Kayla Nordquist knew in her gut that something was wrong with her brother. The young trans man had flown out of state to New York to see a woman he met on TikTok and missed his flight home.
She watched a lot of true-crime documentaries; she knew the signs of danger. What did her brother Sam Nordquist or their family actually know about this TikTok person or her friends in the Finger Lakes?
This trip was the first time her brother had left the state alone. Yes, Sam was 24 years old and not a child. The young man who loved to draw and to sing in his room or the car had almost two dozen tattoos, including an infinity symbol for his family and two transgender pride designs. He was finding himself.
Sam was naive, though, a vulnerable person who still processed life like a teenager. His sister attributes this partly to a bad fall years earlier where he hit his head.
Kayla knew Sam wanted to be in love more than anything. Is that why he didn’t return home?
The mystery would take puzzling and horrifying turns in the months that followed. It would expose the dangers of meeting strangers from social media and the risks that young trans people can encounter as they try to figure out where they belong. And it would generate interest from around the country in what had happened – and why – to Sam Nordquist.
First inklings for Sam Nordquist’s relatives
The day Sam was supposed to fly back to Minnesota in autumn 2024, his phone was turned off. Kayla and her mom, Linda Nordquist, didn’t hear from him for over 24 hours. They decided to call the Canandaigua Police Department to ask for a welfare check at Patty’s Lodge in Ontario County, where they knew Sam had been staying with the girlfriend.
This only made things worse. The girlfriend, Precious Arzuaga, began sending intense messages to Kayla over Facebook. “Sam is a grown man … get over it so what,” Precious wrote to Kayla on Oct. 13 after officers came to her residence for the welfare check.
The next day, Kayla received a two-minute Snapchat video from Sam. It was of him and Precious, though Precious did all the talking; Sam only responded to questions when he was asked. Precious, who was wearing a white shirt and had her blonde hair tied up in a bun, had her arm around Sam, who was shirtless with a dog tag necklace and gold chains dangling on his chest.
She tells Kayla to stop worrying and that she would never hurt Sam.
“I don’t even spank my own kids, and ask Sam, they be needing it,” Precious says in the video. Sam responds: “Facts.”
He has a blank stare into the camera throughout the majority of the video, only shifting his eyes to look at Precious when she speaks to him.
“I never put your brother in a situation where he feels scared. I just love him, and I care for him a lot. My whole world is wrapped around Sam, I can promise you guys that,” Precious says in an attempt to ease his relatives’ fears.
“Have you felt threatened?” Precious asks Sam. “No,” he responds almost immediately.
“Have you felt scared?” “No.” “What do I do all day with you? Precious asks. “Sex. Love,” Sam replies, as they laugh and smile at each other.
The video is sent from Sam’s phone to his sister, yet his demeanor is reserved and quiet – not the usual way he would act or interact with his sister, Kayla said. It was almost reminiscent of a shy child allowing their mother to do all the talking.
The two-minute video makes one thing clear: Precious is in charge.
A sense that something was amiss would only strengthen for Kayla as the months unfolded and they received confusing messages “from Sam” about whether to leave him alone to be independent.
Her mom volunteered to fly out with Sam’s medicine; he was missing his vital testosterone doses. He declined.
Things came to a head for Linda and Kayla back in Minnesota in early February 2025. It was time to act, and their decisions would kick off the most important week in this saga for them.
The Democrat and Chronicle and Daily Messenger examined previously unpublished, detailed court records to make sense of six key consecutive days in February as their story culminated – a stretch of about 140 hours that was difficult beyond measure and that would expose them to the darkest parts of humanity.
Feb. 9, 2025: Missing person report filed
As communication with Sam withered away, Kayla got to work collecting all the information she could.
She took notes and created photo albums full of screenshots of text messages, Facebook messages and screen recordings of social media accounts for Sam and for Precious. In her personal notebook Feb. 9, she captured some details such as Sam’s last known address, 4212 State Route 5 and 20, Unit 22.
In large, rounded letters, Kayla had also written down the phone number to Canandaigua Police Department’s non-emergency line, the phone number of the Canandaigua hospital and the last known people with Sam: “Precious Arzuaga and Brooklyn.”
