MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Lakesha Thompson

In May 2023, Lakesha Thompson’s entire family was upended by a single bullet that took their mother away from them forever. From the beginning, who pulled the trigger has been the question at the forefront of her family’s mind. Investigators determined pretty quickly that it was a self-inflicted wound. Except there are key pieces of evidence at the scene that just don’t line up. Her family has spent years fighting for a second look at the case…only to be told it’s closed… but that doesn’t mean the mystery is solved.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:33Ashley Flowers?

  Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today's story starts with a question. If someone dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, how many inconsistencies would it take before you start questioning what really happened? One, two, more? What if responding officers called out those inconsistencies while on the scene? Well, that's what happened here. And yet, three years later, a family is still desperately asking questions that law enforcement don't seem to want to answer. This is the story of Lakesha Thompson.

• 2:43Ashley Flowers?

  Andrea Flucker is woken up from a dead sleep by her phone on May 24, 2023. Now, when she looks at the screen, she sees it's 4:00 a.m. Spam calls don't usually come in at this hour. Plus, it's in Atlanta area code, where she knows that her mom is visiting her new fiance. So she picks up. And sure enough, on the other end is her mom's brand-new fiance, Nathan Fitten. Andrea doesn't like Nathan. Doesn't like that her mom, Lakesha Thompson, is engaged to him. Because the little that she's gotten to know about him through their hot and cold relationship over the last couple of years, she doesn't like. Like, the few times that Nathan would text or call Andrea, it felt like he was trying to stir up drama.

• 3:28Ashley Flowers?

  He would accuse her mom, Lakesha, of seeing other men, and then make Andrea this, like, middleman between him and her mom. And sometimes, they would even call her in the middle of their arguments. And somehow, Nathan would seem to twist things to make it seem like Andrea was the problem too. I mean, he recently told Andrea that she was blowing up his life, and he had a ring, he was gonna propose to her mom, but because of her, now that's not gonna happen. Like, clearly to make her feel bad. Well, and clearly a lie, since they're obviously engaged now. Yeah, something that none of Lakesha's four children were excited about when they announced it. Like, they just got engaged, like, three days before all of this. They saw through Nathan. Bro was toxic.

• 4:12Ashley Flowers?

  Like, just a couple of days before Lakesha flew to Atlanta, Andrea got a call from her sister, saying that her mom was on the phone with Nathan, and he said that he was going to kill himself. And then, he went totally silent on the phone. Lakesha thought that he had taken his own life right then and there. Obviously, he didn't. Obviously, we, like, see this behavior is toxic. But like, what could her kids do? Their mom is a grown woman. Right. So, middle-of-the-night call from Nathan. Andrea is probably, like, rolling her eyes as he launches right into the drama as expected. He tells her that Lakesha stormed out of his house. I guess they'd been drinking, they started arguing, they even called off their engagement.

• 4:56Ashley Flowers?

  And now, he doesn't know where she went. And Andrea is like, "Okay, like, hold on. You let my mom just, like, walk off alone in the middle of the night in a city that she's not familiar with?" Because Lakesha was living in Michigan at this time, where Andrea is. She doesn't know Atlanta. So she's like, "Go out and get her." But then, all of a sudden, Nathan changes his tune. He's like, "Listen, I'm trying to find her phone. She lost it. Can you call her phone for me?" And Andrea, who has a young baby at home and her last day of flabotomy class in a couple of hours, is like, "What do you mean? Why are you calling me to call her? Use your phone." Yeah, the one you have in your hand. Exactly. Like, why do you need me to do that?

• 5:39Ashley Flowers?

  Why are you calling me at all? And also, "Go get my mom." Yes. Then, all of a sudden, Nathan goes, "Wait. She's back. She's trying to come inside." And he tells Andrea that her mom is ringing the doorbell, she's banging on the door, neither of which she's, like, hearing in the background. And then Nathan just hangs up. Now, before going back to bed, Andrea checks her mom's location. She's still at Nathan's house, or at least, her phone is. Right. So despite what she told Nathan, she does try calling her, but her mom doesn't pick up. So assuming that this will resolve itself like all of the fights before, Andrea goes

• 6:19Ashley Flowers?

  back to sleep, not realizing that today would be different. And that call was the beginning of a new reality for her. Five hours later, after Andrea has gotten up, she's taking care of her baby, she's begun to fight traffic in the suburbs of Detroit on her way to school, her phone rings again. Another Atlanta number, not Nathan's, though. So she picks up cautiously, not really knowing who or what to expect. But none of the scenarios that quickly ran through her mind were this. Because it was the Clayton County Medical Examiner's Office calling to notify her that

• 6:59Ashley Flowers?

  her mom had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Now, mind you, Andrea is driving on the highway when she gets this news. And she told us she just started screaming. She said that her options were to scream or to pass out. So she hangs up, and, you know, screaming and crying, she somehow makes it to school. And basically, as soon as she gets there, she said she actually did pass out. When she comes to, Andrea calls the number back because she's finally got her wits about her. And now that she does, she's got questions. Like, none of this is making sense to her.

• 7:40Ashley Flowers?

  But according to Andrea, they just tell her again, it was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. We're not gonna do an autopsy because the cause and manner is clear to them. And they're not the investigators, so they can't really tell her anything else. So, you know, she keeps trying to ask, but they're like, "Listen, you gotta talk to somebody else. She's not getting anywhere with this medical examiner's office." So she says that she tries getting ahold of the lead detective on this case. And that would have been Detective Andrea Rosas. But when she gets her on the phone, Detective Rosas is telling her the same story. It was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Nathan told first responders about how much they'd been drinking, her mom's battles with mental health.

• 8:23Ashley Flowers?

