 The case of Nicholas Cordova is an eerie one. Being a husband and father of two and all-around ordinary guy, Nick isn't the type of person that you would expect to be caught up in some kind of true crime story. But in reality, his case is one of the creepiest I've ever heard. See, Nick owned an air-conditioning business, and one night at work he was talking with his daughter over a FaceTime call when, without warning, an unidentified suspect burst into his office and ended his life. The crazy thing is, they didn't even steal anything. It was very clear that this criminal was purely after Nick's life, nothing else. The entire event was captured on CCTV, but despite capturing a fairly clear image of the perpetrator's face, no one knew who this man was. While official charges have never been filed, many people believe they know exactly who claimed Nick's life that day, and the truth behind this scary mystery may be much closer to home than Nick could have ever imagined. Nicholas Cordova was born and raised in Scottsdale, Arizona, back in October of 1976, making him about 40 years old at the time of the crime. Having been raised by his mother, Teresa, it doesn't seem that Nick's father was in the picture, at least not very much. Nick spent the entirety of his childhood in a single parent home, but his mother did everything she could to make the best of it, and it seems that Nick must have had a relatively decent childhood because he grew up to be an incredibly respectable man. Nick attended Chandler High School in Arizona and became deeply involved in both football and wrestling, graduating in the summer of 1998. After school, Nick decided that he wanted to continue his love for extracurricular activities and ended up becoming a personal trainer. Soon after this, Nicholas would meet the love of his life, Alicia, around 2003. The two were together for an incredibly long time before they got married, not officially tying the knot until October of 2011. After their marriage, the couple would welcome two children into the world, a boy, cruise, and a girl, Capri, with Capri being the youngest. It's obvious from the family's photos that they were about as happy as a family could be, and their happiness doesn't look like your typical Facebook and Instagram happiness either. These guys were genuinely connected at the soul, inseparable. Unfortunately, being a personal trainer didn't pan out long term for Nick. Having a family to feed now, he decided he would uproot his life and begin his own heating and air conditioning business. When he was ready to get his business up and running, he worked alongside a silent partner with the two establishing a 50-50 partnership. To clarify this silent partner situation, that essentially means that Nick partnered up with someone that had enough money to get the business started. Nick was in charge of all the daily operations of the business. This partner was purely involved because they had the necessary money to get things up and running. Past that, they didn't have any word in how the business operated, hence the silent name. All of this took place sometime around 2018 or 2019. The exact dates are a bit of a mystery. But ultimately, Nick's end goal was to grow the business for about five years, establish a solid customer base, then sell the business for a steep profit. To put this timeline into perspective, this year would have likely been the year that Nick planned on selling the business. We don't know if he planned to retire after this or simply begin working part-time, but his whole purpose of doing this was that he could spend more time with his family during his children's more formative years. Nick was seriously dedicated to his business and to his overall plan. He would show up at work first thing in the morning, and there were days that he wouldn't leave until after midnight. His customers loved the work that he and his team produced, and nearly all of his customers were extremely satisfied, leaving rave reviews online and sharing the business with their friends. For Nick, this was pretty much all he could have ever asked for. When he wasn't at work, Nick loved being outdoors or out working on one of his vehicles. He'd often take his family on trips to various parks and canyons in the area with his number one goal in life simply being to spend as much time with his loved ones as he possibly could. Nick was, by all means, a family man and a genuinely decent guy. And I'm not saying the typical lit up a room kind of way, Nick was the man that every other man dreams of being. But unfortunately, no amount of goodness nor decency could save Nick from the terrible fate he was about to encounter. I don't know about you, but I often have a pretty difficult time going to sleep and an even worse time staying asleep. 