“Tonight in the search for a missing and endangered Blacksburg teenager, a Virginia Tech drone used infrared technology from the skies throughout the day, while officers from six police departments as well as the FBI continue to look on foot.”
“Thursday, officers from seven different police agencies were joined by about a thousand Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets members today.”
“The cadets are no longer a part of the search, which is why the command center area does not need to be quite as large. That being said though, police say this does not mean they are scaling down the search. In fact, they have just as many officers, if not more, involved in the investigation today.”
“Now tonight, Nicole’s family is once again pleading with anyone who has information to come forward.”
“Somebody out there has got to know something. This… it’s just way too much. We don’t… no one is helping, and Nicole needs us. We wait. My daughter, Nicole, ‘Coley’ is what we called her. Coley had a passion for pandas, music, dancing; dreamed of being an American Idol someday. Her favorite color was blue. Nicole was a very lovable person. Nicole touched many people throughout her short life.”
“We don’t eat, we don’t play, we don’t sleep.”
Nicole lived in Blacksburg, Virginia with her mom, Tammy. Her parents were no longer together, and Tammy said that the relationship Nicole had with her dad, David, had been strained. He had served time in jail and had had many run-ins with the law over the years. David himself admitted that he had regrets, wishing he could have changed how things had been, but they were all trying to rebuild things.
At such a young age, Nicole had already gone through so much. She needed to have medication twice a day after having a liver transplant at just 10 months old. 3 years after her liver transplant, she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which developed into acute respiratory distress syndrome, and she was in and out of a coma for 6 months. Her lung collapsed and a tracheotomy had left her with a big scar on her throat.
Her mom, Tammy, said:
“We were advised at that time that she would only have a 1% chance of survival.”
Coley once again beat the odds, though, despite an unbelievably tough start to her life. Everyone said that Nicole always tried hard to be positive, happy, and adventurous.
“Nicole and I… I’ve been nominated for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.”
School had been challenging for the young teenager. She faced bullying because of her scars and would often beg Tammy to write her a note so she could get out of PE. Nicole often shared her sadness and frustrations on social media, but she was determined to never slow down and always pushed herself to get through things. She was quite literally born fighting, and that was what she always did. Tammy said Nicole loved animals, especially pandas. She also loved singing and dancing, and she never missed an episode of American Idol, telling people she would be on it one day.
On January 26th, 2016, Nicole had had a lovely day shopping at the local mall with her best friend where they bought matching necklaces. That evening, Tammy said Nicole gave her a kiss good night, took a shower, and went up to her bedroom. It was an evening like any other.
The following morning, 6:30 a.m., Nicole needed her anti-rejection medication for her liver twice a day, and Tammy would always go to her room first thing to make sure she had taken it before she got ready for work. But her daughter’s door wouldn’t open. Tammy knocked but couldn’t hear anything inside, so she forced her way in. Her door had been blocked by her nightstand. Nicole loved to dress up and dance around her bedroom, and Tammy said she would sometimes push her nightstand out of the way to make more room, but it was always back in place the next morning. This was really troubling.
Nicole was not in her room. Her window was open and her room was freezing cold. Her phone was missing, as was her favorite blanket, which had Minions on it. Also left behind was her medication. Without this, Tammy said she would take a terrible turn in just a few short hours.
Tammy called her daughter’s phone numerous times, but it just kept going straight to voicemail. She then called around some of the other parents in neighbor’s houses, but no one could help her. So at 7:00 a.m., Tammy made the call that every parent dreads.
Tammy told the police that this had never happened before and something had to be seriously wrong. Nicole would take her phone and blanket with her everywhere, but to disappear in the middle of a freezing cold night out the window, no one could make sense of it.
Tammy said she was devastated because she almost knocked on the door that night to see if Nicole wanted to come and sleep in her bed with her like she normally did, but that night she didn’t. Her case was already serious anyway, but with snow covering the ground and the fact she was now somewhere without her life-saving medication in the bitter cold made everything so much more urgent.
When Nicole has to take medication twice a day for a liver transplant, the fear is that going without this medication could potentially be deadly. Her mom, Tammy Weeks, clutched Nicole’s favorite stuffed panda bear as she pleaded with her daughter to come home or that whoever is with her would bring her back safely.