  Like, sorry, there's really nothing to investigate here. Now Andrea, it feels like they're not listening to her in all of the stuff that she feels like they're leaving out. Yes, her mom had her troubles, but she was in treatment. She'd recently completed a mental health retreat out in Arizona. And she was telling her friends and family how much better she was feeling. She was also making plans for the future. She was gonna be a bridesmaid in her best friend Tanya's wedding. She had planned this big trip, she bought a dress, everything. She was excited to celebrate her friend. And she was excited about her own life, too. She would not do this, and certainly not this way.

• 9:05Ashley Flowers?

  She's not even sure Lakesha could pull a trigger either, by the way, because of her carpal tunnel. But honestly, that's not even the thing that's driving the majority of her concern. The Nathan of it all is. She tells Detective Rosas that if her mom is dead, they need to be looking at Lakesha's new fiance, Nathan. And they need to do an autopsy. But according to Andrea, Detective Rosas said that they know what happened to Lakesha. She shot herself. And the family's gonna need to pay about $7,000 for their own autopsy if that's what they really want. And that is where the call ends. But Andrea can't just drop it.

• 9:47Ashley Flowers?

  Even while she's busy planning her mom's funeral and trying to raise money to pay for it, she keeps following up with detectives, offering information about Nathan, and pushing for answers. And whether it's her pushing or something else, she finally gets one piece of good news, a few days after her mom's death. Investigators have decided they are going to do an autopsy after all.

• 10:11Ashley Flowers?

  So it seems like they might be getting on the same page. But Andrea is still pretty unhappy with the speed of progress and with the communication that she's been getting from the department and Detective Rosa specifically.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  It seems like Andrea is doing a lot of this legwork. Where is Nathan during all of this?

• 10:28Ashley Flowers?

  This is the wild part. He is like fully ghosting Andrea. Like she found out all this from the medical examiner, remember? And she calls the detective. He doesn't call her. He doesn't text her. Like, nobody in her family has heard from him. Like, which is just so odd to me. It's like radio silence.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's so strange.

• 10:45Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah. Andrea just feels like she is in this information void, like just suspended in this purgatory, waiting for autopsy results to come back from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They're the ones who stepped in to do it. And it's like this for four months, until Detective Rosa's finally calls. It's now September 27, 2023. And she says the GBI has ruled Lakesha's death a suicide. They say that Lakesha's blood alcohol level was .3, and she had other drugs in her system that could have added to the effects of alcohol, like gabapentin. They also point to blood spatter on Lakesha's right hand, the one that the gun was found in.

• 11:29Ashley Flowers?

  And they say that is evidence enough that she was holding the gun in that hand when she pulled the trigger. And because of that ruling by the GBI, Clayton County is officially closing the case. So Andrea is just shocked. She doesn't believe that her mom took her own life or that investigators have enough information, at least to call this case closed. But she's gonna have to turn to other means to get answers. So when Lakesha's life insurance policy finally comes through, the first thing that the family does is hire a private investigator, Walter Reddick. Walter knows how to navigate the system, and he knows that they gotta start by getting their hands on everything that the police have.

• 12:13Ashley Flowers?

  What are they working off of to call this case closed? He wants to see everything they have from the night Lakesha died and every report that came after. That should be easy enough, right? I'm in a closed case?

• 12:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:28Ashley Flowers?

  Wrong. Her closed case file takes six months and some legal pressure to get released. But it is all worth it because Walter and Andrea feel like every bit of evidence in the file tells a different story, starting with Nathan's 911 call, which came into dispatch about two and a half hours after his middle of the night call to Andrea.

• 12:56Speaker 04

  My girlfriend just shot herself and she...

• 12:59Speaker 05

  She shot herself?

• 13:01Speaker 04

  No, she's not moving though.

• 13:04Speaker 05

  She did that on purpose?

• 13:05Speaker 04

  She did.

• 13:06Speaker 05

  She did that on purpose?

• 13:08Speaker 04

  I mean, she was, she put the gun to my head and I told her to kill me. I said, "Kill me."

• 13:13Speaker 05

  So she put the gun at your hand first and you told her to kill you?

• 13:17Speaker 04

  I didn't know what she was gonna...

• 13:19Speaker 05

  Okay, wait a minute. Calm down, calm down.

• 13:21Ashley Flowers?

  The dispatcher asks again if she did this on purpose. And Nathan just keeps saying she's crazy. She pointed the gun at her head. Dispatch also keeps him talking, trying to get more information on whether the gun was loaded or not. And he keeps saying that the gun wasn't loaded. He said that he didn't even have bullets in the house.

• 13:40Speaker 04

  I wasn't supposed to, the gun wasn't even loaded. It wasn't even loaded. My gun wasn't even loaded. And who the hell got loaded?

• 13:48Speaker 05

  What's your name? What's your name? Is she breathing?

• 13:50Speaker 04

  No, she's not. She just put it to her head.

• 13:56Ashley Flowers?

  Nathan keeps offering up information on the call. He says they've been drinking and he told her he wasn't gonna be with her anymore. He was gonna call off the engagement the day before she was supposed to get back on a plane to Detroit. And you can hear him get more and more worked up as he seems to be talking to Lakesha as she lay dead or dying in front of him.

• 14:19Speaker 04

  Oh, God. What was this doing to me? Why would you do this to yourself? You know you got kids, girl. Why would you do this to yourself?

• 14:32Speaker 05

  Okay, listen, I wanna try to...

• 14:34Ashley Flowers?

  The dispatcher tries calming him down and letting him know that the paramedics are on their way. And Nathan keeps saying that he didn't know she was gonna do that and saying, "I'm so sorry," over and over. And Nathan tells her the one thing he kept repeating to responding officers when they arrived, "I didn't mean it."

