True Crime with Rachel Shannon
What REALLY Happened to Nichol Olsen, Alexa Montez, and London Bribiescas?
Sat, 22 Mar 2025
A luxury home, a shocking crime scene, and more questions than answers—the tragic deaths of Nichol Olsen, Alexa Montez, and London Bribiescas remain clouded in mystery. Authorities ruled it a murder-suicide, but not everyone is convinced. Could there be more to the story? In this video, we break down the case, the conflicting evidence, and the lingering questions that remain. Watch till the end and share your thoughts and theories in the comments. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and turn on notifications for more true crime stories.
Chapter 1: What is the background of Nichol Olsen?
Nicole was an absolute daddy's girl when she was younger. Her dad worked for a construction company out of San Antonio, but when Nicole was only seven years old, her father died of a heroin overdose just two days before Christmas in 1988. Of course, this absolutely devastated Nicole and her mother.
After this, Nicole went on to describe her mother as a functional alcoholic who drank over the years to numb the pain from the loss of her husband. Nicole went on to become a young mother, giving birth to her first son, Skylar, when she was 15 years old. She dropped out of high school her junior year, later going on to obtain her GED.
When she was 16 years old, she married Skylar's father, James, but they divorced a year later. By the time Nicole was 20 years old, her mother died unexpectedly the day after Christmas. Again, this was absolutely devastating. Her mother left behind Nicole's 13-year-old brother, so now she had the responsibility not only of taking care of her own baby, but her younger brother as well.
At this time, Nicole just held a bunch of different low-paying jobs just trying to make money and keep the food on the table for her son and her brother. Also around when she was 20 years old, she got married to another man named Carlos, and by 2002, their daughter Alexa was born. Carlos was a Marine, so the family had lived in Hawaii for a period of time before the couple got a divorce in 2006.
That same year, she went on to get her cosmetology license and started working as a hairstylist. She really started to pick herself back up and she started to flourish in her role as a mother. She admitted that she had a rough time when she was younger, which is absolutely understandable, but the more she got, the more she matured and learned how to take care of herself and her children.
When she moved back to San Antonio, she met a man named Hector and went on to have another daughter named London in 2008. The two never got married, but shared custody of her when they broke up. So, at the time of her death, Skylar was 22 years old, Alexa was 16 years old, and London was 10 years old.
Clearly, she had a very rough upbringing, but that didn't stop her from picking herself back up and becoming the best version of herself possible. Those who knew Nicole described her as being vivacious, energetic, and strong. She absolutely loved her job as a hairstylist. She was also working to build a watch and jewelry business called Kiva De Cole with two close friends.
She was absolutely beautiful and often attracted people by her looks, but she also attracted people by her positive energy and good vibe. One of her favorite things to do was to get together with family around the holidays for food, fun, and games. She was so proud to be a mother of three and her life revolved around her kids and building the best future for them that she could.
Alexa Montes, Nicole's second oldest child but her oldest daughter, was a cheerleader at Clark High School and spent her free time volunteering at the local church. Her father described her as just being an awesome, very caring and giving person. He said that he heard people at her school tell him that she would literally give other people her own lunch money if they needed it.
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Chapter 2: What tragic events unfolded on January 10, 2019?
Vanessa said that the longer their relationship continued, the more withdrawn she became. Her friends started seeing a lot less of her and she was becoming much more quiet. Vanessa said that it's not normal at all for Nicole to be shut down like that. She's normal, a very social, outgoing, and bubbly person. So this was very out of character for her.
Then another friend named Monica recalls a different time in July of 2017. that Nicole and Charlie were at a hotel celebrating their one-year anniversary in Galveston, Texas. At this hotel, I'm not sure exactly where in the hotel that they were, but they started arguing and it seemed like it got pretty bad because Charlie was asked to leave the hotel.
Charlie then started arguing with the security guards who then escorted him up to their hotel room and told him to get his things before making him leave. Well, according to Monica, Charlie took all of his belongings as well as Nicole's belongings, including her cell phone with him, just leaving her stranded by herself at this hotel in a weird city that she wasn't familiar with.
And by weird, I mean weird to her, not that Galveston is a weird place, just that it's not normal for her. She hadn't really been there and she didn't know the area. So Nicole got a taxi over to Monica's house where she told her everything that just happened. She was crying and shaking and she was so upset and embarrassed over the entire thing.
