Jacqueline-Rose Nicholas, a 32-year-old Asian woman, died in Dallas, Texas, on the night of July 29, 2019. She had been married for eight years to her husband, Peter Noble Nicholas III.
That Monday, shortly before 11:30 p.m., police responded to a shooting call at the Hotel ZaZa in the city’s Uptown neighborhood. Security guards at the hotel had already been dispatched to a room on the second floor following complaints of loud noises and a woman screaming. The guards knocked on the door, but no one answered. As they waited in the hallway, they told investigators they heard a man yell an expletive and then heard what sounded like muffled noises from inside the room.
A short time later, the security guards heard a single gunshot. A man inside the room then began screaming, "Oh, my God!" and cursing, followed by crashing sounds, as if items were being broken or thrown around.
When Dallas police officers arrived, Peter Nicholas, then 30 years old, opened the door to the room. According to an arrest affidavit, he was partially covered in blood and had an extension cord wrapped around his neck.
Police said Nicholas appeared to be under the influence of narcotics. He screamed and fought with the responding officers, who used a stun gun to subdue him. Inside the hotel room, authorities found Jacqueline-Rose Nicholas deceased from an apparent gunshot wound. Peter Nicholas was transported to Baylor Hospital for medical treatment and was taken into custody there. Homicide detectives investigated the case and obtained a warrant charging him with the murder of his wife.
Peter Nicholas was later released on bond while he awaited trial for the murder charge. In June 2022, he was arrested again and faced new charges of assault on a pregnant person and deadly conduct. The new charges were related to multiple alleged incidents involving his fiancée, who was 32 weeks pregnant at the time. According to an arrest warrant affidavit, he was accused of choking and punching her, as well as grabbing the steering wheel of their car while she was driving on an interstate, forcing her to jerk the vehicle to avoid a crash.
As of June 2022, Peter Nicholas was back in custody on the new charges, while the murder charge for the death of Jacqueline-Rose Nicholas was still pending.
