Watching You | 5. Breaking Point

Nique’s daughters take sides. Two take to social media to defend their father while the other can’t believe it. Binge all episodes of Watching You ad-free today by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge Crimes on Apple Podcasts and hit ‘subscribe’ or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access. Join The Binge’s free newsletter – Patreon.com/TheBinge From serial killer nurses to psychic scammers – The Binge is your home for true crime stories that pull you in and never let go. The Binge – feed your true crime obsession. Watching You is brought to you by Sony Music Entertainment. Find out more about The Binge and other podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Listen to all episodes of Watching You ad-free right now by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page, or visit getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. The Binge: Feed your true crime obsession.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  When you put your body in the hands of a surgeon, you assume your doctor will do you no harm.

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  I'm looking at the surgery board for tomorrow, going, "These people are [bleep]."

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  But when your doctor's in it just for the money, something absolutely insane happens.

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  One doctor says, "Yeah, I did a lumbar fusion. My kickback was $25,000." And the other doctor's going, "Well, I only got $12,000 because I did a neck."

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  This is a story about a massive web of fraud and deception. Dozens of doctors, all over Southern California. A fraud worth over $1 billion.

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  Patients were committing suicide, losing their homes, losing their marriages.

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  From Sony Music Entertainment and Western Sound, this is Dr. Billions. Available now on The Binge. Search for Dr. Billions wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribers to The Binge can listen to all episodes all at once, ad-free. Detectives arrive at Juliana Redding's house in Santa Monica, California.

• 1:24Speaker 04

  There was no pulse.

• 1:25Speaker 05

  We knew that it wasn't an accident.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  An alleged murder-for-hire. Fraud to the tune of $150 million.

• 1:34Speaker 06

  I need to see the doctor, and I need to see the doctor right frickin' now.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Do what he says, or else. From Sony Music Entertainment and Western Sound, this is Doctor's Orders. Available now on The Binge. Search for Doctor's Orders wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  Hey y'all. Wanted to let you know verbal abuse and domestic violence are a part of this story. It's a cautionary tale to listen to with caution.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  When I was a kid, I remember spending long days in the summer outside, playing sports, riding bikes, bouncing on my friend's trampoline. Sometimes I'd lie down in the grass and just stare up at the clouds. And if I looked closely enough, I'd see little movements, tiny specks undulating on the surface of my eyes, blood cells moving quietly across my vision, a movement that, most of the time, I never noticed.

• 2:44Speaker 00

  I imagine that's how this long stretch of time felt to everyone involved in the murder case, Nikki Lyle. Chris Ford and John Richter were building a case as quickly as they could under a suffocatingly mountainous body of evidence. Sometimes, an indictment seemed to be just around the corner, and other times, it felt impossibly far away.

• 3:10Speaker 00

  Nikki was found in July of 2011. About six months later, in the new year, Matt moved Amanda and her younger sister Rebecca to Vermont, to the small town of Londonderry. He hadn't been charged with anything. He did seem, though, to be in quite a hurry.

• 3:28Speaker 07

  It was such a rush. And I remember we weren't even really fully packed. And it was like, that morning, my dad was like, "We have to go. We're leaving today." There were still, like, loose things on the floor that we just ended up leaving, because it was like, "We're just, we're going right now." And we drove up to Vermont in like, two days. We had like, moving trucks, and our, two of them in our driveway. And he was like, "Don't worry about that. Like, they're gonna come pick them up after we leave, but we have to go today."

• 3:56Speaker 00

  It made it seem like a fresh start, something he was doing to get them out of the spotlight.

• 4:02Speaker 07

  I remember him saying something like, because at the time, it was like, even more so, like how my house was no longer my home, because it was just, I couldn't even go outside and play anymore, because there was just news crews, always.

• 4:16Speaker 00

  Saving the girls from the prying eyes of the news cameras had the knock-on effect of getting them away from the rest of the family. Her older sister, Alex, was devastated.

• 4:27Speaker 06

  They felt like they were my kids in a way. And so when they left, it just was... I didn't lose a mom. I lost a mom and two sisters. And I mean, I knew from the get-go who killed her. There was no question in my mind. So for me, their safety became... It was terrifying.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  The court did allow mandated visits between Amanda, Rebecca, and their grandparents. But Alex was not invited.