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You don't want to miss this limited time offer, but thanks to Dream for sponsoring today's video. Luckily for Nick, his children were growing up in the golden age of technology. This means that when Nick had to work late at night, he could simply FaceTime with his family to have dinner with them, to chat or generally to hang out while he was at work. Now, obviously, this isn't a replacement for physically being with your family, but it was certainly a middle ground that wasn't around. And most of us were kids and something I'm sure we would have all enjoyed having access to at times. It was pretty typical for Nick and his family to FaceTime in the evenings, either when Nick hadn't made it home from work or when he knew that he'd be working through the night. So on May 27th, 2020, it was simply a day like any other. Nick was in his office at his HVAC business while video chatting with his kids. His wife was washing the dishes when his children came running up, begging for her to begin a call with their dad so that they could show him a new trick that they learned on TikTok. It had something to do with an iPhone charger, but to be honest, I have no idea what they were talking about. They could have been trying to steal a Kia for all I know. But as they were FaceTiming with one another, something terrible happened. While the kids were in the middle of their performance, Alicia, Nick's wife, heard their daughter scream, saying, something's wrong with Daddy. Alicia ran into the room and grabbed the phone from her, but she had no idea what was going on. Nick wasn't on the screen anymore and it looked as if his phone had been knocked over or something. Completely confused, she called out to her husband but got no response. Then she heard shouting in the background of the call, followed by rustling around as if someone was looking for something. This is when she knew that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. It was at this point that Alicia began to panic, but she didn't know what to do other than call 911. She grabbed a second phone to call the police, keeping Nick's call live on FaceTime in case something else happened. She even called out to Nick's business partner, who had supposedly been at the office that day, but she got no response. What didn't make any sense was that this late at night, Nick was supposed to have been in the office alone. The only exception to this would have been if his business partner was there that night, which Alicia believed was the case on this particular day. All of the doors were allegedly locked, just like they were every other night when the store was closed. So with this in mind, who would show up at this hour and cause such trouble? While all of this was playing out, Alicia was shouting into the phone for whoever was there to leave her husband alone. She announced that she had already called the police and they were quick to respond, showing up in record time. After she hung up the phone with the police, Alicia grabbed her children, hopped in the car and gunned it straight to Nick's business. She called his mother along the way, letting her know that something had happened and she thinks Nick was attacked, asking her to get to the business as soon as she could. When Alicia finally arrived at Nick's business, she was devastated to learn that just as she had so deeply feared, her instincts were correct. Police cars had already surrounded the building and officers were in the process of unrolling crime scene tape when she pulled into the parking lot. The entire scene was painted in red and blue light. It was hard to see anything from all of the flashing lights and chaos. When Alicia put the car in park, she shouted for her kids to stay inside and wait there. She then ran full sprint towards the front of the building, completely disregarding the caution tape and running toward her husband's office. Thankfully, two officers grabbed her before she could enter the building. It was then that she noticed there was no ambulance at the scene. She asked the officers where the ambulance was and they both just stared at her for a brief moment. She asked if her husband had been injured and that's when they were forced to break the news. Just as Alicia had feared, Nick had been attacked, but unfortunately didn't survive. To this day, more than three years later, police have still not publicly revealed how Nick lost his life. All we know for sure is that, thankfully, by the sheer grace of God, Nick's children didn't witness anything, despite them being on a video call with him at the time. Alicia hit the ground. Life as she knew it was over. Police say that there were witness reports of two men fleeing the scene of the crime and one of these men was captured on CCTV at a nearby convenience store. But as we all know, CCTV footage is useless if the people who know this person are too scared to speak up. But there's two things about this crime that are just completely insane to me. First and foremost, this crime took place at five twenty eight p.m. Give or take a minute or two. The business had already closed up shop for the day quite some time ago, right around five p.m. But by all means, it was still broad daylight. The sun wouldn't set for at least another thirty minutes or so. The area surrounding Nick's business was also supremely populated by other businesses, many of which were still open at this hour. This was an incredibly public crime in regards to the sheer number of people who would have been around to witness anything strange going on. But what's also incredibly strange is that this crime seems to have been so well organized. According to both Alicia and the police, the criminals invaded Nick's business, claimed his life and were on their way down the road to a nearby convenience store in a span of just five minutes. They certainly didn't mess around and didn't linger. They had a mission, carried it out and moved on with their day. To be even more specific, Alicia says that the FaceTime call with Nick first began at five twenty five p.m. By five thirty p.m. She was on the phone with 911 operators and by five thirty three, the men were at the convenience store all the way down the road. It seems almost impossible how quickly all of this played out. Now, you may recall that just a moment ago, I mentioned that Nick was supposed to have been in his office alone. And that certainly is true. He was supposed to have been. But