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Teenage years can be a challenging time for both the teen themselves as well as their parents. There’s the balance of gradually establishing more independence fueled by rebellion, hormones & mood swings. Teens are challenged with figuring out who they really are, managing social anxiety, all the while trying to fit in. As parents & caregivers face a teen’s defiance, under the surface, there’s usually fear, confusion & a need to be understood.
From the outside, the Reynolds family of three looked like something out of a Sunday morning church brochure. However, under the surface, anger, resentment & violence was brewing. This case proves that sometimes even the brightest family portraits hide the darkest corners.
In 1997, Robert & Billie Jean Reynolds were trying to navigate life with their 17-year-old daughter, Jacquiline Nicole “Nikki” Reynolds. Nikki was born on July 16, 1979 & at three months old, her birth mother put her up for adoption. When Robert & Billie Jean, a deeply religious couple, brought Nikki into their lives, they did all that they could to make their baby girl feel loved & welcomed. According to Nikki, she didn’t realize that she was adopted until she became old enough to start asking questions. However, Billie Jean was very open with her daughter & told her that if she wanted to learn about her biological mother when she was eighteen, they would support that decision.
According to Nikki, she had a wonderful childhood, she was loved & has wonderful memories of going to baseball games with her dad & shopping at the mall with her mom. Her parents were nurturing & never judgemental.
While Robert worked for the Florida Department of Transportation, Billie Jean was an administrative assistant with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. According to Nikki, her life growing up in Coral Springs, Florida felt like a fairytale. Not only did Robert & Billie Jean fill their home with love, but they gave their daughter everything she wanted. Some people close to the family felt that maybe they gave Nikki too much. A family friend, Merrill Martin, indicated that Nikki was never told no & because of that, she grew to be a spoiled brat.
Regardless of how Robert & Billie Jean chose to raise their daughter, Nikki seemed to be thriving. She was doing well in school & not only did she get good grades, but she was also an active participant in extra curricular programs as well as a member of the Coral Baptist Church. Because Robert & Billie Jean were conservative, when Nikki was a sophomore in high school in 1995, they were thrown for a loop when she began showing a lot of interest in boys.
When she was a junior, Nikki met a boy in her American History class at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, 16-year-old Carlos Infante. Their relationship began as a friendship when they started hanging out in class, getting to know one another until it gradually transitioned into a romantic relationship. Nikki & Carlos’ relationship was very intense & emotional.
In March 1996, Nikki came home from school one day & told her parents that when she got off the bus, a man dragged her away & raped her. Robert & Billie Jean immediately contacted the police & when the officers arrived as well as a female counselor, Nikki gave them a description of her attacker. The officers took photos of both Nikki as well as the crime scene, but when the rape kit was completed & the examiners found no trace of sperm, Nikki’s story suddenly began changing. At this point, she said that the attack had occurred days before. As the investigators started noticing these discrepancies in Nikki’s story, the female counselor encouraged her to tell the truth.
Initially, Nikki said that she was raped by someone that she knew, but she later indicated that she was attacked by a stranger. In the end, she admitted that she had made the entire story up because she suspected that she was pregnant & she wanted to protect her boyfriend.
This was a bombshell for Robert & Billie Jean since they hadn’t realized that their 16-year-old daughter was sexually active. Billie Jean was mortified & highly upset by this information. This ordeal led to extreme issues in Robert & Billie Jean’s ability to trust their daughter. They encouraged her to get psychiatric help, but she refused.
According to Nikki, her first sexual encounter brought forth a slew of emotions that she hadn’t known existed. As she entered junior year of high school, her grades began to slip, she started skipping classes & the once active participant in activities began to isolate herself. Those who were close to Nikki could see that she was solely focused on her boyfriend & nothing else in life seemed to matter. Her entire existence seemed to revolve around Carlos; she had photos of him plastered around her bedroom & every waking moment had to do with him.
It was Billie Jean’s opinion that Carlos was not a good influence on her daughter. She felt Nikki needed to spend more time at church, but the more Billie Jean insisted that Nikki go, the more Nikki fought her & the more the two argued. This was a drastic change from what the young girl had grown accustomed to since she was not at all used to hearing the word no. Robert & Billie Jean could see that their daughter’s life was lacking any sense of balance as she only wanted to spend time with Carlos. When Nikki was told no, she would have screaming fits & tantrums, acting more like a toddler than a teenager.
