up at her house at all times of
the day and night.
Don told her, "Look, you probably need to get
a restraining order."
[Faith] Could the man in the window be Dan Welch?
Or is it possible that Don is trying to distract detectives
by pointing the finger at Dan?
- You know, we go home and get a couple of hours of sleep,
but the first thing that I did on my way into work
is I went to the Don CeSar to check on Don's alibi.
Don Halpin clocked out a few minutes after the actual
attack would've occurred.
I was able to verify with a manager that he was there.
There was even surveillance cameras that show him leaving
the area of the hotel as well.
But that doesn't mean that he couldn't have had someone else
do this for him.
[Faith] Still, with Don looking less likely,
detectives turned their attention to the man Nikki dated
after she broke up with Don.
- Dan Welch is 35 years of age,
and he's an AC repairman by trade.
We checked Mr. Welch's background,
found no criminal history.
[Faith] At around 3:00 PM, Detective Snipes and Judy
arrive at Dan Welch's home in Clearwater,
about six miles from where Nikki lives.
- We told him we were there to talk to him about Nikki,
and he said, "Who?"
So we said, "Niccole Halpin."
- And he goes, "Oh, Niccole, yes,
I've been waiting for you to come to the house.
I heard about this on the radio today."
- He invites us inside the house and I noticed sitting
on a small table what appeared to be this five-cell,
very large flashlight
that was kind of silver in color.
When I saw it, the first thing that I thought of was
Drew telling us that he saw a silver baseball bat.
Detective Judy and I look at each other, and right away,
both of us think this could potentially be
the weapon that he used.
I tried not to stare at it.
We have to have a consent to search form
before we can take anything out of that house.
- We don't want to alert Mr. Welch to it.
We just noted it, we'll come back to that later.
[Faith] The detectives take Dan to the station
for an interview.
- Dan told us he fell in love with Niccole.
He just thought she was a very attractive woman,
full of life.
- He explained that he didn't really want to get into
a long-term relationship.
She got tired of waiting on him and decided to move on.
He said, you know at this point, that he had moved on as well,
that he had a new girlfriend.
[Faith] When detectives asked Dan where he was
the night before,
he says he was working out with his neighbor, Larry.
- Larry was training for a marathon,
and he would go out a couple times a week and run 20 miles,
and Dan would get on his bicycle
and he would ride along with him.
- He said, "My neighbor will vouch for me."
[Faith] Detectives plan to take Dan up on his offer
to speak with the neighbor,
but first they swab him for DNA.
- He provided us with a blood sample as well as
his latent prints.
We asked him about a polygraph.
He said, "Absolutely."
"We'll call you for that."
He said, "No problem."
We drive him back to his house.
Dan says, "Hey, do you wanna search my house?"
So I asked him if I could bring out a forensic team,
and he said, "Absolutely."
He's very cooperative,
but he's also very nervous.
It was a strange vibe that you got from this gentleman.
So we are awaiting the arrival of the team
and Mr. Welch gets a phone call
and he says, to whoever he's talking to,
he says, "You're not gonna believe this,
I'm a prime suspect."
- The first thing that we do is we look at each other like,
"Okay, we never said that to him."
- And then he said, "No, she was not raped,
no, nothing was stolen
and no, she was bashed in the head."
- None of the three of those things had ever been
released in the media.
- We both look at each other and just not our heads,
we're on the right track.
He hung up the phone, so we inquired,
"Hey, who are you talking to?"
He said, "Oh, that was my girlfriend, Stephanie."
And that's all he tells us.
- Around 10:00 PM, three members from the forensics team
arrive at Dan's home.
- We searched his master bedroom.
I removed all the clothing from the drawers.
- Is there a ski mask?
Is there a hoodie,
or a dark sweater or something that was described by Drew
that could potentially tie him to the scene?
And unfortunately, we weren't able to find anything at all.
- We were getting ready to leave, Dan walks at me
with a flashlight and he goes,
"Hey, take this.
I know you want it."
And he hands me a three-cell Mag light.
It's not a five-cell Mag light,
which is what we saw earlier.
And the flashlight he gave me was gold in color.
He's distracting me by giving me the wrong flashlight.
- And I was like, "Oh my God,
what happened to that larger silver flashlight?"
[dramatic music]
[Faith] Detectives take the smaller flashlight
and tell Dan they'll be in touch.
Then they pay a visit to his neighbor, Larry,
to see if Dan's story checks out.
[Robert] Larry is telling us we're starting to run,
and we had planned to go 20 miles, but he says,
Dan starts telling me, you know,
"My stomach's upset, I don't feel good, you know,
I think I need to go back home."