• 4:54Speaker 07

  I remember explicitly, my dad was like, "Alex cannot be there. She cannot be alone with you. You cannot talk to her. And if she is, you have to call me. You have to call the police. She cannot be there."

• 5:07Speaker 00

  For Alex, her sisters remained just out of reach. And for them, she became a twisted story, a yarn Matt spun.

• 5:16Speaker 07

  Like, that's kind of when the poisoning against my mom's side of the family started was, "Well, Amy's saying this, and Alex is saying this." And it kind of feeding this idea of they're trying to take our dad away from us. Eventually, it did kind of turn into this, "We don't want to talk to them. We don't want to see them. They're trying to take us away from our dad or put him in jail for something he didn't do."

• 5:39Speaker 00

  So together with their dad, the girls started over. An A-frame cabin in rural Vermont. New school, new friends, same dark, unclear history now in the rearview, they thought. But for Alex, there were no new beginnings. The tragedy was, in fact, moving into its third act. Last time Matt came for her, it wasn't a fair fight. She was a kid. Now, she summoned the courage to reclaim her family and justice for Nikki. I didn't want him being paid to kill my mom, so...

• 6:16Speaker 07

  I was like, I don't care if the insurance company never pays this anywhere. Like, you're just not gonna get paid to do this.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  From Sony Music Entertainment, you're listening to Watching You. I'm Jonathan Hirsch. Episode five.

• 6:34Speaker 00

  Breaking Point.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  It took a long time to build a criminal case against Matt Liley. Years.

• 6:48Speaker 00

  During that time, Nikki's sister Amy tried to accept what she couldn't change. She knew that Gwinnett and Vermont Police were keeping an eye on Matt and the girls, but it felt far away to her.

• 7:01Speaker 07

  I was like, you know what? To me, he's gone. And it was sad to me that the girls were also gone. But again, nothing I could do about it. So I just had to mourn that loss and move on the best I could.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  But Alex couldn't move on. She couldn't sleep. She was consumed.

• 7:20Speaker 07

  Alex was in this fight the whole time. Of course, she was living her life and working, you know, doing day-to-day things. But she was, she was still in that fight that entire time. That is staggering to me.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  And it was that persistence that brought the case against Matt Liley into sharper focus.

• 7:45Speaker 00

  It all started when Alex refused to let Matt get Nikki's remains after the autopsy. He was gonna try to like cream up her, bury her, take possession of her body. He tried to have his own service. And I was like, no, no, you don't get to bury her. You don't get to do that, no. So I had to sue him for her remains, won that in court. Alex got to have a funeral for her mother at a church in Athens. But it was bittersweet because her sisters weren't there. Amanda knew the funeral was happening. It wasn't necessarily that he didn't allow us to go.

• 8:23Speaker 05

  But he made it feel like it was our decision not to go.

• 8:29Speaker 00

  A decision, mind you, he was leaving up to the discretion of girls, nine and 12 years old.

• 8:37Speaker 05

  Basically, the way he framed it was, oh, so mommy's funeral is today. Do you guys want to go?

• 8:43Speaker 00

  Do you guys want to go to mommy's funeral?

• 8:47Speaker 05

  We said, yes, of course. And then he was like, OK, but I'm not invited. They're not letting me go. And so it was basically like, OK, now we had to choose between supporting our dad or getting that closure with our mom and saying goodbye to her. And so he basically framed it as, like, looking back, you can very clearly tell, like, he's telling us he doesn't want us to go.

• 9:12Speaker 00

  Amanda and Rebecca, at this point, understand only that their mother had died tragically, that she'd left late one Friday night and never returned, that their sister and aunt believed their dad had killed her. It's as though the girls were on opposite sides of soundproof glass, shouting into the void. Alex was, no doubt, the loudest voice.

• 9:38Speaker 07

  And I was like, no, sir, you're not. You might not be arrested yet, but you're a prime suspect in this investigation. And so I sued him. I sued him for the rights to her body, and I sued him over the life insurance. And I was like, no, nope.

