[Theme Music] Diabolical, devious and
desperate is how I would
describe this mess." This really had to
be an evil person. She's facing, perhaps up
to a maximum of
50 years incarceration. She was a master manipulator. She manipulated the
criminal justice system. That's not somebody
that's along for the ride. That is somebody that
is a full participant. Is the jury actually
going to believe her, and if they do believe her, are
they going to be sympathetic? Truth is stranger than fiction. The story of Tanika Jenkins, an ambitious, confident, cold
blooded, would be killer, is one that's probably better
suited for a Stephen King novel rather than a true crime
documentary. And it all started here in this
neighborhood in East Cleveland. -East Cleveland, it's a working class
neighborhood with beautiful
houses, so people do take pride in being
citizens of East Cleveland, but it's seen it's better days. It's struggling economically. -Tanika Jenkins was born in 1975 to her mother Tanika. They are spelled the same way,
but they are not pronounced the
same way. -Marah and Taz are co hosts of
the podcast "Sisters Who Kill." And growing up, people would say that Tanika was
a go getter. She did well in school, and she
really was driven to reach her goals. -Tanika Jenkins was a pretty smart person in high
school. She attended Cuyahoga Community
College. -This just was not challenging
her enough. She wanted to up her studies and
get the best education she
could. -So she decided to apply for the
Yale University. -She puts together a package and applies in their
neuroscience program. They looked at her transcripts. They looked at her reference
letters. They thought she'd be an ideal
candidate. -She got accepted into the
graduate program at Yale
University with about $16,000 worth of
scholarships. She gets to Yale, and it's the
fall of 1997. Her first semester, she kind of
skates by, but she keeps telling all her
teachers, "oh, I'm sick. Oh, I can't come to class
because of this," and her professors start getting
very suspicious. -One of Tanika's professors
brings his concerns to the Yale
admissions office. An admissions officer begins
calling the schools Tanika said she attended. -He was met with, "who is Tanika
Jenkins?" -The transcripts were falsified, the GRE scores, falsified. None of the credentials that
she's provided to get into this
university are actually legit. So they arrest her, and she
leaves kicking and screaming. -The case of Tanika Jenkins
first came to my attention, I believe it was in December of
1997. The fact that I can recollect it
this many years later goes to show how unusual it was. -Her defense attorney's like,
"listen, in the grand scheme of things, these aren't really big charges.
Let's go ahead, let's plead out,
let's find a deal. In July of 1998, everybody is at court waiting
for Tanika to show up for her
hearing. -But Tanika fails to show. -Investigators went to her house
the next day, and they found her there. -She tells the police an
incredible story. -"I was kidnapped. I was taken
at gunpoint. I was tied up." -She had claimed that she had been abducted, sexually assaulted, put in the trunk of a car, and driven to Philadelphia on the day that she was supposed
to appear in court. No one has managed to come up
with that excuse before. -And, she has the photos to
prove it. -There was a letter sent to Yale along with a photograph of her. -It was very much summer theater
camp. And the judge was like. The judge was not having any of
it. He increased her bond from ten
thousand dollars to one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars. To further complicate matters, once she had been taken back
into custody, she assaulted three corrections
department personnel. -Assault is added to the Yale
charges along with failure to appear in
court and lying to police. -Well, now she's facing perhaps
up to a maximum of 50 years
incarceration. -Miraculously, Tanika's lawyer
convinces the judge to offer her
essentially the same plea deal. -She was still going to be given
the opportunity to plead guilty, receive probation and repay the money. -I think that's the sweetest
deal you could possibly get under those circumstances. I've never heard of a better
one. -Tanika was clever, but not necessarily smart. In my view, smart tends to look
down the road a little bit
further to see what the consequences might be. -After scamming her way into
Yale and escaping decades in
prison, you might think Tanika would
have learned her lesson. -But just four months later, the police are tipped off by an informant saying that
there is somebody looking to buy
ten kilos of cocaine down in Florida. -Coming up, Tanika Jenkins
graduates from low level forgery into a career as an up and
