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of this big mily, was nailah. little mute, they used to call her, because once she decided something, all arguments against were mute. >> she was sure of herself from really the earliest time. >> narrator: yes, nailah franklin was going somewhere. >> she was like my hero, i always looked up to her. >> she always accepted you for who you are. it's like she glowed when she came into a room. >> narrator: she came to chicago and built a career in pharmaceutical sales. she owned a condo in the heart of the city. >> i think everything she wanted to be she was. the theme fabulous was the aspiration and she always met that mark. >> narrator: she always stayed in touch, never failed. call her, she would call back right away, text her, she would reply instantly, alws.

her relationships, she would spend time with everyone, friends, family. >> that's a pretty special skill. >> to manage that and your career. >> narrator: there were men, of course there were. though she was shall we say, discertaindis discerning. >> professional nice men. >> she was dating with plastic surgeon guy, and this guy and that guy. >> she took up briefly with a dashing investor with a white bentley. and in july of 2007, she met andre wright. >> she had a big, beautiful smile, a big beautiful woman, she had a very warm personality and we kind of walked around the space looking at different

interests, what i was looking for in a piece of art. >> suddenly this was a different search. >> the art work became of little interest to me at that point. >> narrator: just like that, it was all over for both of them. >> i don't want to go all hallmark card on you, but this was clearly like a trance indental moment. >> the family loved andre, who wouldn't wouldn't. >> he came to my son's birthday party and he brought a gift. because he's a nice, quality person. >> you started planning on moving in together, right, on being together? >> we did. >> and it was happening pretty fast? >> it felt good though, it just felt natural. >> it was long distance, he in milwaukee, she in chicago. they stayed connected by phone

>> i would call her every morning. >> narrator: and no one seemed to notice any dark force, any unseen thing festering in the heat of that hot late summer, didn't feel the warning, didn't know who said what to whom. it was september 18, a tuesday. >> that tuesday morning, i thought i had called her on my way to work. but i was interrupted and she called me and said, hey, what happened to my call. i said oh, i thought i had. so we spoke for a bit, exchanged e-mails later. and then just kind of went about the day. >> narrator: evening came, he in the flush of love, called again. no answer. >> left her a message saying i was heading home and got a text message back from her phone saying she was at a dinner and would reach out later. >> wait a minute. you had been calling her every day, talking all the time. >> yeah.

i'll call you later? >> narrator: but she didn't. then, 9:00 p.m., one of the ashleys call nailah, nailah who always picked up the phone for a sister. >> i texted her and i got something along the lines of i'm at dinner and i'll call you in a few. >> was that like her? >> it's not like her to not answer her phone. i have seen her step out of the shower to answer her phone. >> i sent her an e-mail, in all caps, are you alive? >> one of those things half in jest, half knowing. increasingly hard to get after work. >> one more ominous sign, three calls to 911 from her cell

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so switch today. >> narrator: here we are in a little room in a chicago police station, reginald potts is under arrest for the murder of nailah franklin, the detectives they are certain they have their man. but mr. potts? >> i had mantadamantly deny that i was anywhere near her the day she disappeared. >> narrator: he was nowhere near her when she vanished. >> i was nowhere near her. >> narrator: of course they told them they had evidence. >> i have video of your bentley in the parking garage of your building. >> i can tell you for sure that's a lie.

to which the detectives said -- >> you understand that video cameras are everywhere? >> narrator: yes, including nailah's apartment building, and there is reginald, plain as day with nailah, arriving and leaving with her on that very day she disappeared. >> so you knew he was there? >> yes. >> narrator: but reginald, doubled down on hiss denials. >> i am certain that i am nowhere near inside of nailah franklin's apartment. >> narrator: accused the police of fabricating evidence. >> i guarantee you you don't have video of me getting off the elevator at nailah franklin's house, if you do, you're very good at photo shop. >> narrator: he never expressed

when they asked him to stand in a lineup so that witnesses could-- >> the state's attorney is representing the people in registering the case, i would not feel comfortable at all, at all. >> so they waited for reginald's attorney to arrive. and then, it got odd. >> your attorney's right there. why are you taking your clothes off? >> your attorney's right here, we want to take him for a lineup right now. you can step in the other room. >> reginald removed all of his clothing and refused to stand in the lineup. >> that's an interesting tactic. >> yes. >> have you ever seen that before? >> no. >> narrator: so no lineup, but they charged him anyway with capital murder. nailah by then had been dead three months. >> i was definitely relieved, i

took so long. but i was relieved. >> narrator: relieved too that reginald potts as was his right, demanded a speedy trial, but then -- >> reginald potts used every resource at hiss disposal to delay the process. >> narrator: nbc chicago's charlie husky watched in amazen't as reginald turns speedy justice into something else all together. >> he hired lawyers, he fired lawyers, he tried to act as his own attorney. at each step of the trial, the trial had to be reset. >> in the fourth half of the year, indiana had apolished capital punishment, so that was off the table. still reginald's actions forced delays. just as nailah's family had

reginald potts tried to launch a p.r. campaign from behind bars. >> his family reached out trying to convince me that there may besome way that he was not associated with this crime, that it might be associated with someone else. >> narrator: every delay, every manipulation was slow torture. >> i very much believe that everyone should have a fair and just trial and that too often people who are poor or people of color do not -- or most often, they don't get proper representation, and they don't get a fair shake in our court system. but this was not that. >> narrator: and then finally, on october 28, 2015, on a crisp, fall day in chicago, the trial of reginald potts began, it had taken eight years to get here. >> when it was finally happening, we were confused

finally a trial, what type of experience is this going to be? >> narrator: they had no idea, how could they? assistant state attorneys maria mccarthy and fabio value leanentini were the district attorneys in the crime. >> narrator: and not many cases with a defendant quite like reginald potts. >> reporter: coming up, an accused killer's defense. >> he's smarter than the average criminal, but not as smart as he thinks he is. >> reporter: then after eight years, a verdict. >> what really tormented me all these years is that there's a