It wasn’t long before Nikki began to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night so she could spend more time with Carlos. Billie Jean once confided in a friend, Patty Goertz, that things had gotten so bad between herself & her daughter that Patty shouldn’t be surprised if she came home to find police cars & fire trucks lined up & down the street. Patty is now haunted by the words Billie Jean once spoke, I don’t know if it’s going to be me or Nikki, but one of us is going to be gone.
Billie Jean was summoned to Nikki’s high school on Wednesday, May 14, 1997 after rumors about Nikki being pregnant spread around school until they reached the guidance counselor two days earlier on Monday. When the counselor met with both Carlos & Nikki that day, Nikki maintained that she was pregnant. Although Carlos had broken up with Nikki by that point, he said that if she was truly pregnant, he wouldn’t get back together with her right away, but he would be there to help take care of the baby.
On Tuesday, Nikki came back to school & told Carlos that she was definitely pregnant since she took a pregnancy test. Because of this, he agreed to get back together with her, believing that they would be having a baby together. Finally on Wednesday, the counselor wanted to speak with Billie Jean to let her know what was going on. Nikki initially gave the counselor an old disconnected number, but they were eventually able to reach her at work.
When Billie Jean briefly came down to the school that day, Nikki claimed that she had taken two pregnancy tests, both of which were positive. The counselor requested that Billie Jean, Robert & Nikki all meet at the school the following morning at 10 am to further discuss the situation.
Because of Nikki’s previous lies, most notably, the story about being raped, Billie Jean insisted that Nikki take a pregnancy test so on their way home from school, they stopped off at the pharmacy to pick up a pregnancy test. Once home, the test came back negative. Nikki later told the investigators that she was hoping it would be positive so that Carlos would come back to her. She admitted that when they were intimate, they never used protection.
As Billie Jean & Nikki were waiting for the result of the pregnancy test, Nikki called Carlos & when the test came back negative, Billie Jean took the phone from her daughter to apologize for the stress that she had unnecessarily put him through. She voiced her disappointment about the fact that not only were they sexually active, but they also weren’t using protection.
Billie Jean was furious & at her wit’s end so she insisted that she & her daughter attend an emergency counseling session together at their church. During the session, Nikki became angry when the counselor raised her voice & told her that her mom didn’t deserve this. She stormed out of the room & tried to call Carlos. After about fifteen to twenty minutes, she came back to the session after she cooled off & apologized for her outburst.
Moving forward, they came up with a plan for Nikki to meet with the counselor every Wednesday for ten weeks to discuss what was going on in her life. Little did Billie Jean or the counselor know, but it was at this time when Nikki began to concoct a plan about going to school the following morning to murder Carlos. She planned to bring a knife to school & when Carlos left his first period class, she would come up behind him & slit his throat.
Billie Jean left Nikki with the counselor to finish their session & headed down to the choir room to get her music situated until Nikki came & met up with her. While they were talking, Nikki told her mom that she would go to school as scheduled in the morning & then meet her parents at 10 am with the school counselor. When Billie Jean told her that they’d be going to the school together, Nikki realized that her plan to murder Carlos in the morning was ruined since Thursday was a half-day at school. As her mind began to whir, she decided that she would first kill her parents that night, drive their car to school the following morning & murder Carlos.
While Nikki was still at the church, she vaguely asked the pastor if a Christian would be forgiven if they attempted suicide or did something really bad. Since the Reverend didn’t know that Nikki was having homicidal thoughts, he told her yes to both questions.
After Billie Jean & Nikki got back home at about 5:30 pm, they had dinner with Robert & then he left for church at about 6:30 pm while Billie Jean headed to work on the computer at 7 pm.
Only minutes later, a frantic 911 call came through at 7:07 pm. When the dispatcher asked if there was an emergency, Nikki screamed, I just killed my mother. She went on to say, I stabbed her repeatedly in the back. There’s blood all over her & all over the floor.
When officers arrived at the Reynold’s home only minutes later, they found Nikki sitting on her front doorstep. According to Coral Springs Police Detective Paul Ferm, she was covered in blood from her legs to her face.
