Ep. 85-Thanksgiving Ribs and The Shocking Story of Omaima Nelson

What starts with mashed potatoes and sweet potato casserole takes a sharp turn into one of Orange County’s most disturbing true crime cases. We open the holiday table, then unpack the whirlwind marriage of Omaima Nelson and William Nelson, the shocking events of Thanksgiving weekend 1991, and the courtroom narratives that battled for the jury’s attention. Between claims of long-term abuse and a blackout, and a prosecution case built on forensic detail and concealment, we examine how jurors ended up at second-degree murder—no notebook, no clear premeditation, but a night of methodical dismemberment and alleged cannibalism that left investigators searching for missing remains.

We go beyond headlines to weigh trauma against evidence. You’ll hear how Nelson’s reported history of abuse and the trauma of female genital mutilation shaped her account of the relationship and the fatal encounter, and why the prosecution pressed a pattern theory using a prior assault case. We explore the grisly details—bondage, the running garbage disposal, boiled hands, and the infamous “ribs” quote—contrasted with the defense’s assertion of a snap response and dissociation. Along the way, we break down why the parole board has repeatedly denied release, citing lack of remorse and responsibility, and we include a timely update on Daniel Callahan’s consecutive life sentences to highlight how planning and multi-state crimes drive harsher outcomes.

Come for the sides and gallows humor, stay for a careful, critical walk through motive, evidence, and legal nuance. If you’re full and scrolling, pull up a chair, press play, and tell us your favorite Thanksgiving side—and your read on the case. Subscribe, share with a true crime friend, and leave a quick review so more listeners find the show.

Source Material:

Update source: Williams, Angela, November 19,2025, Daniel Callahan pleads guilty in Mississippi murder, https://www.wapt.com/article/daniel-callihan-federal-sentence/69488246

ABC NEWS, October 11, 2011, Woman who killed husband and cooked body denied parole, https://abcnews.go.com/US/omaima-nelson-california-woman-convicted-grisly-murder-husband/story?id=14675780

Lynch, Renee, January 13, 1993, Second-degree verdict for wife in grisly murder, https://abcnews.go.com/US/omaima-nelson-california-woman-convicted-grisly-murder-husband/story?id=14675780

Transcript

Thanksgiving Banter And Side Dishes

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Happy Thanksgiving. Anyone up for some ribs? It's hold my tweet. It's a gobbledygood day.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

I'm Pearl and I'm Holly. So, big question. It's Thanksgiving. What is your favorite Thanksgiving side dish? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Every time I hear side dish, I think of that chick. I'm not a side chick, but I'm a side bitch.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Yes. Sides, all the sides.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

So yeah. It's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

What is your favorite side? I think mine is the dressing for sure, which is like stuffing, but better. I am a sweet potato casserole hoe. Yeah, those are those are good too. I I like the sweet potatoes with the marshmallows, but also like the one with like the sweet potato crunch with like the pecan topping on it. Yeah. That one's pretty good. Both are really good. Yeah. Yeah. And then you you just can't deny the mashed potatoes and gravy. Like, yeah, old school. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That real mashed potatoes. Like with lots of butter and not the fake stuff, y'all. Milk and all that stuff in it. Yes. So let us know what your favorite Thanksgiving side dish is. While you're sitting there dying because you ate too much, and your pants are on buttons. And we know you're on your phone scrolling anyway. Right. Let us know what your favorite side dish is for Thanksgiving. Trying to distract yourself from feeling ill.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Right. Going, man, I need a nap. Exactly. That's exactly how everyone gains weight on Thanksgiving. You eat, overeat, and then you go to the house. Take a nap. Yep. Like, don't do that. Go take a walk. Then take a nap. Then take a nap.

Overeating, Naps, And A Quick Walk PSA

Overeating, Naps, And A Quick Walk PSA

Thanksgiving Banter And Side Dishes

Overeating, Naps, And A Quick Walk PSA

Thanksgiving Banter And Side Dishes

Overeating, Naps, And A Quick Walk PSA

Thanksgiving Banter And Side Dishes

Overeating, Naps, And A Quick Walk PSA

Thanksgiving Banter And Side Dishes

Overeating, Naps, And A Quick Walk PSA

Thanksgiving Banter And Side Dishes

Overeating, Naps, And A Quick Walk PSA

Thanksgiving Banter And Side Dishes

Overeating, Naps, And A Quick Walk PSA

Thanksgiving Banter And Side Dishes

Overeating, Naps, And A Quick Walk PSA

Thanksgiving Banter And Side Dishes

SPEAKER_01 2:38

All right. All right. So you got some updates for us?

