Stuti Gokhale
Georgia resident Nikki Whitehead was found brutally murdered in her suburban home in January 2010, shocking everyone beyond measure. The lengthy investigation revealed her complicated relationships with her family, especially her twin daughters, Tasmiyah and Jasmiyah. The teenagers were deeply attached to their great-grandmother, Della Frazier, who was in utter disbelief when they were found guilty of Nikki’s death. NBC’s ‘Dateline: Bad Blood’ delves into the gruesome details of the crime and how the Whitehead twins were brought to justice. Now, if you are curious about Della’s present whereabouts, here is everything we have gathered.
Who is Della Frazier?
Former Coca-Cola employee Della Frazier had a highly conflicted relationship with her granddaughter, Nikki Whitehead, and the women often had problems regarding the upbringing of the latter’s twin daughters. Tasmiyah and Jasmiyah Whitehead preferred living with their great-grandmother, who had raised them from infancy till their teenage years. Della and her husband collectively cared for the girls until his death in 2009, ensuring they received good schooling and a healthy home environment.
However, Nikki was reportedly inconsistent in the twins’ lives, and they despised their mother for her allegedly controlling nature. Moreover, Della was quite unhappy with her granddaughter’s behavior, as she felt that the latter had barely contributed to the twins’ lives. In a December 2016 interview with The Rockdale Citizen, she stated, “Nikki was a person who liked to go, and she stayed gone all the time. And she got in the wrong lifestyle, she started doing drugs and drinking and got in with the wrong people.”
At age 13, the twins were forcefully sent to live with Nikki and her boyfriend, Robert, after she gained their legal custody. This, Della believed, was orchestrated by her estranged daughter, Lynda. Nevertheless, the move caused a lot of hostility between the mother-daughter trio, with the girls becoming increasingly hostile and resentful toward her parenting methods. In addition, their great-grandma was restricted from interacting with the twins, as their mother disliked her interference.
As per Della, Jasmiyah and Tasmiyah suffered a lot of mental trauma during those years, resulting in physical altercations with Nikki. In one such incident, the girls apparently attacked their mother, and the juvenile court intervened, sending them back with Della. However, their stay with their great-grandmother was brief, and despite their pleas, the court ordered them to stay with their mother for two weeks when she regained custody in early 2010.
In fact, Jasmiyah was so angry with this decision that, per witnesses, she threatened to kill Nikki out of hatred. Barely eight days after the 16-year-olds went to live with their mother again, she was found beaten and stabbed to death in her Conyers home on January 13, 2010. Eventual investigations revealed that Jasmiyah and Tasmiyah had gotten into an argument with their mother and had then beaten and stabbed her to death in a fit of rage. They both pled guilty to the murder in 2014 and were awarded 30 years in prison.
Della Frazier is Awaiting Her Great-Granddaughters’ Release
Della refused to believe that her great-granddaughters had killed Nikki but constantly stood beside them through their court trials. She also shared that the girls have never spoken to her about their actions, and she still chooses to support them. In the same 2016 interview, she said, “I can’t see it…Something in my heart don’t believe it.” Della continues to care for the twins and often visits them in prison, attending a family day program at their respective facilities.
In addition, the great-grandmother was delighted when the Whitehead sisters earned their GEDs in 2016, with Tasmiyah pursuing a computer tech course and her sister exploring a career in medicine. “I see in them what I’ve always seen — they were always loving and wanted to excel in what they did,” she said. Currently, Della is likely in her late 80s and still resides in her Clarkston, Georgia, home. As of 2015, her relationship with her daughter, Lynda, was still rocky; the octogenarian now awaits her great-granddaughters’ release.
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