When a Morning Turns to Tragedy: Nicole Poole’s Heartbreaking Loss of Her Two-Month-Old Daughter.
It was October 26, 2020, a quiet dawn in Las Vegas when the sound of heartbreak shattered the morning calm.
In an apartment on Jeffreys Street, a young mother named Nicole Poole woke to a nightmare she could never escape.
Her two-month-old baby girl, London, lay beside her — tiny, peaceful, and warm.
She was the light of Nicole’s life, the child she had prayed for, dreamed of, and loved beyond words.
But within minutes, everything would be torn apart.
Nicole’s fiancé, Clarence Martin Jr., 32 years old, had not been himself for days.
He hadn’t eaten.
He hadn’t slept.
He muttered to himself, pacing the room, consumed by something that no one could quite name.
Mental illness, the doctors might have said — but that morning, it was something far darker.
Nicole awoke to his shouting.
Then to his kicks.
He kicked her.
He kicked baby London.
She screamed — begged him to stop — and gathered her child into her arms, trying to flee the bedroom.
The air was thick with fear.
She ran to the living room, trembling, clutching her daughter as if her arms alone could keep her safe from the storm that raged inside the man she once loved.
But Martin followed.
His eyes were wild, his hands shaking.
Before Nicole could react, he ripped baby London from her arms.
He stepped toward the balcony.
She thought — maybe he just needed air, maybe he’d come back to his senses.
But when he turned and walked back into the apartment alone, Nicole’s heart stopped.
She ran to the balcony, screaming London’s name.
What she saw below would haunt her forever.
Her baby — her tiny, perfect baby — lay motionless on the cold pavement 25 feet below.
Neighbors woke to the sound of her cries, of a mother’s voice breaking under the weight of the impossible.
Nicole ran down the stairs barefoot, the world spinning, her body running on pure instinct.
She cradled London’s limp form in her arms, her hands shaking as she tried to breathe life back into her.
A neighbor rushed out and began CPR.
Nicole called 911, sobbing, her voice barely forming words.
When the ambulance arrived, she followed them to the hospital — but deep down, she already knew.
London had died of blunt force head trauma.
She was only eight weeks old.
Back at the apartment, the nightmare was still unfolding.
Martin, after killing his daughter, set the living room on fire.
Flames devoured the walls as smoke poured out into the hallway.
The family’s small white poodle — locked in its cage — never made it out.
Neighbors heard Martin yelling, “Burn, b——, burn!” as he fled the scene in Nicole’s car.
He drove wildly through the Las Vegas streets, crashing three times — once so violently that his car rolled over on the highway.
Yet somehow, he kept going.
By 4 a.m., he had made his way to McCarran International Airport.
There, he abandoned the car, crawled onto a luggage conveyor belt, and slipped into a restricted area.
When police found him minutes later, he was wearing a TSA security shirt, pacing near the tarmac, still shouting the words “Burn! Jeffreys Street!” as if trapped in a mind on fire.
He was arrested without resistance — hollow-eyed, incoherent, and barefoot.
The story spread across the city like a storm.
Las Vegas had seen tragedy before, but this — the murder of an infant by her own father — left even the hardest hearts broken.
Detectives pieced together the events, but there were no answers that could ever make sense of it.
Nicole’s life was in ruins.
Her baby was gone, her home destroyed, her partner behind bars.
On social media, friends and family flooded her page with messages of love and grief.
Just weeks earlier, she had posted a picture of her and Clarence smiling, her baby bump glowing beneath a red gown.
“Congratulations to you both on the birth of baby London,” one friend had written.
“She’s beautiful.”
Another had commented, “One of my favorite couples.”
No one could have imagined how quickly that image of happiness would be replaced by horror.
A GoFundMe page went up the next day.
“You will always hold a special place in all our hearts,” it read.
“You were treasured and loved before we even knew you, sweet baby girl.
Even if for only a short time, you were our beautiful little princess.”
Thousands donated.
But money could not fill the empty crib, the silence in the nursery, or the ache in a mother’s chest.
When police released the coroner’s report, it confirmed what everyone already knew — homicide by blunt force trauma.
London had fallen more than 22 feet from that balcony.
She would have turned two months old the following Monday.
She never got to smile for her first family photo.
Never got to take her first breath of autumn air.
Her life was over before it had even begun.
Martin was charged with open murder, first-degree arson, animal torture, and battery on a protected person.
His court hearing was set for Tuesday morning.
He appeared hollow, expressionless — the kind of emptiness that frightens even seasoned officers.
No apology.
No words.
Only silence, broken by the faint echo of a life destroyed beyond repair.
Nicole sat alone in the courtroom that day, clutching London’s blanket to her chest.
It still smelled faintly of baby lotion and milk.
She didn’t look at him — couldn’t.
She just kept whispering her daughter’s name under her breath, as though saying it enough times could call her back.
But the world doesn’t work that way.
There are wounds that never heal, and this was one of them.
Today, London’s grave is covered in pink roses.
Her headstone reads simply: “Forever Loved, Forever Ours.”
People who never knew her still visit — strangers who leave toys, notes, and prayers.
They write messages to a little girl who never got to grow up but somehow touched the hearts of many.
And every October 26, Nicole returns to that spot with trembling hands and quiet tears.
She tells London how much she misses her.
How much she still dreams of her smile.
And how, despite the darkness, she will keep loving her — always.
The story of baby London is not only one of tragedy but also of love — love that endures even after life ends.
It reminds us of how fragile the human mind can be and how deep the bonds of a mother and child truly run.
In the stillness of that Las Vegas night, something was taken — but something was also left behind: a reminder that even the smallest lives can leave the biggest marks on the world.