02x03 - She Was Hiding a Secret

[bunniefuu]

♪ If I tell you a secret ♪

[narrator]


only trusted one person
with her deepest secrets.

Her twin sister, Zhané.

[muffled chatter]

She confided everything to me.

[narrator]
That's until January 12, 2018,

when Jholie goes missing.

[sighs] This can't be happening.
Not right now. Not right now.

[narrator] And the secrets that they were
supposed to take to the grave

rise up again.

What are good secrets?
What are bad secrets?

I don't know if I wanna tell my dad yet.

[narrator]
And what shockingly comes to light...

-[police radio chatter]
-It was horrendous. It was horrible.

♪♪

[narrator]
...is a web of disturbing discoveries...

[inaudible]

She did a really good job
of leaving breadcrumbs for us.

[narrator] ...that ultimately
reveals the chilling truth.

When you love someone,
you believe that they love you, too.

[emotional breathing]

[speaker 1] She solved her own m*rder
from beyond the grave.

[speaker 2] The fitness app on the phone,
it was overwhelming evidence.

♪ I've been haunted by these visions ♪

♪ That I've seen with my own eyes ♪

♪ And the only way to find you ♪

♪ Is to go beneath the lies ♪

[speaker 3]
She did help catch this k*ller.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[narrator]
Mount Vernon, Virginia.

It's picturesque,

quiet, and, most of all, safe.

[children laughing]

You couldn't ask for a better place

for a couple of teenage sisters

like Zhané and Jholie Lee to grow up.

And you know that special bond
you hear about between twins?

[overlapping singing, chatter]

These two have got it.

That was until January 12, 2018.

[all singing]

♪♪

[♪ singing fades out]

So, it's Friday. My dad's outta town.

-[♪ upbeat R&B music playing]
-We're all vibing, having a good time.

I am Zhané Ervin,

Jholie Moussa's twin sister.

♪♪

[narrator] It's Martin Luther King
weekend, and for the first time ever,

the 16-year-old twins
will be home alone.

Their uncle Christopher isn't far away

and the girls are just planning
to have a chill evening.

[♪ dissonant sting]

-Or so Zhané thought.
-[text chimes]

[Zhané]
While she's doing my hair,

my sister is constantly
looking at her phone...

[phone chimes]

...and seems a little bit
like in a rush.

[inaudible]

Like she has... like stuff going on.

She tells me that she has to go
real quick, and she'll be back.

[echoing footsteps]

[door clicks, creaks]

[♪ ominous music playing]

[narrator]
An hour after Jholie has left,

her friend, Leslie, arrives.

My sister's best friend Leslie pulls up.

-[doorbell rings]
-[door creaks]

She comes and says, "Where's your sister?"
And I'm like,

"You don't know where she is?"
And she said no.

♪♪

That's when I text her and be like,
"That's kinda rude for you

"to not tell Leslie where you are.

Leslie's supposed to be
picking you up today."

You know?
Like, "Why aren't you here?"

[♪ ominous crescendo]

[echoing text bloop]

[echoing phone chime]

She texted me.

She said she's going
to a party in Norfolk.

♪♪

[narrator]
For Zhané, this all feels wrong.

This isn't like Jholie at all.

[Zhané]
She never went to parties.

And I was like, "That's weird
that you're going to a party,

but you didn't wanna tell Leslie that?"

♪♪

And she was like,
"I'll be fine. I'm okay."

[narrator]
Zhané knows that she and Jholie

never lie to each other,

so when her twin tells her she's fine,
Zhané believes her.

[♪ gentle music playing]

But morning comes,
and Jholie still isn't home.

[Zhané]
As soon as I woke up, I called.

[echoing phone ringing]

And it went straight to voicemail.

[voicemail] [distorted]
Your call has been forwarded

to an automatic voice message...

And then, that's when
my stomach started dropping.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

[narrator]
Deep down inside,

Zhané knows that something
is desperately wrong.

So she tells Uncle Christopher
that Jholie didn't come home last night.

[line ringing]

And I was crying and scared.

He said, "Did you tell your mom?"
I said no.

"Did you tell your dad?"
I said no. Like...

He said, "Well, I'm gonna have to."

♪♪

[narrator] Uncle Christopher makes a call
that no parent wants to receive.

