Nicole Lynn Hodges, 34, was found dead alongside 34-year-old Mason McClure at a residence in Avilla, Missouri, on the night of February 21, 2021. Both victims suffered multiple gunshot wounds, and autopsies confirmed those wounds as the cause of death. The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office opened a homicide investigation into the double killing.

Detectives focused on 26-year-old Kevin Clay Johnson of Reeds, Missouri. Court documents and a confession state Johnson had been at the Avilla home days earlier, left his girlfriend, Keegan Miles, there on the evening of February 19, and returned the next morning. Johnson told investigators he believed Hodges and McClure had harmed his girlfriend and shot both victims. Authorities say the girlfriend’s body was also found in a ditch in Newton County around the same time and that investigators linked all three deaths to Johnson.

Johnson was arrested and charged in the murders of Hodges and McClure; he later pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and received a 28-year prison term that requires serving 85 percent before parole eligibility. Does anyone have information about Nicole’s time in Avilla or the people she knew there?