• 15:00Ashley Flowers?

  Body cam footage picks up right where the 911 call leaves off. And the scene and Nathan's behavior, the fact that he is naked when they show up, it all raises even more questions for Walter and Andrea.

• 15:20Speaker 00

  Hi, Crime Junkies. Britt here. I know to many of you guys, I might just be a voice in your headphones or a face that lives inside your screens. But believe it or not, when this episode ends, I continue to exist. I know. Wait, what? And while I'm doing that whole existing thing, I am so much more than just your favorite podcast's co-host. I invest time in my family, friends, work, interests. I love to crochet and cook. I listen to music and podcasts. I like to travel, all things humans like to do. And YouTube has found its place in pretty much all of it. And that's why I'm so excited to share with you how YouTube Premium has taken my daily

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• 17:38Speaker 00

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• 18:39Ashley Flowers?

  Andrea couldn't watch the body cam footage when they got it from police back in 2024. It's her P I, Walter Reddick, who goes through it frame by frame, analyzing it alongside dozens of police reports and hundreds of crime scene photos that we also got access to in our foyer. And I'm glad that Andrea didn't have to look at any of this herself because they are graphic images. But it seems like despite not answering Andrea's questions, Clayton County P D ran a pretty solid investigation. The records paint a comprehensive picture of that morning. Now, on the footage, officers, a lot of them, to be honest, respond to Nathan's house on a seemingly quiet residential street.

• 19:25Ashley Flowers?

  Lakesha is in the middle of the living room, splayed out with a gun in her right hand and a gunshot wound to the same side of her head. There is no doubt that she's deceased. And there's Nathan, sitting on a couch, naked and crying.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  And is Lakesha naked?

• 19:42Ashley Flowers?

  No, that's the thing. I have no idea why Nathan is naked. Now, he managed to get like a shirt or something like draped over his lap, but like nothing else. And he's crying out, "I didn't mean it."

• 19:54Speaker 00

  Which, what does he mean by that? I'm so confused by that statement.

• 19:59Ashley Flowers?

  So it's hard to understand him because he is like inconsolable and still seemingly under the influence. But I wanna play you just this quick clip of one of the officers, like first interaction with him, so you know what I mean. Like, and this might be a little bit hard to understand, but I'm gonna come back in and we can talk about it after. But I want you to hear exactly like what he says in his words.

• 20:21Speaker 06

  I didn't mean it, babe. I just didn't mean it.

• 20:25Speaker 07

  Hey, who is she to you?

• 20:26Speaker 06

  I promise you, I didn't mean it.

• 20:27Speaker 07

  Who is she to you?

• 20:28Speaker 06

  That was my girl, my fiance. I didn't mean it.

• 20:31Speaker 07

  What didn't you mean? You didn't mean what?

• 20:34Speaker 06

  I mean, we got in an argument and I said I didn't want to be with her anymore. And I was just saying, I said...

• 20:40Speaker 07

  What's her name, man? What's her name? Laquisha? Laquisha or Nukisha?

• 20:47Speaker 06

  Laquisha.

• 20:47Speaker 07

  What's your name, sir?

• 20:48Speaker 06

  Nathan.

• 20:49Speaker 07

  Nathan. Calm down for me, okay? I know you're very upset, okay? Your name is...

• 20:54Speaker 06

  I don't know. I said she put the gun in my hand and I told her, I said, "Kill me, baby."

• 20:59Speaker 07

  Come here. Come here. Where your room at? Where your room at? Where your room at, Nathan? Come here, let's put some pants on.

• 21:08Ashley Flowers?

  So you heard the officer ask him specifically, "What didn't you mean?" And the first thing out of his mouth was, "We got in an argument. I said I didn't want to be with her." And then he starts crying. So I think that's what he's saying. I mean, I think everyone's assumption when they hear, like, "I didn't mean it," is like, "I didn't mean to kill her." I mean, I know that police probably thought that statement was sus because that's the whole reason they brought in the Criminal Investigation Division. But he says stuff to that effect multiple times, talking about him breaking up with her, and it wasn't worth her doing that to herself.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  But he's also super intoxicated, so...

• 21:45Ashley Flowers?

  Right. But they never get to ask him about this when he's sober and calm because when officers get him down to the station, they have to terminate the interview because he is so intoxicated. And spoiler alert, Nathan lawyers up almost immediately. He is not working with detectives and he is not talking. So, all they have to go off of to paint a picture of what happened is the jumbled words that they captured on body cam footage from an intoxicated man in between sobs. And even there, it is really hard to paint a picture of what he's saying happened play by play because he doesn't give a story from start to finish.

• 22:29Ashley Flowers?

  But he seems to indicate that they got in an argument about him not going to her mother's funeral. Like, her ex-husband was there and she thought that he should have been too. And then things escalated from there. I can't tell the order in which this happened, but he talks about her going to get a gun from the bedroom, her pointing a gun at him, her leaving and coming back, her firing what she told him was a warning shot, and he heard it come from the hallway, and then again, pointing the gun at him, and that's when he told her to just shoot him, and she turned the gun on herself. Now, over and over, he repeats that there shouldn't have been any bullets in the gun. He does not keep it loaded. There shouldn't have been any bullets in the gun.

• 23:13Ashley Flowers?

  I don't know if he gave other statements at the scene that aren't captured on body cam footage, or if officers translating his words into a report distorts things slightly. But his story does read a little different on paper. In a disposition summary report authored by Detective Roses, it reads that Nathan said they were arguing. He told her he wanted to end the relationship. She grabbed the gun, quote, "Pulled the many times." I think the word "trigger" might be missing because it literally says "pulled the many times."