[line ringing]

[Cyrille Moussa] I could just feel it,
something's not right.

I don't know. I start to tear up.

♪♪

I'm Cyrille Moussa.
I'm the father of Jholie and Zhané Moussa.

[echoing dialing]

[narrator]
Cyrille calls the twin's mom, Syreeta,

his ex-wife, who now lives in Texas.

[Syreeta Steward-Hill]
Cyrille's flipping out

cause this is so out of character for her.

♪♪

So I called her.
She didn't answer her phone.

It went straight to voicemail.

In that very moment,
I got this pit in my stomach.

[Cyrille]
If nobody has heard from Jholie,

maybe we have to call the police
and report a missing person or something.

[narrator] So her parents instruct
Uncle Chris to file a police report

while they scramble to
get back to Virginia.

[police radio chatter]

[Brian Byerson]
My name is Detective Brian Byerson,

Fairfax County Police,
Major Crimes Bureau.

When I first heard about Jholie Moussa,

she was a missing person,

and we had a specific unit
that worked missing persons cases.

They got some information about Jholie.

We heard some of the specifics
around how she went missing.

Her voluntarily leaving on her own accord,

telling her sister she was leaving,
walking out the door,

and that's all.

[door creaks, shuts]

The detective who they
assigned to the case,

he was kind of still like,
"She might've just ran away."

And we're like,

he's not listening.
We know she didn't run away.

♪♪

That Monday was MLK,

and apparently police doesn't work on
Martin Luther King Day. I don't know.

We're like, what?
What sense does that make? [laughs]

So, what, so there's
no criminals on holidays?

♪♪

We weren't getting anywhere.

[Rynata Leach]
If Jholie was a white girl,

I think it would've been
taken more seriously.

My name is Rynata Leach,

and I am Jholie's cousin.

The police told us that we would be
better off searching for her ourselves.

♪♪

[narrator] The first thing the family does
is check the doorbell camera.

Maybe it captured a clue
to where Jholie went.

♪♪

This footage was
the last footage that we had

of her leaving the house.

[glitching]

♪ Time slowly ticks away ♪

She was now gone.

[narrator] Has Jholie decided she wants
a secret for herself this time?

One that she doesn't have to share
with her twin sister,

that's all hers?

Growing up,
that was never their relationship.

[tape rewinding]

[♪ tense music playing]

[Zhané] The person that
was born first was Jholie.

Two minutes older. [giggles]
Bossed me around.

[♪ vocalizing]

They had their own language.
[laughs]

And nobody else knew it.

It's like they lived in their own world.

[narrator] Although lovingly bossy
at times, it doesn't matter.

The twins' bond becomes
stronger with each passing year.

[♪ upbeat electronic music playing]

[Zhané] Me and my twin sister
got a tattoo on our 16th birthday,

saying basically
"forever Zhané and Jholie."

♪♪

[narrator] But forever is shattered
with Jholie's disappearance,

and her family will do
anything to bring her back.

And I'm putting all these clues together.

I saw it in the camera footage.
I could see her on the phone,

and then I can see her
looking at the garage door.

[quiet street noise]

She was going to meet somebody.

[narrator] Could this mystery person know
what happened to Jholie?

[rewinding]

Or could they have
abducted her themselves?

As a family, we knew we needed to
figure out who she was going to meet.

♪♪

[narrator]
It's not much, but it's something.

And Jholie's sister Zhané has an idea

of just who she was
talking to as she left.

[narrator]
But why wouldn't she just tell Zhané?

Why is this the one secret
she didn't share?

Will Zhané ever learn the dreadful truth?

♪♪

♪♪

[narrator]


vanished more than 24 hours ago,

after walking out the door
while talking to someone on the phone.

♪♪

And her twin sister, Zhané,
has a pretty good idea of who.

A local boy named Gio.

He was just a boy that
I didn't really personally know.

♪♪

I've seen them talk,
and they seemed really cool,

but it gave more of a friend vibe.

[phone chimes, pops]

-I wouldn't even say they were dating.
-[popping, chiming]

She was like,
"Oh, I talk to him sometime."

[popping, chiming]

[narrator] But she's seen them
texting a lot recently,

so Zhané is pretty sure this is the guy

Jholie was talking with
before disappearing.

And because
it's been more than 24 hours

since her twin sister has gone missing,

Zhané does the unthinkable
to help find her.

