Transcripts For WPVI Nightline 20170722

But first the nightline 5. Number 1 in just 60 second good evening. Thank you for joining us. We begin tonight with an unimaginable horror. Two College Students held captive and tortured by masked men in what they assumed was a random attack. When they finally made it out alive they learned they had been targeted. The reason behind it led to more disturbing revelations. Espns Tisha Thompson brings us this report. Calling, homey. Reporter it feels like a scene from a horror movie. Torture. Dont do it. They were gloating. Please. Reporter but this nightmare is real life. Two Football Players from the university of rochester held captive and tortured. They started shooting everywhere. They said we dont want money, we want blood. How do i survive . Reporter they were targeted in a violent plot for revenge for a drug robbery they had nothing to do with, leaving two young men fighting for their lives. Niko kollias gone his College Career full of hope. In 2012 he enrolled at the university of rochester to follow his two passions. Football. I love football. Its my favorite sport. Reporter and piano. Playing for the Schools Division 3 Football Program and also studying at rochesters renowned Eastman School of music. Kind of just fell in love with it and turned out to be one of the greatest experiences and decisions that ive made to attend. Reporter but everything changed for the 61, 215pound defensive end the winter of his senior year. It was friday december 4th, 2015. Nikos close friend and teammate, who asked not to be named, told him they had been invited to a party by a girl he met on facebook, 19yearold Samantha Hughes and her 20yearold best friend Leah Gigliotti. He was like lets go do it, lets go be with these girls. And it didnt seem like that bad of an idea. Had you ever met either of these girls before . No. Reporter but when they pulled up to this house at 22 harvest street, there wasnt a party. We followed the girls in the side door. The first thing i smelled was just like urine and feces. And it was totally disgusting. And i sat down on this leather couch, and the next thing i know is five to ten masked men in all black just come out with bats and pipes and guns. Theyre just screaming and demanding things. And the lights go black. I got up and ran as quickly as i could, made it halfway across the room. I got shot point blank in my left leg, and i got shot in my right leg, in my right calf. My femur was broken in half. They dragged us into the bathroom, leaned us up against the walls and duct taped our hands and legs together. Am i in this video . Are you recording, homey . Im recording. Reporter the masked men then started recording this cell phone video of their attack. You run with the [ bleep ] people. The wrong [ bleep ] ones. Please. Ill do anything. I was pleading for my life, and i was saying that i would do absolutely anything in my power to give you anything that you want. Reporter over the next three hours the men in the video would use this rifle, metal pipes, rebar, and this iron to physically and sexually assault niko and his teammate. What is going through your head . I had no idea who these people were. I had no idea why this was happening to me and like where we were. And i didnt know what was going on. I was i was so confused. Here you go. Start running. [ bleep ]. [ bleep ]. Yo. I went black for like two seconds, came back and just like the amount of blood that was like dripping down my face and like covering my body, it was just so overwhelming. I was pushing myself through to not give up and not close my eyes because i didnt want to die. Reporter as the sun began to rise the morning of saturday december 5th, 2015, niko and his teammate had been held captive for nearly 12 hours. Back on campus their roommates have reported them missing, but nikos terror was far from over. His captors started demanding money. They were holding me at gunpoint the entire time. I really need the money now so theres nowhere that i could get the 1,500 just transferred over to the debit card . Its impossible to move money on the weekend. Okay. Thats fine. I guess ill just call back monday. Reporter forced to wait, they turned to nikos atm cards. In this Surveillance Video you can see a man in the back seat wearing the same white skull mask as the man in the cell phone video. This is 26yearold lydell strickland. Prosecutors say strickland tortured niko for his pin numbers and withdrew more than 5,000 at different machines throughout the weekend. Evidence photos show he used the money to go on a shopping spree. A 799 leather jacket. Shoes. Pants. And a pair of 28 jeans from marshalls. Police, who were scouring rochester for niko and his teammate, spotted the strange activity popping up in nikos bank accounts. We were concerned that monday that money would be moved, the suspects would get it and the absolute intent was once they got the money from that account that these kids would have been killed. Reporter police zeroed in on Leah Gigliotti and Samantha Hughes was hughes was the last person to communicate with nick ohs teammate. The Police Brought the two in for questioning and it went on for 14 hours. There were hours and hours of lies until finally towards the end we started getting some details which led us to 22 harvest street. Id made the decision i was going to have the s. W. A. T. Team on standby. Reporter sunday december 6th, 2015. 