A Welfare Check’s Grim Discovery: Horror in a Quiet Suburb | Forensic Files

Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Britt, and we're shaking things up with not one
but two episodes hitting your feed today. And here's why. The lead detective in a case out of our home
state of Indiana reached out to us because he needs your help. He's got this case that's pretty fresh, meaning
there's a little bit less information than usual. So, we decided to cover two Indiana stories. Ashley is bringing you
the other and it's actually already in your feed. But this one we knew we had to tell because they are this close to
[music] solving it. They're pretty sure they know who is behind the murder of two young women in Hobart, Indiana, and
why. But there's a twist. The DNA they have in the case doesn't [music] match the main person they suspected. So, are
they wrong or is the DNA [music] just misleading? I have theories, but one of you out
there might [music] have the answer. This is the story of Destiny Jackson and Nira Muhammad.
If you've been listening to Crime Junkie for a while, or even if you're a new listener, you know that a lot of the
stories we tell start with a loved one getting worried. That moment that they realize that something is wrong. On the
morning of Friday, November 4th, 2022, a woman named Felicia, isn't all that worried. She hasn't heard from her
little sister, 20-year-old Destiny Jackson, in a little over a day, which is unusual for them because they live
together along with Felicia's boyfriend, Todd, and Destiny's 19-year-old girlfriend, Nazera Muhammad. But even
when Nazera's mom calls her saying that she can't get a hold of her daughter or Destiny, Felicia's not thinking that
something bad has happened. Felicia knows their sleep schedules are a little bit off at the moment. Nera isn't in
school at the time. Destiny's taking some online classes and working part-time, [music] but they're staying
up late, sleeping in late, doing like normal college age things. Plus, Felicia knows that Destiny turns on the do not
disturb when she sleeps. So, even when she tries calling Destiny herself and gets sent straight to voicemail, that
doesn't feel weird. Unfortunately, Felicia and Todd aren't home where they all live in Hobert, Indiana. They've
been gone on a brief trip an hour away to Chicago. So Felicia can't just go into their room and check on them. So
instead, she keeps trying her sister, but no answer. After so many unanswered calls, she asks her brother, who she's
staying with in Chicago, "Hey, can you check and see if you can see her location?" But he can't. Still though,
Felicia isn't worried. She figures she'll hear from her sister soon. But it's not her sister who calls her later.
It's Niger's mom again, and she's still worried. And that's when she says something that finally makes Felicia a
little nervous. According to Felicia, she tells her that she recently sent her daughter a large sum of money. She
doesn't remember how much it was or exactly when or even why, though she knew that her mom had been supporting
her financially, so it wasn't totally out of the blue. But I don't know, something about it just made her sister
Spidey senses tingle. So, better safe than sorry. Felicia decides to call local police for a welfare check that
afternoon. When police get to the apartment, even from the outside, there is a sign that something is wrong.
Bags of groceries are sitting outside the apartment. They don't look old, like [music] they haven't been sitting there
for days, but there are perishables in there. So, leaving them just out in the hall feels like off. And from the moment
police step into the apartment, they know that they've walked into a crime scene. Bullet casings litter the floor.
There are bullet holes in the hallway wall and blood spatter leads them from a bathroom to the primary bedroom. There
they find the bodies of two young women, both of whom have suffered multiple gunshot wounds. One of them, Nazera, is
lying on the floor kind of on her side. From the way she's laying and based on the bullet holes and blood in the
bathroom and hallway, it looks like she may have been in the bathroom when the attack started and was trying to run
away from her attackers before succumbing to her wounds in the bedroom. And then Destiny is in bed with the
covers still pulled up almost like she was caught while sleeping. The two are long past life-saving measures. They're
going to have to go back to Felicia and confirm the worstc case scenario. But while some officers are tasked with
notifications, others begin combing through the apartment trying not to lose any more precious time. One of the
things they try to do is determine exactly how the killer got in because the apartment is on the second floor and
the front door was locked with no signs of forced entry. But there is an unlocked and slightly still open sliding
glass door in the living room. It leads out to a balcony and below they see that
a table owned by one of the neighbors has been pushed to right underneath that balcony
and in the middle is a single dirty shoe print. That shoe print is one [music] of
the first pieces of evidence they photograph and collect. But it's not the only thing. There are those numerous
shell casings along with Destiny's phone and Nigera's phone case. At first blush,
they think the killer must have taken the phone itself, but they didn't take it far cuz they end up finding her phone
off to one side of the main road that leads into the apartment complex. And by the time they get to it, it's crushed to
pieces. They think whoever took it might have thrown it out a car window as they
were fleeing. And they do find more potential evidence. Two pairs of gloves. Investigators send everything they can
off for testing to the Indiana State Police Lab. While they request phone and social media records for both women and
