Nikki Wasolishin (0:05)

Hi, my name is Nikki, and I'm the daughter of a murdered woman. Welcome back to a special bonus episode of Poppy Killed Mommy. We're now six episodes in Halfway through the series, and up until now, most of what you've heard has been pieced together from police reports, case files, and my own personal memories. But I want to take a moment to remind you that my mom, Stacey, wasn't just a name in a report or a victim in a case file. She was a real person, a daughter, a sister, and a best friend. Today you'll hear from one of those people who knew her best, her longtime friend, Lori Swift. This recording was made back in May, before I even knew what I was doing with the podcast. I was frustrated and ready to give up. I was calling Lori, crying. She showed up within an hour. She came into my little studio and she just talked. No outline, no plan, just her heart into the microphone. She recorded three clips that day while I was laying on my bed in tears, frustrated because I didn't know what to do. And while I've pulled small pieces from them before, most of what you're about to hear has never been released. You'll notice it's different from my usual episodes. It's not an interview. You won't hear me guiding the story. It's Laurie, candidly sharing her memories. I've only edited out the extra ums and ohs she likes to sprinkle in. Through Lori's stories, you'll hear about the teenage girl my mom was in the 70s, the chaos of her home life, her love for music, the thrift store adventures, the mischievous fun with friends, and the struggles she carried that nobody her age should have to. These memories matter because they remind us of the whole person my mom was. Not just how her life ended, but how she lived it. If you knew my mom in any capacity as a friend, a neighbor, a co worker, or even just an acquaintance, I would love to hear from you. Whether it's a written letter, a voice message, or even joining me here on this podcast, please reach out. These stories, like Lori's, are how we keep my mom's spirit alive. So here it is, the complete, unedited first studio recording with my mom's best friend, Lori Swift.

Lori Swift (2:07)

Hello, Hello, Hello. My name is Lori Swift, Arizona native, and I am in Cape Creek, Arizona, at Nikki Lee Wasolishin's house in her studio, telling you my story about Stacy Wassilician, her mom. Way back when, in the mid-70s, I met Stacy Wassolichin in grade school through a mutual Friend Tracy. And at the time I lived in a house about 31st Avenue in Windrows. And Tracy lived just a little west of me at 35th Avenue. And Stacy lived at 29th Avenue. So we all lived fairly close and we rode our bicycles. Tracy and I had 10 speeds. We rode our bikes all the time to Stacy's house. Anyway, back in the 70s, her mom was married to a person named Bruce the balloon guy. And Bruce liked to drink. And so did Bea, the wicked witch of Windrows, the mom. My friend Stacy, her mom liked to drink too, on a regular. Anyway, Stacy, Stacy wasolution. My friend grew up as a scapegoat and a house that had a lot of chaos with having a parent that drank on a regular. Then her mom would tell her mean things such as the wrong twin died. Stacy never got over that, that the wrong twin died because her mom never let her forget it. Stacy would be standing in the kitchen sink doing dishes. Stacy always having to do everybody else's fucking chores too while I'm talking about it. But when her mom running her mouth about whatever the topic was that night. And it was very difficult to go over her house and have a good time because having a parent that drinks, they can be a bit obnoxious at times. However, the Wicked witch of Windrose did allow us teenagers to have parties at her house. And then the Washington house got a swimming pool with. It was a whole nother activity situation fornification. But growing up, I don't remember how long the Wicked witch was married to Bruce, but he was known as a balloon guy. And I don't know, he was a creeper. He was a creeper. When you get that gut feeling about somebody and your hairs stand up. And he was a little too touchy feely in my opinion. And from stories I heard from my friend, he had a problem keeping his hands to himself. Bea got divorced from him and in a short time frame she did wind up marrying a really great guy, Grandpa Miles. Reginald. And he was just very soft spoken and very sweet. And I to this day can still hear him say now, Stacy, we miss you. Miles, you were. Thanks for being so awesome to Stacy. My friend Stacy was sent away as a young person and you know, there's a. Going to Chicago was a whole nother story. And you know, I remember it differently than other people. So, you know, I know, I just don't know. I just don't know. I believe my friend had another child prior to Nikki. And that's what I believe. That's what I know, that's what I've been told, and I have no proof. So moving forward, Stacy has Nikki Lee. And when with Craighead, and she and Craig were together for a long time out of high school, she was with him. And then my daughter was born. Nikki Lee was born in 83. And then my daughter was born after that, and Craig and my husband and Stacy and I, we. We hung out together. Not a frequent because they were both hardworking construction workers, but we used to go to this in Sunny Slope, the Bowman Alley. They had these great breakfasts. You could get these ginormous plates of food for under five bucks. And Stacy and I, oh, we like to thrift. Stop. And the guys would go out and do their gun thing and talk the construction thing or go off and do their side jobs. Whatever