Hunting 4 Answers: The Story of Nina Cook: Part 2

Hunting for Answers is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Welcome to Hunting for Answers, a true crime podcast. I'm your host, Hunter, and today we continue our three part series into the life and murder of twenty eight year old Nina Cook, a young woman from Memphis, Tennessee, whose life was cut tragically short in October of twenty fourteen. In the first part of the series, we met Nina through the eyes of her siblings, Lydia,

I think when you speak to.

When you speak to a loved one, uh, you don't expect it to.

Be the last time that you talk to them. So I don't remember the last conversation that I had with her because I didn't know that.

It would be the last.

I've tried to replay that and think about it in my mind, but I don't recall. What I probably remember last is uh my last visit coming down to Memphis.

Although Lydia may not remember the exact conversation, she does remember her last visit with Nina.

Vividly in celebration. And Nina couldn't make it, but promised me that she would see me the next day. So we met up at my uncle Bobby's house, and the first thing she did was she came in with a big smile, as she always did, and she wanted to hold my hand and sit on my lap. So our last pictures are of us cozy together on the sofa, holding hands as always, and we laughed and she hugged on my babies. I didn't want to let her go.

For Chris, Nina's younger brother, his last memory of his sister comes from a casual family gathering at their grandmother's house.

Yes, I do now. That had to have been springtime. And the last time that I saw, we were just all chilling at my grandmother's house. And man, you know, she was just very dressed to the nine. She had recovered pretty nicely. You know, they talk about the rod in her hip. She did have a little bit of a car accident, and she had recovered nicely, and she was getting dressed up to the nines.

The surgical rod in Nina's like would later play a crucial role in identifying her remains. But it's what happened next that Chris holds most here, a moment that would become the final memory of his sister.

I was in my grandmother's room, laying on my bed, laying on my grandmother's bed rather, and you know, she kind of just came in very softly touched my face, you know, and it's a you know, it's something that you know, like a man just said, you never think that this is going to be the last time you're gonna see or hear from somebody.

You know.

The last thing that I remember my sister saying to me, which is the first thing that I knew, and I always knew, you know, she told me that she loved me. You know, her last words to me was I love you, and you know, it's it's it's it's hard to kind of think about that as the last registered memory that you have of your one of your greatest inspirations. And

Kenya. Nina's younger sister also recalled seeing Nina at their grandmother's house shortly before her disappearance.

So when I found out it was really more so my family just kind of like, oh, we haven't heard from we call her Gina In my family too. We hadn't heard from Gina in a little bit. I recall my last time seeing her was around maybe early June or so. I mean, she came by my grandmother's house and I saw her.

None of Nina's loved ones remember her expressing any concerns or fears during these last interactions.

No, I don't recall any fears being express No, she came around the family, She was fine, We had fun, we talked. I think around that time, I probably had just had my daughter not too long before, maybe a year or two before she was missing, So she was trying to be in my daughter's life and just making sure she stayed connected with the family. But I didn't sense any fear or any threat or you know, that she was in danger or anything like that.

Family gatherings, expressions of love, staying connected to family, Everything seemed to be fine. There were no dramatic goodbyes, no warnings, and no sense that anything was wrong, which makes what happened next all the more disturbing. The exact timeline of when Nina went missing is difficult to pinpoint. There was no single moment when an alarm was raised. Instead, her absence and lack of communication drew concern that gradually grew louder.

When we didn't hear from her around her birthday, which is in September, that's when my side of the family for sure started, you know, getting a little bit more worried, like Lydia said. And I was actually not the one to submit the missing persons because I think for me as well, we were just kind of like, oh, yeah,

Since Nina was always on the go and at the time, her family had no reason to suspect the worst.

So I don't think the worst came to mind automatically. I know it didn't for me, So I did not fill out the missing person's report because I just knew that we were gonna hear from her again, and she would pop up when she's ready.

She was not.

She was known to kind of go do her own thing and then we hear from her when she was finished or you know, felt like talking or whatever.

So, but there was one day that should have brought word from Nina, her birthday. No matter where she was or what she was doing, she would always speak to her family on or around her birthday.

Of course, I called and talked to Dad about it, and Dad said the last time he had heard from her was Father's Day. He had already mailed off her birthday card and he was waiting to hear back from her because she would always call when she got her birthday card.

Father's Day was in June. Nina's birthday was in September. The realization that no one had seen or heard from Nina in months finally began to sink in Lydia remembers getting the call from Kenya about how Nina seemed to be missing.

Can you call me? And I remember I was helping my mom out at the hair salon, and I am always optimistic, so at the mention of her possibly being missing, I'm like, no, you know, we'll hear from her birthdays coming up. She's just traveling, you know how Nina is, we'll talk to her soon.

As the days turned two weeks and September gave way to October, the silence became increasingly difficult to ignore. Eventually, a missing person report was filed and the official missing person's investigation was launched. But no one could have imagined where the investigation would lead.