As prepared as they could be, she and her mom picked up the phone at 3:35 p.m. and called police. Linda told a trooper she last spoke to Sam over the phone on Jan. 1. She tried to call him numerous times after that, but he never answered.
Still in North Oakdale, Minnesota, during this phone call – New York seemed far away. They hadn’t even known where Canandaigua or the town of Hopewell were before Sam traveled there to meet Precious.
The New York State Police took them seriously. Troopers got in the car and drove toward Canandaigua to interview Precious Arzuaga at her residence at Patty’s Lodge, a 1960 hotel consisting of four rundown brown buildings on the outskirts of Canandaigua. Precious is one of a handful of people who were provided housing there by the Ontario County Department of Social Services.
Sam wasn’t there. Precious spoke to troopers, saying Sam had left weeks ago after the two of them broke up, and she hadn’t seen or spoken to him since. She said she blocked his phone number and social media accounts so he couldn’t contact her.
Where was Sam?
Feb. 10, 2025: Family launches public search for Sam Nordquist
The next day, Kayla posted screenshots of two TikTok accounts: one belonging to Precious and the other belonging to a woman named Brooklyn. “These are the TikTok profiles of the women we know Sam to last be with,” she wrote.
She told her Facebook followers that Precious is the girlfriend Sam went to New York to be with and that Brooklyn “was apparently Precious’s ex but now fiancée.”
Kayla shared that Sam hadn’t posted on TikTok since Nov. 15, 2024, and that the last video he appeared in on Precious’ account was from Halloween. “I think Precious removed all or most of the videos Her and Sam made together but they’re still on Sam’s. Please let’s flood their comments with asking. Where’s Sam,” Kayla wrote. “Precious told officer on the welfare check yesterday that Sam left several weeks ago And they don’t know where Sam is. And that they broke up and Sam no longer lives there.”
“Precious (and) Brooklyn are the only people Sam knows in New York.”
Feb. 11, 2025: Disturbing allegations surface in Nordquist investigation
It’s the third day of the investigation, and graphic and disturbing allegations surface.
Linda Nordquist posted screenshots on Facebook of messages she received from someone detailing what they had heard happened to Sam. True or not, it surfaced desperate fear for his well-being.
“OMG, these texts say Sam is being tortured, being kicked in the head and kept in a dog crate. PLEASE don’t let this be real/true. Sam I’m gonna find you, I’m looking and so is everyone else,” she wrote in the post.
The police were looking. While Linda and Kayla did everything they could from Minnesota, NYSP investigators were conducting interviews, running background checks on people last known to be with Sam and tracking down leads.
Linda told the investigators that Sam had flown to visit Precious on Sept. 28, 2024, after the two had met online. The day Sam left, Linda had posted on her Facebook: “My only kid I have home is on vacation. I don’t like being an empty nester.” She never thought that Sam’s “vacation” would lead to her reporting him missing five months later.
Linda told police that she believed Precious had access to some of Sam’s social media accounts. She also noticed that pictures and videos had been deleted from both Precious’ and Sam’s Facebook and TikTok accounts.
As soon as someone named “Brooklyn” came into the picture, Sam went missing, Linda said. The last text Linda received from Sam was on Jan. 31, she told them, but she believed it was someone else pretending to be Sam.
NYSP’s Cellular Analysis Response Team analyzed Sam’s phone number, which indicated the phone was turned off and unable to be located.
Investigators also interviewed David M. Morales-Hagen, Precious’ nephew, on Feb. 11. He said that his aunt was very controlling of Sam. A week and a half earlier, Precious and Sam showed up at the Castle Street apartment where he lived with Precious’ mom, Shirley Morales, he told police.
Sam sat in a corner of the apartment with a blanket over his head the entire time the two were there, he said.
Precious had told Morales that she, Brooklyn and someone else beat up Sam before coming to the apartment and that his face was messed up, Morales-Hagen said. Precious told her mom that she did not want Sam to move or take the blanket off his head.
Morales-Hagen didn’t see Sam’s face or talk to him before he left the apartment.