• 23:47Speaker 00

  I mean, that's like a really important word to be missing.

• 23:49Ashley Flowers?

  I know, and it's not like it's redacted, just to be clear.

• 23:51Speaker 00

  It's just like a missing word.

• 23:53Ashley Flowers?

  Right. So she pulled the trigger many times. Then she put the firearm to his head. He said, "Just pull the trigger," because he knew there weren't bullets. And that's when she put it to her head and fired, and the gun, I guess, went off. Now, the thing that's not included in the written report is the whole, like, warning shot in the hallway that he talks about on the body cam footage. Like, there should be two shots. And if there was a warning shot, then why would he think there was no bullets in the gun? Like, I cannot wrap my head around the order of events. And I'm not saying that they might not make sense. I just can't make sense of them because he's so inebriated, the only time that I see him on tape talking to officers. And then some of the stuff that confuses me just, like, isn't in...

• 24:38Speaker 00

  The actual report.

• 24:39Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah.

• 24:40Speaker 00

  But I think one thing that could kind of answer this is, did they find a bullet hole in the hallway from a warning shot?

• 24:47Ashley Flowers?

  So, not in the hallway, but there was another shot fired. So, there appeared to be one shot in the bedroom because there was a casing on the pillow and a hole in the ceiling above the bed. But interestingly, they were never able to recover a bullet. And I guess they even searched the attic for this thing and couldn't find it.

• 25:06Speaker 00

  But no, like, blood or anything in there?

• 25:07Ashley Flowers?

  No, no, no. And the bed was, like, unmade. The sheets are white. It would have been easy to see if something happened in the bedroom. She was definitely shot in the living room, right where she was found. And to go back to the living room crime scene, I can see in the footage the moment the officers walk into Nathan's house. I see a red and black gun in Laquisha's right hand. One of the officers specifically points out how her finger is, like, positioned on the gun. It seems like it's almost wrapped around the trigger. And there's one police report that says, quote, "Her index finger was observed to be in the trigger guard." Now, at one point in the footage, one of the officers actually makes a comment about that.

• 25:47Speaker 07

  She better not be. She might not be left-handed. Oh, we've got some explaining to do.

• 25:54Ashley Flowers?

  And guess what?

• 25:55Speaker 00

  You're kidding me. She's left-handed?

• 25:57Ashley Flowers?

  She is left-handed. And so there is a lot of explaining to do since the gun is found in her right hand. And listen, even the way that she's positioned and the trajectory of the bullet, it's a little bit off from what Nathan seems to tell officers. Right? Nathan's saying that she's standing over him when she took her own life. And if you picture it, imagine, like, if you were Laquisha, so you are facing Nathan. He's sitting on the couch. You're facing him. But you have to fall, like, straight back because she's on her back, like, completely. Straight arms, straight legs, and the blood is pooled on the ground, right underneath her head, where she dropped.

• 26:39Ashley Flowers?

  Behind her is the bullet in the door frame. So she's standing over him. She shoots the side of her head, but the bullet goes to a door frame directly across from the couch that is, like, what would be behind her if she's facing him straight on.

• 26:55Speaker 00

  It would have to make, like, a right-angle turn.

• 26:57Ashley Flowers?

  No. It's possible that she could have been standing, like, sideways, not directly facing him, and that's how she, like, fell that way. But it seems like a weird way to land, right? Like, just straight like that.

• 27:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:11Ashley Flowers?

  But how she fell or landed, like, put that aside. When investigators track the trajectory of the bullet, it is a straight shot through the edge of the door, like, in the middle of the frame, which would have been right around waist height, even though she supposedly shot herself in the head.

• 27:29Speaker 00

  And how tall is she?

• 27:30Ashley Flowers?

  She's 5'6". So, the only way for the bullet to make a straight line from her head to where it is in the door frame...

• 27:39Speaker 00

  Waist height?

• 27:40Ashley Flowers?

  She would have had to have been, like, sitting on the coffee table or kneeling on the floor, not standing over Nathan.

• 27:47Speaker 00

  And this is all in the police report?

• 27:49Ashley Flowers?

  Yes. Investigators on the scene made note of it. Now, again, he's very intoxicated. He's sitting. She is, you know, looming over him in some way. You might say standing, right? If you're, like, crouched, whatever. The hard part about his statements are that we only have the ones where he's, like, so messed up. He, again, could have probably cleared all of this up if he would have, like, come in and spoke, but he refuses to talk to police. And then, at some point, he leaves the country.

• 28:22Ashley Flowers?

  So, is this definitely a homicide with just what we have? No. But I think this should at least introduce a critical question here. Did Laquisha actually pull the trigger?

• 28:37Speaker 00

  I mean, did they do any gunshot residue testing?

• 28:40Ashley Flowers?

  I was just about to get there.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  Okay, because that's like a pretty, like...

• 28:43Ashley Flowers?

  That would help, right?

• 28:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:45Ashley Flowers?

  Yes, they did. Or at least they did some. This is actually part of the file that really caught the P.I.'s attention. Records show that officers did test Nathan for gunshot residue, and the results were positive. But there is nothing in the police records showing that Laquisha was even tested for gunshot residue. Now, Walter tells us that he asked CCPD about this, and they told him that Laquisha was tested, and she didn't have any GSR on her hands. And interestingly, they also say, or we got from him, that they're like, oh, you know, anyone in a room, if you're in a room where a gun is shot, you could have GSR.

• 29:27Ashley Flowers?

  So they're saying, like, that doesn't prove necessarily that Nathan was holding it. But if she doesn't have it, like...

• 29:34Speaker 00

  That proves that she isn't.

• 29:35Ashley Flowers?

  She's in the same room too.

• 29:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:36Ashley Flowers?