coming international drug
dealer. -The impression that we got was
that it was amateur night, that we were dealing with a
couple of amateurs that didn't
know what they were doing. [Dramatic Sting] -Tanika Jenkins had managed to
scam her way into Yale and escaped with no jail time. But instead of laying low, she
came here to Florida, her mother in tow, with a new plan even crazier
than the first. -She's shifting gears, and now the gears she's
shifting is into another money making
proposition. And that's to buy cocaine from
Tampa and bring it up to
Cleveland to sell. -Tanika and her mama have a deal
to go and buy this cocaine. This is like the start of their
brand new life. -They pack up their bag, and they head down to Florida to
meet their dealer. -They thought they were
purchasing drugs from a drug dealer in
Tampa who was responsible for
importing the cocaine, and then sold it once it got
here in the United States. Eventually a time was set that they were to show up with
$90,000 and then we would provide them
with ten kilos of cocaine. And once they took possession of
the cocaine, we were going to arrest them. -I guess all I need now the
money. -Okay, where's the product? -Let me see the money, I call
the product. You know how they go. -Tanika and Tanika showed up
with a lot of ones and fives that were unbanded and were kind
of just stuffed into a bag. -One part of the sting operation
in particular stood out. -It was Tanika, it was the
mother. It was actually quite surprising because she actually took a
knife and cut open one of the kilos and
taste tested the cocaine, which surprised all of us,
because that's not something that
somebody in their right mind
does. Once we provided them the
cocaine and did the transaction, that was he crime. So at that point, they were
arrested and the operation was
over. -As usual, Tanika had a
perfectly reasonable
explanation. They were actually working
undercover for the FBI. - I said, "let me get this
straight. You're going to come down here,
commit a felony, and buy ten kilos of cocaine, and going to just drop it on the
FBI's desk?" She said that they were going to
give five kilos to the FBI and that they were going to keep
five for themselves. So at that point, I pulled my pen out and I began
writing notes for everything
that she said. -But this isn't New Haven
anymore, and the federal government isn't
messing around. -Based upon Tanika's prior
criminal history, she was facing term of
incarceration anywhere from ten
to 25 years. -April 23, 2001, was going to be
a trial in Florida on very, very serious federal
conspiracy trafficking charges. -But true to form, Tanika
manages to keep herself out of
prison for the time being. -Her lawyers, they've worked out
this deal where not only does Tanika get
to go back to Cleveland, but she doesn't even have to
stay in jail while she awaits
her trial. She actually gets to stay at
home on house arrest. -US. Attorney's office here in
Tampa didn't like that, and they
objected to that because one of Tanika's
convictions that she had from the entire fiasco at Yale
University was failure to appear. So we knew we were dealing with
somebody that was, at the bare
minimum, was devious. -But even Agent Grant didn't
suspect just how devious and murderous Tanika's next plot
would be. -She's waiting for her April
trial date. She is now free from federal
monitoring because she has
figured out a way to manipulate the ankle monitor
so that federal authorities do not know that she has left her house. She needed the law enforcement
to believe that she no longer
existed. -So at this point, Tanaka's
like, I escaped jail the first time,
but this time I'm facing 20
years, not really trying to do that. So she's like, you can't go to jail if you're
dead. So she decides she's going to
fake her own death. -But to fake her own death, she
needed a body double. So she recruits her cousin Kyle
Martin as an accomplice. -Kyle's like, what do you need? She says, I need you to find a
girl who looks like me, about my
height, my skin color, everything like that, and I need you to make sure she
smokes crack. -Kyle finds Melissa Latham. Now Melissa was addicted to
drugs at the time, and it, she seemed like a likely
target. About the same build as Tanika,
about the same skin complexion.
She could pass. -It was a diabolical plot recruiting what is a street term
would be "strawberry". That's someone who is addicted
to drugs, sells her body out on the
streets in order to sustain her drug addiction. -In her scheme, she's decided
that she is going to have
Melissa go and get dental work under her
name and then burn her body. So when they look and they say,
okay, we can't recognize the
face or anything, what are they going to do?
