Nikia Shanell Kilpatrick was 20 and six months pregnant when she was found dead in the hallway of her Jacksonville home in early January 2003. Her wrists and ankles were bound, a telephone cord was wrapped around her neck, and her two young children had been left alone in the house with their mother’s body for days. Nikia was a mother of two; the third child was unborn.

Investigators linked Nikia’s killing to a similar slaying of Shawanda Denise McAllister a week later. Attention focused on former cab driver Paul Durousseau after DNA connected him to both scenes and cab receipts suggested long gaps between pickups on days victims were killed. Durousseau was indicted on five counts of first-degree murder, including Nikia’s death, and charged with child abuse for leaving her children with her body.

Prosecutors pursued the 1999 murder of Tyresa Mack at trial; Durousseau admitted sexual contact with all three women but denied the killings. He was convicted and sentenced to death for Mack’s murder, and the state did not proceed to try the other deaths. Did anyone who knew Nikia or her routine in Jacksonville back then notice anything unusual in the days before she disappeared?