it was, it happened on occasion. It was not on a regular. My ex would speak to Craig because they were both in the construction world about different things. And he'd even borrow guns from Craig. Later years, Stacy wouldn't let me put these guns, three of them, two handguns and a long gun in her trunk to take back to Craig. She didn't like guns. You know, we used to go out shooting and Stacy never liked to go out shooting, so she never went. We would always go thrifting instead. Growing up in the. In the 70s, she had. She had some. She always had a boyfriend. Oh, the boys would line up for Stacy growing up and I'm sorry, I don't remember any of the names, but you can. She always had more than one ask to go to the dance, it seems like. And it was pretty cool. There wasn't a lot of extra money to go to dances and have extra fancy clothes and whatnot. So they learned to thrift and do the best they can at a very young age in the LA Solician family. I remember, you know, extracurricular activities, you know, in high school or, pardon me, in grade school, you know, you. We were in dance. Tracy and I would. Went to dance for a few years. The Spisak Academy, that Spizak Academy still here in the West Phoenix. West Phoenix. And you know, we had dance recitals and stuff. And there wasn't extra money like that in the Wassalition house to have curricular activities such as sports or dance or to be able to order stuff out of the book club, you know, when they pass out the little book club, little newspapers when you were in school and they had a list of all these books and things that you could order. There was not extra money in The Wassalition house. Things were very strapped. Things were very strapped. You know, everybody pitched in and did what they needed to do. Her brothers were always way cool. Lance and Michael were always real cool. Even though I've often wondered, how did Michael Wasilician always know? We used his turntable and his awesome speakers. They, you know, the Wasolishian brothers had a good sound system, and we like to use it when they were at home, even though we were not supposed to. I think that the Wicked Witch always told on us when we would go and play our Aerosmith in there. Toys in the attic. Oh, my gosh. The vinyl back in the 70s. The music. We lived through music. We danced through music. We would, you know, talk to each other and code through music, you know, ooh, that smell when somebody would come in the room. It was all about the music. If it wasn't for music, I really think that we would have lost our damn mind. With so much going on as teenagers going into high school, Stacy had a Gremlin. Saved money from her first job. She didn't know how to drive it. We hid it in my apartment complex for a few months in Barcelona. Apartments, which we had to hide it from Tracy's grandma and her aunt Tracy's dad was a Phoenix cop, so we couldn't let Grandma see that I was driving Stacy's car. So it was a real, real big secret that I had to hide amidst late. What was it, like, 78, 76. I can remember the year. Gremlin in our apartment complex, driving us around, picking us up at school, running around on our lunch hours. Thank you, Jesus, for watching over us because we had no business driving without a license, hauling butt, listening to our. Our journey and our sticks and our Tom Petty at a very loud level in her. In her Gremlin. Stacy learned to drive the Gremlin. And she was a pretty good driver. Pretty good driver. She always was a very diligent worker. And when she very clean, very organized, very meticulous, and she was a scapegoat at the Wassalition house. As far as chores, I don't know. It's just, you know, she couldn't get out to go do something on a Saturday until there was, you know, all her chores and always other chores to do. It was quite frustrating, you know, and then we have to go over and help Tracy because Tracy. Tracy hated. Hated doing dishes. And she always had a sink full of dishes because, shit, we didn't have dishwashers in that house, in that neighborhood in West Town. Our laundry rooms Were outside. They weren't even in the house. They were, you know, outside on the carport. That's how the homes were built. And having a dishwasher, you know, if you had kids, that was your damn dishwasher. Dishwasher. So Tracy would always hate doing her dishes. So Stacy and I would always. Not always. We would go over there and help Tracy out, do her dishes. And we always go to the mall, Metro Center Mall. Metro Center Mall was a huge playground for us when that was built in the 70s. And we would go to the food court and, you know, the ice skating creek was adjacent to the food court and also adjacent to the food court. And by the ice skating rink, when you first came in the door on the right hand side there was the airport lounge. And we could run inside there and buy cigarettes out of the cigarette machine. And that was one of the couple of places that we were able to get ourselves cigarettes. And we smoke cigarettes outside the mall and then go back inside, walk around the mall, try on clothes. And there was this one particular store called Rhodes where you. In the dressing area, you would step up onto like this stage area where there was mirrors and the tile would. Was the squares, and they were liquid squishy gel in it. And they would move around. So it was a. It was a very fun place to try on clothes that Rhodes and dance to the squishy tiles. They always had fantastic music. Metrocento Mall, that was a pretty popping place for us back then. And I don't think that it was in our best interests to be hitchhiking from our house