They're going to pull the dental
record. -And Tanika Jenkins then would
be the deceased, Tanika Jenkins, and unable to complete her sentence for the
cocaine conspiracy. -After driving around east
Cleveland, they find Melissa
walking the streets. Kyle makes her an offer she
can't refuse. -He says, hey, I have a
proposition for you. How would you like to make some
fast, easy money doing an insurance scam? And she's like, sure, I would like to make some
fast, easy money doing an
insurance scam. And he's like, great, we're going to take you to the
dentist. You can have all the work done,
and we're going to pay you $100 per dentist appointment. -So they bring her back to
Tanika's house, and they say, hey, you can sleep
in the basement down here. Then the next day, they head to
a dentist appointment. -Tanika registered the woman
under Tanika's name and I believe also dressed her
in a Yale sweatshirt. -Now Tanika tells Melissa, I want you to wear these gloves,
and we're going to pretend like
your hands are injured, and I don't want you to fill out
any forms. -My client filled out the
application form, signed the form, and sent the strawberry, Ms. Latham, in to have her teeth
x-rayed. -Behind me is where the house
used to be. If you take a look, you can see
it's been torn down, the grass has grown back in. Now, after Melissa had filled
out that paperwork, Kyle and Tanika brought her back
here and again offered her a place to
stay down in the basement. -When Melissa wakes up, she's
kind of by herself, so she kind of stumbles into the
bathroom. It's completely dark in the
basement. -As she walks out of the
bathroom and into the darkness, Kyle punches her in the face,
and Tanika jumps on her. During the struggle that
follows, Tanika injects Melissa with a
lethal dose of insulin. But in spite of being stabbed
dozens of times, Melissa continues to struggle. That's when Kyle picks up a
brick. -Kyle Martin said that stuff
isn't working. And so, plan b was the brick. He then proceeds to pound her
head over and over again. -When Melissa Latham finally
stops moving, Tanika tells Kyle she's going to
get a rug to burn the body in, and they both leave the
basement. Coming up, there was only one
flaw in their plan. Melissa Latham isn't dead. -By the grace of God, I got up and I went to go out the door,
and the door knob was gone. [Dramatic Sting] -After being beaten with a brick and injected with insulin, Melissa Latham manages to escape
the basement she'd been lured
into by Tanika Jenkins and Kyle
Martin. Police were called to a Kentucky
Fried Chicken in this East Cleveland
neighborhood. Inside, they found Melissa
Latham cowering behind the
counter. -The employees at Kentucky Fried
Chicken called the police to try to get them to
eject this person that has jumped over
the counter. And as they're looking at her, I'm sure they're thinking, here's a person who's under the
influence of drugs, who's
probably paranoid, who's telling this fantastical
story of somebody's trying to
kill her. -And next thing you know, a fine dressed Tanika runs down
the street, and she's like, stop them,
officer. That's her. That's the bitch
that stole my money. -She's accusing Melissa of trying to steal money from
her, and wants the police to arrest
Melissa. -What? -And at this point, it's just
like, she is just always on. -And, girl, how did you get the
outfit so fast? She was
prepared. She had a contingency plan. -She did, she did. -In the meantime, Melissa's
trying to tell the police, they're trying to kill me, her! This woman's trying to kill me and her cousin, this Kyle
Martin. -Me being a drug addict, they
took her word over mine. And I guess that's the way the
system works. Once the ambulance got there, I
put into a diabetic seizure. -Melissa was rushed to the
hospital, and as soon as she got to the
hospital, she lost
consciousness. -Unsure of who was telling the
truth, the police put Tanika in the
back of a police car, and they tracked down Kyle
Martin. -They questioned him, and he is sweating profusely. He's nervous, he's
uncomfortable. -He had the bite mark, he had
the scratches on the, on the uh, on the neck. And they decide to
detain Kyle Martin for further
questioning. -So Tanika decides she's going
to calmly talk to the cops. Hey, officers, I see the problem
over here. This woman, I know she looks
disheveled and all, that's because my cousin Cal