Again, he literally just left her alone, stranded all by herself with no care in the world. This was really disturbing that he did this. It clearly shows that he did not care what happened to her. He didn't have any regard for how she was going to get home or contact anybody. Clearly, he took her cell phone so that she didn't have any way to contact anybody.
not sure if he took her wallet as well she probably had the wallet on her now that i think of it but clearly he did this out of spite and he wanted to just make her life difficult so she told monica that she was going to break up with charlie but as so many people in these situations do she got back together with charlie as soon as she got back to san antonio so these are the different accounts told by nicole's friends
i don't think that they've ever been necessarily confirmed by police but they do show a very concerning pattern for nicole and charlie's relationship these stories seem so specific that it's hard to believe that somebody could just make something like this up the fbi has gotten involved in this case and they've said that they have so many questions that they need to be answered
before they can just call Nicole a murderer. She's not alive to defend herself. Neither are her daughters. She's not alive to say what was really going on or what really happened. So I think it's great that law enforcement and everybody in this case is not just jumping the gun to calling her a murderer because, again, she's not there to defend herself.
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Chapter 3: What evidence was found at the crime scene?
And it's easy for so many people to just be like, oh, well, obviously this is what happened and throw the word murderer around and just say that she murdered her children. So I'm really glad that they aren't doing that in this case. So a nonprofit called Project Absentees got involved with the case to help out with the investigation.
This nonprofit was created by retired FBI agents to create a bridge between families like Nicole's and law enforcement. They said that they feel like something can be gained from them looking into the evidence And Sheriff Salazar, who's in charge of the case, said that he agrees and that he would love to see if there's anything new that they can shed a light on in the investigation.
One of these retired FBI agents, Taletta Copeland, said, quote, In my 17 years experience as an FBI agent, there are some questions that need to be answered. There's evidence that needs to be collected before Nicole is ever called the murderer. I can't tell you passionately enough. Nicole, in my opinion, is not a murderer.
I will go on record saying that she's not a murderer and there's evidence out there that needs to be further analyzed before this case is closed. So just hearing that shows me that there must be so much evidence that we just don't know about. So many things that they are looking into that shows that this isn't all that it seems and that Nicole did not take the lives of her two children.
Police also came out and said that figuring out the GPS data in Charlie's car and his activity on his cell phone is going to be a huge step in solving this case. They said that they're not just looking into the cell phone pings, but into geofencing. They want to know when a certain app is used at a certain time.
For example, if someone is using Google Maps at a certain time, they would like to know where and when. Again, the reason they want this is because they want to piece together who was where on the night that this happened. If they found out that maybe he wasn't at home or that he was at home, that can tell a huge difference, obviously, as to what really may have happened.
However, Sheriff Salazar has also come out and said that at this time, Charlie Wheeler is not a suspect. He's just a person of interest. But there's also several other persons of interest at this time. Charlie is being represented by three lawyers, who came out to the public and asked them not to jump to conclusions.
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Chapter 4: What do the autopsy results indicate about the deaths?
They said that they think that it's regrettable that this young man is being demonized. They said that he's not a violent criminal and has no violent record whatsoever. I also do want to be fair in this case, and there have been people who have come out and spoken in support of Charlie and said that their relationship wasn't actually as bad as Nicole's friends are making it out to be.
I do want to say that of course her friends are going to come to bat for her. Not that I don't believe them because honestly I do and...
I'm just gonna come out right and say that and that I do believe that but at the same time you have to understand that supporters of their friend or their family who don't want to believe that she was capable of this, of course they're gonna say that she's a good person and that their relationship was really bad and they're going to be really focused on these red flags that they saw.
Again, not in any way am I saying that I don't believe them because again I do but I do just want to put that out there. Charlie's mother has come out and said that Charlie is absolutely crushed by the shootings. She said that he is grieving and people seeing him as a suspect is just adding to the grief that they're facing. She said that he loved Nicole and that he loved those girls.
His mother said, quote, there's no way that we even saw this coming at all. My son is heartbreaking and he can't even mourn. He can't do anything because he's got a target on his back. A lot of Charlie's friends have also come out to say that he's a really good guy and He loved those girls and he would never hurt them.
I will say that maybe I'm missing something but these obviously are a lot more of generalized statements than what we heard from Nicole's friends so I just wanted to point that out.
It's a lot easier to say that someone is a good person generally and oh he loved the girls and oh you know he had a great life and they had a great relationship than to come out with very specific details about things that have happened and a
Their relationship like Nicole's friends had again It's harder to come up with a lie like an extravagant lie about this whole situation Just to put a target on his back than it is to say. Oh, he's a good person Everyone thinks that their friends and families are good people So I do just want to come out and say that not saying that they're wrong not saying that Charlie is not a good person and
but i'm just saying it's a lot easier to be like oh yeah my friend he's a great guy than it is to come up with this huge story about something that happened that made you very concerned now i do want to mention that according to the fathers of alexa and london charlie has never once reached out to them to give his condolences in fact no one in the wheeler family attended the visitation or memorial services that they had for nicole and the girls
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Chapter 5: What conflicting evidence challenges the murder-suicide narrative?
A year later, however, the assault charge was dropped because of the boyfriend's lack of cooperation with police and the investigation so as we can see she had a little bit of a side to her that lost her temper sometimes and maybe things got a bit out of control but i will say we don't know the full story here and obviously the charges were dropped for a reason so just keep that in mind as well
by no means does that mean that she had any sort of temper against her two girls. I will say that there's never been anything in connection with her girls that says that she's neglectful or abusive. And I know there's been some things that actually came out when she was a lot younger, when she was around 16 years old or a little bit older when she was a new mom.