As officers went inside the home, they found a 49-year-old Billie Jean laying on the floor in the living room, bleeding profusely from thirteen stab wounds. Although she attacked her mother, Nikki recalls sitting in the back of the patrol car, praying that her mom would live as paramedics carted her out of the house on a stretcher with an IV attached to her. After seeing the IV, paired with the fact that her mom wasn’t fully covered by a blanket as she was taken to the hospital, Nikki said she felt hopeful that her mom would survive. Tragically, Billie Jean had lost far too much blood & she was pronounced dead at 8:10 pm at North Broward Medical Center.
While Nikki had been stabbing her mother to death, Robert had been at church. As he drove toward their home, he was horrified to see police officers & crime scene tape surrounding his house. When he was told of his wife’s murder, he recalls breaking down & collapsing in the street, unable to fathom that his wife was gone & their daughter had been responsible for her death. Robert later told investigators that all he had ever asked of his daughter were two things; keep her room clean & her grades up. Robert always told Nikki that if she could continue to do those two things, he & Billie Jean would take care of everything else.
When Nikki was taken down to the Coral Springs Police Department, just as she had with the 911 call, she again confessed to everything & gave investigators consent to search her bedroom. She told the officers, I have no intention of lying, I don’t have any secrets & I want to get it out.
She said that Carlos had broken up with her over the previous weekend because he didn’t trust her. Since she felt the only way she could get him back was to fake a pregnancy, that day at school, she told him that she was pregnant. By this point, it was clear that Nikki had not been pregnant, something that was proven by the test Billie Jean forced her to take earlier that day. Since she & Carlos had a tumultuous relationship, this false-pregnancy was a manipulation tactic that Nikki had used in the past when Carlos ended their relationship in hopes of getting him back. Learning that she once again faked a pregnancy, Carlos became angry & broke up with her.
Nikki told the detectives that since she couldn’t live without Carlos, she would bring a knife to school & kill him in front of their classmates before the first period began. She knew that she would get in trouble for this, but because nobody else would be able to have him, she would be happy regardless.
Realizing that she wouldn’t be able to go to school on Thursday until 10 am when she & her parents had their counseling session scheduled, she started to formulate a plan to murder them first. Initially, she considered waiting until they were asleep. She would creep into their room & slit their throats while their defenses were down & then take their car to school on Thursday to do the same to Carlos.
Normally on Wednesday evenings, she & her family would go to church where the adults attended service while kids went to youth group. Billie Jean was a member of the church choir while Robert served as a deacon, but during dinner that evening, Billie Jean told Robert to just go without them since the day had been so upsetting.
This was the moment when Nikki decided that she would take the opportunity to kill her mom while her dad was gone, thinking it would be easier to face one person at a time. She told the officers that she planned to clean up the mess, wait till her dad came home, kill him & then go to school to kill Carlos the next morning.
Nikki said that after her dad left for church, she stayed in the kitchen for about fifteen minutes, pretending she was cleaning up. When her mom sat down at the computer, she grabbed a butcher knife that was 14 inches long & checked that the blade was sharp. When she finally worked up the nerve, she crept up behind her mom who was completely unaware, distracted by the computer. She stood silently behind her with her hands shaking as she did. After a couple of seconds of continuing to work up her nerve, she suddenly tried to slash her mom’s throat, but because she didn’t cut deeply enough, Billie Jean began screaming & ran in the direction of the laundry room as she screamed, No, Nikki, no!
When Billie Jean first stood up from where she was sitting at the computer, Nikki jabbed the blade at her again, this time slashing her right cheek. Nikki continued to chase her mom as she ran toward the closet in the hallway in the direction of the front door. Billie Jean managed to grab on to her daughter in an attempt to get the knife, but she was unsuccessful. When Billie Jean fell to the floor, Nikki began to stab her in the back as well as the side. As she desperately tried to turn over in an attempt to protect herself, she then stabbed her mother in the stomach.
Nikki told the officers that she kept asking her mom if she was dying; she said that she was crying because she felt so bad & she couldn’t believe what she was doing. Billie Jean told Nikki that she was dying & she could feel her life fading away. Since her mom was a deeply religious person, Nikki reassured her that she would be going to heaven. When she asked her mom, please don’t hate me for this, Billie Jean told her that she didn’t hate her, that she loved her. While she was being stabbed, Billie Jean voiced her worry about Robert’s wellbeing if she died. Nikki admitted that her mom was the foundation of their household; she cooked & did the laundry.
While Billie Jean lay on the floor, Nikki continued to stab her, later saying that she figured since she started stabbing her mom, it was too late to stop, she was already in trouble, so she may as well finish what she started.