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for coersatiithyour h specialt. the video at the target store that did not show him and thus blew up his alibi. nailah's friends testified she showed them e-mails and played a voicemail in which he threatened her. >> nailah played that voicemail for them because she was so terrified and essentially, in that voicemail, he said, nailah, i'm going to have you erased, i'm going to make you disappear. >> narrator: in fact said the prosecutors, that's exactly what he did. snuck into her building, led her terrified to the garage, strangled her and stuffed her

how did they find out where? cell phone towers, linked together like bred crumbs. >> she's not calling anybody, she's not answering calls, her texts are all odd. but her phone and his phone were together, lock step, the entire rest of the day. >> narrator: right to the abandoned video store behind where they found nailah's body. no coincidence that he chose that particular spot so far from chicago, said the prosecutor. >> we find out that the video store next door is owned by potts' brother-in-law. >> narrator: he said yes, he did lie for reginald, but he didn't know it was to cover up a murder. remember those odd, mails and texts her boyfriend and sister received? it was potts, using her phone, hours after he murdered her, said the prosecution, a clever attempt to throw off a missing

>> he's smarter than the average criminal, but not as smart as he thinks he is. >> narrator: but reginald potts is nothing if not strategic. >> defense attorneys need to create reasonable doubt. so in this case it was very hard to determine cause of death. it's little things like that in the hopes that one juror or two jurors will latch on to that and say i can't convict. nrar: they even disputed the cell phone evidence the prosecution believed sinced the case. >> the idea that you can learn the location of a cell phone by the pings on a cell phone tower is flawed. >> did reginald's art persuade them, two hours and 15 minutes after they began, the jury answered no. they pronounced reginald potts guilty of first-degree murder.

i was so relieved. i was like, okay, that's past now is the next thing. >> narrator: the next thing was sentencing, nearly four months later. >> still waiting and hoping he doesn't get four years or something stupid like that. >> narrator: but again, they had no idea. what was this man all about? there was a hearing to help the judge make a decision about sentence, normally just arguments, recommendations from both sides. but not this time. the prosecution called 35 witnesses to tell the judge a hair raising story about reginald potts. reginald was not quite the gold plated success story he appeared to be. >> he lived a live of a lot of smoke and mirrors. >> he was a con man who conned a lot of people. >> narrator: and when the con man was challenged, even law

>> he said he would kill my family, my family would never be safe. >> i was struck three times by mr. potts in the face. >> narrator: he has a long record in prison where he struck guards. all of that was too prejudicial to present at trial, butow absolutely relevant. >> he took her back by the elevator and i heard slap. >> this guy has been a menace his entire adult life. >> and when a woman stood up to him. witness after witness testified that reginald betrayed them, by bullied them or worse. >> this guy not only had a propensity to hurt women, but he had a propensity to choke them and kill them. >> if he tells you what time it is, look at your watch. >> that bad, huh?

>> narrator: a monster, who however briefly fooled even the sophisticated, successful nailah, to her mother's eternal sorrow. >> you don't know who you're letting into your life. they don't always come looking like a monster. >> narrator: there was a kind of ceremony about these things, everyone gets to talk. >> nailah's murder is stole from our community of bright light. >> i can still hear her moaning and screaming, calling out, begging for her life. >> narrator: but reginald cried, denied everything. >> the jury of my peers came back with a verdict that i believe is false and i believe is invalid, and i believe a court of appeals will overturn it. but right now this court has to honor what they said and impose sentence, but i tell you i am not the person that ms. mccarthy has tried to paint in this

i'm not a monster. i'm not a monster. >> narrator: we waited to see if a judge would buy reginald's story, or the prosecutor's. and here it was. >> you are a cold, calculating, conniving, coward of a conman who must be punished. >> narrator: and indeed he was, life without parole. >> take him away. >> narrator: so that was justice, the most nailah's family could hope for. terribly important. and strangely, empty. >> it's still not done. she's still not back. we still can't talk with her. >> narrator: no, they try to remember nailah, not as a murder victim, but as the beautiful young woman she was, the vibrant center of her family. but grief, real and painful, comes to visit every day.

well she's your spirit and she's your angel and she's in a better place and all this other stuff, i'm like yeah, but i want her here, i don't want my 28-year-old sister to be my angel, i want her to be right here in the thick of it with me. >> reporter: that's all for this edition of "dateline." we'll see you tomorrow for at 8:00 for the "dateline saturday night mysteries."

at nbc news, good night. next at 11 on wral , investigators returned to the scene where an officer shot the suspect. your first number is 73, 57, 59, 8, 5. time now is for the gold the global -- mega ball.