College football player's horrific 40 hours of being held hostage, tortured

an unimaginable horror two college students held captive and tortured by masked men and what they assumed was a random attack when they finally made it out alive they learned that they had been targeted reasoning behind it led to more disturbing revelations ESPN's tisha Thompson brings us this report it feels like a scene from a horror movie torture they were floating but this nightmare is real life two football players from the University of Rochester held captive in torture we started shooting everywhere they said we don't want money we want blood how do I survive they were targeted in a violent plot for revenge for a drug robbery they had nothing to do with leaving two young men fighting for their lives Nikko coleus began his college career full of hope in 2012 he enrolled at the University of Rochester to follow his two passions football I love football it's my favorite sport in piano playing for the school's Division three football program and also studying at Rochester's renowned Eastman School of Music kind of just fell in love with it and turned out to be one of the greatest experiences and decisions that I've made to attend but everything changed for the six one 215-pound defensive end the winter of his senior year it was Friday December 4th 2015 Nico's close friend and teammate who asked not to be named told him they had been invited to a party by a girl he met on Facebook 19 year old Samantha Hughes a 20 year old best friend Lea Gigliotti he was like let's go do it you know let's go be with these girls and it didn't seem like that bad of an idea had you ever met either of these girls before no but when they pulled up to this house at 20 to harvest Street there wasn't a party we followed the girls in the side door the first thing that I smelled was just like urine and feces and it was totally disgusting and I sat down on this other couch and the next thing I know is five to ten masked men in all black just come out with bats and pipes and guns they're just screaming and demanding things and the lights go black I got up and ran as quickly as I could made it halfway across the room I got shot point-blank in my left leg and I got shot in my right leg in my right calf my femur was broken in half they dragged us into the bathroom lean us up against the walls and duct-taped our hands and legs together the masked men then started recording this cell phone video of their attack I was paying for my life and I was saying that I would do absolutely anything in my power to give you anything that you want over the next three hours the men in the video would use this rifle metal pipes rebar and this iron to physically and sexually assault Nikko and his teammate what is going through your head I had no idea who these people were I had no idea why this was happening me and like where we were and I didn't know what was going on I was I was so confused I went black for like two seconds came back and just like the amount of blood that was like dripping down my face and like covering my body I was just so overwhelmed I was pushing myself through to like not give up and not close my eyes because I didn't want to die as the Sun began to rise the morning of Saturday December 5th 2015 Nikko and his teammate had been held captive for nearly 12 hours back on campus their roommates a report of the missing but Nico's Tara was far from over his captors started demanding money they're holding me at gunpoint the entire time I really need the money now so there's no way that I could get the 1500 just transferred over to the desert card it's impossible to lose money on the weekend okay that's fine I guess I'll just call Ben one we're forced to wait they turned to Niko's ATM cards in this surveillance video you can see a man in the back seat wearing the same white skull mask as the man in this cell phone video this is 26 year old Lydell Strickland prosecutors say Strickland tortured Nico for his pin numbers and withdrew more than five thousand dollars at different machines throughout the weekend evidence photos show he used the money to go on a shopping spree a $799 leather jacket shoes pants and a pair of $28 jeans from Marshalls police who were scouring Rochester for Nico and his teammate spotted the strange activity popping up in Niko's bank accounts we were concerned that Monday that money would be moved the suspects would get it and the absolute intent was once they got the money from that account that these kids would have been killed police zeroed in on lea Gigliotti and Samantha Hughes because Hughes was the last person to communicate with Nico's teammate detectives say they brought the two women in for questioning and it went on for 14 hours there were hours and hours of lies until finally towards the end we started getting some details which led us to 22 Harvest Street I've made the decision that I was gonna have the SWAT team on standby Sunday December 6th 2015 40 hours after they were captured the SWAT team moved in on 22 Harvest Street it was just shocking I mean the whole house like shucks I thought they were burning down the house but in reality it was actually the SWAT team there was donating entry into the house to save us the blast was captured by a neighbor's cell phone shattering the front door the SWAT team moved through the house rounding up suspects freeing Nikko and his teammate the two of them were rushed to the hospital where Nikko underwent emergency surgery I had three or four blood transfusions they put a titanium rod through my femur attaching it with screws in my knee and hip they surgically removed glass from my eardrum and scalp and skull Nikko spent 25 days in the hospital after it was all over the police piece together the motive for the brutal assault nikos teammate who survived the ordeal with him was mistaken for this player Rochester's star linebacker Isiah Smith what is clear he was involved in drug dealing what is clear is that he set up a violent drug robbery on campus prosecutors say Isiah wanted to steal four pounds of marijuana from drug dealers he knew so he planned a robbery inside the apartment where Nico's friend and teammate lived arranging to have the drug dealers attacked with a hammer in retaliation friends of the drug dealers went after Nico's friend and teammate instead of Isaiah Isiah Smith was sentenced to 13 years in prison for burglary robbery and assault in connection with a drug heist the two women who lured Nikko and his teammate to 22 Harvest Street were each sentenced to more than a dozen years in prison after agreeing to testify against the attackers all of the men in the cell phone video also went to prison for Niko's kidnapping and torture including lydell's Strickland who laughed when a judge sentenced him to 155 years I hope and wish that the day would be in jail forever after leaving the hospital Nikko went back home to Chicago the University of Rochester allowed him to graduate without returning to campus can you sleep through the night yeah I mean at first it was definitely hard you know night times and being alone and in like crowded areas definitely like harder things for me determined to rehab both his mind and his body Nikko joined more than 27,000 people in Chicago to run his first road race since the attack just moving forward and trying to forget about the past and focus on positive good things I made the conscious decision to live survive and overcome the challenge I was faced with and that's exactly what I did for Nightline I'm tisha Thompson in Chicago our thanks to tisha for that report

Channel: ABC News

Views: 10,260,709

Rating: 4.9025879 out of 5

Keywords: college, football, player, 40, hours, hostage, tortured, Niko, Kollias, ESPN, Outside, the, Lines, University, of, Rochester, team, shot, beaten, ABC, NEWS, Night, line

Id: _AVa8L1eBd8

Length: 10min 17sec (617 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 21 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

A long read, but here's a great ESPN article about it.

[u/eqwoody]

Jesus Christ, I'm glad they locked all those fuckers up. Those women should be in for just as long though. I'm sorry but it took 14 hours to get any information out of you? You don't deserve to get a deal.

[u/crustang]

I feel for this guy...

I know there's a lot of posts on this sub about children

I know there's a lot of posts about bad situations

This dude deserves a lot more attention

[u/MisterMagorium]

This was one of the most heartbreaking stories that I have ever heard. Thank God Kollias is recovering from his injuries and I hope he is able to live a normal life.

The fact that the main kidnapper showed NO remorse for what he did, and even LAUGHED as he was essentially sentenced to life in prison is downright sickening.

[u/Tnlbro1017]

It's insane the amount of mistaken identity, and even knowing he didn't have anything to do with it. They still did all of those horrible things.

I can't fathom that and I'm glad they survived.

[u/YoungKeys]

This is a horror story, wtf. You think you know shitty people, then you learn about what some people are capable of like this...

[u/JMM1856]

Holy Shit

[u/natioNOLEchamps]

Talk about a freaking nightmare. I can't imagine what these guys went through. Humans can be awful...

[u/PM_ME_UR_FROG]

Story deserves MUCH more attention. This is horrendous.