-She shares her sister's secret.
-[line ringing]

Jholie never mentioned
a Gio to me at all, ever, right?

Which is odd. If she liked him,
she would've said something about him.

But we still follow every lead, right?

♪♪

[narrator]
There's just one problem with that.

I didn't have Gio's number,

so I didn't know what else to do.

[Syreeta]
We started asking around.

Cyrille is asking people
at the barbershop, like, "Hey,

does anybody know a Gio
that lives in this area?"

♪♪

We couldn't find anybody named Gio.

♪♪

[narrator] Meanwhile,
the investigators are taking a deeper look

and following up on leads.

[Brian] There were some text messages
that indicated Jholie had gone to Norfolk

to go to a frat party.

♪♪

But there was really no way to prove

whether or not she had actually
attended that frat party.

[muffled chatter]

I mean, there's a college down there.

There's probably a lot of frat parties
that took place that weekend.

[narrator] The police are hoping
Jholie's cell phone data

will confirm the Norfork lead.

But processing the necessary warrant
will take time.

But another warrant gives the police
early access to her cell tower data

in hopes of tracking
her movements that night.

Her cell site data was
not helpful for that

because, at some point, it cuts off.

We know that she leaves the house,

and we know that she goes over
to the area of Woodlawn Park.

We didn't have any evidence
that she ever went to Norfolk.

♪♪

[narrator] By Sunday,

Cyrille and Syreeta are back in Virginia.

Though the twins lived with Syreeta

after their parents' separation
over a decade ago,

when their mom remarried
and relocated to Texas,

they decided to live with their dad.

Now, Cyrille fears that
was a terrible mistake.

[♪ somber music playing]

It was snowballing in my head,

just the, the, the self-blame

and the everything else,

and the more people would
keep saying that,

"It's not your fault,
Cyrille, it's not your fault,"

it would make it even worse.

[♪ somber vocalizing]

[narrator]
It's Monday.

Jholie has been missing
for three whole days,

and the Moussa family is desperate.

[Cyrille]
So, Syreeta takes it upon herself,

and she called Peggy Fox.

♪♪

[Peggy Fox]
I was in the newsroom when a call came in

from a woman who said
her daughter was missing.

There was just something about the tone
of this woman's voice.

Like she had a mission

that she needed somebody
to come out and listen.

Here in Alexandria with the Moussa Family,

-and this is Zhané.
-[Syreeta] Thank you.

And she's the twin sister of Jholie,

and Jholie went missing on

-Friday afternoon, right?
-Yes.

So, Zhané, why don't you
tell us what happened?

In past missing person cases
I had covered,

it seemed like there was more concern,

community concern, more police concern.

I felt like maybe the police
just hadn't pieced it all together.

♪♪

So this right here is
a picture of what her...

-What she looks like.
-[Peggy] What she looks like.

-She has braids. [indistinct]
-[overlapping chatter]

[Cyrille] She just got new
blonde braids for Christmas.

A lot of people praying
for Jholie's safe return.

Thank you so much.

♪♪

[narrator]
The story goes out on Facebook Live,

and within 15 minutes,
it has 50,000 views.

Hashtag findjholie goes viral,

with celebrities Meagan Good
and Eva Marcille

-sharing the missing teen's photo.
-[text chimes]

-[phones ringing]
-[♪ dramatic crescendo]

[Syreeta]
Social media helped us out a lot.

People from Massachusetts
drove down to help look for her.

It was crazy how much
support we were getting.

Cyrille's got all these papers,

and he's on his computer,
and he's trying to track down information.

[narrator]
Syreeta reaches out

to all of Jholie's friends
and acquaintances,

looking for anyone
who might know anything.

♪♪

And that's when I thought,
"Okay, has anybody checked Nebiyu?"

[♪ dark music playing]

[narrator]
Nebiyu was Jholie's first boyfriend

and her first heartbreak.

Not to say that she didn't think
little boys were cute before

but this was the first time she's like,

"Oh, my goodness,
I'm in high school now,

so I'm allowed to have
a boyfriend." [laughs]

[narrator] But that was then,
and this is now.

At this point, her and Nebiyu
are not speaking.

They're not cool.

They do not have any contact
with each other at all.

They're not together.