“A nightmare, yeah. It’s like you see it all on TV and everything, you think it’s never going to happen to you, and then here we are in the position that everybody else is going through, and it’s just… I don’t know what to think. It’s shocking. I mean, didn’t think it could ever happen to us. So, we love you, Nicole. We miss you. We want you home.”
Police say they don’t know at this point if this is a runaway situation or if there was foul play involved. Nicole’s mother says she believes someone had to have helped her get out of the house last night. Anyone with information on Nicole’s whereabouts is asked to call police right away. Law enforcement quickly called upon the FBI to help too, and over 1,000 people in her hometown came together to split off into numerous search parties. There were helicopters, dogs, and some volunteers even brought an infrared drone. It was all hands on deck to find Nicole.
One of Nicole’s neighbors spoke to Tammy and the police about a conversation she had had with her own daughter. Her daughter had said that Nicole had told her she was going on a date with her boyfriend. They were sled riding in the snow in the back on the hill, and she was, uh, talking about this boyfriend she had that was 18 and went to college and his name was David and showed some text messages off of a Kik and pictures, and that’s what the girls told the police officers when they asked.
Nicole told her friend that she met her older boyfriend online. She said he was funny and really nice and he was going to take her on a romantic date the night she went missing. On her bedroom wall, Nicole had actually taped a piece of paper with some of her usernames and passwords, one of which was for Kik Messenger. The police put in an emergency disclosure request to the app. Kik Messenger responded immediately, and the police quickly got access to all…
“Kick cooperates with law enforcement to combat child predators anywhere in the world, either under provision of a court order or in emergency situations such as this one.”
“All right. There are plenty of apps out there like this, but this one is one of the largest, most popular. 250 million users. 70% are under the age of 25. There are no parental controls.”
In the aftermath of such a tragedy, it’s easy to believe that shutting down apps like this would make the internet a safer place, and to an extent, there is definitely truth there. While there’s no doubt that apps that operate like Kik Messenger, ones that allow for complete anonymity, do come with real dangers, but in today’s digital world, for every app that disappears or gets shut down, many more will simply take its place. Most of us use some form of social media every single day, every single hour, even. We connect with people, we get to see into each other’s lives, we make new friends, and we keep up with old ones. Technology and social media moves at such a rapid pace that digital regulations struggle to keep up. Online anonymity and unchecked access creates a space where predators and people with bad intentions can exploit those loopholes, lie, and prey on the vulnerable. We’ve covered several cases where the reality of this has proven fatal. But the solution isn’t as simple as banning a single app; it’s about awareness, education, and understanding that in a world where connection with anyone is just a click away, not everyone is who they claim to be.
Social media and technology in general is both the most advanced it has ever been and yet also everything is still so small. Every day brings new developments, new platforms, and new ways to connect, making what feels like cutting edge today outdated a year later. We often think back to our personal first experiences of social media: Facebook was really new, MySpace was pretty big, but it was mainly just your core group of friends that you were interacting with. And platforms like MSN and Habbo Hotel, for example, were our first experiences in talking with people we didn’t know. But things like this were still relatively new, and we often just waited for the family computer to free up so we could spend a couple of hours a week exploring these spaces with our friends, as most people we knew, including us, didn’t have smartphones that granted access to these platforms. Put simply, nothing was as instant as it is now. It’s a vastly different world which is very overwhelming to navigate, especially if you’re younger or vulnerable.
Nicole Lovell was an immensely strong young girl. She had fought her way into this world and went through more in her short life than we could ever comprehend. She was groomed into really believing she had found someone she could talk to, share things with, and even love. One can only imagine what her last hour was like as she realized what was happening to her. David, Nicole’s dad, was diagnosed with severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder since losing his daughter, and Tammy sees a grief counselor and has trouble sleeping. She wishes they had done what they’d done to Nicole to her instead, and if she could swap places, she would without hesitating.
Nicole’s youth pastor, Josh, said,
“Our hearts still ache in sadness and secret tears still flow. What it meant to lose you, no one will ever know.”
This is written on her grave. Tammy visits her daughter’s grave every morning and sits there with her for an hour. She said:
“Everything reminds me of Nicole. I was blessed to be Nicole’s mother, to be her friend for 13 years. We fought every fight together. She was a great and beautiful girl.”
Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