• 9:53Speaker 00

  It turned out Nikki, as a breadwinner, had the foresight to take out multiple life insurance policies. She had three with State Farm. They were worth a half a million dollars, payable at the time of death. And the primary beneficiary was none other than Matt Liley. So Alex's lawyer, a man named Noel Benedict, gave her some advice.

• 10:16Speaker 07

  You need to sue for wrongful death to stop the life insurance from being paid to him. He was like, just you need to stop the life insurance. And the only way to do that right now is to file a civil suit because he's not being charged criminally right now.

• 10:30Speaker 00

  That's how Alex, all of 19 years old, opened up another front in her ongoing battle with Matt. It was terribly hard, but necessary.

• 10:40Speaker 07

  There's a lot of history there. Sorry, I don't talk about that very well. But there was a lot of abuse as a very young child, even as young as four years old. So I think my backbone just comes from needing to survive and find a way away from him my whole life.

• 11:04Speaker 00

  State Farm started a routine investigation, as they do in cases of homicide, into whether or not Matt was involved. Because in Georgia, a murderer can't get insurance proceeds, even if they are the beneficiary. He pleads his case on calls with them. He told one agent that he hasn't been charged or arrested and protested his innocence. He also told Carol, that's the name of the agent, that his wife's family blamed him and thought he was controlling. He denied he was. One time in September, about six weeks after Nikki's murder, was particularly revealing. Two State Farm agents were comparing notes about Matt, and they not only caught him

• 11:43Speaker 00

  in a lie, they found possible evidence of premeditation. Carol said Matt told her that he didn't know about the life insurance policies. Her male colleague explained that he had email conversations with Matt about Nikki's policies months ago. In other words, before she was murdered. So Alex's lawyer, Noel Benedict, had advised her to sue Matt for wrongful death. But before that happened, State Farm filed a civil action of their own to determine whether or not they should pay Matt the money, or whether the insurance payout should go to Nikki's girls.

• 12:26Speaker 00

  At one point, a bunch of Nikki's family members got deposed. At question for Matt's attorney was the notion that Nikki's family was simply prejudiced against him. That her murder, the questions around the timeline of her disappearance, the clear signs of abuse, were all part of an orchestrated attempt to pin her death on him. And so Matt's lawyer, when he's talking to Alex during her deposition, leaned in. You, and I don't think this is a secret, you dislike Matt Lyle. Yes. You hate Matt Lyle. Yes.

• 13:01Speaker 05

  And have you ever liked Mr. Liley? No. Do you believe Mr. Liley is a monster? Yes. And have you sent Mr. Liley a text message that says that you want him to rot in jail? Yes. And have you posted on Facebook that you think Mr. Liley is a piece of shit? Yes. And do you believe that in fact to be the case?

• 13:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:28Speaker 00

  Okay, there's something truly bizarre going on here. And something I've noticed time and again digging into this case. Matt's defense rests on this idea that it mattered that Alex wanted him to rot in prison. That she called him a piece of shit on Facebook. But does it really? Because Matt's not fighting to become class president. He's fighting for his freedom. It seems to me that he took the bait and made the insurance payout dispute personal. And by doing that, exposed himself in other ways. And this suit, the money at stake, it was enough to bring him back into the sightlines of the Gwinnett County homicide investigators. When, in 2015, he came down to Atlanta to testify.

• 14:14Speaker 00

  Once and for all, lawyers for Matt and Alex would each plead their case regarding the insurance payout in federal court. With Matt coming back to Georgia to testify, Rick Dur and the team saw an opportunity. But it was not without risk.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  Yes, it was at the date.

• 14:32Speaker 00

  Matt's story had changed depending on who he was talking to. Footage from the night Nikki disappeared was missing, and it was clear that Matt had had something to do with its disappearance. He'd surveilled his own family for years. But when you think about it, is that enough to convict him of murder? Would a jury really put him behind bars for life? Lisa Jones, the assistant DA, knew they needed a contingency, and they got one by filing a different charge against Matt.

• 15:06Speaker 05

  There was lots of planning that went into that, which is why we took the eavesdropping warrants to start with. Because we were trying to figure out a little bit more. And it was difficult because we could, again, he was in Vermont and he had left and, you know, gone. And we knew that he was coming back here for the federal trial on the life insurance. And so we knew that he was going to be here for that trial, which would make our lives a lot easier if he was local and we did not have to take arrest warrants for him in Vermont and then have to have him extradited from Vermont to Georgia.

