HOT SPRINGS, AR – A man we featured in a story about a homicide is now at the center of the investigation.
Our story on December 9, 2012 focused on the fact that Alfred Nickson, the neighbor of a 73-year-old murder victim, was the one that found the man dead and was “shocked.”
According to police though he had much more involvement.
Nickson, 55, outside his Hot Springs apartment had said, “Ever since then I’ve been going through hell.”
We initially did the story three days into a police investigation into what they called a suspicious death of Nickson’s neighbor, 73-year-old Freddie Cole.
Yellow police tape still blocked off the door.
Nickson told our reporter and police he found his neighbor dead and he said the last time he’d seen Cole was the night before he found him in a pool of blood.
According to Hot Springs Police, Cole’s body was sent to the State Crime Lab. That’s where the investigation pointed toward Nickson, the man we spoke to at the crime scene.
Just last week, six months after our interview, Hot Springs Police arrested Nickson, who’d apparently changed his story about the last time he’d seen the victim.
According to the report “… he had seen Cole after … he used cocaine in Cole’s bathroom, but he left soon after.”
That however, may not have been the case either because the report goes on to read “DNA located under Freddie Cole’s fingernails matched Alfred Nickson” and that “… would only be expected with involved aggressive contact.”
While he has yet to have his day in court, that will happen August 19, the seemingly shocked neighbor we talked to days after the murder, according to police, knew more than he led everyone to believe.
According to Garland County Records Nickson is in jail charged with Capital Murder. No bond has been listed.