there, from Cactus down to Peoria to Metro Center. Yeah, we hitchhiked to the mall and it was kind of scary and doing it twice. Didn't want to do it a third time. And I believe it was lanswa solution. Thanks for saving our lives, man. Because you scolded us. That was. Feels like a hundred freaking years ago. You know, when we were teenagers, you know, 15, 16, 14, whatever it was when Metro center was built, however we were, you scolded us about hitchhiking, and then you were kind enough to drive us around in your Baja VW that had no back seats. And we rolled around like pinballs as you drove us to the wall. Thanks, man. Appreciate the ride and appreciate you being a big brother. Both the Wassalician brothers were cool to us. And they, they watched out. They didn't allow any bullshit at the parties. When we had keggers at the house, which was cool. If you acted up, you didn't come Back, I guess you speak, so to speak. The Wasolution house, it was quite chaotic. Always, always going on. And there were certain times of the day where you were into their soap operas and you couldn't, you had to be quiet. The old lady was watching her sopra soap opera. Oh my gosh. Even though it was recorded. Yeah. All about the soap opera drama. Oh my gosh. I guess not a soap opera person. I'm more the type where it give me something with speeds and some action and some boom, bang, boom, let's go faster type of thing. Don't give me a soap opera. Never been a Hallmark kind of chick, but Stacy loved the Hallmark channel. And as, as young girls we learned to read a lot so we were able to escape through reading. And I was reading is a whole nother world. Growing up in the 70s. Wow. That's a whole nother world right now too. But we both, Stacy and I got our first jobs in West Town. Stacey working at a daycare. And she worked really hard at the daycare right around the corner there, right caddy corner from my apartment complex. And my job was just across kinds of all within a half a mile radius. And we walked. It was easy. Minimum wage and tips, you know, was not what it is now, I assure you. Cost of life was a whole lot different. A whole, whole lot different. And we got away with a lot of things because we didn't have a digital world, a whole nother world. I just don't know how to describe living in the 70s. It was about the music. The music. We did a lot of exploring. Life was good, life was good. When you had music, it's all about the music. Stacy loved Fog Hat Slow Ride was one of her fantastic favorite songs. Hello, hello, this is Laurie Swift talking about my friend Stacey Wassila Shin. I am in Cave Creek, Arizona. This is number two. Growing up in the 70s, growing up in the 70s, I so missed the sounds, the smell, the tastes of the 70s. If, you know, laying in the front yard or your backyard of Arizona and you know, when it wasn't as built up as it is now, being able to see the skies, the stars, it was just absolutely amazing music. We listened to an amazing amount of vinyl and once we were able to get a job and save some money, we started going to concerts. We did an amazing amount of concerts, celebrity theater, the spinning around stage here in Arizona. I saw Van Halen there when he was rocking with Frankenstein. I so in love with Eddie Van Halen. To this day, he's one of my Favorites. And we saw Journey and Sticks so many times. Oh, so. And Rush. Rush. We were down on the floor for Rush, front row. And it was a pretty rich. I don't even remember which Rush it was, but it was. It was good. We loved it. Big hair band music, you know, in the Motown and the jazz and then the Soul Sisters, the Train, Diana Ross. The music. If you want to get nostalgic about it, I could go on and on about the music, the movies. It was. The culture was absolutely different without being an electronic world for us. And not having electronics probably saved us from being arrested on more than one occasion. Being underage, unlicensed drivers on the Arizona road, driving out to Maryville to score some weed. My friend Stacy, I tell you, she would be so excited about the technology and where it's at and what we can do in the kitchen, Groceries delivered. My friend Stacy was a very hard worker. Very hard worker, very clean, very organized, very meticulous. And she was very creative as a chef, pastry chef, a cook. She has taught me through her chef skills the basics of making good meals. I do a lot of meal prep. Don't do any packaged foods. And if you do meal prep, you live in Arizona. It's all about the citrus. All about the citrus. We grew up on citrus. And pomegranates. Pomegranate seeds. You used to be able to use those to write obnoxious, rude, rude things on sidewalks. Anyway, my friend Stacy left this world way too soon. And her mom never let her live it down that the wrong twin died. She never recovered from that. That was a huge emotional drain strain, emotional upset that Stacy dealt with on a regular. The loss of a twin. Not knowing. The whole. Not knowing. She talked about it on occasion. It wasn't a hot topic as the years proceeded. Especially after she moved out of the old lady's house and she didn't have to listen to the old lady's drunken banter while she was sitting on her porch. Yeah, I didn't go back to the Wassalition house for. Since the. Probably the late 70s because I did not want to deal with the wicked witch. And I regret not going back to the last birthday parties that Stacy had for her daughters on the house in Windrose when she was living in Sedona. Hello. Hello. This is Laurie Swift. And this is number three. Talking about my friend Stacy Wassolichin. My friend Stacey