For her neighbors she was like an adopted daughter, but she buried them alive to keep their money
Tiffany Ann Cole had known Carol and Reggie Sumner , both 61, for her entire life. They were friends of her father and neighbors in the neighborhood where they lived, in South Carolina, United States. She had eaten with them countless times and had even slept at her house. They were so confident that when the Sumners decided to move to Jacksonville, Florida in 2005, Tiffany bought the car - a 1997 Chevrolet Lumina - from them in easy installments.
Precisely, to end the bureaucratic paperwork of the transfer, it was that Tiffany, 23, and her boyfriend, Michael Jackson, 24, drove to Jacksonville in mid-June 2005.
The Sumners kindly offered to put them up in their new home . So they did. It was on this occasion that Tiffany and Michael learned that the Sumners had made a good financial difference between the sale and purchase of their home.
That night when Carol and Reggie Sumner were perfect hosts for the young couple, they unknowingly signed his death certificate.
The sinister plan of her beloved neighbor had been launched.
buried alive
Sure enough, the Sumners had sold their home in South Carolina and bought another, in Jacksonville, and the move had netted them $99,000 . As soon as Tiffany and Michael found out, they began to plot with two other young men, Bruce Nixon Jr and Alan Wade , a strategy to seize that money . It would be very easy because Tiffany knew the Sumners well, their health problems and their every move. She had the necessary information. But, for that very reason, they knew from the beginning that they would be killed.
The night of the crime, Friday, July 8, 2005, they provided themselves with adhesive tape and plastic bags . Tiffany had rented a Mazda RX-8 two days earlier to carry out the plan. That way he wouldn't have to use her Chevrolet Lumina, the one that her next victims had been sold to, and that the police could quickly identify to get to her.
Tiffany and her accomplices went to the Sumners' house. As the couple stayed inside the car parked on a corner, Wade and Nixon got out and banged on the door. Carol and Reggie, who were preparing for a fried chicken dinner, felt the blows. Carol went to open it. They were two young men who asked to borrow her phone, she kindly let them pass.
Getting in had been easy. But as soon as they entered, the situation turned violent. Wade immediately ripped the phone cord out of the wall, and Nixon threatened them with a toy gun . They were first taken to the matrimonial room, where they were bound and gagged with adhesive tape. Then, over the Nextel radio, Wade and Nixon contacted Michael and Tiffany waiting outside. Michael, then, decided to enter the house and they began to look for the data of the bank accounts and valuables to take. Meanwhile, Tiffany drove to the end of the street and kept waiting in the car.
A while later, the young men took the victims to the garage and under threats forced them to get into the trunk of their huge Lincoln Town car . Michael called Tiffany and asked her to back the Mazda up to the Sumners' garage door. There they put a garbage bag full of the homeowners' belongings in the trunk: jewelry, the safe, and Reggie's Trust Federal Credit Union bank card.
Then the two cars started off.
Who knows if the Sumners knew that their beloved Tiffany was the mastermind of the kidnapping or if they heard her name or her boyfriend's. It is very likely that she does.
In the dark, in an absolutely claustrophobic situation, the Sumners went defenseless and terrified towards their final destination.
Nixon and Wade drove the Lincoln; Tiffany followed with Michael in the Mazda. A sinister journey towards the interstate border with the state of Georgia. If a patrol car showed up, the plan was that the Mazda would go into full throttle to distract them from the Lincoln. But none of that happened. Fate had free rein.
When they reached the open space they had chosen, they split up. The Mazda stopped further away. The Lincoln headed a little way into the wooded area. There they had already dug, for two days with four shovels stolen by Nixon, the giant grave for the Sumners : the hole was one and a half meters deep and covered an area of two square meters. The boys had dug tirelessly while Tiffany had been the one holding the flashlight in the middle of the night.
The Sumners were pushed, bound and alive, into that grave prepared long in advance on the terrible night of that July 8th.
Suffocated, under the earth that fell on them like a lethal curtain of rubble, they were able to free their hands a little in a useless task to survive. Even so, they managed to embrace each other and died together breathing earth.
They had been buried alive.