She had a bad altercation
with him beforehand.

♪♪

[narrator]
With little else to go on,

the family starts to consider
all possible options.

[♪ ominous sting]

Might Jholie's disappearance

have to do with her
troubled past with Nebiyu?

Right away, I'm thinking,

"I'm gonna go see this boy.
I'm gonna go see Nebiyu."

♪♪

[narrator] But Zhané is sure
that Nebiyu has nothing to do with it

because there's no way Jholie

would ever speak to Nebiyu again
after what happened.

You see, there's a horrible secret
between the three of them.

One that threatens to change everything.

[♪ dramatic crescendo]

♪♪

[narrator]
It's now been 72 hours since Jholie Moussa

said goodbye to her twin sister, Zhané,

and walked out the front door.

She was talking to someone
on the phone as she went

and hasn't been heard from since.

Now, the only hopes of finding her
are a mysterious boy named Gio

and an ex named Nebiyu.

[♪ somber music playing]

Nebiyu was Jholie's first boyfriend,

so this was new territory for us.

♪ Please be gentle with me ♪

♪ I'm not as hard as I seem ♪

There were moments where
I would hear them arguing.

♪ Sometimes I push the people away
that I really need ♪

I thought it was like puppy love,
like teenagers.

They break up, and it is what it is,
and they move on.

-[birds chirping]
-[narrator] Like most teenage loves,

they burn brightly,
and then burn out just as quickly.

After six months, it was over.

Jholie was done, but was Nebiyu?

Towards the end of September,
I leave work.

On the way home,
I look at my Ring video feed,

and I see that the police
had came to the house.

[police radio chatter]

Jholie said she was
walking home from school,

and Nebiyu popped out of nowhere

and was trying to get her to talk to him

'cause they had broken up at this point.

He proceeded to push her
into some bushes by the house.

Then, Nebiyu got up and ran,
and then the neighbor called the police.

♪♪

-[radio beeps]
-[police radio chatter]

The next day, I take off work,
and me and Jholie

go to the courthouse
to get a restraining order.

♪♪

But Jholie told me

that she didn't want to
press criminal charges.

She was like,
"The restraining order is enough.

We don't need to ruin his life
by sending him to jail."

The school took it upon themselves

to relocate him from
Mount Vernon High School altogether

and put him in another school
within the Fairfax County District.

♪♪

[narrator] It's been four months
since that alarming incident.

Surely Nebiyu is a thing
of the past, right?

I go over to Nebiyu's house.
Maybe he knows where Jholie's at, right?

♪♪

Nebiyu comes down the stairs.

I'm asking him, "Where's Jholie?

I know you know where she's at.
Where's Jholie?"

He's like, "I haven't seen her.
I haven't seen her.

I stayed away from her since.
You know, I haven't seen her."

At that point,
I believe what he's telling me.

♪♪

[narrator] Jholie's family seems to accept
that Nebiyu is not involved,

but because of his past,
investigators remain suspicious

and decide to interview him.

We were hoping to locate her
maybe in Nebiyu Ebrahim's home.

Officers came out and interviewed him.

He says that he hasn't seen her
in some time. They don't talk.

He's trying to move on with his life.

♪♪

[narrator] The investigators know
it's not much of an alibi,

but there's nothing else
pointing at Nebiyu's guilt either.

So they turn their investigation

back to the elusive Gio.

[Brian]
So as the investigation is continuing,

we're going through her social media.

We knew that she was corresponding

with someone that went by the name Gio

around the time of her disappearance.

[narrator] But finding him is harder
than they anticipated, until...

[distant phone ringing]

Someone knew a Gio at the barbershop,
and they contacted Gio,

and they said,
"Hey, if you know where this girl is

or if you know anything about this girl,
you need to call and let someone know."

[phone ringing]

Gio ended up calling me.

We had a lengthy conversation

and he seemed very adamant
that he did not know her.

Didn't know anything about her.

And to be honest with you,

I believed him.

[phone ringing]

[Brian] The family's advice to him
was to call the police,

which he did.

We were able to speak to him

and alibi him out.

[narrator] So, this guy isn't the Gio
that everybody has been looking for

but someone is.

Zhané has seen it.

They would text long
paragraphs to each other,

and it was just like the most dramatic
relationship I ever seen.