  Right? Like, am I... So, like, it just, this, to me, the gunshot residue, who had it on their hands, who didn't, who was tested and who wasn't?

• 29:43Speaker 00

  It feels really important here.

• 29:45Ashley Flowers?

  It's critical to this whole thing. Like, why wouldn't those results be in the files? So, we went back to CCPD and we were like, "Hey, is this real? Like, can you confirm, A, that you tested her?

• 29:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:58Ashley Flowers?

  And if you did, can you confirm that she didn't have it?" Well, not only did they decline our interview request, they said that they can't release any GSR analysis because it is part of the investigative file and not publicly disclosable.

• 30:15Speaker 00

  But you got the investigative file from the FOIA, right?

• 30:18Ashley Flowers?

  Right, right. I don't know why they're holding that information back and, like...

• 30:23Speaker 00

  Especially because this case is closed.

• 30:26Ashley Flowers?

  And Nathan's results are in there.

• 30:28Speaker 00

  Right, so it's not like there's, like, no records of GSR testing.

• 30:32Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah.

• 30:32Speaker 00

  Just his. So, why not just share if she was tested or not? Especially if this case is as, like, clear-cut as they're saying.

• 30:40Ashley Flowers?

  Yes. Why? Why?

• 30:43Speaker 00

  But also, you said you can for sure see her hand touching the gun in the body cam footage, right?

• 30:48Ashley Flowers?

  Yes, but I can't, like, properly analyze the position or see...

• 30:54Speaker 00

  It's not, like, zoomed in.

• 30:55Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, because, I'm like, pretty quickly, officers take it out of her hand and put it on her side to, like, secure this scene. Like, that's what they're saying in the footage. And here's the thing, like, before they do that, I can hear people saying, like, "Make sure you take pictures." They're talking about taking photos of her hand holding the gun. But those pictures don't exist anywhere in the file we were given. And mind you, we were given, I said, hundreds of photos, all the body cam footage, and these photos are graphic. I swear there are moments I could almost see them taking the photo on phones. I don't know why they're not included.

• 31:29Speaker 00

  But, yeah, anything to do with her holding the gun...

• 31:32Ashley Flowers?

  Not in the file.

• 31:33Speaker 00

  Weirdly, just not there.

• 31:35Ashley Flowers?

  Pictures of her holding the gun, not in the file. Which, again, and I can see it on body cam footage. I just can't see it up close. I'm not saying she was not holding the gun. But, like, those pictures gone, the GSR gone, it's just weird.

• 31:47Ashley Flowers?

  There's something else that catches the P I.'s attention in the case file, though. Pretty early on in them responding to the scene, one of Nathan's sons pulls up. Now, how he knew to show up is a little unclear because he says that his dad didn't call him. He just heard from a neighbor that police were there and he lives close by. But then a little bit later, he said he was just talking to his dad. So like, I would love to see the phone records for who Nathan was calling that morning and when.

• 32:17Speaker 00

  So his phone data is not part of the record?

• 32:19Ashley Flowers?

  No. They, I know, asked him for his passcode to his phone. Like, they collected it, asked him for his passcode. He wouldn't give it to them. And then I don't see anything else. I don't see a search warrant for his phone or any records related to his phone.

• 32:32Speaker 00

  But like, they called this closed from like, day one?

• 32:35Ashley Flowers?

  This huge miss in my book. But I'm telling you the son story to tell you what one of the officers said when the son like, first pulled up. So, police see this car pulling in, they stop it, tell them, "You can't park in the driveway" or something. So the car like, backs out and the officer is coming back and he's like, "Oh, I thought that was gonna be the same woman who we had gotten called out here about before." And when the P I. hears this, he's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa."

• 33:01Speaker 00

  What?

• 33:02Ashley Flowers?

  What is he talking about? Getting called out to Nathan's house to deal with a woman? Like, what? So, he does some more records requests. Because that's definitely, nothing about this is included in Lakesha's file anywhere. And it's probably not included in the file anywhere because the woman in this incident wasn't Lakesha. But holy crap, when I tell you what this was all about, I don't know how you could say it's not related.

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• 34:33Ashley Flowers?

  The records request that Walter Reddick conducted for incidents that required a police response at Nathan's address returns a 911 call and report. They're dated February 24, 2023. We obtained the report and three 911 calls from that incident ourselves.

• 34:53Speaker 08

  I just called for a, um, for a police escort. My escort gonna get my stuff out of his house. He just walked outside the house. I'm on the street, parked on the street. He walked outside, up the driveway and pointed a gun at me.

• 35:08Speaker 09

  Okay.

• 35:09Speaker 08

  I told him he has a weapon, but it was on the nightstand Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And I told him to put it up and put it up. I didn't think he would pull it out and use it. But you know, he has told me before that when he first bought the gun, I thought he was just playing, but he said he was gonna shoot me, rape me, and watch me bleed to death. Shoot me in the head and watch me bleed to death. We had an argument. He just came outside and aimed that gun at me.

• 35:35Ashley Flowers?

  Dispatch asks if he'd gone back inside and she says, yes, she was trying to get a video of him aiming the gun at her, but he went back inside. And she says that she's not leaving because she wants her stuff. So she waits outside for officers to arrive.

• 35:51Speaker 00

  Am I doing the math wrong? How long were Nathan and Lakesha together?

• 35:56Ashley Flowers?

  I don't think you are. Andrea told us that her mom and Nathan's relationship obviously wasn't always the best, but it was pretty consistent since they started dating in 2021. In the police report, this woman said that her relationship with Nathan was off and on. But it feels like there is overlap to me. Our reporter, Taylor Day, tried getting in touch with that woman, but she hasn't responded to our request, so I can't confirm that for sure.