She told the officer that in addition to slashing her mom’s cheek, she also stabbed her in the back, the breast, her arms & the stomach. When she eventually called 911, the dispatcher asked her to check on her mom & when she did, she said that her lips were white purple, her eyes were open, but they were glazed over & she noticed the area under her eyes getting darker. She wasn’t moving & when she felt her neck, she didn’t think she felt a pulse so she assumed that her mom was dead. The dispatcher told her to help her mom & she said that she did help her because now she’s in heaven. At the same time, Nikki said she was praying that her mom would survive & that she could rewind time because she realized what a mistake she made. She told officers that she wished she had never started going out with Carlos.
As Nikki sat in the interrogation room recounting the events of that evening, she didn’t yet realize that her mother had died as a result of the injuries she inflicted. She told the officer that her mom was such a good person & if she survived her injuries, she wasn’t sure how she would ever forgive her & questioned if she would ever be able to face her mom again. She said that before she met Carlos, she had always been her parent’s precious baby girl.
After she finished stabbing her mom, she rinsed the knife off in the sink & left it there & attempted to clean up the immense amount of blood throughout the house. When she was in the police cruiser, she wanted the officers to get a hold of her father at church as soon as possible so he could get to Billie Jean.
Nikki originally planned to clean up the crime scene & wait for her father to come home from church; she told investigators that she was going to hide behind a wall near the door where he entered the house. However, when she began cleaning, she realized the extent of the blood, which had spattered throughout the house & knew she would be unable to conceal her crime. Not only that, but she also said that killing her mom had been very difficult since she had to stab her so many times. She figured it would likely be impossible for her to kill her dad. This was when she decided to call 911. She repeatedly told the dispatcher that she must be crazy, a statement she also later repeated to responding officers.
During her interview, she said that she would never live a normal life because of what she had done & that she deserved life in prison. She felt that she should plead insanity because no sane person would do something like this. She didn’t know why she was this way all of a sudden when only a month ago, she had never thought about killing her mom or anyone else.
Nikki said that she changed after she met Carlos; she had been a good Christian who believed in no sex before marriage. Once their relationship turned physical, she got very close to him & when their relationship ended, she couldn’t live without him or picture him with another girl.
Near the end of her interview, the officer asked Nikki if she had consumed any alcohol or was on any sort of medication. This was when she told the officers that she had taken four or five handfuls of aspirin earlier that day prior to going to church. She elaborated that nothing happened, but now she was feeling lightheaded & sick to her stomach so she was transported to the emergency room.
Before her thoughts turned homicidal, Nikki first considered taking her own life which is when she allegedly swallowed the handfuls of aspirin. She assumed that she was going to die, but as the afternoon progressed & her mom insisted she attend a counseling session at church, she realized that her intended overdose had apparently not worked.
Aspirin poisoning can occur rapidly after taking a single high dose or develop gradually if lower doses are taken over an extended period of time. Symptoms include ringing of the ears, nausea, vomiting, drowsiness, confusion & rapid breathing. Treatments include giving activated charcoal by mouth or via a gastric tube, giving fluids & bicarbonate by IV or for severe poisoning, with hemodialysis. It’s unclear how much aspirin, if any, Nikki took that day.
After Nikki’s brief trip to the emergency room, she was booked into county jail on first-degree murder charges & held in a juvenile correctional facility where she awaited her trial.
Prosecutors claimed that the murder of Billie Jean Reynolds had been premeditated & they planned to seek a life sentence. Because the teen was so distraught over her breakup, she first plotted to kill him, but when her parents got in the way of that plan, she then plotted their murders. However, she only succeeded in killing her mom.
When the 19-year-old’s trial began on April 14, 1999, she pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder as her defense team argued that she was innocent by reason of insanity. In support of this defense, they called two expert witnesses who argued that she suffered from mental disease & at the time of her mom’s murder, she didn’t know right from wrong. They indicated that not only did she suffer from major depression, but also borderline personality disorder which affects her impulse control as well as her relationship with others.
Dr. William Vicary indicated that at the time of his evaluation of Nikki, although she may have been 17-years-old, she behaved as a 12 or 13-year-old. Meanwhile, prosecutor Deborah Zimet argued that her psychiatric disorders were no excuse & Nikki’s actions were a result of her self-centered world view. Under the definition of the law, she did not fit the legal criteria of insanity which is a person’s ability to distinguish between right & wrong at the time of the crime.