♪ Twisting, spinning ♪

♪ Splitting me in two ♪

[narrator] The answers have to be
in Jholie's cell, but that's locked.

Police had to get a warrant
to find out what was in her phone,

and that warrant wouldn't
come until weeks after.

[sniffles]

♪♪

[narrator] Jholie's family
can't wait weeks to find her.

They need access now.

I'm still playing daddy detective.

I come up with the idea that, hey,

our phone records,
we all have the same plan.

[narrator] Finally, a way to find the last
phone number Jholie had called...

[♪ music building]

...and the last person she talked to
when she disappeared.

We called that number to
find out who called her phone.

[phone ringing]

[narrator]
Someone picks up immediately,

but it isn't Gio on the line.

And it isn't Nebiyu either.

[speaker] [on phone]
Hello?

♪♪

[narrator] It's been 10 days since
Jholie Moussa walked out her front door

and nobody's seen her since.

But daddy detective Cyrille
looks through his phone bill

and discovers the last number
that his missing daughter called

and dials it.

[echoing phone ringing]

[child]
Hello?

[Cyrille]
It was a little boy who picked up.

I think the boy was like 10 or something.

♪♪

And the boy was like,
"I don't know who Jholie is.

I didn't call that number."
He was like,

"But somebody at the park used my phone.
Maybe that person called."

[inaudible]

[narrator]
It's not what Cyrille hoped for,

but it's something.

He needs to learn more.

♪♪

[Cyrille]
We went to the basketball court

where all the kids would be playing at.

The boy described the person
who used his phone.

He described him as an older person

with a low haircut,
who was like six-foot-tall or whatever.

[narrator]
This has to be the guy

Jholie was on her way to meet.

[Peggy]
Why would anyone ask

to use someone else's phone?
Everyone's got a cell phone.

He doesn't want anyone to trace his phone.

[♪ ominous sting]

[narrator]
It's now been 12 days

since Jholie vanished
into the cold winter night,

and the search for her has stretched

all the way from West Virginia
to Philadelphia,

only to come up empty.

♪♪

So, with no other way to move forward,

investigators go back to
Jholie's last-known location

to see if there is anything
they might have missed.

[Brian]
On January 26, 2018, I got a phone call

saying that Search and Rescue
was out at Woodlawn Park.

[narrator] The park has been
searched several times before,

but this time is different.

♪♪

The only thing that they told me
was that they had found what they believed

to be human remains.

♪♪

As I'm driving in, I can see

the crime scene tape that's up.

I could see that there were
media vehicles here.

I'm just trying to get under the tape,

so I can get out and actually see
what it is that we're dealing with.

♪♪

So, off the path over here,

in this little depression
next to this tree,

is where we ultimately find the body.

She was probably 10 feet off of this path,

completely covered with leaves.

And who knows how many people

unknowingly walked right by her

in those two weeks that she was out here?

♪♪

As we were excavating,
there was a tattoo that was visible,

and that tattoo was the same tattoo
that her sister has, exactly.

♪♪

So, at that point, I was confident

that this was Jholie Moussa.

[♪ somber music playing]

I left the scene

and I went over
and I met the Moussa family.

I'm in the basement,
so I see them go straight upstairs,

and then I hear my mom screaming.

That's when I knew.

♪ We'll make it out alive ♪

♪♪

Why would you just leave me...

[inhales]

here by myself? [sobs]

And I'm still here by myself. [gasps]

[inhales]

[glitches]

♪♪

[Brian]
I remember telling Cyrille

that I had a 15-year-old as well

and that I would do everything in my power

to bring someone to justice

for what happened to his daughter.

[Cyrille]
And he looked at me, and he was like,

"I'm gonna find the person who did this.

I'm gonna treat it like, like,
this was my daughter."

♪♪

[Brian]
The autopsy of Jholie Moussa

occurred on January 27, 2018,

at the Northern District
medical examiner's office.

We were able to establish
that she had been manually strangled.

There was some damage
in and around her neck

that would've indicated that.

Took swabs all the way
around Jholie's neck

and a whole bunch of other places.

We were able to get DNA off of her neck
from multiple different spots.

♪♪

[narrator]
Finding DNA gives investigators hope.

But whose DNA is it?

Meanwhile, Jholie Moussa is laid to rest.