Michael Jackson returned to the car feeling triumphant at having obtained the key to Reggie Sumner's card . As the Sumners drowned under the earth that had been rammed down on them, the malevolent quartet drove undeterred to Sanderson, where they ditched the Lincoln. The four of them drove on in the Mazda that Tiffany was driving. Arriving in Jacksonville, they stopped at an ATM. They took $1,000 from Reggie's account and headed to a hotel where they took two rooms.
The next morning, after buying bleach and rubber gloves, Tiffany and Wade returned to the victims' home to clean up the mess . They took the opportunity to also take his computer.
During those days, and through no fault of their own, Tiffany and her henchmen pawned Carol's jewelry and continued to withdraw money from Reggie's account. They celebrated their horrendous crime by spending thousands of dollars from the neighbors of yesteryear: they rented a limousine, drank champagne and took photos with fistfuls of dollars in their hands. They were living the crazy life.
A quick investigation
On Sunday, July 10, 2005, Carol's daughter from her first marriage, Rhonda Alford , called authorities to report her mother's strange disappearance . She was unable to contact the couple and that was highly unusual. That same day, Officer Vindell Williams reported finding the Sumners' missing Lincoln in Sanderson.
When investigators arrived at the Sumners' home on Tuesday, July 12, they discovered a bank statement showing that they had a good amount of money in the bank. They called the bank and learned that large amounts had been withdrawn in those days. All the red flags were raised. Something very strange was happening. The bank first blocked the accounts.
But that same July 12, unable to withdraw money from ATMs, Tiffany had the gall to call the sheriff's office posing as Carol Sumner. She was served by Detective Meacham to whom she explained that they had quickly left town for a family emergency and were having trouble getting the money out of her, hoping they could help them. The detective was immediately suspicious of the person speaking and did not believe it was Carol Sumner. He called the bank to unlock the accounts so the criminals could withdraw money so he could track them down. It worked perfectly.
The cell phone from which they called the police turned out to be that of Michael Jackson and the records showed that the same mobile phone had been used on the date of the marriage's disappearance, very close to the intruded residence. Everything closed.
They also found many calls to a car rental company where they found out that Tiffany had rented a Mazda that she had not returned , but that they had it located by her geolocator. Tiffany Cole's family was then contacted and it was her brother who provided investigators with her address.
Using the satellite tracking system they were also able to determine that the Mazda had been close to the Sumners' home that night the marriage had evaporated. In addition, they recovered the videos in which Jackson was seen withdrawing money from different ATMs. The Mazda was seen in the background of those images.
On July 14, the three male members of the group were arrested at the Best Western hotel in the city of Charleston, South Carolina. Police searched the two rooms Tiffany rented for evidence and found belongings belonging to the Sumners. They also found Reggie's bank card in the back pocket of Michael Jackson's jeans. Mr. Sumner's coin collection was found in the trunk of the Mazda. Tiffany was captured shortly afterward near her own home.
The first defendant to confess was Bruce Nixon. He provided the police with all the details of the heinous crime. He told them how they had planned the robbery and kidnapping and where they had been buried.
On Saturday, July 16, the bodies of the victims were recovered. A little over a week had passed.
horror in the night
It was Dr. Anthony J. Clark , an examining physician for the Georgia investigation team, who performed the autopsies. The result was chilling: the Sumner couple had drowned due to blockage of their airways, they had been covered with dirt and dirt. They had been cruelly buried alive.
Horror filled everyone present at the trial.
Tiffany Cole wanted to testify and said, in an attempt to tamper with the jury, that she thought the holdup would be just that, a robbery. And she added that what they would bury would be the Sumners' belongings. She assured that she had not participated in the kidnapping or the murder. She even went so far as to claim that she did not know the Sumners were being led to her death in the trunk of the Lincoln . Later she, however, claimed that the pits had been dug solely to scare the Sumners into giving them the necessary bank codes to withdraw money. Inexplicable statements in which not even she herself believed.