Case Update: Daniel Callahan Sentencing

SPEAKER_00 2:41

I do. So, I mean, an update to the one I just did. Yeah. Wow, that was fast. The um Callie Brunette murderer guy, Daniel Callahan. Yes. He actually had a sentencing hearing on uh the 19th of November in U.S. District Court in New Orleans. So he's already been sentenced to a life sentence in Mississippi and then two in Louisiana. And they are consecutive sentences. Right. Not concurrent. Consecutive sentences. And during the November 19th hearing, they played a video message from Callahan. What? Yeah. So I guess they got to listen to that. So I'm just gonna read what he said for everyone. Oof, I'm intrigued. It says, I hurt a wonderful friend and two very innocent kids. There's nothing I can do to take that back. Not even a life sentence. Not getting a death penalty, not killing myself. There is nothing I can do that would ever take back what I have done, and that hurts. I don't even try to think of ways to fix what I've done because there's nothing to really undo what I done. I feel like if my life had been successful, I would have never hurt them, and that would have been better for me and for them. I still have problems dealing with myself, taking medication to not do stupid things like suicide or hang myself. I've been given the option of the option to live, and that's something. The hardest thing is living. I'm really sorry for what I did to them, and not just to them, their family, their friends. I took two very special people out of this world. He he had said that he knew Callie for like 20 years. Really? Before all this happened. So he's been sentenced to two more life sentences in federal court and ordered to pay$260,000 in restitution. And again, like I said, all these sentences will run consecutively. Um and he'll serve in Angola. Oh, old Angola. And then Victoria Cox, the accused accomplice, is set to go to trial on December 8th. There's still no word on that plea deal, like what it entailed or if it's been accepted. Right. So in the beginning of December, I should have another update. Have another update. At least we'll know what happened with her. Dang. So all that fun.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Still sickening. It is. It's very sickening and just hard to swallow. Mm-hmm. I'm sure he'll go and find Jesus, but you know. That's what they all seem to do.

Jailhouse Jesus And True Crime TV Mixup

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Yes, that's what jail does. You find Jesus in jail. Weird place for him to be. Right. I guess that's it. Oh, speaking of Jesus in jail. Yes. I started watching. Did you watch it? Yes. We have a little mistake made. It's actually Born Evil. Oh, Born Evil. Not Evil Lives Here. Okay. That was Evil Lives Here is the other one, and it's got like episodes about several different people. And I was like, this isn't it. Right. That's what it was. I had to go back and like look around and I was like, oh, maybe it's this one. And then I clicked on it and saw the name, and I was like, okay, yeah, this is it. So yeah, started watching that. It's crazy. I'm like, what? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

But that's what I said. Speaking of Jesus and Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Yeah, I know.

unknown 7:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Well, at least he thought the guy was Jesus. If you haven't watched it yet, you know, he he thinks this guy is Jesus, so he starts confessing things.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Yeah. And literally is calling him Jesus. And what's funny is there's a point where he's like saying that, you know, this guy told me he was Jesus, but that's not how the other guy says it. He's like, literally, I tried not to interact with this man whatsoever. But he's the one who thought I was Jesus. I just played into it. Yeah. He's like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

He played into it and then he turned around and snitched. Yep.

Introducing The Omaima Nelson Case

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yep, yep. Well, today has nothing to do with Jesus in jail. It has to do with ribs, right? It has to do with ribs for Thanksgiving, bro. Yeah. Ooh. Uh, we are gonna talk about the former model turned murderer. Ooh, O Mima Nelson. And she was born in Egypt.

unknown 8:19

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

This is a case out of California. Ooh, we can it's Thanksgiving based. Right. We can go anywhere. We can go anywhere. And I just came back from there. So why not? Omaima actually killed and dismembered her husband during the Thanksgiving weekend. Ooh. They were not married very long. This was like she met this guy and thought she was in love immediately. Didn't they really know each other? So they had been married for months, not years. Right. At this point. But like I said, and you'll see further into this, they didn't really know each other. So bad idea on her part. So she claims that the reason she killed and dismembered her husband was because she couldn't continue to take his physical and sexual abuse.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

And why did you marry him? Because I'm sure it didn't start the day you got married. Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

It's crazy. Big long trauma story and everything else that goes along with this, apparently, but um prosecutors obviously don't believe that any of this is why she did it. She ends up being convicted of second degree murder in what is considered Orange County's most grisly slaying. Slay all day. Yeah. Her jury was filled with eight women, four men, and even they didn't obviously believe her claims that their relationship was like that. William E. Nelson was 56 years old, and his untimely death came during the Thanksgiving weekend of 1991. Olie.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

He actually was murdered and butchered in their Costa Mesa apartment that they shared.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

On Thanksgiving, right?