Let's take the necessary steps in case there is something wrong, but I could not. I couldn't allow my mind to go there. So I think I just kind of compartmentalized things and was just like, it's one of those days. You know, she's gonna call. You know, of course we'll find her. These type of things, don't you know happened to us.

In October twenty fourteen, Kenya rect an unexpected visit from the police that would change everything for me.

And then in the October is when I actually found out that it really was something wrong. And so on that day, it's when I got a knock at the door from the police department and they gave me the contact number for the sergeant and basically said that they had you know, they wanted me to talk to the sergeant. They felt like they had found a body, and they just kind of wanted to confirm, and so that was my first real notification that.

She had passed.

I believe it was October.

Once. Can you call me and said that they had identified our body and that they had found her.

That was really hard because it became real and something that we now have to face and deal with.

And you're wondering why and how I had to share that news with my dad and for it to be solidified through dental records and the ride that she had in her leg from the accident.

It wasn't.

It wasn't something that I could deny.

I just I just broke down. I don't know how you and how you deal with something like that.

The surgical rod in Nina's leg, along with the dental records, was the final confirmation Nina Cook was gone. On October seventh, twenty fourteen, Nina Cook's remains were discovered in a vacant church building at eleven seventy five East Trigg Avenue in Memphis. The property had been foreclosed and empty since October twenty thirteen. A church caretaker made the grim discovery and called nine one one. Nina's body was found lying on the floor, covered by a soiled curtain and in an advanced state

I remember in the beginning going down to the station, to the investigations bureau and you know, talking to the sergeant, getting you know, information, giving information details, and just trying to come up with next steps.

The family provided whatever information they could, trying to reconstruct Nina's final days in weeks leading up to her untiled death.

So yeah, being told about possibly running DNA through the cysts them to see if there was a match, and you know, talking about the crime scene and just giving our statements and trying to recount and recall who we remember her being in communication with, you know, people that she knew, people that she went to school with, anyone that she dated, or just anything that we could come up with to try to find clues.

Social media provided one potential source of information, a digital trill that might offer insight into Nina's last movements.

We were looking at her social media to kind of see where she was or what she posted things like that. And like Amanda say it, this was October and so we were a few months behind, so it was a lot that we could not get access to. But in the beginning it did really feel like we were making some lead way.

I think any family member.

That deals with a tragic loss. They want answers, they want help, they want support from law enforcement, from media to bring justice to your family member. When things first started out, I felt like everyone was going strong, We're gonna find the answers. Uh. There was talk about DNA. I watched enough crime shows right to know that you can find, you know, answers with just the smallest shread of evidence. The hope was that people would talk, they

Despite the initial spark of interest in Nina's case, the investigation faced significant challenges and roadblocks.

So I didn't.

Understand why we couldn't get more answers, why her email couldn't be accessed, why checks in like the Green Dot card things couldn't be.

Traced.

I understood because I went to some of the businesses myself, and at the time a lot of them only held recordings for thirty days, maybe ninety days, and we were far behind from the time that they found her body to the time that the investigation began.

The condition of Nina's remains also presented for what is it challenges for the investigation.

So because of the state of her body. I did understand that and the time frame. I did understand that we were at a disadvantage, but I had so much hope that we would have more resolved than we did and just more support. I thought my phone would be ringing off the hook trying to get answers and people reaching out and wanting to share her story and also, you know, fine justice, But.

It just wasn't.

Everything dried up and I didn't hear back from anyone until now.

Unfortunately, I don't think we got any clues or tips through like the hotline, like the Rewards hotline. We were trying to get some information, see if anybody could give some anonymous tips, but we were not successful with that. We did not have that much concrete evidence at all.

As the investigation continued to unfold or lack thereof, Lydia and the rest of Nina's loved ones felt like her case wasn't being treated fairly or given the priority it deserved.

And I think in the investigation, when her story didn't look picture perfect, it didn't see news worthy enough to pull on the heartstrings, it felt like her life didn't matter, and things began to be swept under the rug.

Lydia's frustration grew as she encountered roadblock after roadblock in her own quest for information in the truth behind what happened to her sister.

I heard a lot of there wasn't enough of this. I couldn't do that. I couldn't I wanted to get into her post office box at the University of Memphis. I wanted to get camera footage. I wanted DNA evidence. I wanted, you know, different people to be spoken to or interviewed more thoroughly.

Despite the decline and resources into Nina's case, Lydia says, the lead investigator did make genuine efforts, even when other authorities began to turn their time elsewhere.

And I know things probably take time. And I believe that the sergeant who was working with us put in really great efforts. He was supportive and communicative for a while, but then I think he was on the verge of retiring. And I'm sure there's processes and high crime city, all these things. Perhaps her story was one that was easily placed on the back burner.

Over a decade later, the questions surrounding Nina's death remain largely unanswered. Who would want to harm her? What were the circumstances leading up to her final moments, and what happened between June and October of twenty fourteen. In Part three of this series, will examine the broader implications of Nina's case, how it fits into patterns of unsolved cases involving women of color, the challenges of Cold's case investigations,