just fought her off, because she
just stole from him. You know? She's the
problem. -The police look at Tanika, again, she's a master
manipulator, and she convinces them that she has no role in this,
and they decide to let her go. -Overnight, Melissa's condition
stabilizes. The following morning, she is
able to talk to the police and tell the investigating
officer, detective Cleveland, what she
remembers. -Melissa has come to. She's telling this fantastical
story about this conspiracy, and she's telling them, you've
got to believe me. They tried to
kill me. -Detective Cleveland didn't
believe me at first, and I'm telling them, like,
that's her. She did this to me. -The police do get a search
warrant for the house. They go down to the basement, and while their basement, they
see the mother, Tanika Clement, down there cleaning the
basement. -And she's at the bottom of the
stairs with the rag. Now, the police kind of sniff around, and I'm like, it smells and bleach in here,
ma'am, what are you doing? And she's like, oh, the dogs
made a mess down here. I'm just cleaning it up. They go
down there, and not only do they not see any dog feces or urine or anything, they see blood on the floor. And
they're like- -Well, look at here. We're at a
house on Delmont, and there's a pool of blood in
the basement. -Just as Melissa describes. -They actually issue arrest
warrants for Tanika and her mother. -But by then, both Tanika and
Tanika are gone. -So Tanika, having been able to
walk away from the scene of a homicide she
was going to commit, gets into a car and drives down
to Florida with her mother to stand trial for drug
conspiracy charges. -Ever the optimist, Tanika has decided that she can
still beat the federal drug
charges in Tampa. -I don't know what she was
thinking, because considering the time
that she was looking at, I figured she would cooperate and she would do everything that
she could to get her time
liability reduced, and she didn't. She stayed on the defense that
she was working for the FBI. -During the trial, Agent Grant gets a curious phone
call from the East Cleveland Police
Department. -They told us the story about
what happened to Melissa Latham and Tanika, and Tanika's
participation in it. And they asked us if we had a
picture of her. And we kind of looked at each
other, started laughing. We said, have a picture of her?
We have her down here in federal
court in trial. -But when Agent Grant returns to
the courtroom, Tanika and her mother are
nowhere to be found. -Once we realized that they were
gone, we fanned out through the
courthouse to try to find them. Well, the US. Marshals actually
stopped them. The son had pulled the car up to
the front of the courthouse. They were literally, stopped
them on the steps, they were
trying to leave. So we brought them back
upstairs, and our trial continued after
that, and they were found
guilty. -Tanika is sentenced to 24 years
in prison for conspiracy to sell
cocaine, and she must now return to
Cleveland to face decades worth of charges
for attempting to kill Melissa
Latham. -If Tanika would enter a plea and we could have worked
something out in that respect to a lesser offense, the judge would give her
concurrent time, meaning Tanika would not have to
do a single day more in prison for what happened to Ms. Latham. -Tanika says that's not good
enough, and she deserves better than
that. She feels like she can do better
than that, and she decides that she rather
go to trial. -Coming up, Tanika Jenkins
stands trial for the attempted
murder of Melissa Latham, with her mother Tanika as a
willing accomplice. [Dramatic Sting] The trial of Tanika Jenkins for
the attempted murder of Melissa
Latham began on february 4, 2003, here at the Cuyahoga County
Courthouse. By now, this story had gone
national. -And as I open up the file, and start reading it, I say to myself, well this,
maybe this is, maybe
somebody's playing a joke here, maybe this is a
Hollywood script. -Tanika and her mother are
extradited back to Ohio to stand
trial for attempted murder, where they will face assistant
prosecutor Saleh Awadallah. -I think one of the biggest
challenges was you look
over to the defense table, and there was a meek looking older woman in
Tanika Clement, her mother, a
grandmotherly figure with a very put together young
lady in Tanika Jenkins. -Is the state prepared?
