TBI Names First Person of Interest in Nieko Lisi Homicide Investigation

Franklin real estate agent and now-convicted rapist Eduardo Aguirre has been revealed as a person of interest in the decade-plus-long missing person case of Nieko Lisi, which has become a homicide investigation.

That information came to light during Aguirre’s trial in October, but the jury who convicted him on one of four charged counts of rape never heard that information. Aguirre faces eight to 12 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 14. 

This is the first time law enforcement officials have publicly named anyone as a person of interest in the 2011 case of Lisi, then an 18-year-old from rural Steuben County, N.Y. Lisi was last seen on Flintlock Drive in Franklin, where his phone last pinged.

As previously reported, Lisi is believed to have traveled in September 2011 from New York to Michigan and then to Franklin in a stolen 2004 GMC Canyon pickup truck.

Aguirre’s connection to the case was made public on Oct. 21, the first day of his trial, in a motion hearing to determine whether Tennessee Bureau of Investigation assistant special agent in charge Nathan Neese could testify in front of the jury that Aguirre had "previously lied to police" in regard to the Lisi case. Aguirre’s lawyer Josh Brand provided a statement to Scene sister publication the Williamson Scene for this story.

“Over the last 13 years of this investigation, Mr. Aguirre has cooperated with law enforcement, including giving multiple interviews,” Brand says via email. “He has never been charged with any crime. We hope Mr. Lisi's family can find peace in this sad situation.”

Williamson County Circuit Court Judge David Veile ultimately ruled against the state’s motion to bring Neese in to testify, meaning the jury never heard the special agent’s description of Aguirre as a person of interest in an ongoing homicide investigation.

Two Statements Revealed

Law enforcement has released few details in the 13 years since Lisi disappeared. Neese shed more light on the case when he testified about two differing statements Aguirre made regarding Lisi's disappearance, both of which have been sealed for years as part of the ongoing investigation.

Aguirre’s first statement, a handwritten paragraph, is dated December 2011 and is from an interview with a Williamson County Sheriff’s Office school resource officer at Franklin High School. Aguirre graduated from FHS in 2009. Lisi also briefly attended FHS. The second statement is a more detailed two-page typed deposition that Aguirre gave to New York State Police, who visited Franklin in July 2016.

Aguirre told law enforcement in 2011 that Lisi came to his house “late in the day” on Oct. 1, 2011. Aguirre said that, on the morning of Oct. 2, he and Lisi played soccer with Aguirre's dad and uncle. The game ended around 8:15 a.m. when his uncle was injured.

“My dad went to the hospital," the statement reads in part. "Nieko and me went to the house. Later we watched my brother's soccer team play. We got home and Nieko got his backpack and left." A typed law enforcement summary says Lisi “left without warning or saying goodbye,” and added that Aguirre's father “confirmed his son's recollection.”

In 2016, Aguirre gave detectives more information. He said Lisi called him as he was traveling to Franklin. Aguirre said that he wired Lisi gas money prior to his arrival at Aguirre's Flintlock Drive home in a pickup truck.

“I believe, at some point, Nieko told me that he needed to get rid of the pickup truck," Aguirre said. "Nieko had a couple of guns with him when he arrived at my house."

Aguirre stated that Lisi gave the truck to James Shrader, one of Aguirre’s friends.

“I believe that Shrader and a friend of his may have chopped that truck up for scrap,” Aguirre told detectives, adding that Shrader may have been aided by another friend who he identified as Jacob Kweirant.

According to public reports, Shrader died in 2014 and Kweirant died in 2015.

Aguirre said Lisi spent the night at his house before he contacted a man named Jose Vargas of Springfield, who helped Aguirre find a room where Lisi could stay. They went to a home on Westminster Drive in Franklin, Aguirre told detectives. He spoke with an unidentified “Hispanic guy” he described as appearing 50 years old.

His statement continued, adding Lisi “took all of his belongings with him” when he stayed at the Westminster Drive home. Aguirre said he returned to that house the next day to see Lisi.

“Nieko said that he applied for a job, but I don't know where he applied," Aguirre's statement reads. "Nieko came outside and talked with me in the driveway." Aguirre stated that “a couple of days later” he was contacted by Vargas “and was told that Nieko had left and that I needed to come pick up his belongings or pay his rent.” Aguirre said he went to the Westminster Drive home, where there were “several Hispanic people.” Aguirre told detectives that he retrieved a bag of Nieko's clothes from the bed he had been using and threw them away at some nearby apartments.