• 15:36Speaker 00

  And Richter told me he was afraid to serve Matt a warrant in Vermont, that it might endanger the girls.

• 15:44Speaker 05

  And also, we wanted the opportunity to surprise, the element of surprise, quite frankly, just to see because, you know, he's coming back to try to claim his insurance policy on his wife, who we firmly believed at that point and thought we had enough evidence to charge him, that he was the one responsible. We absolutely didn't want him getting that insurance money. We wanted the daughters to get what they were entitled to and not him to benefit from it. But it was kind of the idea of, let's figure this out.

• 16:11Speaker 00

  So they went after him on another charge: eavesdropping.

• 16:18Speaker 05

  We had those recordings where we knew that he'd recorded Nikki, like I said, talking to her dad, talking to her sister. And it was clear she had no idea that he was coming. I mean, some of the times where she'd talk about him, you know, to them and that sort of thing. And clearly had no idea that he's listening to all of it.

• 16:33Speaker 00

  And in an ironic twist of fate, as Matt boarded a plane from Vermont to Georgia, he had no idea that he was now the one being watched by U.S. Marshals in plain clothes who had boarded the flight with him en route to Atlanta, his final destination.

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• 18:01Speaker 00

  Amy will never forget the day Matt showed up in court. Though she wasn't there, she was at a Purim carnival at her synagogue. It's a Jewish holiday where you dress up in costume.

• 18:13Speaker 07

  I was dressed as Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas. So I had like this big old rag doll wig and like, you know, stitches, you know, on my face. I looked ridiculous.

• 18:25Speaker 00

  That's when Alex called her from the courtroom.

• 18:28Speaker 07

  So she's like, oh my God, Amy, it was a miracle. She said, he testified and he just kept talking and he wouldn't shut up. And she was like, it was like he had diarrhea of the mouth. He was like all over the place and contradicted himself a bajillion times. And she was giddy about it. She was like, oh my God.

• 18:52Speaker 00

  They had no idea what was about to go down.

• 18:56Speaker 07

  And what we didn't know at the time, but we found out a couple hours later, was that the courtroom was crawling with plainclothes Gwinnett police, including John Richter. And so they were all there, sitting there, watching him perjure himself, basically, in federal court. And then they waited for the court proceedings to be over that day and they arrested him.

• 19:34Speaker 07

  I was stunned. I was like, oh, my God. Wow. I had gotten to a point where, like I said, like a point of acceptance. Where I was like, OK, this is, this is the world I live in now. Is that my sister was murdered by her husband and the son of a bitch got away with it. That was the reality that I had been living in for five years.

• 20:00Speaker 07

  He was arrested in the courthouse.

• 20:02Speaker 00

  They stopped him and arrested him that day. Alex was already driving back home. And I was like, damn it, I missed it.

• 20:11Speaker 07

  Like, I just, because apparently he kind of put up a fight. Evidently, my understanding is that he resisted when they arrested him and that it was quite a show. And at one point, I think he mouthed off to him and was like, oh, whatever. You know, I'm, I'm going to be out on bond tomorrow and blah, blah, blah. And the whole time Richter's like, yeah, buddy, we're booking you for murder. You're not getting bond.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  Here's how Richter said it went down.

• 20:40Speaker 03

  It was just me and my partner, Whaley, and a guy named Dion Washington. He was in the homicide unit, so we brought him with us. So we surveilled the court a little bit, but we knew and we communicated because it was federal court. So we had to communicate with the federal people and the judge had to be aware of what we were going to do. We waited till he got in the elevator. He just exited the doors till like the end of the day of court. And that's when we got him. And of course, don't hurt me, don't hurt me is the first thing he says. Now Dion, my partner, Washington, he's a big guy, right? And he's putting the handcuffs on. And I'm standing there telling him, you're under arrest, blah, blah, blah. Just like TV, right? So he's like, don't hurt me. He's 6'5", he's 2'6". Don't hurt me. Oh, those cuffs, that's such a little, you know what I mean? Like, he's a big, tough guy when he's sitting on Strahl and Nikki and abusing her verbally and physically.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  But when the cops were arresting him, Matt asked them to not hurt him. Nearly four years after John Richter made that promise in the woods where they found Nikki's body, he delivered.

