Helene “Nikki” Anderson was born on October 15, 1958. She lived in Indiana most of her life, but in the early 80s, she moved to Bremerton, Washington, with her boyfriend, Kenny Hale. Kenny was in the Navy, and on November 9, 1981, Nikki gave birth to their daughter, Adrienne Hale.
Although Nikki and Kenny split not long after the birth of Adrienne, the pair remained close friends and co-parented well, the Cosmic Bigfoot podcast reports.
Nikki lived in a duplex on Magnolia Drive in East Bremerton and was a cook at a local Arby’s. She eventually met another man, Otha Tucker, who she had a son they named Marcus. Nikki and Otha became engaged, and in 1986, they planned to move out to San Diego, California, where he was stationed after a transfer, with her children.
On Wednesday, January 29, 1986, Kenny stopped by to say goodnight to their 4-year-old daughter, Adrienne, something he did regularly. He left between 8:30 and 9:00 pm.
The following Thursday evening, he knocked on the door, but never received a response.
“And as I turned to walk towards my car, I heard a sound coming from the other side of the door, and it was Marcus,” Kenny told The Daily Beast.
Upon hearing 7-month-old Marcus crying, he became concerned and found that the front door was unlocked.
“When I stepped in, I tripped, and when I reached down, it was Adrienne’s leg that I grabbed,” Kenny told The Daily Beast. He told the outlet his “heart dropped” when he realized that Adrienne’s leg was “stiff.”
Kenny ran to a neighbor’s house with Marcus and returned moments later.
“I immediately just started giving Adrienne CPR because I didn’t know how long [she’d been there],” Kenny told The Daily Beast. “I’m blowing and seeing her chest kind of move and I’m saying in my head, ‘What happened? What happened? What happened?’”
The Bremerton Police arrived and placed Kenny in the back of a patrol car.
Investigators discovered the bodies of 27-year-old Nikki and 4-year-old Adrienne a few feet apart. Nikki had multiple wounds to the back of her head, and someone sexually assaulted the young mother of two. Nikki had multiple defensive wounds, showing she brutally fought for the lives of her children. Both she and Adrienne died of strangulation.
“It’s a toughie, because they died so closely together in time that there’s no way for us to know who died first,” Bremerton Police Detective Martin Garland told The Daily Beast.
Authorities believe the assailant attacked Nikki and Adrienne heard the attack and came into the room.
““Adrienne had made a run for the front door. She was just inside the front door” with “the comforter from her bed right next to her.
Whatever she witnessed or heard made her sprint for the door, and she was caught just before she was able to get out of the house. … She was just that close,” Bremerton Police Detective Martin Garland told The Daily Beast.
The assailant then killed Adrienne to eliminate any witnesses. They believe Marcus was the sole survivor because of his young age.
“This person realized that Marcus just wouldn’t be able to identify him,” Detective Martin Garland told The Daily Beast.
However, they believe the assailant had contact with Marcus.
“It looks like our bad guy, either during or after the homicides, picked up the baby and put the baby in that pack-and-play area,”
Bremerton Police Detective Martin Garland told The Daily Beast.
“You think about just how crazy that is, you know, that this person has just murdered your sister and murdered your mother, and now is taking the time to pick you up and put you into an area where I guess he’s thinking that you won’t be as likely to get harmed or hurt?”
In the beginning, Kenny Hale was the prime suspect in the case. The father had an alibi and DNA evidence cleared him.
He loves Adrienne.
“She was a gift from God,” Kenny told The Daily Beast. “You know, you hear stories about people far more advanced [than their age] and Adrienne was one of those individuals.… Her smile and her little personality, just the way she conducted herself. As I’m talking to you now, I look at my wall and my wall is filled with pictures of Adrienne and my [other] daughter now.”
He has remained extremely cooperative with the police department and continues to seek justice for Nikki and Adrienne.
“It gets kinda hard to go back and relive the story,” Kenny told The Daily Beast. “But as long as I got air in my lungs and am able to tell their story.… I’ll keep telling their story until I can’t tell it no more.”
The investigators allegedly found a drop of blood on little Adrienne's nightgown, which did not belong to Nikki or Adrienne..
“All the DNA that we’ve collected from [people interviewed early on] … as well as a bunch of other folks along the way, none of it has led to anything that we think is involved with the crime,” Detective Martin Garland told The Daily Beast. “We have DNA that we are not legally able to compare to the CODIS database, so we’re forced to do one-on-one comparisons with it.”
Although detectives questioned multiple people, administered multiple DNA tests, and interviewed family members, there are no named suspects in this double homicide. Marcus was raised by his father in Mississippi. So far, both have declined to speak with reporters regarding this case.
If you have any information, please contact the Bremerton Police Department at (360)-473-5488 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.
You can read and listen to the case on the Cosmic Bigfoot Podcast here:
https://www.cosmicbigfoot.com/episodes/bremerton-nikki-anderson-and-adrienne-hale
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