At the end of his Feb. 11 interview, Morales-Hagen told investigators he thought Precious and Brooklyn had something to do with Sam’s disappearance. In his written deposition, he said he felt like Sam was being held against his will.
Who else might know something?
Investigators interviewed Tricia Budgar, the elementary school principal where Precious’ youngest son was enrolled. Precious’ son had told his teacher weeks ago that he was upset about not getting to celebrate his late December birthday because “his mother’s friend had fallen and was unable to wake up.” Precious then called a man to come help, he told his teacher.
The NYSP cellular analysis team, meanwhile, was working on technological clues. It sent requests to Snapchat and Verizon regarding Sam’s account and phone number. Snapchat’s records showed that Sam’s account was last active on Jan. 30. Verizon’s records seemingly indicated that his phone had been off since at least Feb. 9.
Requests were also sent to Google. The email and name attached to the Google account the police were asking for were redacted in the court records. However, the account user’s phone number was linked to someone named Jennifer Quijano.
Investigators would later learn that Jennifer Quijano goes by the nickname “Brooklyn.”
Feb. 12, 2025: Key suspects identified in Nordquist disappearance
Kayla posted on Facebook from her Minnesota home in search of answers. “I need you Sam we all do please be ok I love you Soo much Sami,” she wrote.
By 11 a.m., NYSP Investigator Brian Hotchkiss, then-Trooper Andrew Muscari and two other members of NYSP were at the Castle Street apartment where Precious Arzuaga’s mom lives.
They knocked. Morales answered the door, standing in front of a set of stairs that led to her living space. No, Sam had never been to this apartment, she told the officers. Yes, people were in the apartment now – Precious, Thomas, Brooklyn and a girl named Lilly.
Morales led the officers up the stairs and into a large room. “This is my grandson, and that’s Precious,” she said, pointing to a mattress on the floor across from the TV. Precious was asleep.
“Will Precious wake up and have a conversation?” Hotchkiss asked. Morales had Hotchkiss sit in a chair and, soon after, Precious sat up and agreed to speak to him.
Precious agreed to give a supporting deposition detailing the “last time she saw Sam.” A man named Kyle Sage had come to help Sam move out of Room 22 at Patty’s Lodge on Jan. 10, Precious said.
Sam made a comment to a social services worker about Precious withholding his phone, she claimed, and Kyle was there to assist the young trans man with a fresh start. “Kyle told me he was going to help get him get back on his feet by taking him to a shelter in Rochester,” Precious told police.
This was the last day, she said, she saw or heard from Sam.
Precious reviewed her written deposition with Hotchkiss and signed it and gave him phone numbers. Yes, you can call if you need anything, she told the investigator.
Meanwhile, Trooper Muscari stayed back in the kitchen with Brooklyn. She could be a witness, he thought. Brooklyn said she would talk about the last time she saw Sam. It had been Jan. 8 and Brooklyn and Sam were spending the morning together before making the mile walk from Patty’s Lodge to the D&D motel. A man named Kyle wanted to speak with Sam alone.
“Kyle said, ‘I will take care of it’ and that he has people,” Brooklyn said. It wasn’t clear what this meant, in her account of what happened. This was the last time she saw or spoke to Sam, she told police.
Next on the list? Track down Kyle Sage.
Police caught up with Kyle by 3 p.m. No, he’d never seen that guy before, Kyle said when shown a picture of Sam. He didn’t know why Precious or Brooklyn would have said otherwise. Besides, Kyle said, he wasn’t living at the D&D Motel in early January. Texts with his parole officer could prove he was living at that time at “the Woodridge” — a motel directly next to D&D on Lakeshore Drive.
Investigators were working all over the area.
Police showed up at the Child Advocacy Center of the Finger Lakes to interview Precious’ 7- and 12-year-old children in a supportive, controlled setting. One child sat curled up in the fetal position in the chair, sucking a thumb. The child recalled seeing Sam on the floor, unable to be awakened. Their mom called a man to help.
After the interview, Precious’ child was visibly upset and threw up in the waiting room.
There would be two more major interactions between police and witnesses or suspects on Feb. 12, as described in police records submitted to the court.
