Joseph Carey, 36, took the witness stand in a Tampa courtroom Tuesday morning as the final witness for the prosecution in his sister’s murder trial.
In more than an hour of testimony, the career military man sat straight-backed, his voice a monotone but at times quaking with emotion, as he described how she confessed to the August 2015 killings of Myriam and Robert Dienes.
The defense has argued that Nachtman's mother was abusive, and that Nachtman believed she was going to kill her. They are also relying on an insanity defense, saying she didn't understand the wrongfulness of her actions.
At his home that August day, Carey clutched the phone as he leaned forward on a couch, trying to decipher his sister's words.
She told him that ever since she returned from a school-related trip to London, she had been experiencing “uncontrollable screaming in her head.”
“It was affecting her sleep and she was having nightmares from it,” Carey said.
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She talked about how she’d had trouble securing housing at Florida State University. But she learned it finally came through after she shot her stepfather at the family’s Carrollwood home. She said if she’d gotten the good news earlier she would not have done it.
She said the screaming in her head went away after that.
“I’m not sorry I did it,” she told her brother. “But I’m sorry I had to do it.”
She spoke of seeing motivational posters which said things like “You can do it,” her brother said. She took it as a sign that she needed to finish what she’d done.
“It almost sounded like she was proud of herself,” he testified.
She waited in the house for her mother to arrive. But when she did, Nachtman got scared. She tried to sneak out a window, she told her brother. But Dienes spotted her in the driveway.
“Nikki, what the f--- are you doing here?” she said.
Nachtman told her brother she blacked out after that.