• 21:40Speaker 00

  Matt was placed in the front seat of Richter's unmarked detective car.

• 21:44Speaker 03

  And now we're driving back, right? Forty minute drive and I want to talk to him. I want this guy to talk to me. He goes to sleep. That's how. You know, that's how concerned he was. He just dozed off, you know, I'm just trying to shoot the shit. I'm trying to build rapport. You know, I know him, he thinks I'm an idiot. He sends it over the, not me personally, but the police in general. And that's, that's something you don't forget when someone says, oh, those cops are all just stupid. He already told us in the car. I ain't talking to you. But we like to sit down, put him in the chair, right? And read him his rights.

• 22:22Speaker 03

  And that's what I told him, you know, not just the eavesdropping warrant, but you're being charged with murder as well.

• 22:31Speaker 00

  Alex slept well that night for the first time in a long time.

• 22:36Speaker 07

  I don't think my grief process started until he was arrested. I don't think I even processed that she was dead until he was arrested. Because all I, I didn't sleep at night. I mean, I lived on Klonopin, to be perfectly honest, because it's the only way I could sleep. Uh, because I was scared he was coming for me and rightfully so, because I'm pretty sure he wanted to bury me. And I'm the bitch he was talking about in that call.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Paul, I want to bury the bitch. I want to bury the whole fucking family.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  Matt was assigned a public defender. The trial date was set. It's astonishing how effective Matt had been at keeping Alex from his daughters. While he was behind bars awaiting trial, Amanda and Rebecca stayed with Matt's father at that cabin in Vermont. Matt's car sat unused, his things unmoved. Everything in that house was supposed to be on pause until he got back.

• 23:44Speaker 07

  You couldn't touch his car because he was coming back. It was never touched, never driven. He was coming back and that was all of his stuff.

• 23:51Speaker 00

  And their job in the meantime was to help him get out. I basically became his lawyer because he didn't trust the public defender and so.

• 24:01Speaker 05

  The phone calls were every single day. We were probably talking to him for like three hours a day.

• 24:06Speaker 07

  And even like the ones where I'm not really talking, like I was on the phone. Like we had two lines and we would be on separate phones on the same line. So it's like even like where like I would answer the phone and like maybe say something and then he'd have me put Amanda on. Like I'm still on the line, like listening.

• 24:23Speaker 00

  The girls had to be ready to take his call.

• 24:29Speaker 00

  Thank you for using Secura. You may start the conversation now.

• 24:33Speaker 05

  I don't know. I told Amanda to do it and she was like, um, and she was like, you can do it. Get the iPod and plug it in. And I was like, I don't know where to plug it in.

• 24:43Speaker 03

  You guys have your fun, okay? Have your fun. When I get home, both of you, say goodbye to your lives outside the house. That includes sports, boyfriends, everything. So have your fun now, okay? Cause when I get home, it's gonna be different. You may start the conversation now. Make a note of this. Granddaddy, when I was talking to him, he flat out says, I never knew nothing. They don't tell me nothing. They, uh, they...

• 25:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  That I need on tape.

• 25:13Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 25:15Speaker 03

  I need you to, this week, up until January, whatever, you're gonna have to go back and review some of those, um, recordings. And find some juicy stuff that we can use for our evidence. I need you, I need you to find that cassette recorder and the power cord for it. Don't forget, cause if I call you tomorrow and decide to do it or something, I don't want you to, oh, I didn't find it, do this and that. I mean, I might as well just go to fucking prison. I'm tired of, you know, reminding you sixteen times to do something. I mean, this is just, it's too much trouble. It really is. I have more stress over getting you to do something. Did you even tell Pop about the fucking bills?

• 25:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  Oh, no, I was gonna tell him later.

• 25:54Speaker 05

  It was basically, I'd go to school. I'd come home. I'd try and get as much homework as I could done before he called. And then he would call and he'd ask, oh, did you do this, this and this? Hey Daddy.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  Hi. Hi, listen, I gotta ask you for something and I'm probably gonna have to threaten you and everything else, okay? I need you by Monday to write a report on all eight or nine videos. The first line will be, this video is from the deposition, from the wrongful death deposition dated blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I need that by Monday. This is life or death. I need it by Monday for all videos. I will, if you don't do it by Monday, I will take your phone away forever.