[church bell tolling]

[♪ somber vocal music playing]

Jholie's funeral was massive.

[♪ vocalizing continues]

It was like about 200 people showed up.

It was very emotional

and I just remember Zhané...

losing her mind.

♪ The darkness comes over me ♪

And she jumps up,
and she started screaming.

Several people grabbed her
to try to calm her down.

And I think that's when she
realized her sister was gone.

♪♪

[Zhané]
I was so angry.

I had to get picked up and taken out.

♪♪

♪♪

[narrator] As the family tries
to accept their new reality,

it's becoming abundantly clear

that Zhané is struggling
with more than just grief.

[Cyrille]
She was crying like crazy.

The thing is, Zhané,
she was hiding a secret.

♪♪

[narrator] Zhané is haunted
by a disturbingly dark secret

her twin Jholie told her
shortly before she disappeared.

I don't wanna tell my dad yet...

[inaudible]

...'cause then that means that
this whole thing is actually more real.

[narrator] It's a secret that
may lead to Jholie's k*ller.

[♪ intense crescendo]

[♪ somber music playing]

[narrator] Jholie Moussa's body
has been found and laid to rest.

But now that her twin sister
is gone forever,

Zhané realizes that
a secret Jholie told her,

a secret she has never shared with anyone,

could be the key to catching her k*ller.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

[Zhané]
Jholie and Nebiyu,

they would see each other in secret,

like, even after
the whole situation with him.

♪♪

I didn't know at first,
but then she told me,

and when she did tell me,

she was just like,
"It's not even that big of a deal."

I was just like, "Okay."

[narrator]
Jholie goes on to tell her twin

that the last time she saw Nebiyu

was actually in December,
but this time, it was different.

It was terrifying.

♪♪

[Zhané]
He was blaming her for the fact

that he got himself in trouble,

blaming her

because he had gotten locked up,

ended up going to a new school.

He was looked at badly.

He was blaming her because he's like,

"All of this wouldn't even be happening
if it wasn't for you."

They were arguing about that,
and he ended up strangling her.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

Nebiyu put his arms
around her neck and strangled her,

and she passed out.

When she woke up, her neck hurt.

She heard him on the phone,
talking to a friend,

and he was like,
"Oh, I think I k*lled her."

He does let her leave,
but at the same time,

he's kinda begging her
to like forgive him,

and he's sorry,

and all that stuff that he would do.

She was like,
"I can't stay here. I gotta go."

And when she told me about it,

we cried in each other's arms.

She told me, "I can't see him again.

We can't talk, we can't date."

And I was like,
"What do you mean you can't?"

She was like, "I'm not going to."

♪♪

The time, I felt like I knew that
she was not gonna talk to him again.

That was the last straw.
Nobody would go back to that.

♪♪

[narrator] Confident that this time
Nebiyu was gone for good,

Zhané kept her sister's secret
about that terrible night,

even after she disappeared.

But once Zhané learns that
Jholie's k*ller strangled her,

alarm bells go off.

That's when I knew.

I know that Nebiyu had
something to do with it.

[narrator] Zhané can no longer
keep her twin's secret.

And when Zhané told me, I was like,
"Why didn't you tell me these things?

♪♪

"Y'all could've just told me.
Y'all could've told me.

I would've been there.
I would've helped you."

[narrator] And when Cyrille brings
these new details to Detective Byerson,

the investigators
immediately make their move.

We decided to utilize
the unreported strangulation

and see if we could charge him with it,
in the hopes to get a little bit more time

to shore up this m*rder charge.

[♪ dramatic sting]

Some officers interviewed Nebiyu
about this allegation of strangulation.

He talked about it.
He said it happened.

Made some confessions about that,

and he was subsequently charged
with a strangulation at that point.

[narrator] Nebiyu pleads guilty to as*ault
for the December 16 attack

and is sentenced to six months detention.

[♪ intense music playing]

[Casey Lingan]
My name is Casey Lingan,

and in 2018, I was the Chief Deputy
Commonwealth's attorney

for Fairfax County.

We ex*cuted on Nebiyu Ebrahim for his DNA,

and that was submitted
to the lab for comparison

to a number of swabs from Jholie's neck.

And what we came to find out

was that his DNA...

[♪ tense crescendo]

was on her neck.