Wassolichin growing up in the 70s. Wow. You know our dances at Saguaro Elementary. Last song was Always Nice. And White Satin. And Stacey Always had dates to the proms in high school. And she actually had more than one guy asking her to go to the prom. And she always looks so beautiful. There's a lot of great pictures that Nikki Lee is able to share on her social media of her mom with prom pictures and dances and. And the house parties. There was an amazing amount of house parties at the house on Wind Rose, especially after they got a swimming pool and. Oh, the swimming pool, the barbecues, you know, and they had like a tiki room out back, so to speak. You know, that was kind of like an Arizona room, if, you know, it was. It was quite the party house with good tunes and good eats and all American fornication, you know, as young, hot teenagers. Can't go wrong with that. What's wrong? Arizona. Oh, my gosh, we were so lucky that none of us got arrested. Laws are different. Just like desert parties. You know, the desert parties? No, you don't know. So let me tell you. Arizona, where we used to have our desert parties, was not annexed as Maricopa county, the largest county in the state of Arizona. It was annexed by and patrolled by Yavapai county, which was the Black Canyon City Sheriff's Department. And they would have to drive from Black Canyon City to Cave Creek and wherever that was. Deer Valley, Union Hills. We used to have our desert parties. It was a. It was a good 45 minute drive. So, you know, when you're in the desert, it wasn't right off the freeway. So they was real easy to have our desert parties and our keggers and big bands, big hair bands, was just fabulous. And through the high schools, three different high schools. Stacy and I both graduated from Washington High School. Stacy graduated in 79, I graduated in 81. And, you know, right after high school, we started working and we had jobs and, you know, it's difficult to keep in touch. And she met Craig in the early 80s, I believe is when she met Craig after high school, because she graduated in 79. And Craig was friends with one of the Wassalition brothers, and he would carpool with the brothers to their job sites. And Craig sitting there chatting, you know, wanting to know what Stacy was all about. He was waiting for her to get off work when she worked at the daycare, just, you know, hanging out, listening to music on the tailgate of the truck, you know that hanging out on the tailgate's a truck. Anyway, Craig was loved Stacy, and in my opinion, was by far her soulmate. And they never stopped loving each other. Being young parents, inexperienced they did as best they could with the tools that they had. In my opinion. It was difficult, you know, when Stacy trying to work balance daycare, balancing daycare and working. She had to pay her mom to babysit. Stacy had to pay, always had to pay to have a babysitter. It was all about the money. All about the money. Babysitting Nikki Lee. It was a challenge for her to find good daycare and then not have to, you know, to pay her mom. And her mom, Nikki B. Exposed to her mom's ways on a daily too. That was. That was really important because Grandma B. Liked to watch her soap operas and she smoked her cigarettes in her house. Yeah, that's a whole nother story. But anyway, the. The life with Craig and with Nikki Lee. Stacy moved out after a few years and it was. It was on again. Then she moved back in during. During the years too. But it got to the point where there was more yelling and loving going on and having a baby and balancing the. All of the other things of life. And Craig trying to be a businessman in the construction world, which she has did a stellar job. Have you ever seen the tour of his house here in Cave Creek? You would know what I was talking about. He's the kind of man not to spend a whole bunch of money on something expensive to make it e. Easy to have a. An easy life. He would rather refurbish something and make it bigger, badder, and better. God, I love Craighead. Craighead. I have always had a great connection with Craig. I don't know if it's because we were both born in April when we're Aries, I'm not sure, but life is good life. We had a really fun. Always laughing. The. The music. I cannot get over how much music we listen to. And Stacy would never drink at our parties. Cakes of beer. She was always. She liked the hard roots. The vodka. It was the vodka. And then we started at later years drinking the whiskey. Oh, the Crown Royal. Yeah, Crown Royal. We did our. Our share of Crown Royal, didn't we, Stacey? Wow. I miss my friend Stacy. I miss my friend Stacy. And I wish that she had had a childhood that wasn't so dysfunctional and so toxic. She did a really good job coming out of the toxic Wicked Witch of the Wind Rose house. She loved her mom, her mom loved her. But it was just having a parent that is inebriated more days than sober is a. Is a rough life as a child growing up. And she did the best she could. Rock and roll. Rock and roll. Oh,'70s black light posters. We had black lights and posters. Keep on trucking. Oh my gosh. The 70s were a best and it was easy to call us off for school. In grade school somebody would write a note if we were going to ditch. Somebody would write a note and another person would be called. We'd pretend like somebody's mom and call the nurse and call off and then we would lay in the sun. Lay in the sun as juveniles. I'm supposed to be at school. Life was rough. I wish I could go back to easy life of a teenager in the fun times of the seventies. It would be. It would be fun. I miss you, Stacy.