‘I have to come clean,’ accused murderer tells investigator in Nation River Lady case

The man accused of murdering the ‘Nation River Lady’ in 1975 said he spoke to investigators 50 years later to ‘come clean.’ CTV’s Katie Griffin reports.

Warning: some of the details in this story are disturbing

The man accused of murdering the woman known as the “Nation River Lady” told investigators in 2022 he had to “come clean.”

Parts of Rodney Nichols’s video statements to police were played in a L’Orignal, Ont. courtroom on Tuesday.

His lawyer says he has dementia and other ailments.

Both the defence and the Crown are recommending the judge find Nichols not fit to stand trial in the death of Jewell Parchman Langford.

Langford, a 48-year-old businesswoman from Tennessee was last seen in Montreal in April 1975. Her body was found by a farmer in the Nation River near Casselman a month later but wasn’t identified until 2020, using forensic genealogy.

Nichols was living in Florida when he was charged in late 2022.

He told investigators he and Langford had been in an on-again, off-again relationship and had discovered Langford lied about her age.

Nichols said he didn’t remember strangling Langford with a TV cord but identified the neckties that had been used to tie her wrists and ankles as his own.

When asked why he dumped Langford’s body in the river, he replied “I think it was because I was driving and it was the first place I could find,” adding he felt, “terrible…for what I’d done.”

“You’re the one who killed her, you’re the one who took her life,” the investigator told Nichols.

When asked why he was confessing after so many decades, Nichols said “I have to come clean.”

The fitness hearing continues Wednesday.

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