♪♪

[narrator] So as Nebiyu
is released from detention

for the December as*ault charge,

Detective Byerson is waiting for him.

As I was placing handcuffs on him,

he just turned his head
over his right shoulder

and asked me if there was
somewhere we could talk.

And I said yeah.

[clock ticking]

Nebiyu walked me through that day.

We knew that she was
corresponding with someone

that went by the name Gio

-around the time of her disappearance.
-[echoing ding]

Gio was...

Nebiyu.

[♪ dramatic sting]

Jholie was utilizing the name Gio

because she did, in fact,
know someone named Gio.

And when she would be questioned

by family or sister or mom,
her dad or stepdad,

about who she was corresponding with,

she knew that she was speaking to Nebiyu,

which she wasn't supposed to be doing.

♪♪

[narrator] The Gio that Syreeta
and the investigators had spoken to

was simply the wrong guy.

The Gio that Jholie was talking to

had been Nebiyu all along.

♪♪

-[kids chattering]
-[Brian] He told me that

he had met up
with the two boys at the park,

at the basketball court.

He had asked to use one of their phones.

He had called Jholie from that phone.

[echoing dialing]

He had asked her to come down
to meet him in Woodlawn Park.

[line ringing]

♪♪

[narrator]
When Jholie arrives at the park,

an argument ensues.

[Brian] Nebiyu tells me that
he decides to place her in...

an MMA-style choke hold.

[♪ tense crescendo]

He squeezes...

♪♪

until her body becomes limp.

[♪ tense crescendo]

[♪ somber music playing]

He says that, after the strangulation,

that he goes to move her body

off into the wood line,

covering her with leaves.

-[leaves rustling]
-[♪ soft vocalizing]

Then, Nebiyu also confesses to me

that that whole text message
about going to the party in Norfolk,

he authors that message
on her phone and sends it out

in hopes that it'll confuse everybody

as to what her location is.

♪♪

He puts a weight in a bag with the phone
and throws the phone into the pond.

And as evidence kept coming in,
cell phone records,

talking to other witnesses,
and ultimately DNA evidence

and the medical examiner's report
and the cause of death,

we were developing a strong case

that Nebiyu Ebrahim was responsible
and had m*rder*d her.

And so, he was charged
with first-degree m*rder.

[narrator]
But before it can get to trial,

investigators are met
with another surprise.

[Casey]
We were scheduled for a status hearing

to set a trial date,

and we got word that Nebiyu
had decided to plead guilty.

After Ebrahim pleaded guilty,

the judge convicted him
of first-degree m*rder.

He will spend between 20 years
and life behind bars.

♪♪

[Cyrille]
I felt like, you know...

I mean... [sighs]

Justice was done, right?

To me it's not enough, you know?

He gets to live in that jail cell.

It's our law, it's our system.

♪ How will you feel... ♪

And at least I can say that
the system didn't fail Jholie.

And that's probably the most I can say...

♪ Now you're on the other side ♪

♪ Will I see you again ♪

Jholie was cremated,
so I have her remains.

And I can't go overnight someplace

without her remains with me.

This is how I cope.
Like, I left her, and this happened,

so I'm never gonna leave her again.

I'm never leaving her again.

[electronic beeping]

[Rynata]
It took us a while to figure out,

how do we keep her name alive?

[♪ somber electronic music playing]

We started a nonprofit,
The Importance of You,

to help educate our community

on intimate partner violence
and mental health issues.

What are good secrets?
What are bad secrets?

If you don't feel comfortable
sharing it with your family,

you can share it with us.
We can help.

[birds chirping]

[Brian]
Jholie Moussa did a really good job

of leaving breadcrumbs for us

that eventually led back to Nebiyu.

♪♪

She told people about the strangulation.
She told people about the relationship.

She left us a lot of
very important evidence

that really assisted us
in capturing her k*ller.

[Zhané]
Had she not told me that

she had gotten strangled
the first time from Nebiyu,

we wouldn't have been able to build a case

on him murdering my sister.

♪♪

I believe she kinda
solved her own m*rder.

♪ I don't know where my head is lately ♪

♪ Have I lost my mind? ♪

♪♪

[exhale]

♪ But I know that I have a secret ♪

♪ And it's only mine ♪

[♪ vocalizing]

♪ And the only way to find me ♪

♪ Is to go beneath the lies ♪