A call came into 911. It was a woman named Elizabeth Perry at D&D Motel. She wanted officers to come visit her room. When they got there, Perry displayed a video on her phone of a conversation she “reportedly just captured of Kyle R. Sage.”
Here is what there is in police records about this video —
Kyle: “All I did was give sis the cash. What she did.”
Elizabeth: How much was Kyle paid?
Kyle: “Fifteen.”
Elizabeth: “Fifteen hundred? No shit.”
Elizabeth: “Well, she’s definitely not alive?”
Kyle: “No.”
Kyle: “I don’t know how they did it, or where they put it. I just gave sis the cash. She said, ‘Bro, I need you.’ I was there. Don’t say nothing.”
Elizabeth told investigators she knew “sis” to be Precious Arzuaga.
But the day wasn’t over. An additional event unfolded on Castle Street in Geneva.
A car had just left Shirley Morales’ apartment. Troopers pulled it over. The owner, Emily Motyka, gave them written consent to search her vehicle.
They found wooden objects and a rusty hammer. Clothing, too. It was hidden in various spots throughout the car, like in a cooler and in the spare tire compartment. They found a Carhartt sweatshirt, a pair of blue jeans and black garbage bags with gray strings in the trunk.
Feb. 13, 2025: Nordquist case turns even darker, arrests made
Feb. 13 did not fall on a Friday this year. But things that would be learned on this Thursday make it an unsettling and ill-fated date on the timeline of what happened to Sam Nordquist.
As the day got underway, Trooper Muscari received word from the Geneva Police Department that Brooklyn was at the Geneva station, asking to speak with members of NYSP. She had more she wanted to say.
The station is about a 30-minute drive from the NYSP barracks in Canandaigua. Muscari and two other investigators met Brooklyn there at 2:30 p.m. They sat in a small interview room with the door propped open to have this important conversation.
Brooklyn told them that she and Precious had gotten back together in November after Precious learned Sam cheated on her. The women got engaged a couple of weeks later. Brooklyn claimed that Precious made her “discipline” Sam for the cheating by “smacking, punching and hitting him.” It brought back memories of the times Precious used to abuse her.
“I would tell Sam to just listen to Precious so I didn’t have to hit him anymore,” her written deposition states.
Within the first few minutes of the two-hour-long interview, Brooklyn was describing the ways she and Kyle would hit Sam Nordquist. Kyle, she said, would use his “black and yellow gloves” to “punch him in the stomach.”
Sam liked it when she yelled and sometimes hit him, she told police. It was “helping him to focus on things and actually see what he’s not supposed to do and what is OK,” Brooklyn said in the interview. Though she clarified that she would always apologize to him if she hit him too hard or left marks.
Kyle would kick Sam and hit him with a broomstick, causing him to scream; Brooklyn said she told him he should “never ever do that.”
Investigators are now realizing that it’s unlikely Sam is still alive. They tell Brooklyn she needs to be 100% honest about everything she knows. Brooklyn is adamant that she does not know if Sam is dead. He was alive the last time she saw him with Kyle, she said.
Kyle was being interviewed by other investigators at this time. Muscari and the other investigators told Brooklyn that he was giving a “much different story.” Sam was dead.
At the one-hour mark of the interview, Brooklyn finally admits to knowing Sam is dead, though she maintains that she is not the one responsible. She agrees to provide a supporting deposition with everything she knows about the date he died.
Three long, cruel months of torture
Brooklyn and Kyle weren’t the only ones abusing Sam at Precious’ request, she said. A neighbor named Patrick Goodwin, Emily Motyka and Precious herself were all participants in three long, cruel winter months of torture, violence and sodomy. Precious’ kids were also present for a lot of this abuse, she explained.
These gruesome details of Sam’s last months on Earth were revealed for the first time within the walls of the small Geneva Police Department interview room. The 24-year-old man from Minnesota came to New York for love, but police would soon learn that he was met with violence and depravity.
Brooklyn described the items they hit him with, stuck in him and tied him with: sticks, dog toys, shoelaces and other items. “This abuse lasted pretty much every day until Sam died,” she told officers.