-Yes, your honor. And is the defense prepared for
openings? -Yes, your honor. -All right, Mr. Awadallah. -Good morning ladies and
gentlemen. [Courtroom] Good morning. Wrap her body up. Let's take her next door to the abandoned building and let's burn her up. Who is the speaker here? The evidence will show that the person making that
statement is one Tanika Jenkins. -At the time when these two women walked in,
was this one of the women? -Yes. -And who did you understand
this woman to be? -Tanika Jenkins. -And why did you think that? -Well, when she came in, I
handed her the papers. She said that was her appointment. -Could you take a look at these,
Ms. Farabaugh? What is state's exhibit F two
and F three? -This is our registration form. -Do you remember who handed back
to you these documents? -The woman in the picture. -Not... -No. -...the defendant sitting
over there in the pink? -No. -Was there anything unusual
about the woman in the picture with regards to what she was
wearing? -She wore a baseball cap that she never took off. Also
black Isotoner or gloves. -We had the dentist come in and
say he did take x-rays and identify
the x-rays. -Do you recognize what C one is? -Yeah, that's the picture of
Tanika Jenkins, that came to my office. -So you know C one, which really is a picture of
Melissa Latham as Tanika
Jenkins. -That's what she told us that
day. -The prosecution's case rested
on convincing the jury that Tanika Jenkins was the
mastermind behind the plot to
kill Melissa Latham. But now the defense set out to
cast Tanika as an unwitting accomplice to an attempted murder
orchestrated by her cousin, Kyle
Martin. -There is no question that
Melissa Latham took a beating, but that beating was at the
hands of Kyle Martin, not Tanika Jenkins, not Tanisha
Clement. -That, I believe, was their
strategy going in, shifting the blame to Kyle. Kyle was a convicted criminal. Kyle was also a drug user and smoked crack with Melissa. Tanika and her mother had
nothing to do with it. -Kyle's own statements to the
police after being arrested supported their version of
events. He claimed that he became
paranoid from smoking about a half ounce of
dope, and when he went through
Melissa's pockets, he noticed that $800 in crack
was missing. They began to wrestle, and she bit his left arm, after which he punched her once
in the forehead and once in the back of the
head. -As part of a plea deal, Kyle agreed to testify against
his cousin that he was the unwitting accomplice, and that Tanika was the real
mastermind. Mr. Shaughnessy and I shared the
fear that Kyle Martin would testify
truthfully to corroborate what Ms. Latham
had said. So we had the fear that he may
take the stand. -Kyle is set to show up. He's
set to testify against his
cousin. He gets on the stand, and he
starts pleading the Fifth. -On the advice of counsel, I'm exercising my Fifth
Amendment right not to be called as a witness. I'm refusing to be sworn. -And you will answer no
questions put to you? -I will answer no questions.
-Alright. -He would not testify against
his cousin or his other relatives. Even though he declared to the
world that he would, and, and, and just that, seeing
a guy who's even afraid to testify against
Tanika, um, I think uh, said, said a
lot. -Coming up, all eyes turn to
Melissa Latham. -Everybody was watching me. I felt like I was about to pass
out. I walk up to, I'm like, Melissa,
you can do it, you can do it,
you can do it, you can do it. I tell myself that all the way
up to the stand. -With Kyle Martin taking the
Fifth and refusing to testify
against his cousin, it is now up to Melissa Latham
to convince the jury that it is
Tanika, not Kyle, who is the mastermind
behind a devious plot to escape federal drug charges
by faking her own death. -We had to move on and, and
figure out how to present the case with the other
witnesses. We would have loved to have him
testify and tell another insider viewpoint, but
fortunately for us, Melissa was
there. -It was very stressful because she had good lawyers, she had really expensive
lawyers. -Melissa Latham was far from the
perfect witness. -Melissa is a drug addict. She's been in and out of jail. She doesn't have a clean slate. So is the jury actually going to
believe her? And if they do believe her, are
they going to be sympathetic? And Tanika is betting that they
won't. So Melissa has, she's cleaned herself up, she's
dressed nicely, and she is fully
prepared to face Tanika in court. And Tanika is sitting there
stone cold, blank faced staring
at her. -Even in court, she still was
looking like, I'm going to get
away with this. Like she was a psychopath for
real. Yes, she was. -My client thought she would be
either dead on the corner slab from her drug addiction or not
show up, but she was wrong. -I bring your attention back to
the date of April 2001. -All I could do is tell my truth and look at the jury and let