this had been somewhat of a strange week. See, Nick's silent partner, David Sweetman, rarely ever showed up at the office. After all, his role in the business was to be silent. David would only show up around once a month, presumably to get a progress report and likely a payment. But the week that Nick lost his life, this wasn't the case. In the week leading up to the crime, David Sweetman had spent quite a bit of time at Gilbert Air, the name of Nick's business. He'd shown up Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And as fate would have it, he was there on the night that the attack took place. Again, quite a while after the business had already closed for the night. Now, you'd think that David would have a pretty clear idea of what took place that night. But according to him, he has no clue what happened because he was knocked out as soon as the crime started. He says he doesn't know if he was hit with something or what happened. All he knows is that he fell unconscious in the seconds before the crime unfolded. Now, it doesn't appear that any of David's statements to investigators have ever been made public. But what's even more bizarre, according to one article I found, the police never mentioned a second person being present that night. As far as the public documentation goes, Nick was the only person in the building when investigators arrived. Now, obviously, we can't say this with any certainty. After all, David claims he was there and they don't have any reason to believe that this isn't true. It could very likely be that the police never mentioned David being found at the scene, because by all means, they believe he played no role in the crime and was largely irrelevant. Why bother releasing information that bears no weight on the investigation? But this strange lack of attention to detail has certainly sparked a few theories among armchair detectives who are begging the question, was David really there at all? Or was this some kind of cover story that he made up? Now, here's the thing. To debunk some of the more outlandish theories surrounding this case, we know that Alicia knew that David was there that evening. Nick told her that he was. So if Alicia knew, then the police knew. After all, Alicia has mentioned this in several interviews and David wasn't secret of about his presence at all. So the sheer fact that this information has been spread so far to me rules out that this wasn't some sort of secret cover up. I've seen several people claiming that David may have made up the story about being in the building that night and that he may have been one of the perpetrators. But if there's anything in this case that can be confirmed, it's that David was rather obviously in that building on the night that Nick lost his life. For me, the only question is, is David telling the full truth about what happened? Now, Alicia has never been openly critical about David, at least not in any direct way, but she did seem to find it a little bit suspicious that David was in the office three times in the week leading up to Nick losing his life. Now, she never tossed around any accusations or alluded to anything, but the sheer fact that she mentioned it proves that she found this to be a bit unusual. What's also a little interesting is that in the police notes, they only mentioned one person being injured during the intrusion and that person was presumably Nick. So if David had been knocked out as he had claimed, shouldn't he have been included on that list as well? But here's where things take a bit of a downward turn. See, when Nick became co-owner of Gilbert Air around 2018, he applied for a three million dollar life insurance policy, naming Alicia his wife as the beneficiary. But without Alicia's knowledge in December of that year, the beneficiary was changed to Gilbert Air. So in the event of Nick's passing, Gilbert Air or its owners would receive the three million dollar payout, not his wife. Now, taking life insurance out on a business partner or an employee may sound ridiculous, but it isn't as uncommon as it may sound. This allows the business to keep functioning in the event that one of its leaders passes away. It basically just helps the business stay above water while remaining workers try to find a new leader. So rather obviously, once Nick passed away, David Sweetman was the sole inheritor of Gilbert Air because he would have been the only surviving person attached to the company. Best I can tell, Gilbert Air is no longer in business, meaning that David Sweetman must have shut the business down after Nick lost his life. The thing is, this isn't too suspicious because rather obviously, David didn't know anything about running an HVAC business. That's why he left it all up to Nick. But it certainly isn't a good look that as soon as his business partner passes away and his partner's wife finds out she's been left penniless. This man doesn't bother giving his grieving wife a single dime, especially when we already know the man must have had a pretty solid chunk of change in the bank because, well, five years earlier, David's wife, Laura Sweetman, mysteriously passed away after drowning in a bathtub. And mind you, this took place immediately after a rather nasty divorce between the two. After this, David received a large insurance payout immediately afterward. This would normally just be considered incredibly tragic. But when you frame it with all the mystery and suspicion surrounding the passing of Nick, well, it puts things in a different perspective. If this weren't bad enough, I managed to dig up a complaint from one of David Sweetman's other businesses that