Marriage, Motive Claims, And Charges

SPEAKER_00 11:06

It was during Thanksgiving weekend. During that weekend. Okay. So it's somewhere between Thanksgiving and Sunday after Thanksgiving. They didn't specify here. It actually took the Orange County Superior Court, the jury there, six days to acquit her on first degree murder charges. Because they felt like there was not enough evidence to prove that she premeditated this. It seemed like it was an in the moment decision. Even despite the extensive mutilation of this body. But they did find her guilty of the lesser offense, second-degree murder. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Not like my guy who, you know, went and bought all the stuff and planned it.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Yeah. In a notebook. In a notebook. She didn't have a notebook. In detail. Yeah, no notebook here. The evidence that would be presented to this jury was pretty gruesome. It would include bondage sex games, decapitation, castration, and alleged cannibalism. Ew. That's yucky. Hence the reason I said we're still headboiling here. A lot of the jurors were really disturbed, and one juror actually said, quote, all I want to do right now is go home and go to bed.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

He's like, I can't deal. I gotta go.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

He says that I had to see pictures of the victims all day. That was bad enough. So he he was not comfy in what had occurred, obviously. He's like, I just want to go to bed. So Omaima was actually 26. Okay. So she's much younger than William.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Much younger.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Much younger. And just so you kind of understand maybe why they weren't as forgiving here, she had actually been convicted of assaulting Robert Hansen of Huntington Beach in November of 1990. So November's a bad month for her.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Right. She had a little uh lashing out problem during November.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

So the details of this, of that little case, much smaller, quicker. She had actually tied up Hansen and demanded money from him at gunpoint. She wasn't um like sentenced on any of that. They actually acquitted her of false imprisonment and attempted murder. Um, not attempted murder, attempted robbery. Yeah. So here they they do know about her doing that, and he was apparently a former boyfriend. Oh. So still someone in a relationship with her. So she used a gun in that situation, whereas on her actual husband, she uses a knife.

Gruesome Evidence And Cannibalism Allegations

SPEAKER_01 14:54

So it seems like it's a sugar daddy situation where they're giving her money or giving her things and all that, and then once they kind of stop, maybe she Well, maybe she wanted the sugar daddy without having to give the sugar. Which is is where the problem lies, is in the sugar. The sugar part, yep. She's like, oh well, you're not giving me money, so I'm gonna take it from you or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

So basically she ends up getting, she had 10 years in prison for assaulting Hansen with the gun. And she was facing 18 years to life in prison for killing her husband, William Nelson, with a knife. They said she could still, even if she received the maximum penalty, be eligible for parole in the year 2007. Now we'll fast forward, she does go up for parole several times and is always denied. Yeah. She's a she's a little cray. She's she still denies that she did anything. And that for them is a big reason why they keep her in, because they're like, oh, well, then you're still a threat to society you stay in because you're not willing to show remorse or feel sorry for what you did. So obviously during the trial, she has a public defender. They tried to say, you know, Omaima was an abused woman who just snapped on her attacker. She's the victim. So they just insisted she's not guilty because she's the victim, not him. But he's dead and she's not. Right. Her attorney, quote, said she is the victim. She was the victim of an assault and attempted rape that night. The prosecution, however, flipped that script. And the deputy district attorney, Polowski, described Omaima as a predator. Yeah, that's I mean, that's my she's kind of done it before.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

He also said that he felt like Nelson had planned to leave the area with her husband's money, credit cards, and the car. Which she could have got away with using if nobody knew what had happened. Right. So we're gonna get into the whole what happened that night that made her flip that switch. She told jurors, she testified herself that she had stabbed and beat her new husband to death to stop him from attempting to rape her. She said that she freaked out and then she fell into like this blackout trance-like state, which led to her spending 12 hours hacking up the body to simplify disposal. This isn't the only reason she says she did this to his body. Yeah. Because the Egyptian belief that those you live your life with in death will you will meet them again. The reason she decided to chop him up is because she didn't want to have to encounter him in the afterlife. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