On his last day, Nordquist was being beaten by everyone, though Brooklyn had to step away, she said. Sam is turning purple, she told the others. At some point, Precious cut herself with a stick that was being used to torture Sam.
This is where Brooklyn’s recollection of the day Sam died gets tricky. At one point in the interview, she told the officers that she took Precious to the emergency room for stitches the day after she cut her finger. Sam was left at Patty’s Lodge with Kyle and Patrick. This would have been sometime in early February, according to the email Precious sent to social services regarding the hospital visit.
When they came back from the hospital, they found Sam lying on the ground next to the couch. He was purple with a swollen face and a boot print on his neck. There was no pulse. She and Precious weren’t there when he died.
However, at another point in the interview, Brooklyn said that she believed “they” could have saved Sam by calling 911, but “they was just finding ways to try to get [Sam] out of the house before anybody noticed.” She reiterated that she was not involved in the beating that led to this point.
Precious, Emily, Kyle and Patrick took the shoelaces off of Sam’s arms and feet, then wrapped his body in a blow-up mattress. The plan was to transport him into Emily’s rental car and then find a place to dispose of him, Brooklyn said, recalling she stayed back with Precious’ kids.
‘She won’t take the blame’
Did you come back here today to get all of this off your chest, the officers asked Brooklyn.
“She won’t take the blame, she told me. So I might have to take it. If Kyle won’t take it, then I gotta take it,” Brooklyn said, still insisting she was not the one who caused Sam’s death.
Precious made her send fake text messages pretending to be Sam as a way to cover up for Precious, Brooklyn said.
Throughout the interview, Brooklyn mentioned being concerned about Precious finding out what she had told police, Muscari, who by then had been promoted to investigator, said during Brooklyn’s Sept. 5 pre-trial hearing. She was scared. After Brooklyn’s statement, she was taken to the NYSP barracks.
Meanwhile, at Kyle’s interview, the officers showed him the video Elizabeth Perry had given them the day before.
Throughout this conversation, Kyle asked if he was going to get arrested and, at times, would become agitated, raising his voice at the investigators, Investigator Hotchkiss said during a Sept. 4 pre-trial hearing. “If I say she’s [Sam Nordquist is] dead, will I get arrested?” Hotchkiss recalled Kyle asking during the interview.
Kyle continued speaking with the investigators and eventually told them that Sam was beaten at Patty’s Lodge in Room 22. He pointed to the dates Jan. 28 and Jan. 29, 2025, on a calendar.
Here’s what happened, he said:
Kyle couldn’t remember if they took Sam’s body to Morales’ apartment on Castle Street in Geneva. He also couldn’t remember if Sam’s body was dismembered. Investigator Hotchkiss testified that Kyle offered to take them to Sam’s body. “It was his idea,” Hotchkiss said during the hearing.
Meanwhile, other investigators were talking Feb. 13 to a Carmax Auto Superstore employee who said Emily rented a white Mazda CX-5 on Jan. 28. She said she had a warranty issue with her personal car.
Who else was being interviewed?
Patrick Goodwin was first interviewed at his residence, Room 16, at Patty’s Lodge.
Patrick was only considered a witness at this time, as the officers interviewing him weren’t aware of Kyle’s confession. The officers knew Patrick was on parole for another crime at the time and told him that he could potentially get off early from parole if he provided witness information. It’s a “once in a lifetime opportunity,” they told him.
Eventually, Patrick was brought to the NYSP barracks for further questioning. He began to describe what happened in early February. Patrick was in front of his apartment when he heard screaming from Precious’ unit. He went into the apartment, where he saw Sam with a wife-beater shirt taped around his face and his hands duct-taped to the top of his head. Precious, Brooklyn, Emily and Kyle were also in the room.
Everyone there took turns hitting Sam. Patrick said he beat Sam with a cane before pushing it into his neck. After the beating, Patrick checked to see if Sam still had a pulse, but there was none. The group placed Sam in multiple garbage bags before wrapping him in a deflated air mattress and then transporting him to the back of a “white colored vehicle.”