was reported back in 2014. This complaint was regarding a vehicle towing business that David was the owner of. In this complaint, customer called David Sweetman out by name and claims to have been incredibly close friends with Laura, David's former wife. The report claims that David was running a scam with a local Jack in the Box restaurant in Arizona, where he works alongside the manager of the restaurant to have cars illegally towed from the parking lot. Basically, he tows these cars away for no real reason. When customers leave the restaurant, they simply find that their cars are gone. In order to get their cars back from the tow lot, they're forced to pay a fee first, which in the state of Arizona is illegal. The money that's made from the scam is then split between the manager of the Jack in the Box restaurant, then they rinse and repeat the process. Most of the times, the victims of the scam don't have the funds to take the situation to court. So David gets away with the scam time and time again. Mind you, this is just a complaint, not a legal report of any kind. So I can't vouch for the validity of this. But the complaint ended with a very curious note. The person who wrote the complaint, as mentioned, was a close friend of Laura Sweetman. They mentioned that the police suggested that Laura's passing was due to her taking her own life, following her divorce from David. Yet this friend claims that Laura was over the moon to have divorced him, certainly not depressed. They mentioned that Laura had endured countless years of physical and mental abuse from David, and they even claimed that Laura had confided in them on multiple occasions that David had threatened to poison her. Now, I can't confirm this complaint, but it's definitely some food for thought. But when David went to cash out the life insurance claim for Nick Cordova, Alicia Cordova filed a complaint with the court claiming that the change of beneficiaries was fraudulent. This case is still pending, so we don't know what the outcome of this lawsuit may be. The last update in the lawsuit comes from October of 2022, in which the case was going to be sent before a jury. But we all know how long the United States judicial system takes to bring any case to a close. So this situation is likely years away from seeing any sort of resolution. But in the end, this is why some people are being led to believe that David may have had a hand in this case, after all. But this is purely conjecture, and we have no real evidence to believe that police suspected David Sweetman at all. They've certainly never called him out publicly anyway. But something about this guy and his story, it just doesn't sit right with me, though I have to admit, I'm a big believer in innocent until proven guilty, regardless of what the modern political environment may be these days with cancel culture and whatnot. Now, I'll never suggest that David was in any way involved without seeing some form of evidence. I mean, after all, this man may have just lost both his wife and his best friend in a period of less than five years. All I'm saying is that for David Sweetman, I just don't know about him. Something doesn't feel right in where there's smoke, there's fire. It's now been three years since the passing of Nicholas Cordova and it's unknown what progress has been made in the case since the initial investigation. The suspect in the surveillance video has never been identified and it's also unknown how deeply investigators have dug into David Sweetman since all of this unfolded. Police are keeping things very tightly under wraps and thankfully so. The last thing we need is for the wrong person to get a hold of the wrong information and completely trash this entire investigation. Alicia has described life after Nicholas as very difficult. She said that reality began to set in after about six months when she realized that Nicholas hadn't just gone on vacation, but he was gone in a more permanent way. She believes there will be justice for the passing of her husband and that police will discover who took his life and her happiness away that summer evening. So if you know anything about the case of Nicholas Cordova or recognize the man in the surveillance photo, you're strongly urged to contact the Gilbert Police Department at 480-503-6500. No detail is too small to be helpful. Literally any information at all can send police on the right track. In the aftermath of it all, one question that many people are asking is what led police to believe the men entering the Arco gas station was a suspect in the case? They claim there are two suspects that they're actively investigating, but they've never mentioned who the second person may be. So is there a chance that it may be David Sweetman? Another thing we don't know is if David was ever checked out by medical professionals following the attack against him. If he was, then doctors should be able to verify whether or not he was truly hurt or knocked out on that evening of Nicholas passing. This case is just so hard to swallow because it seems like it should be open and shut. I mean, the suspect was captured clear as day on CCTV. But unfortunately, video footage only takes us so far. Thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of True Crime Stories. If you enjoyed this video, check out this other interesting case that I covered and don't forget to subscribe. It's totally free and keeps you up to date with all of my future videos. You can also click that join button below to support the channel and see new videos long before everyone else does. But my name is Ty Nott and I'll catch you guys in the next one.