The dear neighbors Sumner
Carol and Reggie went through many vicissitudes in their lives. They had met in high school in North Charleston, South Carolina, and had had a brief summer romance. Then, life had taken them down different paths that kept them apart for almost 40 years. Reggie joined the Navy, then worked for the railroads and the CSX Railroad company. Carol, for her part, survived the shooting of a violent and abusive husband.
They met again well into their 50s and love was reborn. They got married and felt that, at last, they had achieved peace and quiet. That seemed to be true. At least until they met their neighbor Cole and her daughter Tiffany and their destinies crossed. She became for the marriage something like an adopted daughter. They were neighbors for many years. When the Sumners decided to move because of Reggie's health, which required a more temperate climate, the goodbyes came. His Chevrolet Lumina was bought by Tiffany, that girl they loved so much, in easy installments.
She would be that same young woman, whom they had seen grow up, the one who would end all their plans for a pleasant, calm and happy old age.
When they were buried, on her tombstone, her grieving relatives wrote: Together forever.
sentenced to lethal injection
The trial was in October 2007 and lasted a week. On Oct. 19, it took the jury less than 90 minutes to find Tiffany, 25, guilty of first-degree murder. Of the twelve jurors, nine voted in favor of her receiving the death penalty.
Five months later, the judge handed down the sentences.
Tiffany Cole was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the two crimes , with premeditation and treachery; She was sentenced to life in prison for the two kidnappings and to 15 years, for each accusation of robbery to each of the victims.
Michael Jackson, her boyfriend, and Alan Wade were also sentenced to death.
Eighteen-year-old Bruce Nixon, who had led police to the bodies and testified against his accomplices, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
Tiffany appealed the death penalty in 2010, but her appeal was denied at the time.
In 2015, Tiffany told journalist Diane Sawyer what all convicts say: “I am not the same person. Now I have peace, I have joy and a healthy mind.” Jay Plotkin , the prosecutor in the case, thinks radically differently, telling ABC: “I was a prosecutor for over twenty years. I have not had a case more vile and more cruel than this, than the torture and murder of the Sumners.
However, in 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that death sentences should be passed unanimously by the jury, something that had not happened in the Tiffany Cole case. And this rule would apply to all those sentenced after 2002. That is why Tiffany is now one of four inmates sentenced to death who is guaranteed a new hearing . Perhaps her death sentence can be commuted.
Society had been shaken by the case. For this reason, the terrifying crime of the Sumners appeared in the Neighbors of Fear chapter, during the fifth season of The Real Murderous Women, of Discovery Channel, broadcast in 2011.
Who was Cole?
On December 3, 1981, Tiffany Ann Cole was born in the state of Florida under the sign of Sagittarius. She was a beautiful and innocent baby in a family with several children.
Little is known about her and her early years. It was known that she was a girl scout , that she was 1.63 cm tall, that she was a cheerleader at school, that she played the flute well in the school band and that never, until she was arrested for the crime of her neighbors, had she spent a night in jail. Her mother worked a lot and she was raised by her father who became terminally ill. When she died, she had to take care of her brothers. But Tiffany added other complex details to her story when she testified: She said she suffered domestic abuse as a child and that, at age 23, she hung out with the wrong crowd like her boyfriend Michael Jackson.
Her defense attorney resorted to the ploy of saying that Tiffany was highly impressionable , that she had run away from her house several times to escape abuse and that this had led her to drugs and prostitution . She tried that her horrible past and her non-direct participation in the crime, added to her low intellectual level, would lighten the sentence, but it was not possible. The defense team maintained that Tiffany had been a peaceful person until she became involved with the violent Michael Jackson. But the truth is that it was she who knew the Sumners well and who provided all the information to her henchmen. In addition, Nixon, her accomplice, stated that Tiffany knew in advance that they would be killed and that, in fact, she was the one who had bought the plastic bags and the duct tape that had been used.
Today Tiffany is identified in prison by Lowell Annex Detention Center number: J3521.
She is already 38 years old, of which she has spent about 15 in prison. Despite having been sentenced to death in 2008, she now hopes to obtain a new sentence friendly to existence. An existence that is nothing other than life - that entelechy in the most philosophical sense of the word - that she now values for herself, she values so much.
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