UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA Case No. IN THE M ATTER OF THE EXTRADITION OF RODNEY M ERVYN NICHOLS COM PLAINT (18 U.S.C. j 3184) 1
Rodney Mervyn Nichols, 81, allegedly told investigators he "had to come clean" in confessing that he murdered beloved Tennessee businesswoman Jewell Parchman Langford and dumped her body in a river.
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''Authorities claim they determined Nichols was verbal and able to engage in conversation, and that he demonstrated accurate recall, such as when he corrected the interviewing officer about the name of his former rugby club and criticized the lunch he had just eaten.''
''Lopez called the investigators’ mental capacity test “laughably inept” and that it fell short of what is required to make sure someone is fully aware of the nature and circumstances of the interrogation, the rights he had, and whether he knowingly and voluntarily waived those rights.''
“The Victim was partially nude, her hands and feet were bound with neckties, a twenty-four-inch piece of black plastic-covered coaxial cable wire was loosely around her neck, and her head was covered by a handcloth, a towel, and a tablecloth, which were knotted tightly around her neck,” documents stated.
The autopsy found two fracture injuries to her larynx. The coroner’s report concluded she died of strangulation by ligature of the neck.
“The presence of swelling of the wrists around the ligatures suggested to Canadian authorities that the Victim was alive when her wrists and ankles were tied,” prosecutors wrote. But her lungs contained no water. In light of that, Canadian investigators believed she was dead before entering the water.''