Richard Nicolas insists he did not kill his daughter, Aja. Photo / Convictedpod.com
Richard Nicolas scrawled a messy note from the confines of his jail cell.
He wanted to send a message to those on the outside: that he was innocent.
Nicolas has been in a US maximum-security prison for just over 20 years, serving a life sentence for shooting and killing his daughter Aja, a crime he claims he did not commit.
Nicolas has continuously argued his innocence. Many mysterious questions still surround the case and some people believe he may have been wrongfully convicted.
In the cryptic note from his jail cell, Nicolas wrote "the worst thing in society is to murder, rape or rob. However, the worst thing society can do to the individual is to wrongfully convict of murder, rape or robbery".
On July 26, 1996, Nicolas, an emergency medical technician, picked up his 2-year-old daughter from her mother's house.
It was the first time they would spend an evening together alone, and Nicolas planned to take her the cinema in Baltimore, Maryland, to watch Pinocchio.
It was meant to be a night for the pair to bond, but little Aja was shot and killed.
A number of theories surround the case, which could paint Nicolas as either guilty or innocent of her death, and the murder is being reinvestigated in a new podcast, Convictedpod.com.
Nicolas made a frantic 911 call after his daughter was shot.
He didn't have a mobile phone, but rushed to a nearby petrol station while his daughter bled out her bullet wound.
Nicolas claimed as they were driving down a Baltimore road, a black car started road-raging him. He told police the car rammed his light-blue Chevrolet Cavalier and the driver shot his daughter and drove off.
The Baltimore Sun reported police found holes in the theory, and physical evidence showed Aja was shot from the driver's side at close range.
According to documents from the United States Court of Appeals, the state believed Nicolas shot his daughter, left her laying on her side in the car, and saw Pinocchio alone.
The state argued Aja was dead for two hours before police were called, but there was no evidence to prove that.
The state also claimed Nicolas owned the type of weapon and ammunition used to kill Aja, but that was never proven and a weapon was never found.
According to Convicted, Nicolas has a speech impediment and spent his years growing up going to therapy. He now has to think carefully about every word to finish a sentence.
During his trial, it is claimed the state used his speech impediment against him - saying he was too calm and not traumatised by his daughter's death.
Nicolas was sentenced to life without parole in 1997.
He had a robust team of defence lawyers, including Cristina Gutierrez, who represented Adnan Syed. Syed was jailed for murdering his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee and his possible wrongful conviction was the subject of the podcast Serial.
According to court documents, Aja was born after Nicolas had a one-night stand with her mother, and asked her to get an abortion.
The state claimed Nicolas never wanted his daughter and was behind in court-ordered child support. It was also revealed in court Nicolas took out a life insurance policy for Aja before her death. Nicolas argued the policy he bought was marketed in a way that made him think it was a way to save for Aja's future.
A police officer who responded to Nicolas' 911 call told him to get Aja out of the car. But tampering with a crime scene is a violation of police protocol.
The court documents said prosecutors thanked the officer for moving the girl, saying if the girl was not moved they never would have won the case against Nicolas.
Rachel Kamins has acted as a lawyer for Nicolas and worked on his case for about a year and a half. She began investigating his case in 2008 and is still in contact with him, though she's not actively working on his case.
Kamins told Convicted, when the case landed on her desk, it had notes from the judge that said he thought it was a case of innocence. According to City Paper, two witnesses gave statements to Baltimore Police, in which they said they heard gunshots in the same area and time as Nicolas had claimed. This supported his story.
"So obviously my ears perked up and I became immediately compelled to learn more," she said.
"And I too formulated the opinion early on that this was a case that definitely could be one of actual innocence and certainly was one where Mr Nicolas was denied a fair trial. And also was a case that had so many questions that remained unanswered."
The podcast delves into the case and explores the question, what if he didn't do it?