Who Killed Nicole?

The brutal murder of seven-year-old Nicole Caldwell, daughter of famed televangelist Bobby Earl Caldwell, inside Potter Correctional Institution in the Florida Panhandle, has shocked the nation.

Several elements—a famous father, a beautiful child, a baffling locked-room mystery, the fact that a child was in a prison in the first place—have served as fodder for the mounting media frenzy forming around the case.

Nicole was murdered while waiting inside the chaplain’s locked office for her father to finish his service in the chapel. What was a child doing inside a maximum security prison? At Caldwell’s request, prison officials approved the minor’s entry into the institution to sing along with her adopted mother, Bunny Caldwell, as a part of Bobby Earl’s program.

"We took every precaution," Paula Hale, a spokesperson for the Florida department of corrections said. "We still can’t figure out how this happened, but we will. We’re confident our ongoing investigation will result in the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator of this unimaginable crime."

According to Hale, security personnel at PCI insisted that Nicole and Bunny remain inside the chaplain’s locked office between opening and closing the service with a song. But something went horribly wrong. At the end of the service, Bunny Caldwell came out and sang alone, and has since claimed that her daughter was alive, just suffering from a stomach ache, when she left her in the locked office by herself.

Suspicion fell on Bobby Earl and Bunny Caldwell almost immediately, but there is no shortage of suspects, including convicted murders and known sex offenders—though officials have yet to confirm rumors that Nicole had been sexually assaulted.

Many in the media have speculated that the crime was perpetrated by prison personnel—a correctional officer or other staff member, several of whom were in attendance the night of the murder—and that the department of corrections is involved in a major cover-up. No definitive evidence has surfaced to confirm the credibility of this allegation.

According to sources close the investigation, serious suspects include four inmates who left the sanctuary and entered the hallway near the chaplain’s office; two correctional officers, Roger Coel and Tim Whitfield, on duty during the service; Theo Malcolm—a GED teacher at PCI; and Bobby Earl or Bunny Caldwell. As evidence mounts and suspects continue to surface, it seems we’re still no closer to finding out exactly what happened and why, and answering the question on everybody’s mind—Who killed Nicole?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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