4 shocking details about Nia Wilson's stabbing death

The shocking death of Nia Wilson that unfolded in a subway station in Oakland, California in the summer of 2018 has been brought to screens with the newest episode of #TextMeWhenYouGetHome. The episode was released on August 21, 9:00 pm ET on Lifetime and depicted the gruesome nature of the act.

According to Lifetime, the official synopsis for episode 6 titled Nia Wilson read:

"Nia Wilson and her two sisters decide to take public transportation back home to Oakland, Calif.; just minutes after texting their father, the sisters are brutally targeted at a train station; the knife attack sparks a search for the perpetrator."

While the episode on Wilson's death intends to spark conversations on the act of violence, the incident in itself highlights a number of issues that are still wrong with the judicial system.

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4 shocking details on the Nia Wilson murder case explored

1) The suspect and the victim

Nia Wilson, the 18-year-old woman, who took the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train at MacArthur Station in Oakland, California on July 22, 2018, was attacked by a man with a knife at 9:35 p.m. She was traveling back from a party at her aunt's house with her sisters Letifah Wilson and Tashiya Wilson when a heavyset white man in his 20s or 30s wielded a knife unprovoked, slashed their throats, and fled.

The videos recovered from the CCTV footage showed the suspect following the siblings for a while before his attempt. After he fled, he allegedly changed clothes that he kept in his backpack and misled officers on the way.

While Nia bled to death on the platform, the 26-year-old Letifah Wilson was critically injured from the stab wounds and admitted to the hospital.

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2) The motive behind the crime

As the crime scene was immediately attended by BART officers, the suspect fled and remained at large for the entirety of Monday resulting in a city-wide manhunt. An act as gruesome as this begs to ask whether there was a premeditated plan in place. However, the suspect's motives remained unclear largely.

With the help of the surveillance videos, the suspect was identified to be a 27-year-old white man named John Lee Cowell, a day after on July 23, 2018. He was found to be disillusioned and suffering from mental illnesses that were later diagnosed to be schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. His mental state allegedly affected the proceedings as it took two years for the verdict.

Cowell's public defender, Christina Moore, argued in the court that the attack was not planned but rather a random act stemming from schizophrenic delusions.

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3) Community outcry and protests

The motive behind the stabbing remained a topic of debate as the authorities claimed that the attack was without any provocation but many in the community believed it to be yet another example of hate crime.

The stabbing of Nia Nelson and Letifah Wilson brought to light issues of discrimination and racially motivated violence.

The event prompted rallies and vigils throughout the city of the San Francisco Bay Area. Meanwhile, Twitter was flooded with hashtags #NiaWilson, #SayHerName and #JusticeForNiaWilson on July 23, 2018, with a large number of celebrities including Anne Hathaway, Stephen Curry, Bruno Mars, Viola Davis, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Kehlani coming forward to condemn the crime.

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4) Legal proceedings and conviction

The murder proceedings of Nia Wilson charged John Lee Cowell with first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon, violation of parole and lying in wait. Cowell was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on July 17, 2020, and has been held at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.

Cowell provided incoherent statements in his trial that included racial undertones as he mentioned he was punched by a Black woman, a week prior to the attempt to murder.