He says, "But it was sometime around 9:01, 9:02."
- Nikki was attacked at approximately 10:00 PM.
- It was pretty clear Larry knew that Dan was
trying to use him.
He says, "I'm not gonna be his alibi."
- After we talked to Larry,
Dan Welch shoots right to the top of the list.
[Faith] The detectives leave Larry's home
the morning of January 10th,
confident they've identified their prime suspect,
Dan Welch.
But by evening, the mood shifts with news from the hospital.
Nikki's condition is grave.
- It had to come down to the family making the decision:
do we keep her on life support
or do we let her go?
- I was looking at the screen with the brain activity
for like hours,
and there was not one movement.
It was like,
just straight across.
- I said to everyone there,
"If you wanna go in and say goodbye,
you have to do it now."
- When I went in to say goodbye,
all I could think of was how she's like, full of life.
You know? She's like,
so outgoing.
And like, so full of life to just die at 32.
'Cause, like that, just doesn't even make sense to me.
- It was just horrific.
Really horrific.
I started singing the song that I sang to her
when she was a baby.
* Nikki's momma's baby, *
* by-low, *
* my baby. *
* Go off to sleep, my love. *
[somber music]
[dramatic music]
- We've just got detail, after detail, after detail,
that just keeps pointing at his direction.
- When they said, "Niccole, calm down,"
I said, "That's him."
- And she said, "I think my boyfriend is trying to use me
for an alibi."
[somber music]
- On Sunday, January 11th, with no hope for recovery,
Nikki Halpin's family makes the gut-wrenching decision
to take her off life support.
It's a profound loss,
and it puts renewed pressure on detectives
to find this beautiful young mother's killer.
[ominous music]
- We have Dan Welch having knowledge
inside that crime scene,
offering up a weapon that was
potentially the murder weapon.
He put himself right at the top of the suspect pool.
[Faith] Just hours after Nikki is removed
from life support,
Dan arrives at the sheriff's station for a polygraph.
No one is prepared for the overwhelming results.
- Our polygraph examiner comes out of the room and tells us
that Dan failed every single question on the exam.
- So computer polygraphs go from zero to negative 23,
zero to a positive 23.
He said, "I've never seen anything higher in negative 13.
Your boy rang it up to negative 20."
- He's just doing nothing but lying,
but we still don't have enough to arrest him.
[Faith] This is one of the toughest parts of the job.
Detectives are sure they have their killer,
but they have no choice but to watch Dan Welch
walk out the door.
Later that Sunday afternoon,
Nikki's family makes an unusual request,
they want to visit the scene of the crime.
- I wanted to
go see the house just for my own peace of mind.
[dramatic music]
The detectives got me like, to myself and they said,
"Who do you think did this?"
And I said, "It's Dan Welch."
- We learned that Dan showed classic signs of a stalker,
harassing phone calls.
Many times, he rode past her house on a bicycle
and just stared at the residence.
- He's coming over to the house at nighttime,
knocking on the door,
he's banging on the windows.
[Faith] Nikki's son Drew told detectives about the
"man in the window" on the night of his mother's attack.
And although Drew never identifies Dan Welch
as that man,
detectives don't believe it's a coincidence.
- When you look at this objectively,
he is displaying all of the traits of a stalker
that's gonna turn violent.
- On Monday, January 12th, the day after Nikki's death,
the Pinellas County medical examiner completes the autopsy.
- Her cause of death was blunt force trauma.
The intent there was to cause great bodily harm and death.
[Faith] What the medical examiner can't determine,
is the weapon that was used to kill Nikki.
It could be anything, from a large stick to a baseball bat,
but could it also be a heavy, metal flashlight?
- There was no DNA on that three-cell mag light.
We never found that five-cell mag light,
probably the murder weapon.
[Faith] That same day,
detectives catch a much-needed break.
[phone rings]
- We get a phone call at the sheriff's office from a
Stephanie Hayes who says, "Hey, I need to talk to somebody,
I think my boyfriend is trying to use me for an alibi."
- Then she proceeds to tell us that Dan called her
from his home to show that he could not have been
at Nikki's house at the time she was attacked.
- She says, "My phone rang and it was 10:14 PM,
he was completely out of breath."
- She had to ask him, "What's wrong with you?"
Because he was breathing so heavy, and he's like,
"I'm just putting some stuff in my work van."
He had already loaded up his work van,
so she knew that he was lying about that.
- So what was Dan really doing?
Detectives recall that on the night Nikki was attacked,
Dan claimed he was riding his bike
while training with his neighbor Larry.
- We believed that when he left Larry's house that there's a
good chance that he rode his bicycle over to Nikki's house.