speak to their families and neighbors. When police interview both families, they're able to establish a clear
timeline of when the homicides likely occurred. Nazera's mom says she last spoke to Nazera around 9:31 p.m. on
November 2nd, and she got a Tik Tok from Nazera that was sent to her around 1:36
a.m. on the 3rd. Then Felicia says she last heard from Destiny a little after midnight on the
3rd as well. But after that, there was radio silence from both of them. So investigators believe they'd likely been
killed in the middle of the night or sometime the morning of the third. But when they talked to neighbors, no one
reports hearing any gunshots or seeing anything out of the ordinary, which I okay, sure, maybe everyone was asleep,
but what I find even stranger is that when police walked into the bedroom, there was a haird dryer that was plugged
into the wall and it was still running. So, it must have been running for like over a day. And I've lived in apartments
before and sound travels a lot and forever and long. So, it feels really strange to me that no one would have
clocked that the haird dryer was blasting like all day. Now, my first thought was that the killer may have
plugged it in and tried to start a fire. It was right next to Nazer's body, but Detective Gallagher doesn't think that's
the case. He told our team that the women probably kept it in their room and Nazera may have been using it at the
time of the break-in, which that threw me for a loop, too, because I knew based on the crime scene that their theory had
been that she had been in the bathroom when the attack happened or when she was first shot. So, I had a reporter try and
clear that up with the detective, but I didn't actually get any clarity. He just
said that she was probably in the bathroom when the attack first started, then tried to run into the bedroom. Been
using the haird dryer, got up to get something from the bathroom, and then that's when the break-in occurred. Or
maybe she was using it, heard someone come in, went to the hall to look, saw them, jumped in the bathroom first. Or
maybe she was in the bathroom, and then like tripped over the blow dryer as she ran into the bedroom. I mean, it's hard
to know for sure, but Detective Gallagher's confident that it wasn't put there to try and start a fire after they
were killed, which they can pinpoint to an exact time thanks to Nazera's phone records. At 4:30 a.m. on the 3rd, they
learned that she'd actually called 911. And that call is disturbing to say the least. We have the audio, but we are not
going to play it because in it, you don't hear much. I mean, nothing that helps. Just gunshots and sounds from
Nera that make it clear that she's scared and then dying. It's fast, but it's heartbreaking. The call gets cut
short, and police couldn't pinpoint Nazera's location. You can't with cell phones, so they couldn't respond at the
time. What the call does give them now, though, is a precise time of when Nazera
and Destiny were killed. And they have to figure out where everyone they knew was at that time. And they have to
figure out what [music] the motive might be. The why usually leads you to the who. And this is when the two families
divide. Nazir's family starts to question if Felicia and her boyfriend Todd may have had something to do with
it. I mean, how convenient it was that this is the time that they were gone. And there had been some conflict, though
they were your normal roommate [music] conflicts. Nothing violent. But I think they're just looking for anything, any
explanation for this inexplicable loss. But police are quickly able to rule that
out. [music] Phone records and witnesses put them in Chicago on the second before
Destiny and Nazera's last cell phone communications, just like they said. But actually, the reason they were there
makes police wonder if this was a targeted attack by a family member, just a different one than Felicia. It turns
out the reason Felicia was in Chicago when the murders occurred was because she was meeting with police about
pressing sexual assault charges against her and Destiny's brother, Terrence. Both she and Destiny had allegedly
experienced sexual abuse by him. Destiny when she was a child, and Felicia had been assaulted more recently. Now,
Felicia is the only one pressing charges, and he hasn't had contact with Destiny in over a year. Not since he
reached out promising to make things up to her, which she rejected. But with charges potentially incoming, they're
wondering if he broke in targeting Felicia or maybe Destiny 2. And Nazer was just collateral damage. But I'm not
going to drag this out. After digging into his whereabouts on the second and third, he is ruled out. He denies being
involved, and his phone records confirm that he wasn't in Hobart. Investigators even speak with his girlfriend who
corroborates that he was in Chicago and her phone records match up with his. And
just in case you were wondering, cuz I know our crime junkies are always so sleuththing for the missing piece or the
angle that hasn't been explored, there's no evidence anyone in Destiny's family hired someone to do this either. And
really, when you break down the motive for Terrence, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Killing Destiny wouldn't
stop Felicia from pressing charges. In fact, Felicia still met with police and Terrence got charged and eventually was
sentenced to 18 years. Destiny's family agrees with police in the end. They don't think the whole Terren thing is
[music] related. They actually don't think Destiny was the target at all. They think Nazer was. And here's the
context for that line of thinking. Felicia tells police that Nazera was known for purchasing really large
quantities of weed at one time. She got it from multiple dealers, but no one knew how she paid for all of it. Because
remember, Nigeria was unemployed. So Felicia is wondering if maybe she didn't pay repeatedly and one of her dealers