It's almost okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

There was a neighbor who reported the chopping sounds and said he also heard the garbage disposal a lot. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

All night. All night. She's like grinding him up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

She did go to a therapist for evaluation, obviously, because they are like, oh, she's psycho, whatever. And with that therapist, she actually admits to funky stuff. So she admits to cooking her husband's head. What is it with cooking these heads? Boiling his hands to remove the fingerprints. And she also mixed some of his body parts with Thanksgiving Day turkey. Thinking this will hide his remains when I throw it away.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Honey, that's not blacking out. That's you knowing what you're doing. Yeah. And the fact that it took 12 hours of all this stuff, you you still weren't in a blackout state.

Prior Assault, Patterns, And Prosecution Theory

SPEAKER_00 20:20

She also admits to castrating her husband. She said this was her way of getting back at him for his sexual assaults on her. Prosecutors also told jurors that William's torso and lower body had been skinned. Oof. He's the psychiatrist that she spoke with who diagnosed her as psychotic. As he should. He testifies that Omima told him that she dressed up in a red hat, red high heel shoes, and even red lipstick during that night-long dismemberment. All right. He says she claims it was part of a ritual. She also tells the psychiatrist that she ate Nelson's ribs after cooking them in barbecue sauce. Oh, that's disgusting. Sheffner quotes Omaima as saying, I did his ribs just like in a restaurant. It's so sweet, it's so delicious. I like mine tender.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

She is psychotic. Yeah, I'd say just a wee bit. She's crazy. A little more than a little off the rails.

Blackout Claim, Ritual Details, Missing Remains

SPEAKER_00 22:26

She's like all the way off. So investigators say that they found his body parts stuffed in garbage bags. I think some of it was in the car, some of it inside their apartment. But he says that some parts were just never found. Polowski, when he's cross-examining Omaima, actually asks her, like, where is he? Where's the rest of him? Because investigators haven't found all the meat, right? They said William was a rather large man. Oh Lord. And they're saying like Pulowski says, quote, we're missing about 130 pounds of bill. You know where that might have gone? That's the question he asks in court. Oh my goodness. She answers, no, he was all there. Wow. Now it's apparent that later she backtracks on the eating her husband's ribs stuff. But the psychiatrist said he has literally never seen anything so bizarre, so psychotic in his entire 20 years of practice as this. So she actually got arrested on December 2nd in 1991 after she called a friend because she needed some help disposing of these body parts. I'm just gonna call a friend, they'll help me. Yeah. Of course, the friend pretends to agree, but rather than showing up to help do this, calls the cops. So the cops show up to help her dispose of that body. There you go. So we're gonna backtrack to what she claims is her her reasoning behind her snap and everything else. Okay. So we're gonna talk about like her past. She tells the court that while she was growing up in Egypt, like she encountered very um harsh physical and sexual abuse. To the point that she was actually forced to undergo a female circumcision which mutilated her vagina. And that's like something that is practiced around the world in certain parts. That's disgusting. So when she came to the United States in 1986, you know, she she didn't want to have sex with guys because sex was not pleasurable for her. There was there was nothing to enjoy at that point, so it was just like a like a battering to her. So I'm sure that took a mental toll. Yeah. She said that she was in several abusive relationships, but that when she met William Nelson in October of 1991. Yeah. She actually had agreed to sex several times a day because she wanted to make him happy because she believed she was in love. So she's like, it's fine. I'll I'll have a bunch of sex with you because I love you. And I want to do whatever I need to do to make you happy. They literally got married within days of their meeting. But when they went on their honeymoon and then visited William's family, he started to become violent, is what she says. She says that he would actually get uh angry, like majorly angry, if he asked for anything kinky that would involve bondage. And then when she refused, he would beat her. She said he actually even punished her one time by throwing a kitten she just got out the window of a moving car.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

See, see, that right there would make me go into a psychotic rage and kill somebody. Yeah. That would be my snapping point.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

She said during one such argument, her husband screamed at her, I paid for you, I'm getting what I paid for.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