• 36:24Speaker 00

  And did Nathan get charged with anything in that case?

• 36:27Ashley Flowers?

  No. Because they never even talked to him or went inside the house that time. The responding officers wrote that they tried making contact with him. They knocked on the door, everything, whatever, but like, no one answered and he like, couldn't hear anyone inside.

• 36:42Speaker 00

  But he's clearly in there, right?

• 36:45Ashley Flowers?

  Right.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  Like, did the woman see him leave?

• 36:47Ashley Flowers?

  Well, it's not that I see anywhere. The officer wrote that he tried calling the suspect, but there was no answer. And there weren't any like, shell casings by the front doors.

• 36:57Speaker 00

  Because he aimed at her, but he didn't shoot at her.

• 37:00Ashley Flowers?

  Right. And there was a ring doorbell, but they couldn't view the footage. Basically, they had no probable cause to get a warrant on him, so they just let this go. Now, we asked CCPD about this incident and they only told us that there were no charges ever pressed against Nathan. But, by the way, Britt, that gun that she's referring to is black and red. The same gun that officers find in Lakesha's hand three months after this incident. Now, we also tried getting in touch with Nathan for this, obviously, to ask him about both incidents. But he hasn't returned our calls or our text messages. And I know we have the right number, or at least, we should have the right number because

• 37:45Ashley Flowers?

  it's the same one that he used to call Andrea just two years ago. And this would have been a year after her mom died. Now, mind you, Nathan fully ghosted Andrea after her mom died. Didn't even tell her that her mom died. She learned that through detectives. And by the time that the P I. got involved, Nathan was already like, lawyered up and refusing to cooperate. So the P I. didn't even reach out to him. So it's not like Nathan like, went off the grid and like, people couldn't find him or anything. But still, he's just been like, radio silent. Until, out of the blue, a year after her mom died, Andrea gets this call that she recorded and shared with us.

• 38:29Ashley Flowers?

  Now, it's not super long, but I have cut it down to just what I think are the most important parts.

• 38:34Speaker 09

  I'm getting back in the country. I got, they told me that the investigation's over and I can pick up my stuff. I got my stuff, my phone. And my daughter, my daughter told me that she's saying something online, saying that, uh, um, that you guys said that I killed your mom. And I'm like, "What?"

• 38:51Speaker 10

  You did.

• 38:52Speaker 09

  What? How would I kill? I didn't kill your mom. Your mom, me and your mom had a good night and everything. Her friend called her, her friend called her and told her, because she didn't want to go to the wedding. I remember this. Friend called her and told her, "If she didn't come to her wedding, she was never gonna see her again." And your mom start drinking, drinking, drinking. So, we got it, too. I stopped drinking. And then I call, she went out, she went outside, went out and left. And I call you, I said, "I don't know which one was your mom." You don't remember that?

• 39:27Speaker 10

  Yeah, what all did you, what all did you say?

• 39:30Speaker 09

  I said, "We was both drinking and saying, you know." So I don't, I don't kind of remember everything that I told you would happen at night. But, because she was out of control. Then she came back, my gun was on the, on the dresser. She grabbed the gun and she put it to my head. So I'm thinking that it's nothing in the gun anyway. So I, I think, I said, "Go ahead and kill me." I said, "I'm ready to go see my mom and dad anyway." So then she took the gun off to me, went back in the bedroom. So, the gun didn't have no bullets in it anyway. I only had two bullets. They was in my, it was in my jewelry box.

• 40:12Speaker 09

  So, in between that time she was in the room, I'm still in the, in the living room, listening to music. I hear the gun go off, shooting in the ceiling. So I'm like, "There's no bullets in that gun." And then she said, "I could warn him, Doc." I put the soap. So I was like, "Well, that must have been the one I was in the chamber." But when she came out with the gun, I was in the living room, came out with it, put it to her head, pointing to her head. Then she goes, "Doc, no, you ain't gonna do it. Stop doing it." She kept walking in front of me and some kind of trip and the gun went off. It was there.

• 40:53Ashley Flowers?

  So there is a lot to unpack there. For the most part, his story isn't that different from what he told police the day of Lakesha's death. But there are some glaring inconsistencies.

• 41:06Speaker 00

  Like the fact that she tripped?

• 41:09Ashley Flowers?

  Where did that come from?

• 41:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:10Ashley Flowers?

  I scoured the records and I couldn't find anywhere that Nathan told police Lakesha tripped and the gun went off.

• 41:20Speaker 00

  I mean, her tripping would kind of make more sense, at least to me, then if-

• 41:26Ashley Flowers?

  With like the bullet trajectory?

• 41:27Speaker 00

  Bullet trajectory, yeah.

• 41:27Ashley Flowers?

  But that's not what he said happened before. He said that she turned the gun on herself because of their argument, because he was gonna break up with her.

• 41:35Speaker 00

  An argument which is now about something else?

• 41:39Ashley Flowers?

  That too, right? Like at the scene, he's saying that she did it because he was gonna break up with her. They had fought about him not going to her mom's funeral. Right, the fight escalated. He threatened to break up with her. Now, there's this whole other thing before this? Like where she starts drinking because her friend threatened to cut her or cut ties with her if she didn't come to her wedding?

• 42:01Speaker 00

  I mean, maybe both are true? Like, if that's what started her drinking that night and then she got upset over other stuff, he could have just found out about the fight in, like the fight with the friend in a year or so, like since or something?

• 42:16Ashley Flowers?

  Except, no. But I mean, first of all, like, I don't think he's talking to anyone, again-

• 42:21Speaker 00

  He's ghosting everybody.

• 42:21Ashley Flowers?

  Everybody. And he didn't find out about anything because none of that is true, at least according to the friend.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  There's nothing to find out.

