The man charged with the murder of Jewell Parchman Langford was on police radar decades ago
Montreal police have confirmed that the man recently charged with the murder of Jewell Parchman Langford was considered a person of interest when she was reported missing by her family in the summer of 1975.
Parchman Langford was a well-known businesswoman from Jackson, Tennessee.
According to several sources, she met the suspect, Rodney Nichols, in Florida, and the pair lived together in Montreal for a short time before disappearing.
When she was first reported missing, the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) investigated and shared the news of her disappearance with the media and other police forces. By then, Parchman Langford was already dead.
Investigators didn’t realize that a body found 90 miles west of Montreal several months earlier was actually Parchman Langford.
Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) found the woman floating in May 1975 in Nation River just off Highway 417 near Casselman, Ont.
The remains were wrapped in pieces of cloth, towels and rags and her hands and feet were bound with neckties. According to the OPP, she had been strangled. She remained unidentified for the next 45 years. During this period, the woman was known as the “Nation River Lady.”
Lack of communication, scientific techniques
When asked why the SPVM failed to link Parchman Langford’s disappearance to the unidentified body, spokesman Anik de Repentigny said it was difficult because there was no DNA analysis at the time.
It was further complicated by the fact that two separate jurisdictions were involved in two different counties.
“In 1975, everything was done by phone, fax or mail,” de Repentigny said in an email. “Now information about a found body can be quickly shared with all police departments in the province, country or even internationally, making identification much easier.”
Former SPVM detective Minh Tri Truong believes the 1975 investigation would have had a much better chance of success if police had linked the body’s discovery to the disappearance of Parchman Langford.
“If they had made a link, it would have changed [the investigation] on several fronts,” says the 30-year veteran of the SPVM. “Murder charges with no body found, there have been four or five in Canada’s history, no more.”
Truong never worked into the then 48-year-old woman’s disappearance, but notes that a police interrogation proceeds very differently whether there is a body or not.
“Until we find the body, it’s still a disappearance,” said the former police detective.
Florida man charged with murder
The OPP said Parchman Langford was not identified until 2020 after a successful DNA profile match using forensic genealogy.
Two years later, they charged Rodney Nichols with the woman’s murder and began extradition proceedings, as he now lives in Florida.
The SPVM said Nichols is the same man investigators questioned several times when Parchman Langford first went missing.
“We worked with the OPP on this investigation for several months and shared with them information essential to the conclusion of the case,” said de Repentigny.
According to the Parchman Langford family, they heard nothing from Jewell in April 1975.
In June 1975, a concerned relative traveled to Montreal to find her and spoke to police, but police said an official missing person report was not made until August 1975.
After Parchman Langford went missing in 1975, Nichols continued to use her car — a Cadillac — for personal use, according to several sources.
At the time of her disappearance, Nichols was playing at Westmount Rugby Club, where he was the team captain for a few years.
“Rodney was a nice guy to hang out with. He was entertaining and sociable. A very sociable person,” said Henry Rozenblat, a former teammate who played with Nichols from about 1973 to 1983.
Rozenblat recalled meeting Parchman Langford a few times and said Nichols described her as a “love interest.”
When Rozenblat and other teammates later asked about Parchman Langford, Nichols told them she had left and he didn’t know where she had gone.
He was shocked when he heard of Nichols’ arrest.
“This whole thing doesn’t fit the person I knew,” Rozenblat said.
Nichols is still the subject of an extradition request from Canadian authorities. He has yet to appear in court and has not made a plea.
Police solved a 1975 cold case accusing a former Montreal man of the murder of a missing woman who was finally identified more than 40 years after her body was discovered in the Nation River east of Ottawa.
Citing confidentiality, neither the U.S. nor Canadian Justice Department would confirm whether an extradition hearing has been set.
Nichols is now 81 and currently lives in a residential care home in Hollywood, Fla. Radio-Canada could not reach him for comment.
Rozenblat said Nichols told him he was born to Canadian parents posted to the United Kingdom during World War II.
Born in Middleton, NS, in 1942, Nichols joined the British Army in 1961. According to a British Ministry of Defense spokesman, Nichols served with the Wessex Brigade for about a year but did not complete his training.