felt they'd been ripped off. Felicia even told our team that she knows Niger had several sandwichsized bags of
marijuana in the apartment when she left, but police couldn't find any in the apartment when they searched. It
seems to be the only thing that was taken, assuming Nazera still had it all when they were killed. Now, is this why
she asked her mom for that large amount of money Felicia told us about? Maybe she was trying to pay someone back. It
would make sense if she actually got that large sum of money, and there's some confusion around that. Felicia is
adamant that's what Nazara's mom told her the first [music] day that she called her. But Nazera's mom later
states to police that her daughter never asked for that money. So, I don't know what to make of the discrepancy. Is
someone lying? More likely, it's misremembering. Trauma does a hell of a lot to the brain. So, I wouldn't fault
either of them if their truth was slightly off from center. [music] Either way, police are in on this owing someone
money theory, and they have a pretty good idea who she owed money to. The world is full of mysteries that make
us question everything we've ever known to be true. These events leave us with a
sense of wonder and yearning for understanding. I'm Evette Gentile. and I'm her sister Rasha Pecarero. And each
week on our podcast, So Supernatural, we take a deep dive into the world's most bizarre and puzzling mysteries. Ready to
dive into the unknown? Join us every Friday for a new episode of So Supernatural, available wherever you
listen to podcasts. Niger's phone records revealed a whole saga of things that happened over the 24
hours before she and Destiny were killed. Turns out she'd actually called 911 not once but twice. Once in the
early morning hours in the middle of the murders where you can hear gunshots. But
she also called the police 24 hours before around the same time. So on the 2nd at 5:08 a.m. she called to report a
man outside her apartment looking in people's vehicles. Police drive over and they do find a guy in the parking lot, a
guy that we're going to call Chip. And Chip literally admits to the cops that he's there to sell weed. And in his car,
they find over a pound of marijuana along with two legally owned guns. Now, marijuana is still illegal in Indiana.
So, they confiscated the weed and issued him a court summons, which I mean is pretty lucky. They definitely could have
arrested him. And it doesn't seem like he's saying who he was there to sell to. But Niger's phone records are now doing
all the talking. They show that he was there to make a delivery to her. According to her messages, he got there.
She went out to the parking lot to meet him and then must have called the police
after she went back inside. Now, what would make her buy weed from someone and then call the police on
them? It seems risky, but it makes me think again about Felicia's money theory. Like, what if Nigera owed this
guy money? she didn't have enough to pay him what she owed him and she was afraid
he'd [music] be back to get it or something like that. So, she called the police on him or what if he made [music]
a threat to her when she was there and she was trying to get him taken away. But again, Chip was very much a free man
after this and he was not happy. through Facebook Messenger, where he goes by a pseudonym that we're going to call Chips
Ahoy, he found out she'd called the cops, and he demanded she pay him for the marijuana they confiscated. Now,
initially, she said she was trying to, but there was an issue with her bank, but then the tone shifted. Chip's
messages turned threatening, prompting Nazera to say she was going to get a protection order until she moved, which
according to the messages would be soon. But Chip wasn't having it, stating she quote won't make it, and that he had
friends in town to back him up. She wasn't worried, though. She said she and Destiny were planning to go out of town
the next day, so quote, "Catch us in the city if you can, cuz it ain't going to be out here." So, if he's the culprit,
the theory is that Nera hadn't been paying him, and calling the cops was the final straw. Now, detectives find Chip
and bring him in for an interview where he confirms he did in fact deliver some weed to Nazera in the early morning
hours of the second. He claims he's never been inside the apartment and denies killing the girls, but he can't
say where he was at the time of the murders. That night, he claims he went to work at a local factory as usual, but
left around 11:40 p.m. because of a headache. But he didn't go home. He drove around and started making some
sales. But when it comes to exactly where he was driving, he can't say. He was smoking weed the whole time and
claims he can't remember where he was, like at all. Has zero memory of that night. I don't know if investigators buy
that. But when they ask Chip if they can get a DNA swab, he agrees. Even though at that point, they still didn't have
anything to compare it to. All the evidence they had from the scene was still being processed. Now, they also
ask Chip for his phone, but he refuses to let them search it. No biggie. They get his phone in social media records
anyway. Plus, they review data from local license plate readers to try to cooperate his driving around story. And
what they get paints a hazy picture of that night. First, the license plate readers. On November 3rd, when the women
are believed to have been killed, they put him about four miles away at 2:00 a.m. and then again in the same area at
6:00 a.m. [music] Then his cell phone records put him in the area of the apartment complex around the time of the
murder, so 4:30 a.m.ish, although we couldn't get any more specifics on this, like just like how close he was. Those
records also reveal that he was communicating with two other men both before and after 4:30 a.m. Now, we asked