them know this is what happened
to me. -Could you tell us how you came
to meet Ms. Jenkins? -Okay. I believe it was about
2:33 o'clock A.M. And I was walking up Euclid. Tanika pulled up in a red car. I'm like, what's going on? She's like, um, you want to make some money? I'm
like, It's 02:00 in the morning, what do you want me to do? She said, it's an insurance
thing. She said, I could give you $50
now, $50, you know, when it's
done. I didn't care what insurance
thing she was talking about. I
was seein' dollar signs. -And so did you agree to
participate in this insurance
scam? -Yes. -Was going with them that night
part of this? -Yes. -Where did you go after you got
into the car? -So we proceeded to go buy the drugs. And see, that's the problem when
you on drugs, you don't think. You just, your mind be clouded,
and you just go with the flow. -After visiting the dentist the
following day and getting paid for what she
thinks is an insurance scam, she and Kyle get high. The next thing she remembers is
waking up the next morning in a dark basement. -And what happens in this dark
basement? -Okay. In the dark basement, I
felt somebody swing at me. When he grabs me by the neck,
all of a sudden, the light comes
on. Both Tanika and Kyle persist to kicking me, stomping
me, telling me, shut up, bitch.
Shut up, bitch. -Tanika Clement, her mother was
a diabetic, so she had access to
insulin, and so she injected Melissa
Latham. And Melissa Latham was not a
diabetic, so the thought was we were going
to put her into a hypoglycemic
coma that would lead to her death. -How many times did she inject
you with that needle? -Had to be about 15 to 16 times. -And what part of your body was
she injecting? -Arms, legs, thighs, wherever
she could get the needle to. -What happened after she
injected you with the insulin? -Kyle picked up a brick, and she was like, we'll just hit
her with the brick. Just hit her
with the brick. So he grabbed the brick and started hitting me in the
head. So the first two hits, I
still was fighting. I felt the ringing and the heat,
but I never passed out. He hit
me again with the brick. So after I ran out of fight, I
acted like I was dead. -What was Tanika Jenkins doing
when Kyle Martin had that brick
in his hand? -All I know is that while he was
hitting me with the brick, blood had got on his arm, and she was like, make sure you wash
your hands real good when you get finished. When they was trying to murder
me, I seen my whole life flash
before my eyes. It's scary. You know, I accepted it for a
second, but then I'm like, oh,
no. -And now she hears them walking upstairs, locking the
door. She then jumps up, adrenaline kicked in and runs up, tries to get out of
the basement, finds it that it's
locked without a, a door knob. -So I had to go back in the
basement, find something to open
the door with. Which I found the spoon, went back up, put the spoon in
the, in the part with the doorknob
goes, twisted it, and it opened. -And there was this great big pit bull sitting there. She said, now look, dog, I'm
going out the door. I don't know
what you going to do. -And now, mind you, I got blood
all over me, half naked. So just so happened
the security door was unlocked. So I went out the first door,
then I ran over to KFC. Ran behind the counter and asked
them, the police, call 911. They called the police, and when
the police came, Tanika came in
with them. -What was she doing there? -Accusing me of stealing $1,000. -What happens then, after she
accuses you of stealing this
$1,000? -I told the police, if you all
don't believe me, just go over
there and look. It should be a puddle of blood
in the basement. -She destroys Tanika in court, and she tells everything that
happened. The entire courtroom, and
especially the jury, they are
shocked and just in awe about how much Tanika
would do to try to get away with
crime. -She did a great job standing up for herself, but we had to prepare her to get
up there, being cross examined by two
skilled defense attorneys. -Mr. Jenkins cross. -Thank you, your honor. -Their, their strategy was to
try to knock down the
credibility of Melissa. -Your testimony earlier about no felony convictions was
accurate, correct? -Yes. -However, you were convicted of
a theft offense in Maple
Heights, were you not? -Yes. The worst thing was her
attorneys interrogating me. That was the
hardest part. -Being a zealous advocate for my
client, as a defense lawyer, some would call it sleazy. I think it's good lawyering to do the best you can, even if
you're bending the rules of
evidence a little bit and asking about convictions for hooking on the street or drug
abuse convictions. Why don't we discuss your crack
cocaine habit? When did you begin using crack
cocaine? -About four years ago. -The defense strategy was, you can't believe Melissa. Melissa was a crack user.