• 42:31Ashley Flowers?

  The friend that he's referring to is Lakesha's best friend of over 30 years, Tanya Malone, who was willing to talk to us and answer my biggest questions. Did you tell Lakesha that you wouldn't see her again if she didn't come to your wedding? And she says, no. More than that, she's like, "Lakesha didn't tell me anything about not even being able to make it." She's like, "The last I heard from her was that she was, like, printing out her travel plans." And earlier, Lakesha had told her that the only thing that could keep her from Tanya's wedding was nothing but death. So let me play a little more of Nathan's call to Andrea for you.

• 43:13Speaker 10

  So what are you calling me for right now?

• 43:15Speaker 09

  I mean, I just got my phone back. So I, I, I said, "Well, let me call her and let her know because I could have called you and talked." I couldn't call, I couldn't call nobody before. So I just wanted to straighten it out, that you know what happened. Because they told me, "Do not call y'all," they were telling y'all what happened. But apparently, they didn't tell y'all what happened.

• 43:37Speaker 10

  You didn't tell them what happened either?

• 43:40Speaker 09

  I told them everything what happened. I told them, I told the investigators, "What happened the first time?" I told her, she kept coming, she kept wanting me to come down there and tell her what happened again and again and again. I was like, "No, I don't want to relive this over and over."

• 43:55Speaker 10

  It wouldn't have happened, period, because she didn't, she, she didn't do that. She don't even know how to use a gun.

• 44:02Speaker 09

  Are you kidding me? Your mom's gun, your mom used to be in a gang.

• 44:07Speaker 10

  So you, so you just went out the country, just, and been gone ever since?

• 44:13Speaker 09

  I mean, I, I was devastated. I mean, I'm, I'm moving out of this country, you know?

• 44:18Speaker 10

  So now life just gets to go on for you after this, this, this? And it's been a whole year later and you just now reaching out?

• 44:27Speaker 09

  I was told, I paid tax.

• 44:29Speaker 10

  That's, that's, that's just crazy to me. That's not what I was told.

• 44:33Speaker 09

  I don't know what you told, but I know what I was told. I mean, I'm, I'm just devastated as you are. I'm not, I, I have no reason to lie about it. I loved your mom. I mean, why would I, why would I?

• 44:45Speaker 10

  Same question I want to know.

• 44:48Speaker 09

  Remember when I called you, I said, "Something wrong with your mom." I called you, told you, and left my house, went walking. I told you.

• 44:56Speaker 10

  And you hung up on me because you said that she was at the doorbell and I never heard a doorbell?

• 45:01Speaker 09

  I said she was at the door, came in the door.

• 45:04Speaker 10

  That's not what you said. You said that she was ringing the doorbell, nonstop.

• 45:08Speaker 09

  I never locked the door. Well, no, I didn't call you ringing the doorbell. I never even locked the door.

• 45:13Speaker 10

  I remember the conversation like it was yesterday. It's me that's traumatized, not you.

• 45:18Speaker 09

  I'm traumatized myself. I was traumatized myself. I mean, I noticed your mom and I'm done with what happened and everything, but some things, when you see something, you can't unsee it.

• 45:31Ashley Flowers?

  That's pretty much the end of their conversation. Nathan trying to explain why he is more traumatized than Andrea. And that her mom would have been comfortable with guns because she was in a gang, which Andrea said is a total lie. So while we had Tanya on the phone, I also wanted to ask her about this. Was Lakesha ever in a gang? And Tanya literally just laughed. She told our reporter that the only gang Lakesha was in was a mama gang. She was busy raising her kids, getting her degree. She said that Lakesha did not have time to be in a gang. She also said that Lakesha didn't go looking for violence, but if it came to her, she was gonna put up a fight.

• 46:15Ashley Flowers?

  And Andrea helped clarify what that meant. She said that if Lakesha was wronged, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility for things to get physical, but she never used weapons, guns, knives, none of that.

• 46:31Speaker 00

  Also, why is Nathan trying to gaslight her into thinking that he never mentioned the doorbell or Lakesha banging on the door that night?

• 46:38Ashley Flowers?

  And like, so that 4:00 AM call to Andrea wasn't recorded. So no one but her and Nathan know what was said on that call. But you know what could tell us the absolute truth of whether or not Lakesha was outside banging on the door, ringing the bell, or if she came out of Nathan's bedroom with the gun in her hand? How about the cameras that were at Nathan's place? Except, there is just one problem.

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• 48:13Ashley Flowers?

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• 48:56Ashley Flowers?

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• 49:17Ashley Flowers?

  In the police records, detectives got a search warrant to collect both the Ring doorbell camera that Nathan had at his front door and the camera that he had inside that covered the hallway of his house, the one that went from the bedroom to the living room. But if footage was pulled, stored, reviewed? Can't tell you. Because there isn't anything else about the cameras in the file. And none of the footage was released to us.

• 49:54Speaker 00

  Was the PI able to get it?

• 49:56Ashley Flowers?

  No. Now, he's saying that they never reviewed any footage from any camera, like they being the police. Though I don't know, like, where he got that information. And, you know, we're just getting that from him. So I was like, "Listen, if this is legit, we need to like verify that with the department, right?" So we reached out to them. Our reporter Taylor had actually emailed Major Francisco Romero, who is the commander of the Criminal Investigations Division at CCPD. But it was so weird, so we're like asking about these cameras in this email, and his response back was like, "I can't talk to you about the cameras because this is an open and active case."

• 50:34Speaker 00

  What?

• 50:35Ashley Flowers?

  Which, the first that I'm hearing of this.

• 50:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:39Ashley Flowers?