40 hours after they were captured the s. W. A. T. Team moved in on 22 harvest street. It was just shocking. I mean, the whole house like shook. I thought they were burning down the house. But in reality it was actually the s. W. A. T. Team that was detonating entry into the house to save us. Oh, my god. Reporter the blast was captured by a neighbors cell phone. Shattering the front door. The s. W. A. T. Team moved through the house, rounding up suspects, freeing niko and his teammate. The two of them were rushed to the hospital, where niko underwent emergency surgery. I had three or four blood transfusions. They put a titanium rod through my femur, attaching it with screws in my knee and hip. They surgically removed glass from my eardrum and scalp and skull. Reporter niko spent 25 days in the hospital. After it was all over the police pieced together the motive for the brutal assault. Nikos teammate, who survived the ordeal with him, was mistaken for this player, rochester star linebacker isaiah smith. What is clear, he was involved in drug dealing. What is clear is that he set up a violent drug robbery on campus. Reporter prosecutors say isaiah wanted to steal four pounds of marijuana from drug dealers he knew. So he planned a robbery inside the apartment where nikos friend and teammate lived, arranging to have the drug dealers attacked with a hammer. This is what they do when they take four pounds. This right here. Reporter in retaliation friends of the drug dealers went after nikos friend and teammate instead of isaiah. Do you have any comment . No comment on isaiah. Reporter isaiah smith was sentenced to 13 years in prison for burglary, robbery, and assault in connection with the drug heist. The two women who lured niko and his teammate to 22 harvest street were each sentenced to more than a dozen years in prison after agreeing to testify against the attackers. All of the men in the cell phone video also went to prison for nikos kidnapping and torture, including lydell strickland, who laughed when a judge sentenced him to 155 years. I hope and wish that they would be in jail forever. Reporter after leaving the hospital niko went back home to chicago. The university of rochester allowed him to graduate without returning to campus. Can you sleep through the night . Yeah. I mean, at first it was definitely hard. You know, nighttimes and being alone and like crowded areas definitely like harder things for me. Reporter determined to rehab both his mind and his body, niko joined more than 27,000 people in chicago to run his first road race since the attack. Runners set. Go just moving forward and trying to forget about the past and focus on positive, good things. Niko. All right niko i made the conscious decision to live, survive, and overcome the challenge i was faced with. And thats exactly what i did. Reporter for nightline im Tisha Thompson in chicago. Our thanks to tisha for that report. And next, he swims like a fish. But is it enough to beat a shark . Michael phelps in a race against a great white. More kinds of crab than ever, new dishes, and all your favorites. 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It supports your heart, joints, brain, and eyes. And is absorbed by your body three times better. So one megared has more omega3 power than three standard fish oil pills. New megared advanced triple absorption. Super swimmer Michael Phelps is the most decorated olympian of all time. But his next opponent literally smells blood in the water. A natural since birth whos never needed coaching and eats people like phelps alive. So is he scared . He should be. Heres abcs t. J. Holmes. This isnt even close Michael Phelps is swimming away from everybody reporter no man has been more successful in the water than Michael Phelps. New world record reporter the swimming legend retired after last years rio games. As the most decorated olympian of all time with 23 gold medals. Michael phelps has done it again id raced the fastest swimmers on the planet. Except for one. Reporter but this weekend in a onceinalifetime event the 32yearold golden boy is coming back for one final race. Am i faster than a shark . Reporter wait. Did he just say shark . No, were not crazy. Its billed as phelps versus shark. You cant actually outswim a great white shark, can you . Well have to see. Come on. Well have to wait and see. Reporter come on now. The spectacle billed as man versus mega fish was put together by the Discovery Channel for shark week, the yearly weeklong homage to our cuddly sea friends, the sharks. What would you say your relationship with sharks has been up until you went through this process . Fascinated. Racing a shark or being in the water with sharks was something i always wanted to dpop. Reporter i know what youre thinking. How is this even possible . Surely theyre not going to put the golden boy thats insane. Reporter in open water right next tie greo a great whi. A shark expert explains. The show is michael going on a journey to south africa to see great white sharks and for us together to try to see how fast great white sharks can actually go. And we would compare that to michaels speed. Discovery is saying we want you to race a great white. What did you think when you first heard that . The first thing that popped in my head was safety. I mean, thats the number one concern now, being a father and having a family. Once we figured out that it was safe for us to do it, you know, we werent side by