The Suspicious Death of Nicole Parsons-Bucki (Rhode Island)

On a morning when the country’s attention was fixed on unimaginable tragedy, a Rhode Island family was learning that someone they loved was gone.

In the hours before Nicole Parsons-Bucki died, there had been violence, a police response, and a relationship already under strain, but 25 years later, no one has been charged. That could be because the deeper you look at Nicole’s case, the less simple it becomes: We’re dealing with an uncertain timeline, evidence that disappeared, unanswered questions about who was actually with her, and the possibility that what has seemed obvious for years may not tell the whole story.

If you have any information about the murder of Nicole Parsons-Bucki, please contact investigators with the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office at 401-468-2233 or email riagcoldcase@riag.ri.gov.

September 11, 2001

In the first hours of Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, the date didn’t mean anything yet.

Providence, Rhode Island was still hours away from a morning that would permanently divide time for the entire country into before and after. But at one address on Charles Street, something had already happened that would leave one family measuring their lives the same way.

A little after midnight, police were called to 607 Charles Street, apartment number one. When a Providence patrolman arrived at 12:22 a.m., a witness at the scene told him that 27-year-old Nicole Parsons-Bucki was dead inside her apartment.

The dispatch information for Providence Police Department case number 2001-00133950 was brief: “Suicide Attempt/Blow Dryer/In Tub.”

According to Amanda Milkovits’s in-depth story for the Providence Journal published in 2003, Nicole was found fully clothed with her hair in a scrunchie and partially submerged in the bathtub. She was face-down in a fetal position, with less than a foot of water beneath her.

As the initial report had already indicated, somewhere near the bathtub was a blow dryer connected to an extension cord. In later reporting by Sarah Bawden and Kim Kalunian for WPRI, Providence Police Major David Lapatin described the dryer as actually being inside the tub.

At first glance, those details seemed to offer an explanation for what police had been called there to investigate. But the scene didn’t tell such a simple story. The shower curtain appeared to have been ripped from its rod, a detail that suggested there may have been some kind of struggle.

Nicole’s body was taken from the apartment and transported to the Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy. And then morning came.

Within hours, airplanes would strike the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Another would crash in Pennsylvania. Television screens would fill with smoke and fire, newsrooms would abandon nearly everything else, and September 11th would become a date inseparable from loss.

But before any of that happened, Nicole Parsons-Bucki was already gone and the first explanation for how she died was already beginning to unravel.

The Day Before

At around 1:30 a.m. on September 10th, 2001, Providence Police responded to 607 Charles Street after someone heard Nicole and her boyfriend fighting.

According to Milkovits’s 2003 reporting, when Providence Police Officer George Smith approached the building in his cruiser, he saw two males leaving the area but wasn’t able to identify them because they took off running when he called out to them.

Officer Smith found Nicole inside her apartment. She told him that she and her boyfriend had gotten into a fight because he was angry that she had been gone all day. Nicole said her boyfriend grabbed her by the arms, dragged her out of the apartment, and locked the door behind her so she couldn’t get back inside.

Firefighters eventually helped Nicole regain access to her apartment while police located the boyfriend at his godmother’s home. He was arrested on a domestic simple assault charge.

After Nicole was found dead, investigators spoke with other tenants to learn more about this incident. A neighbor said that after seeing or hearing everything go down between Nicole and her boyfriend, she kept her company. According to what the neighbor later told Nicole’s family, Nicole said that she was planning to leave her boyfriend.

The neighbor stayed with Nicole at Nicole’s apartment until morning. Before the neighbor left around 9 a.m., she promised she would come back later to check on Nicole.

Meanwhile, around also 9 or 10 a.m., Nicole’s boyfriend was released to family under a verbal no-contact order. According to witnesses, by that afternoon he was back at Charles Street despite the order. He was seen outside Nicole’s apartment with family members pounding on the door, apparently wanting his belongings from inside. But Nicole didn’t answer.

Just after midnight, the neighbor who had promised to check on Nicole came back. She said that Nicole didn’t answer for her either so she used a screwdriver to pry the door open.

She explained that inside, the apartment was dark except for a light coming from the bathroom. She called Nicole’s name but got no response. The neighbor told police she was afraid Nicole’s boyfriend might be there in the shadows, so she left to get her own boyfriend before going back in. Her boyfriend was the one who reportedly found Nicole in the bathtub.

They called 911 and Providence Police arrived at 607 Charles Street at 12:22 a.m.

About Nicole

Nicole was born and raised in Cranston, Rhode Island. She graduated from the Sawyer School of Business and went on to work for Fleet Boston Financial Group in Providence.

She was also a mother. Nicole had an 8-year-old daughter at the time of her death who had been raised by Nicole’s parents since she was a baby.

Nicole’s life had not been easy. Her family later spoke openly about her struggles with narcotics, including Vicodin. She had also been married briefly, but by 2001, that marriage had ended in divorce.

For about a year before her death, Nicole had been seeing someone new. He was considerably younger than she was; less than a month away from his 18th birthday at the time of Nicole’s death.

When police arrived at Nicole’s apartment on September 11th, that relationship was already part of the story surrounding her suspicious death. Because the day before Nicole was found in the tub, police had already responded to Charles Street for an incident involving her boyfriend.

Early Investigation

From the beginning, investigators did not treat Nicole’s death as a straightforward suicide. Even before the Medical Examiner had officially determined the manner of death, police processed the apartment with the possibility of homicide in mind and collected physical and forensic evidence from the scene.

Investigators found signs that Nicole may have been packing. Small household belongings had been carefully wrapped in tissue and placed into suitcases, while clothing had been gathered into bags, almost as if she had been preparing to leave or move somewhere.

At the same time, groceries were still sitting out on the counter. A receipt showed that Nicole had spent about $160 on groceries and another $80 on cosmetics like body oils and lotion the day before she died.

There were also things of value still inside the apartment. A bucket of change. A watch. To Nicole’s family, that made robbery seem like an unlikely explanation for whatever had happened there.

On the kitchen table were paperwork and photographs, including recent pictures of Nicole. Her family thought she looked dramatically different in those photos – disheveled and bloated, almost unrecognizable compared to the woman they knew.

But some of the biggest questions about what happened inside that apartment would arise from Nicole’s autopsy.

Nicole Parsons-Bucki’s story continues on Dark Downeast. Press play to hear the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.