Since Nikki’s entire interrogation was recorded, jurors were able to hear her entire plan that led up to her mother’s murder. Her pastor testified about the conversation he had earlier in the afternoon of Billie Jean’s murder when Nikki asked him if she would go to heaven if after she’d done something bad. However, her defense team argued that this question had been in reference to the handful of aspirin she’d taken earlier that day in an attempt to take her own life as based on her religious beliefs, suicide was considered a mortal sin.
Her defense argued that she had been unable to grasp the magnitude of what she was doing when she attacked her mother. Psychiatric experts testified that it had not only been Nikki’s mental illnesses that she was suffering with that caused her to snap & kill her mom, but also the fact that she had taken handfuls of aspirin earlier that day. One expert testified that this would have caused a metabolic derangement in her body which caused her to have a mini psychotic episode. It wasn’t until she saw her mom’s lifeless, bloodied body lying on the floor when she snapped back to reality & called 911.
On April 29, 1999, the jury was tasked with deciding if Nikki had been temporarily insane at the time she attacked & killed her mom.
On May 3, 1999 jury members indicated that they were deadlocked, resulting in a mistrial; there were six votes to convict while six voted not guilty by reason of insanity.
A second trial was held six months later in November of 1999. It was during this time when Nikki’s biological mother, Katrina Ramos, who was reunited with Nikki fifteen months earlier, testified about her family history of depression, suicide attempts & psychiatric issues. She discussed her own mental illness as well as familial violence. She indicated that during her pregnancy with Nikki, she was deeply depressed; she tried to abort her daughter & had poor prenatal-care, all of which she believed had a bad effect on her unborn daughter.
At the conclusion of the second trial, the jury found Nikki guilty of a lesser charge of second-degree murder after rejecting her insanity defense.
Billie Jean’s siblings told the judge that Nikki deserved the maximum penalty. Ann Carnicella, one of Billie Jean’s three sisters said, Nikki is strong-willed & her selfish & evil ways have caused immeasurable suffering. Let us not allow ourselves to be manipulated as Nikki has done in the past.
During Nikki’s sentencing on January 7, 2000, the 20-year-old offered tearful apologies as she said, I didn’t mean to hurt her. I didn’t mean to tear the family apart. Robert, who remarried 1998, was not present & has had no contact with his daughter since January 2000. Nikki told the judge that her adopted father had stopped visiting her in jail in June 1997, but each week, he continued to send her a card. Billie Jean’s brothers & sisters were present & as she looked in her family’s direction, Nikki said, I know you’re all confused, but I’m even more confused.
Broward Circuit Judge Schapiro rejected the defense’s request of granting Nikki a lighter sentence due to her youth, immaturity as well as her psychiatric issues & gave her the longest sentence permitted which was 34 years. Although she was sentenced as an adult, the judge ordered the Department of Corrections to place her in a prison for youth offenders for the first few years of her sentence.
An appellate court later ruled in another case that the sentencing guidelines were unconstitutional & Nikki was entitled to be re-sentenced. In April of 2001, a time when she had been in prison for four years, Judge Schapiro re-sentenced her to 21 years & 8 months, cutting her sentence by more than 12 years. Prior to the re-sentencing, prosecutor Deborah Zimet requested that because the crime had been so violent, Nikki’s sentence should remain at 34 years.
Nikki became eligible for parole in 2015 & on September 18 of that year when she was 36-years-old, she was released from prison. There is no information about her current whereabouts.
On May 14, 1997, Billie Jean Reynolds didn’t just lose her life, but a family lost their center, their sense of safety, their trust in what was supposed to be unconditional. The little girl that Billie Jean had loved & nurtured as her own since only three months old, was responsible for her brutally violent death. Not only did Nikki’s actions leave behind a deeply grieving family, but this case is a haunting reminder that sometimes the most devastating violence doesn’t come from strangers, it comes from within the walls of your own home.
References:
- Merck Manual: Aspirin poisoning
- Murderpedia: Jacquiline Nicole Reynolds
- Oxygen True Crime: Nikki Reynolds: The perfect teenager until she stabbed her mother to death with a kitchen knife
- FindLaw: Reynolds v. State
- Tampa Bay Times: Mistrial declared for teen in slaying
- DAILYMOTION: The Nikki Reynolds story