This also explains if you're riding hard,
trying to get home,
and then get on the phone to try to set up your alibi,
why you would be out of breath.
We've just got detail, after detail, after detail
that just keeps pointing at his direction,
and we still don't quite have enough in discussion with the
state attorney's office to be able to make the arrest.
- We're sending off items to the lab.
Any latent prints that are recovered by forensics is going
to our AFIS section,
and all the interviews that we conducted
have to be transcribed,
and that's a lengthy process.
[Faith] While they wait, investigators finish examining
Chris Catuogno's computer, cell phone data
and home phone records.
- We were able to verify everything he said.
Don Halpin is also eliminated.
We subpoenaed his bank records and find no
large money transactions that were not explained.
[Faith] With no other viable suspects,
detectives hit a wall.
But one month after Nikki's murder,
a diligent staff worker at headquarters picks up on
something that changes the trajectory of the case.
- We have an administrative assistant, Genevieve Myers,
dedicated employee, transcribing the interviews.
The last thing she does is the 911 call.
So on February 16th, 2004,
Genevieve come barging into our office,
she said, "Dan Welch is on the 911 call.
You can hear him, clear as a bell, 100%."
- She's adamant, "Take my headphones and put 'em on."
Wait a minute, back that up and play it again.
- I could hear, "Niccole, calm down."
- Detective Judy made us listen to it,
and nobody called her Niccole,
only Dan.
So when they said, "Niccole, calm down."
I said, "That's him."
- I go, "Holy cow,
Dan Welch is on the 911 call,
it's time to make an arrest."
[dramatic music]
- On February 19th, 2004,
more than five weeks after
Nikki Halpin was brutally murdered,
investigators are sure that the voice of her killer
was captured on the 911 call.
- Detectives are ready to arrest Nikki's ex-boyfriend,
Dan Welch, but the prosecutor hits the brakes.
- We have a state attorney that's been assigned
to this case from day one,
so we play the 911 call for him.
He wants someone to take a computer
and verify that's Dan's voice.
That technology does not exist,
that's stuff for television.
- Our priority at that point is to see if we can get the
tape cleaned up so that we could hear it better.
[Faith] The process takes months.
Even then, the evidence is still circumstantial.
Once again,
the investigation comes to a standstill.
Then, on February 1st, 2005,
more than a year after Nikki Halpin was attacked,
detectives get some help from an unexpected source.
[suspenseful music]
- Dan's sister heard about this recording.
She wanted to be able to listen to it,
so that she could tell Dan, "Stop worrying about this.
This is no big deal, this is not you."
- So we set up a meeting location with her,
and we play the call.
- She immediately recognizes Dan Welch's voice.
She begins to cry.
"That's 100% my brother,
that's the maddest I've ever heard him."
- There's no better witness to say that that's Dan's voice,
than her.
We finally got to the point with the
state attorney's office, they were willing to move forward.
[dramatic music]
[Faith] The state attorney may finally be willing
to move forward,
but detectives still have to build the strongest case,
and that takes more time.
- You only have two eyewitnesses.
One of them literally can't tell us anything at the time.
The other one can only tell us that they saw someone
wearing a mask.
- There was absolutely no DNA in this investigation at all.
There really no smoking gun in this case,
other than the 911 call with Dan's voice on it.
We have the stalking incidents,
but we had to eliminate every other possibility,
every other probability
before they would let us go forward
with the prosecution of this case.
[Faith] Investigators dot every "I" and cross every "T"
in order to prove that Dan Welch killed Nikki Halpin.
But will it be enough?
- January 20th, 2006,
over two years after Niccole Halpin's murder,
the grand jury returned an indictment
for first degree murder.
[Faith] But the case never goes to trial.
In May, 2007, more than three years after Nikki's death,
39-year-old, Dan Welch pleads guilty to second degree murder
and burglary,
and is sentenced to 25 years in prison.
He is eligible for parole in 2028.
- Nikki's still dead,
but at least you can give the family
a little bit of justice.
- Nikki's story is one that I'll always remember,
mainly because we had two small children that had to
sit there and witness this.
That's the thing that bothered me the most.
- I know she'd actually be so happy that Max
is doing so well.
And Drew,
he's fantastic,
he's unbelievable.
- I try and remember always,
just what she was in this world,
and what she was to other people in this world.
She would do anything for anybody.
I'd want everybody to remember her for her kindness.
There was a beautiful smile, and her kindness.
[gentle music]
[Faith] Nikki Halpin was a fighter until the very end.
She fought for her children.
She fought for the future she envisioned,
and she fought for love.
But nothing could defeat
a killer relationship.