  So I was like, "Go back to him and be like, 'Actually, is it?'" So we went back and was like, "Hey, we've been told, we had this email of you telling the family, like, everyone believes that this case is closed. Is that, is there new information?

• 50:55Speaker 00

  Is that not true, yeah?

• 50:56Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, is someone working this case?

• 50:57Speaker 00

  Is it reopened?

• 50:58Ashley Flowers?

  And so he replies, and he was like, you know, he didn't say this. He was like, "Oopsie daisy." He was basically like, "I misspoke. It is closed." Which leads me back to my first question.

• 51:09Speaker 00

  Then answer the question.

• 51:11Ashley Flowers?

  Now that we're on the same page about this being a closed case, talk to me about the cameras.

• 51:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:15Ashley Flowers?

  Well, he is saying that he is still not going to disclose anything about that, at least as of this recording. So I don't know what was on those cameras. I know they collected them, but did they actually review the footage, store the footage, collect the footage? Walter thinks, cameras or no cameras, they, the police, should see what he sees, even without all of that. He thinks there's at least enough to get them to reopen the case. He says between what he's been told about the gunshot residue test, what we know is in the file about Nathan's positive test, what we know about the bullet trajectory, how the gun was found in her right hand when she was left-handed.

• 51:58Ashley Flowers?

  And now, by the way, when he's got this recorded call where Nathan is saying that Lakesha tripped and the gun went off. So Walter thinks, like with all of this, there's enough for police to at least take a second look. So he goes to them with all of this and he asks, but they say no. Now, by this point, Walter and Andrea are working with an attorney named Chelsea Golding. And she requests a meeting with the medical examiner at the GBI. Right? Like if we're going back, Clayton County relied heavily on the GBI's death ruling to close the case. So they're like, maybe if we can get that changed, then they'll reconsider.

• 52:41Ashley Flowers?

  So in November 2024, Walter and Chelsea get on a Zoom call with Dr. Keith Layman. He's the GBI ME who performed Lakesha's autopsy. And they walk him through what they've found, even explain that the police have pretty much all of this information. It's not like this is like new or hearsay. And I have to imagine that Walter was shocked when Dr. Layman tells him he didn't have any of this information when he made his ruling. He wasn't given photos of the death scene. He didn't have the investigative context. Now, in the official autopsy report, it says that the only evidence they received was the decedent. Nothing else is listed. CCPD gave us a blanket statement that they,

• 53:26Ashley Flowers?

  quote, "provide all legally required and relevant investigative summaries to the GBI to assist in their findings," end quote. And I understand wanting to get an unbiased opinion, right? But the context clearly matters.

• 53:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:42Ashley Flowers?

  Because, I know it does here, because Dr. Layman takes some time to review the additional materials that Walter gave him. And a couple of weeks after their meeting, the GBI officially changes Lakesha's manner of death from suicide to undetermined. And this feels like the second big win Andrea and the family get. Finally, someone is listening to their pleas and seeing the things that don't add up. Now that the GBI has changed their ruling, Chelsea and Walter go back to CCPD, have a sit-down with Major Romero and some other brass, as Walter called them. But there was one person missing, someone they specifically requested to speak with.

• 54:26Ashley Flowers?

  And that was Detective Rosas, who was the primary detective on this case. Now, Major Romero still listens as Walter walks them through his findings, and they seem receptive to wanting to find the truth. But they like take this in. They're not going to make the decision in the room. Months go by. And then in February of 2026, Major Romero comes back with a decision. In an email to Chelsea, who is the lawyer, he says that they looked at the original investigation and they are not reopening Lakesha's case. He also says that the GBI only changed their ruling because of pressure from the family. He says the information that they gave him didn't turn up any new leads.

• 55:11Ashley Flowers?

  He says they're heartbroken for Ms. Thompson's family and will keep them in his thoughts and prayers. Andrea and team gets pretty much the same response when they tried to take all of this to the DA. They could call a grand jury, but the DA tells Andrea's attorney that they're deferring to CCPD, who is

• 55:28Speaker 00

  refusing to reopen the case at all.

• 55:31Ashley Flowers?

  Which is why Andrea came to us, to help share her mom's story. Clayton County stands by their decision. Major Romero responded to our request for comment and said that the case is closed. Now we're on the same page.

• 55:46Speaker 00

  Great.

• 55:47Ashley Flowers?

  But if new credible and verifiable evidence becomes available, they'll review it. But here is what the point of this episode is for me. I'm not saying Nathan has to be arrested and tried. I don't know what happened in that home.

• 56:07Speaker 00

  Right.

• 56:08Ashley Flowers?

  But there should be evidence that tells us. So this is the ask. This is the pressure I want to apply. If it is so black and white and the answers are all right there in the case files, then release everything.

• 56:22Speaker 00

  Then show us.

• 56:23Ashley Flowers?

  Why are you holding back certain information, like GSR results for Lakesha or any kind of digital evidence? The technology in the house could very well show what happened in those early hours that day. What could phone data show? The gaps in evidence being released is what leaves all of this room for doubt. And like, forget me, who cares if I have questions? Andrea should not have to live with these kinds of questions. Show her. Show Walter. If you can't show them proof that Lakesha took her own life, well, then that's when we have a bigger problem on our hands, don't we?

• 57:04Ashley Flowers?

  If a full and thorough investigation was done, show us. And for anyone out there, if you have relevant information about Lakesha Thompson or Nathan Fitten, you can send that to Clayton County PD. They still classify this case as closed. So also feel free to send information to us. Our email is [email protected].

• 57:31Speaker 00

  And in light of our discussion of suicide today, I want to remind people that if you or anyone you know is thinking about suicide, please know that emotional support can be reached by calling or texting the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

• 57:45Ashley Flowers?

  Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

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