Melissa was a liar. -At the height of your cocaine
abuse, how much would you be spending? -At the height of it? $40 a day. -It never got up into the $100
range? -Mm-mm. Not when I was spending
it. -Ms. Latham did a great job in
trial. She was tough to rattle on cross
examination. Both Tom and I tried our best. -All right, ma'am, you may step
down. -Thank you. They said I did a pretty good
job, though. All I did was told the truth.
That's all I did was told the
truth. -But Tanika wasn't the only one
on trial. Her mother was being tried
simultaneously for obstruction
of justice. -The original conspiracy to commit the aggravated murder
was a felony of the first
degree. So she's looking at up to a
decade in prison there. In representing Miss Clement, I can tell you that what I saw
is a lady that loved her daughter very much. And I think was willing to do
anything she could to protect
her. -The apple doesn't fall far from
the tree. She was equally as responsible for everything that happened as
Tanika was. -This is the supportive mother. -Whether she deserves the
support or not. -Correct. -Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you're about
to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you God? -I do. -Blood is thicker than water. I don't mean that as a pun just
because her mother was cleaning up the
blood in the basement with a rag, with bleach. The strongest witnesses against
my client were the officers that described
that she was involved with
cleaning products and or rags and things
of that nature. -Did you smell some cleaning
products? -Yes. Smelled like strong order
of bleach. -All right. And did she have
anything in her hand? -Yes, like a towel or a rag. -All right. And did she say
anything to you? -I asked her what she was doing,
and she told me she was
cleaning. -Did she say why she was
cleaning? -She said she was cleaning
because the dogs made a mess in
the basement. -She knew what her daughter was
about to do. She supplied the
insulin, and while they was down there
beating me, she, she was having a conversation
with Tanika from the top of the steps. I
never seen her, though, until the court session. She
never showed her face. But she
was talking from the steps into the basement. -That's not somebody that's
along for the ride. That is somebody that is a full
participant. -The trial of Tanika Jenkins and
her mother concluded on February 11, 2003. -Is the state prepared for
closing arguments? -Yes, Your honor. Good morning, ladies and
gentlemen. [Courtroom] Good morning. Melissa Latham's life had to be
snuffed out in order for Tanika Jenkins and
her mother to benefit. Ask yourself, what was she doing out there at 02:00 in the morning on the
20th? What was she doing? And I submit to you that she was
hunting. We had the motive, we had the
plan, the method, and now it's ladies and
gentlemen, it's up to you. Thank you very much, once again.
Thank you. - I guess the main cog would be
to just indicate to the jury that
Melissa Latham was not a credible witness. -We got Melissa Latham, who realizes that she will
probably go back to jail if she doesn't steer the guilt
away from herself for stealing
that money. So she concocts this story and tries to incriminate not
only Kyle Martin, but Tanika and
her mom. -When we come back, the jury
returns with the verdict. -I already knew the jurors
believed me. I already knew they
believed me, because the way they was
looking. -Melissa Latham had been beaten
with a brick and injected with what should
have been a lethal dose of
insulin, but miraculously survived to
testify against her attackers in
court. She didn't have to wait long for
the jury to come back with a
verdict. -You got Nancy Grace on the TV. Melissa Latham, the victim, is
on her way now. I'm like, oh, my God. I was
overwhelmed. Girl was crazy. The camera people felt like
paparazzi. No offense. [Camera Crew Laughs] -Has the jury reached a verdict?