• 26:45Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  This is my life. You understand?

• 26:48Speaker 05

  Yes, sir. Sometimes I could lie and get away with it, or sometimes he'd call me out on it, like, oh, did you hear this part? And I'd say, oh, yeah, I heard that. And he's like, oh, well, that wasn't in that recording, so you're lying. So like, I'd get in trouble for not doing the lawyer homework, he responded, because I was doing my school homework instead. And like, I'd tell him, like, I'm sorry, I had this big assignment for AP Bio. And he's like, well, do you want me to come home or not?

• 27:14Speaker 05

  There was one point where he was like, do you love me? So it became like, if he was found guilty, it was my fault. I did not do enough research. I did not do my job.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  The research he was talking about was about her mom's murder. She had to listen to all the same recordings that John Richter did.

• 27:36Speaker 05

  He's got me researching what wines have the highest, cause the highest GHB levels.

• 27:43Speaker 00

  To use for his defense. GHB is a chemical commonly found in the so-called date rape drug. The toxicology report had noted elevated levels of it in Nikki's body after she died.

• 27:57Speaker 00

  Matt's demands on Amanda and Rebecca were unrelenting. Their lives were basically consumed with his legal problems. Perhaps the most egregious example of Matt using the girls for his protection was the YouTube videos.

• 28:15Speaker 05

  The YouTube videos, we released them right before the bail hearing.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  Amanda cut them all herself.

• 28:23Speaker 05

  We need to make sure our side of the story gets out. Everything's always all been that side of the family.

• 28:31Speaker 00

  I know once my mom married my dad, she finally started standing up for herself and started saying no.

• 28:37Speaker 06

  And started saying that she wanted nothing to do with her family. And they've never liked my dad. And I've been reading things online. I've been watching the news and I can see the hatred that they have for my dad. And it's just ridiculous, the lies they're spreading.

• 29:02Speaker 05

  We need to get our story out so then the public knows. And I don't remember if he actually said this or if he just like kind of insinuated.

• 29:10Speaker 00

  But I think part of it was to also prior to the trial, make sure that jury members or possible jury members would see this stuff and he could sway them before the trial.

• 29:26Speaker 00

  The videos take aim at Nikki claiming she heard voices the morning she called 911. They imply that her father might have had something to do with her death. He was a retired chemist for the EPA.

• 29:40Speaker 07

  Funny if you knew our grandfather, he's the sweetest goofball. He used to do an impression of Donald Duck. He still does, he still does it.

• 29:53Speaker 07

  He's a very, very good Donald Duck, too.

• 29:57Speaker 07

  He's kind of aloof, like he's just.

• 30:01Speaker 00

  He's not plotting the murder of his daughter. The YouTube videos question the manner and timing in which the body was found.

• 30:11Speaker 06

  The police who had searched for her body for a week, it's their job to find missing people. And Alex and her sister and Amy managed to go to search parties together and find her body in seven minutes. And the news crews happened to be there to find this all. And I just, I find that really suspicious and really off putting.

• 30:32Speaker 00

  And perhaps, given what we know now, the most alarming of claims, that Nikki's own peril inside the relationship with Matt was itself a fabrication.

• 30:43Speaker 06

  The media and the news, they pick up on a Jerry Springer type sob story of domestic violence. And they spread it like wildfire all over.

• 30:54Speaker 05

  Over the place. Honestly, we can't wait to face this family in court and call out their lies. And they've done nothing but cause us pain and torment. And our day in court will come. And hopefully, my dad will be able to come home.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  In one video after these words, the screen goes black. Then says, Nikki's voice will be heard and the truth will come out. At least that part was true.

• 31:27Speaker 00

  Amidst all this chaos with the upcoming trial and Matt's demands, Amanda and Rebecca are so young, 16 and 13 years old, believing or at least behaving as people who believed their dad was innocent. But despite having been through this together, despite sharing a room and a bunk bed, they weren't confidants.