for these conversations. Detective Gallagher told us he'd like to hold on to those, and we won't be naming the two
other guys. But investigators do have their phone records, too. [music] And what we can say is that after the
murders, those two other guys were messaging back and forth saying, quote, "Don't say nothing to nobody." Once
evidence starts coming back from the lab, it indicates that there may have been more than one killer as well. The
casings they have indicate that there were two guns used in the attack, likely a rifle and a handgun. The same kind of
weapons they'd found in Chip's car when they stopped him the night before in the
very same apartment complex where Nera and Destiny would be murdered. But here's the catch. The rifle was seized
shortly after the murders. Investigators also do a bit of digging on the shoe prints and determine they're either from
Nike Katie Trey 53 shoes or Nike Katie Trey 54 shoes. They're basketball sneakers, but investigators can't
determine if anyone connected to the case owned a pair. So, at least for right now, the shoe prints are also sort
of a dead end. What they need is DNA or a fingerprint, something they can compare to literally anyone. But the
Indiana State Lab says they can't get anything like that off the rest of the evidence.
The questions I keep coming back to were like, "Who is this Chip guy?" Like, could he have gotten two people to help
him commit double homicide? Digging into him didn't really help me answer that second question. It turns out Chip's
just a small town drug dealer from Gary, Indiana. [music] I don't know what persuasive power he has, if these are
like close friends of his. No clue. But it's not like he's some big crime boss out there who's ordering hits on people.
So maybe answers lay with the two men he was communicating with that night. Police don't get to talk to them
immediately. Detective Gallagher wanted more evidence before tipping them off that he's on to them, but he's trying to
make that happen now. He's been working the case diligently since 2022. And when
the Indiana State Lab said there wasn't anything on the evidence, he wasn't going to give up. So earlier this year
in 2025, he sent a bunch of evidence off to a private lab in Florida capable of doing more advanced DNA [music] testing.
And lo and behold, they got DNA and a print. Now, that comes with some caveats. One, the print is off Nera's
phone case, and it very well may be Nazera's. One of the many challenges they've run into in this case is not
being able to get fingerprints from Destiny or Nazera because they were too decomposed by the time their bodies were
found. Even after such a short period, it just wasn't possible. There are fingerprints all over the apartment. But
without being able to compare them directly to both Destiny and Nazera, Detective Gallagher just doesn't feel
comfortable assuming whose is whose. The second caveat is that the DNA they got was from the gloves, which Detective
Gallagher thinks are related to the crime scene, but they can't be 100% sure because they weren't found at the scene.
And he didn't tell us whether it was male DNA for sure. And before you ask, Chip's DNA is in Cotus, and they did
compare it to it, but it wasn't a match. Same thing with the print. Not a match.
and no matches in Aphus. Now, this development just came through and Detective Gallagher hasn't had a chance
to print or swab the other two guys yet. If they're not a match, then there's only two paths forward when it comes to
DNA. Wait for someone to slip up and get put into COTUS so they get a hit or tips
come in that develop new suspects that they can directly compare against. I asked about IGG, but unfortunately the
DNA sample they had was used up, so they don't have enough to do any genealogy stuff with. So that's why Detective
Gallagher asked us to share this case with you. They've looked far and wide for alternate suspects, but haven't
found anything. They even went digging into the girl's backgrounds, checked out an ex-girlfriend of Nazera's who had a
tumultuous breakup with her. I mean, Destiny was the reason for the breakup. She'd cheated on this other girl to be
with Destiny, but even she was quickly ruled out. Chip was recently arrested this year on a weapons law violation,
but he's still out and about. Detective Gallagher feels strongly that this case is solvable, and they're on the right
track. They just need something, a confession, a witness. And that's where you guys come in. Crime
junkies, the guys who do things like this, don't normally keep things like this to themselves. If there was ever a
time to come forward, it's now. Destiny's family wants justice for the young [music] woman they say loved and
forgave so easily. She was described as the glue that held her family together and an inspiration to her eight siblings
because she wanted to pursue higher education. And Nera's family went to see justice
for the funloving girl who had an infectious smile. Her mother said she remembers the heart-shaped pancakes
Nazera made for her on her last birthday they shared together. a testament to how
deeply she cared about her loved ones. If you know anything about the murders of Destiny Jackson and Isara Muhammad,
you can contact the Hobart Police Department. I'm going to have the contact information in the show notes.
And don't forget, we're releasing two episodes today on unsolved Indiana cases. So, there is another story told
by Ashley that's in your feeds right now. That episode is Murdered Jessica [music] Star. Go take a listen. You can
find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkie.com. And if you want to listen to this
episode and all of our episodes completely adree, be sure to join the fan club. You'll also get early access
[music] to new episodes every week. And you can follow us on Instagram, CrimeJunky Podcast. [music] Ashley and I
will be back next week with a brand new episode.