But after that, in her adult life, at least for 10 years before she died, nothing has ever come out about her either. from friends or families or reports saying that she had any sort of temper or had any negative things being done against her children. And other than this, I haven't seen any other reports of domestic abuse or anything like that against another boyfriend or anything like that.
Again, I'm not trying to defend Nicole. Obviously, it's not okay to hit anybody. It's not okay to be involved in domestic abuse and being the abuser.
but we don't know the full story and maybe i'm giving a little bit too much credit for her but we don't know what the boyfriend had done to her we don't know if he had a history of him being violent towards her or cheating or whatever it very well could have been that nicole just lost her temper and smacked him
And that's as simple as that, that she lost her temper and that everything was her fault. Again, I know I'm kind of rambling, but I don't want anyone in the comments saying that I'm giving her too much credit or that, you know, I'm not taking this seriously because it is serious. But again, the reason I'm talking about it is just sort of to piece this entire thing together.
So that being said, I understand that if Nicole and Charlie had gotten into an argument that maybe she could have spun out of control and did something horrific to Charlie. But to me, it literally makes no sense that she would target her girls.
Now, if we're talking in terms of theories and how this entire situation could have happened, the only thing to me that could come close to explaining Nicole wanting to take the lives of her daughter is if she genuinely felt that she had no way to escape the abuse from Charlie, so she took the lives of her daughters and her own to sort of protect them and herself.
But that doesn't really hold much water to me either because she was building a business and as far as I've seen, she continued working as a hairstylist when living with Charlie. So she was making money. It's not like she quit her job and just gave up her life to start living with Charlie. She was still working and being independent and building her own business.
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Chapter 6: How did friends describe Nichol's relationship with Charlie?
Maybe she felt so strongly that even if they left, that he was going to find them and hurt them and she wanted to stop that from happening. I don't really know. Even just saying this out loud is making me doubt it and it just... doesn't feel right, and it just doesn't really make sense.
I do want to note that in the wrongful death suit filed by London's dad, he states that Charlie is responsible for the entire thing because he left the house after the argument, leaving his gun there, knowing that Nicole was in a very emotional and panicked state. So basically in this suit, he's admitting that she's the one who took the lives of her daughter and herself.
Basically just saying that he's responsible because he left her alone in this emotional and not mentally stable state. I don't know if I believe that he believes that this is really what happened or if he's trying to file this wrongful death suit to get more information out of Charlie because Charlie has not really spoken to anybody.
He won't share any information, so to me, just from what I've gathered, it kind of seems like he's more so just trying to get more information out of him in a courtroom where, you know, he can't lie. rather than him actually believing that she took her own life and her daughter's lives. I think that they just think that they need to do something to find answers from Charlie.
So the other theory in this case, of course, is that Charlie is responsible. I think that these 911 calls that were made and dropped and the interviews from Nicole's friends all make this a very strong possibility. And in addition to that, I think the fact that she was literally looking at apartments to move soon is too much of a coincidence to ignore.
I think that if he found out that she was planning to move out, that he may have felt that he was starting to lose control and maybe he acted out of anger. I think that it's possible that he wanted to stop them from leaving because he wanted the ultimate control over them. I think that this makes sense given that he has this history of blowing up and blaming the girls for things.
Maybe he just wanted to control them and mold them into who he wanted them to be, the perfect people for him. And once he realized that he was losing control, he took his anger out on all of them. Or maybe he could tell that Nicole was pulling away. Or maybe this argument was because Nicole broke up with them and maybe he blamed her daughters for their relationship failing.
There's any number of reasons why Charlie could have wanted to harm the girls. but I think control is a huge factor. It's not a case of a couple who is married and has kids together and the man wants out of the relationship because he's cheating and he just doesn't want this life anymore. Obviously, that's a case that we see far too often, I don't think that that's what's happening here.
She could have moved herself out and took the girls with her if he didn't want them there. He had no strings attached. He didn't have to pay child support. He didn't have to pay alimony. There was nothing that he was going to be responsible for if she left. The only thing that makes sense to me of why he would want to get rid of them in this way is control.
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Chapter 7: What involvement does Project Absentees have in the investigation?
But either way, that is where I am going to end today's video. Thank you for taking the time to listen to Nicole, Alexa, and London's story. If you liked this video, please make sure to go ahead and leave this video a thumbs up. and subscribe to my channel. I put out new true crime and mystery videos every single week.
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And if you have absolutely any case suggestions, please make sure to go ahead and send those suggestions over to rachelshannoncases at gmail.com. With that, I hope you guys have a great week. Stay safe and stay healthy, and I hope to see you next time. Bye!