-Correct. We, the jury in this case, being
duly empanelled and sworn, do find the defendant, Tanika
Jenkins, guilty of attempted aggravated
murder of Melissa Latham, signed by all
twelve of the jurors. -Truth is stranger than
fiction, and the truth of this case, according to the jury's
findings, Tanika was a diabolical
individual with the brains. Had they been set on the right
course in life, could have led her to great
things, instead of where she's at now. -She was sentenced to 20 years, and this is on top of the 24
years that she was sentenced in
Florida for the drug charges. So now she has to consecutively
serve 44 years in prison. -She just thought she was
smarter than everybody else. Obviously not. -Melissa was there for the
sentencing, and I know she was very happy
and very relieved that the verdict was,
was a guilty verdict and that Tanika had been held
accountable for her actions. -I thought the, the best part of
this entire case was the fact
that Melissa Latham did not die and she was able to live her
life. -I just wanted, I wanted her to
talk. I wanted her to say something. This is all she said. Due to the medication and my
attorney's advice, I will not be
speaking. And that was the only words I
ever heard her say in my life besides in that basement. She
did not want to get up there, because she knew ain't nothing
she could say. -Tanika's mother was sentenced
the same day. -We, the jury in this case,
being duly empanelled and sworn, do find the defendant, Tanika
Clement, guilty of obstructing
justice. It is signed by all twelve of
the jurors. -The mother and the daughter got
up and walked away. I just watched them and thinking they was going to try to give me
eye contact. They never did. I'm tryin' to get, they never looked at me. They
just walked out with her head down and
walked away. -They're led back to the holding
cell. Tanika's mother, her conviction
for a felony three obstructing
justice. She got time served and was
released. -Tanika Clements spent 14 years
in federal prison and was released in 2017. Tanika Jenkins finished serving
her drug sentence and was transferred to Ohio to
serve another two decades for
attempted murder. -They sent me a letter saying, okay, Ms. Latham, we're about to
release Tanika into a halfway
house. They wanted my feedback, they wanted to know how I felt
about it. I never responded to the letter, but I do would like to know
what's going on with her. -Kyle Martin's case was tried
separately. -Kyle Martin actually served as his own counsel in
that first case. He placed the blame on Tanika. Kyle wants to shade his
involvement as unknowing, an unknowing
participant in this conspiracy. -They found him not guilty of
attempted murder and only found him guilty for
kidnapping, for which he got ten years. -But because he represented
himself, the Ohio Supreme Court later
tossed out his conviction. Unfortunately for Kyle, in his
second trial, he was convicted of attempted
murder and sentenced to 15
years. -Karma always come and get you. Ain't nobody exempt from karma. -For Melissa, life after the trial has been
mixed. The state of Ohio decided
Melissa was ineligible for a
fund set up to help victims of
violent crime. -They said that by me being high off a felony
drug, they did not give me not one
penny. -The amount of insulin that was
in her body and the fact that now she has to have insulin for
the rest of her life. -Over two decades later, Melissa
Latham still struggles to recover from
that ordeal in that dark
basement. -The hardest thing I ever
overcame was getting out that
basement, fighting for my life. I'm not gonna sit here and say I
don't. I still struggle, but it's
getting better. I'm doing good, and they trying
to make me manager. I know it's not a big deal. It's
because it's McDonald's, but I'm pretty good, and everybody at my job love me. -She likes her job. I mean,
it's, it's, it's a job. It's something that occupies her
time. -We cook out, you know, have our little beer
or whatever, you know. Just having a nice time with our
family. -She's still Melissa. She's
still comical. She's still
herself. -But she doesn't dwell on the
past or the woman who nearly killed
her. -I'm sure she sit and
think about me. I bet you she think about me,
but I don't think about her. -Her main wish now is to reunite
with the children she lost when she was addicted to drugs. -I know y'all grown, but if y'all see this,
please call Mommy. I miss y'all so much.
Y'all 'bout to
have me start crying. But I miss y'all so much.