On November 4, 2022, police in Hobart, Indiana discovered the bodies of 20-year-old Destiny Jackson and her 19-year-old girlfriend Nazirah Muhammad inside their apartment. Destiny was found in bed, while Nazirah appeared to have tried to run before collapsing. Both were killed by multiple gunshots. Investigators found bullet casings, blood spatter, an unlocked sliding glass door, and a neighbor’s table pushed under the balcony, suggesting the killer climbed inside. Nazirah had called 911 at 4:30 a.m., and the chilling call captured the sound of gunfire and her final moments.

Detectives soon learned she had also called police the day before to report a man outside, known locally as “Chip,” he was caught with a pound of weed and two firearms, but quickly released. After realizing she had tipped off police, Chip sent threatening messages demanding repayment, warning she “won’t make it” and boasting he had friends in town. Cell phone and license plate records later placed him near the apartment around the exact time of the murders. Even more unsettling, Chip was in contact with two other men that night, who exchanged messages afterward saying: “don’t say nothing to nobody.” Evidence also suggests at least two different firearms were used, pointing toward multiple attackers.

In 2025, advanced testing recovered a DNA profile and a fingerprint from key evidence, but so far, they do not match any known suspects. Detectives remain convinced the case is solvable, but they need witnesses to come forward. Destiny’s family remembers her as the “glue” who held her siblings together, while Nazirah’s loved ones recall her smile and her thoughtful gestures, like making heart-shaped pancakes for her mother. Both families are still fighting for justice.

If you know anything about the murders of Destiny Jackson and Nazirah Muhammad in Hobart, Indiana on November 3, 2022, contact the Hobart Police Department at 219-942-4991.

Key Episode Moments 0:00 - 0:58 — Intro 0:59 - 3:13 — Welfare Check Turns Homicide 3:14 - 4:59 — Crime Scene Details 5:00 - 6:18 — Timeline of Death 6:19 - 8:08 — 4:30 A.M. 911 Call 8:09 - 9:59 — Family Suspicions 10:00 - 11:22 — Drug Dealer 11:23 - 13:00 — Chip Identified 13:01 - 15:00 — Threatening Messages 15:01 - 16:58 — Chip’s Alibi Falls Apart 16:59 - 18:40 — Multiple Attackers Suspected 18:41 - 20:10 — DNA & Fingerprint Breakthrough 20:11 - 21:30 — No Match in CODIS 21:31 - 23:53 — Outro --------

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Check out these other great crime channels: @StephanieHarlowe Harloween: Tales From Appalachia- What The Mountains Keep https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1na1uv_2aY @christinaarandall Alexee Trevizo Cheerleader Criminal Case Just Took a Shocking Turn! Hospital Lawsuit & High School https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y9PKPL8YKQ&t=3s @annieelise Murdered & Stuffed Inside a Wall at Yale University | Annie Le https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZedZm-FGoM @CoffeehouseCrime The Insufferable Incel Who Dropped Rageful Tapes Before Murder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpjpP3iGW1o

Brief Summary

The episode discusses the unsolved murders of Destiny Jackson and Nira Muhammad, focusing on the investigation and potential suspects in Hobart, Indiana.

Key points

A Disturbing Discovery. Police find two young women shot in their apartment, leading to a complex investigation.
The Mystery of the Hair Dryer. A running hair dryer raises questions about the timeline of events during the attack.
A Twisted Family Connection. Felicia's meeting with police about pressing charges against her brother raises suspicions.
Chip's Threatening Messages. Nazera's interactions with a drug dealer named Chip lead to alarming threats.
Detective Gallagher's Determination. Detective Gallagher has been diligently working the case since 2022, seeking justice.
A Call for Justice. Families of the victims seek justice and urge anyone with information to come forward.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

They're pretty sure they know who is behind the murder.

Introduction to the case of Destiny Jackson and Nira Muhammad.

0:35WatchOct 15, 2025

Tension

70/ 100High tension

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