What? Yeah, no, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

And that she threatened to leave him and he just beat her and raped her more. She said it was during a sexual assault on Thanksgiving weekend that she grabbed a pair of scissors and stabbed him repeatedly. She then beat him with random objects around the house, including an iron, until he died.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Well, see, and that's where you stop and go, hey, 911, my husband attacked me and sexually assaulted me, and this has been going on. And I was, you know, had no choice to get him off of me but to stab him in the neck or wherever and be done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

So the prosecutor obviously tells jurors, oh, she's lying about all this. You know, he's the victim in this case, not her. And that there was evidence showing his ankles had been bound during a struggle moments before his death.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Maybe that was part of the the bondage that he wanted. Right. Maybe he was the one who wanted to be.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

But I'm like, how do you tie your own ankles together and then sexually assault your wife? True. I don't know. Like if what even if what she claimed was partially true. I don't know. It's just crazy. Now they say that some of the juries, some of the jurors did believe her claims of abuse, but others didn't. And so I guess the it the sensational nature of the trial also made it hard to focus on evidence. So that's why they ended up going, you know, maybe she's not guilty of first degree, maybe we just guilty of second degree. That's you know, kind of the reason that they did that. Because they were just really having a hard time deciding.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Because some of it could have been true, but then also you took it a little too far. Right. A lot Too far.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Exactly. A lot too far. But just to give you an idea of that whole situation. Like like we said, post that encounter and her beating him to death. Then she spends the whole next that whole night taking him apart. They found like body parts wrapped in newspaper and stuffed in bags. Put in the car. Randomly placed around the apartment. So it was just like I guess that's when she decided she needed some help with disposal because she wasn't the the garbage disposal wasn't doing a good enough job. All this cooking and boiling stuff wasn't wasn't helping. She's like, I need to get rid of all these parts. Right. Phone a friend. Phone a friend. Hello. Hello. Can you come help me? So, like I said, obviously she gets found guilty of the second degree murder and gets her sentencing done and all that fun jazz. She has been up for parole in 2007 and got her got denied. She went up for parole in 2011 and was again denied. And they say that the reason, like I said, was because she just doesn't appear to have any remorse and still denies what she did. So the fact that she shows no remorse and takes no responsibility. They're not gonna let her out. They're not gonna let you out. She still blames her dead husband for why he's dead. So that was interesting. There we have it. Happy Thanksgiving with the ribs.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Right. And the boiling head.

Abuse History, FGM, And Relationship Dynamics

SPEAKER_00 32:08

I mean, obviously they still had turkey, but because she mixed some of his stuff with turkey for the trash. And uh yeah. I wonder if that's where his genitals went. Maybe. Because she thought, oh, they'll surely they'll think this is a turkey neck.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Turkey giblets. Giblets, general genitals. It's you know same thing.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

That was my thoughts anyway. As funny as that is, I was like, oh, maybe that's where where that went. Because they don't really say what happened with that part, just that she cut that she cut it off.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

But um but then there was a lot of him missing, and that's that's disturbing. Like, right, where did all this extra all the that's what I'm going to the garbage disposal?

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Did she like hack off fat? Right. Throw some disposal. She's like, well, this will be easy to get rid of. I'll just toss it. I'll just cut it up and stick it in. She's like, shh, you know. Yeah. That I mean, maybe so. Maybe that's where all that weight went. Yeah. Who knows? Possibly. As it got thicker and harder to cut off, she was just like, meh, I need some help. So, yeah, happy Thanksgiving. We're glad we could boil heads twice in one week. Two boiled heads. I swear.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

We hope you didn't lose your appetite, though. Listen to this after.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Right. And we hope you enjoy our theme music.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

That is produced by Patty Salzetta. And we hope Patty and her family have a very happy Thanksgiving. Absolutely. Absolutely. And if you guys want to sit on that couch with your pants unbuttoned and tell us about your favorite side dish.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Or tell us about the family argument. We're down.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

I want to hear family arguments too. That's the best part. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

You can send us an email. Hold my sweet tea podcast at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

Or message us on social media. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube. All of it. All of it.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

You have time.

SPEAKER_00 34:21

You're full.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Do it all. Make sure you subscribe to YouTube, by the way. We're at 89.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Woo! We're getting there.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

11 more.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

11 more. That's amazing. And as always, Hold My Sweet Tea is a drunken bee production. I was gonna say drunken turkey, but you know, you could have said And you guys stay safe out there. Have a happy holiday. And just because we're dipping doesn't mean you can't keep sipping. Bye.