Precious, Emily, Kyle and Patrick got into the car. Precious originally drove it to Naples, Ontario County, where they looked for a suicide gully to dump Sam’s body because “they believed that nobody would find the body there.” They couldn’t find one, so that plan was scrapped. Precious continued driving, looking for a heavily wooded area with no houses.
At some point during the drive, they hit a deer. The group then pulled off to the side of the road, and Patrick and Kyle tried to drag Sam’s body out of the car, but it got stuck. Emily got out and helped them drag Sam behind a tree. They were all afraid of leaving their fingerprints, so they decided to bring the air mattress with them, Patrick said.
Precious drove the group back to Patty’s Lodge after dumping his body. She and Emily then went back out to report the accident with the deer.
Patrick told the investigators that he regularly spoke with the people involved over Snapchat and that the cane he used to beat Sam was still in Room 16 at Patty’s Lodge. He also told them that the dog crate in Precious’ apartment was another tool they used to torture Sam. They would put Sam’s arms through the wire crate and tie his hands together. Sam’s legs, which were also tied together, would protrude out of the crate’s door.
It’s not clear how often Sam was put in the crate or for how long.
A friend from school
Investigators then interviewed a 13-year-old girl who went to school and was friends with Precious’ 12-year-old child. The girl was on a video call in early February with her friend when she saw Precious slap Sam. She also saw Brooklyn hit Sam with a belt, and then heard Sam crying.
This wasn’t the first time she had seen Precious and Brooklyn abuse Sam over a video call. She heard them refer to Sam as the “Thing” on many occasions.
Precious’ child later told the girl that Sam had died from losing too much blood and that Precious and Brooklyn “took the body far, far away so that they would not get caught.”
Going to find Sam
On the evening of Feb. 13, Kyle took investigators to Sam’s body.
They drove to a field on the west side of Payne Road, about 1,000 feet north of the Havens Corners Road intersection. Sam — this far-from-home young man who loved cats and making videos and his niece and nephew — was found wrapped in black garbage bags with gray strings.
Hotchkiss and other NYSP members returned to the Castle Street apartment about 10 p.m. with an arrest warrant. They kicked down the door and put Precious in handcuffs.
Feb. 14, 2025: Sam Nordquist’s family learns what happened to him
Kayla and Linda were on the road early Valentine’s Day morning, making the 15-hour drive from Minnesota to New York in hopes of bringing Sam home.
Then, NYSP announced they were going to have a press conference at 11 a.m. to discuss the missing person investigation of Sam Nordquist. The statement said that a group of people had been arrested, but there was no mention of what had happened to Sam.
Kayla and Linda weren’t going to make it to Canandaigua in time, especially not with the harsh winter weather conditions on the road.
They were frustrated and didn’t understand why a press conference would be held before Sam’s family could get there. Their only option was to watch a livestream of the conference from a local news station while they drove.
At the conference, New York State Police Capt. Kelly Swift and former Ontario County District Attorney James Ritts announced the arrests of Precious Arzuaga, Jennifer “Brooklyn” Quijano, Patrick Goodwin, Kyle Sage and Emily Motyka. The charge: second-degree murder.
Details were scarce. All they learned was that Sam endured months-long torture and abuse that led to his death, and that his body was found in a field in Yates County.
After the conference, Linda and Kayla tried to speak on the phone with a Democrat and Chronicle reporter. Not many words were said.
They sobbed and sobbed, deep and horrified sounds.
For the remaining hours of that car ride, Kayla and Linda were reckoning with a new reality, one without Sam. It was their worst nightmare.
— Within the following week, NYSP would announce the arrest of two more individuals, Thomas Eaves and Kimberly Sochia, who were alleged to also be involved in the torture and death of Sam Nordquist. In March, a grand jury indicted all seven on first-degree murder charges and 10 other charges. Trials are expected in 2026.
— Madison Scott is a journalist with the Democrat and Chronicle who covers breaking and trending news for the Finger Lakes Region. She has an interest in how the system helps or doesn’t help families with missing loved ones. She can be reached at MDScott@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Transgender man’s trip to find love ends in murder in NY’s Finger Lakes
Reporting by Madison Scott, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
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