“I then went home," Aguirre's statement concluded. "I've never heard from Nieko since, to the best of my recollection, I did not try to call Nieko until his family started calling me. I have never been able to get a hold of Nieko."

Lisi's case seemingly went cold until the summer of 2016, when detectives found the stripped and disassembled frame of a 2004 GMC pickup truck stored in a residential detached garage at a home on Colorado Avenue in Nashville’s Sylvan Park neighborhood.

The home was owned at the time by James T. Shrader and Debra Lynn Carter, according to Nashville property tax records. Those are the parents of Aguirre’s friend James Shrader, who died in 2014, according to his obituary. The garage has since been demolished after the property changed hands and was redeveloped.

The TBI took over the investigation in 2017, and Neese was therefore unable to interview Shrader or Kweirant before their deaths. Aguirre has refused to voluntarily be interviewed by TBI investigators. 

“[Aguirre] has always been somebody that's been involved [in the investigation] from the beginning,” Neese told the Williamson Scene following Aguirre's rape conviction. Neese also said he believes Shrader “had knowledge about this case.”

“I think he had information about not only the whereabouts of the vehicle prior to his death, but obviously, I've never had a chance to speak with him,” Neese said.

Neese confirmed for the first time to the Williamson Scene that Vargas had been interviewed by law enforcement in the past, but couldn't confirm that he was at any point a person of interest. Law enforcement has yet to identify the “Hispanic” Franklin man at the Westminster Drive home that Aguirre wrote about in his 2016 statement.

Neese testified during the hearing that while Aguirre's two statements were different, he believes that “the more detailed statement has some truth in it.”

Hope for Answers

While Lisi’s mother, Monica Button, has remained hopeful, she's long believed that her son is likely deceased. In August 2023, she had him declared legally dead.

Neese also believes that Lisi’s disappearance was likely due to foul play, and Lisi's legal death declaration means that the case is now officially a homicide investigation.

“It's an active investigation that we'll follow up on until we can bring Mr. Lisi home or find out exactly what happened to him,” Neese says.

Button was present in the courtroom throughout Aguirre's rape trial.

"I was up and down all week, very emotional, and not just for myself, for the victim in this case," Button tells the Williamson Scene. "Obviously, this was not about my son, it was about someone else. I feel for her. I feel for her family."

While Aguirre's name has been publicly withheld by law enforcement for more than a decade, Button was familiar with Aguirre and his family.

"I was in his home 12 years ago asking him questions about my son, and he and his family, you know, they try to avoid me at any cost, and I'm not going to go away, I'm going to be heard," Button says.

"I think that he has fooled a lot of people for years with his real estate business. I think that his family as a whole — there's a whole lot more to them than meets the eye. ... The last place [Lisi] was seen was on Flintlock Drive at their home. And I have been afraid of those people, and I am sure that the victim in this [rape] case has been afraid of [Aguirre], and it's due time that he face the music."

Neese tells the Williamson Scene that while Aguirre's conviction doesn't specifically impact his investigation into Lisi's disappearance, he does hope it could help anyone with information about Lisi feel more comfortable coming forward.

“I'm not sitting here saying anybody is pinpointing a person for being responsible — I just know that people have information,” Neese says. “I know that Mr. Aguirre has information, and I'd love to have his information. I think he could be vital in helping us move this forward. I just want to know what their information is, no matter how trivial.”

For Button, finally hearing her son's name and case discussed in a court of law brings her hope that answers and justice are growing closer.

"To people that have information on the case that haven't spoke out, now is your chance, because Eduardo Aguirre is behind bars, and he's not going to show up at your house and threaten you, so come forward and tell what you know," Button says. "And to those in Middle Tennessee or wherever in the United States that support us, thank you for your support and keep the prayers coming, and hopefully we are going to reach an end to my nightmare."

This article was first published by our sister publication, the Williamson Scene. Law enforcement asks that anyone with information about Lisi or his disappearance call 1-800-TBI-FIND, or submit a tip to TipsToTBI@tn.gov.