• 31:50Speaker 07

  We didn't talk much at all. Even while still being scared of him, like I still believed he was innocent. And even in the years when he was arrested, and as I was saying, like Amanda and I was just like, it was like two ships in the night. Like, it was like, we were not, we didn't really talk to each other. Like, when it was at school, like, it was like, people were surprised when they, like, would know that we had the same last name. And they're like, are you guys related? And it was like, yeah, she's, she's my sister. But it was like, we just didn't have any of that type of relationship.

• 32:26Speaker 00

  And the relationship between the girls and their grandfather wasn't any better.

• 32:31Speaker 07

  Legally, he was our guardian, but I was the one that was managing the bank account and making sure bills were paid and making grocery lists and meal plans. Like, he would cook, but it was, okay, this is the meal plan I had set up. Monday night, we're making this. These are the groceries we bought. This was the budget, making sure that my dad's commissary was paid and the jail phone calls and all of that. Like, he had money in his account. My grandfather didn't do any of that.

• 33:01Speaker 00

  Rebecca increasingly leaned on her best friend.

• 33:04Speaker 07

  I basically clung to my best friend at the time, and I was around her 24/7. Like, I was either at her house, she lived not too far down the road, or she was at mine. And I feel horrible that I put her in that position, but she did become that shield for me. And my grandfather would still scream at me in front of her.

• 33:27Speaker 00

  They would fight about little things, like who left the ceiling fan on. But Rebecca and Amanda remember someone who, like his son, their dad, could be combative and angry. These girls no longer had a father or a mother. They barely seemed to have each other at that time. And the environment they were living in was neither supportive or loving, from their accounts. But when their father finally went on trial for the murder of their mother, they testified on his behalf. They tried to convince the world what they had been led to believe, that he couldn't possibly have killed their mother.

• 34:06Speaker 03

  Is this gentleman here your dad?

• 34:08Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 34:08Speaker 03

  Okay, and you loved him, right?

• 34:10Speaker 05

  Of course.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  Very briefly describe the relationship that your mom and you had.

• 34:15Speaker 05

  They loved each other.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  Did they ever fight, argue?

• 34:18Speaker 05

  They did argue, yes.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  Did you ever see your dad hit your mom?

• 34:22Speaker 05

  No.

• 34:22Speaker 03

  Did you ever see any obvious injuries or bruises to your mom?

• 34:27Speaker 05

  No, sir.

• 34:29Speaker 00

  Next time, the series finale of "Watching You." Matt Liley is on trial for Nikki's murder.

• 34:36Speaker 07

  I remember when the lawyer asked if I loved my dad. The blocking kicked in that I had been taught, and I remember saying, "Yes." And then I remember turning and looking at my dad. It was like that was the director.

• 34:52Speaker 00

  The conviction brings justice, but doesn't bring closure.

• 34:57Speaker 05

  I've trashed my mom to the world. I've made her out to be crazy.

• 35:01Speaker 00

  And for the first time in many years, Nikki's girls come together to pick up the pieces.

• 35:08Speaker 07

  It's a work in progress because I genuinely believe it's all born out of fear of losing one or the other because we've all lost each other in some capacity already. And so, we feel like we'd rather have a little thread than nothing at all.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  Watching You is an original production of Sony Music Entertainment. It's hosted and reported by me, Jonathan Hirsch. Jason Hoke of Wavelength Media is our lead producer and co-reported the series with me. Catherine St. Louis is our story editor. Sony Music Entertainment, the executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch. Sound design and mixing by Scott Somerville. We use music from Epidemic Sound and APM. Our fact checker is Naomi Barr. Our production managers are Tamika Balance-Kalasny and Sammy Allison. Our lawyer is Minakshi Krishnan. Special thanks to Steve Ackerman, Emily Rossek, Jamie Myers, and the whole team at Sony Podcasts. If you're enjoying the podcast, please rate and leave us a review. Thank you so much for listening.

• 36:43Speaker 05

  I'm Sarah Kaelin. This season of ID's Who Killed Angel Harris investigates the 2011 unsolved murder of a 31-year-old woman in Gainesville, Florida.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  It was definitely shocking. Either it's a bullet hitting a bullet, or there's a lot of really strong coincidences here. More likely than not, this is a serial killer.

• 37:07Speaker 05

  Listen to Who Killed Angel Harris wherever you get your podcasts.