side. Its not like i was racing a shark neck and neck. Reporter let me be clear. Despite the punchy music and pumpedup title Michael Phelps is not racing side by side with a great white shark. Nobodys that crazy. Did that cross your mind for a second, is this what these people want me to do . Soon as i heard the idea, i was like theres no way they think im doing it side by side, right . First time im diving with great whites. We didnt do it in a swimming pool. Reporter how did you all ensure safety for this thing . We had 10 to 14 divers underneath us. We obviously cant judge where a sharks going to swim but thankfully we didnt have any visitors come up. And yeah, it went perfectly. This is going to be awesome. Theres one on your right, guys. Coming in here. Michael, guys. Coming in on the bay. That was a shark. I saw that one. Saw that one. Reporter phelps says hes trying to raise awareness to get the message out that sharks are not the manhunting beasts we know from jaws. You know, i think a lot of people really only think of sharks as predators and aggressive and all they want to do is eat us. And you know, hopefully with the shows that i was a part of here, you know, we can get the message out that its not the case. Reporter but does the greatest of all time stand a chance against the titan of the deep . Lets match them up. Phelps is 64, weighs in somewhere around 200 pounds. The great white shark, meanwhile, can be between 11 to 21 feet long and can weigh over 2,000 pounds. Not really a good start for team human. Great whites are just a marvel of evolution. They are built for speed. Their body shape is built like a bullet. That makes them super hydrodynamic in the water. And theyve got this huge tail thats built with a shape like two symmetrical crescent moons. Bulletshaped body, huge tail. Okay. A 5,000 pound shark can swim 25 miles an hour. Top speed 25 miles an hour. Whats the fastest youve swum . The fastest ive done it without fins is probably like 6. Reporter phelps is enlisting a little technological help. This is a step above the monofin. This is to mimic the white sharks tail. Its got something called a hollow keel, a structural support that buttresses the tail that allows extra power and strength. Just putting on this fin is going to make me the fastest. Yeah. I should have done this all along. That was a little transition that i had to work into, but i think we came up with a way to swim the fastest and you guys will see it on sunday. Reporter two people who will definitely be watching, michaels wife nicole and their 1yearold son boomer. I mean, she was stoked too. She wanted to get in the water with them too. Reporter do you want him to be a competitive swimmer, boomer . If he wants. You know, im definitely never going to pressure him to do it. Reporter but it would be cool to see, wouldnt it . It would be awesome. He does like the water. He enjoys being in there. Hes very comfortable in it. He knows how to blow bubbles, knows how to flip on his back. But if hes truly passionate about it, then great. Ill help him along the way but definitely not something i would pressure him on. Reporter even though he says hes retired from Competitive Swimming phelps insists that practicing for this shark race is not practice for the tokyo olympics. Youve repeatedly said that 2020 is out. Do you think you would be physically healthy enough to compete in the three years if you wanted to . I think if i wanted to i could. I dont think im not going to say cant. Even though im out of the water and retired from the competitive side of it, i love swimming. Its going to be a part of my life forever. Reporter do you reserve the right to change your mind about 2020 . No. I mean, for me like i just really have no desire. Reporter so if this is his last race, for real, will we see the great one win gold against Mother Nature . Well all have to wait to find out. For nightline im t. J. Holmes in new york. Phelps versus shark airs this sunday on discoverys shark week. Well be right back. On mi came across this housentry with water dripping from the ceiling. You never know when Something Like this will happen. So let the Geico Insurance agency help you with Homeowners Insurance and protect yourself from things like fire, theft, or in this case, water damage. Cannonball now if i had to guess, id say somewhere upstairs theres a broken pipe. Let the Geico Insurance agency help you with Homeowners Insurance. 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Its time to play who wants to be a millionaire. [dramatic music] hey, everybody, its Hometown Heroes week on who wants to be a millionaire. [cheers and applause] this guy was named sexiest doctor alive by people magazine. Todays Hometown Hero is also a thirdyear medical resident who has been using his 1. 9 million social media followers to raise money for various charities and inspire young people to be the next generation of Hometown Heroes. From new york, new york, please give it up for dr. Mikhail varshavski, better known as doctor mike. [cheers and applause] doctor mike, how you doing, buddy . Good to see you, man. [cheers and applause] i dont know. Now that im up that close, not that goodlooking. Aww. Itsits sad. I get that a lot on dates. Maybe its the light. Maybe its the light. Thats justthats just jealousy talking. Damn it, youre goodlooking and tall. Um. Welcome. Thank you. Hometown heroes week here on millionaire. Thanks for being here. Absolutely