But as neat as some of Mailhot’s apartment was, there were other areas that were not quite so tidy. His bed was unmade and the sheets didn’t quite fit—he was using twin sheets on a double bed—and there was a lot of sand and dust on the rug in the den. And the bathroom was especially dirty.
As Durand continued his work, Lee and Nowak looked through some photographs Mailhot had lying around and thought one was particularly odd—it was a blurry photograph of Joseph’s, a restaurant that had been closed for some time. It was obvious the photo had been taken from a moving vehicle. Another photo showed Mailhot dressed up as a wrestler for a costume party holding a stuffed animal in a choke hold.
“I thought that was strange and something I could use in the interview later because we were investigating him choking two women,” Lee said. “From there we searched the rest of the house, but we weren’t finding any incriminating evidence—we were looking for items that belonged to Teese, which were labeled in the search warrant, but at first glance there was no obvious blood or anything.”
Soon another officer, Sergeant Marc Turcotte, arrived at the scene to help Durand complete the search, and Lee and Nowak went back to police headquarters to interview Mailhot.
Chapter 7
It was a little after eight-thirty on a typical warm summer evening in Woonsocket. Children played in the parks, waiting impatiently to hear the familiar sound of Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer” signaling the approach of the ice-cream man. Adults relaxed at outdoor cafés, sipping iced coffees and chatting about the weather or politics. In a seamier part of the city, prostitutes—mostly junkies and runaways—trolled the streets and bars in search of anyone with money to pay them for sex.
But what was about to happen in a small, sparsely furnished room on the second floor of the Woonsocket Police Department would be anything but typical. In that room Detective Sergeant Edward Lee and Detective Sergeant Steve Nowak were about to question Jeffrey S. Mailhot about the string of assaults on area prostitutes.
When they got back to the station, Lee and Nowak located Mailhot in one of the rooms where police typically write up their reports. Lee asked Mailhot if he would consent to talk with police and he agreed, so Lee removed his handcuffs and brought him up to the detective’s interview room on the second floor of the two-story building. Lee set up a video camera so he could tape the interview, then handed Mailhot a card containing his Miranda rights and asked him to read those rights out loud.
“Okay. ‘I have the right to remain silent. I do not have to give [a] statement or answer any questions. If I give up my right to remain silent, anything I say can and will be used against me in a court of law. I have the right to the presence of a lawyer and to talk with a lawyer before and during any questioning. If I cannot afford a lawyer and I want a lawyer, a lawyer will be appointed for me at no cost to me before any questioning. If I do talk to the police, I can stop at any time. The police have made no threats or promises to me.’”
“Do you understand your rights?” Lee asked.
“Yes.”
Lee then instructed Mailhot to make a check mark in a box next to each right indicating he understood what he was reading. He complied, and Lee, who was sitting across a rectangular table from Mailhot, and Nowak, who was sitting at the end of the table, began the interview.
“All right, Jeff,” Lee said after Mailhot had completed the paperwork. “Any idea why you’re here?”
“No idea,” Mailhot responded.
“At all?” Lee asked.
“No idea. All I know is you—is assault with a dangerous weapon. I have no idea what this is about,” Mailhot said.
“Okay, now we’ve had a few complaints come in recently,” Lee said.
“A few complaints?”
“Yeah, I’ll get into them in a little bit,” Lee said.
Lee and Nowak made sure they treated Mailhot with respect as they interviewed him.
“I feel you can get more flies with honey than with vinegar,” Lee said. “You treat people with respect, talk to them in a kind way and offer them a drink, anything like that in order to get information. There are a number of interview techniques, but the most effective way is to be straightforward with them. The whole idea is to gain their trust, make them comfortable and make them want to open up and talk to you. If you’re going to be a hard-ass with them and give them a hard time, then they’re just going to close up and you’re never going to get anything out of them. The days of hitting people with phone books or something like that are over. That just doesn’t work.”
Lee said as soon as Mailhot sat down at the table, he was very nervous.
“He was probably wondering what the hell we were going to talk to him about—wondering what we had on him and if we were going to ask him about the dead girls,” Lee said. “Obviously, that’s going through the back of his mind because he’s sitting there knowing he’s guilty of murdering these three girls.”
But Lee didn’t ask Mailhot about the three dead girls right away.
“So he’s probably going out of his mind—are they going to look at the other things, maybe they aren’t, maybe they are,” Lee said. “But you could tell there was some apprehension there. And when we started asking him about being with prostitutes, he was going to deny ever having any association with them. So basically we just let him talk, and we explained what we had from Teese Morris and Jocilin Martel.”
Lee said the cops told Mailhot about their investigation and how they zeroed in on him.
“We told him the girls weren’t conspiring against him. Eventually he did admit to picking up prostitutes and then assaulting these two women—that was a big break,” Lee said. “Once he admitted that, we were definitely headed in the right direction because my theory always was if he choked these two girls out—which is a dangerous move outlawed even for police because you can kill someone—then if he just did it to these girls who just happened to come forward, then there was a pretty good chance that he probably did it to someone else who didn’t make it.”
As they talked, Lee started to explain about the few women who had taken out complaints against him, but decided to change tack and ask Mailhot about himself.
“Are you married?” Lee asked.
“No. I’m single.”
“You’re single. Girlfriend?” Lee asked.
Mailhot said he and his girlfriend had just broken up a couple weeks earlier and he wasn’t seeing anyone else.
“Where is she living now?” Lee asked.
“Um, she’s living with her mom. I’m not sure where.”
“Okay. So no one’s currently living with you?”
“No.”
“And the last person to live with you [was your girlfriend]?”
“No, we didn’t live together,” Mailhot explained.
“You didn’t live together?”
“No.”
“Okay. Do you see any other type of girls?” Lee asked.
“Nope.”
“Any relationship with any other girls?”
“Not right now.”
“No one-night stands or anything like that?” Lee asked as he wrote something down on a legal pad.
“Well, yeah, but nothin’—I mean I actually haven’t had one in a long time.”
“How long would you say?” Lee asked.
“The last one—probably, like, four or five months ago.”
“If you don’t mind me asking—with who?”
“Um—all I know is her first name. Her name was Dawn. That’s it. That’s all I know.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“At the White Horse saloon in Chepachet.”
“Did you take her back to her apartment?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s it? In the last four months.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay—that’s it. Did you ever pick up a prostitute?” Lee asked.
“I’ve seen them around, but I haven’t picked any up.”
M
ailhot told Lee he often saw prostitutes on Olive Street in the area where he lived, but he added he never picked any up. But Lee pressed Mailhot on the issue.
“Are you sure about that?”
Clearly nervous, Mailhot changed his story just slightly.
“I’m positive. I mean, I’ve picked up a girl that I thought I had seen before who was looking for a ride and then she kind of propositioned me, I just let her out,” he said.
“Where did you pick her up?” Nowak asked.
“Arnold Street.”
“Can you give me her name?” Lee asked.
Mailhot could not.
Lee then explained the seriousness of the situation to Mailhot and how important it was for him to answer the questions truthfully.
“It’s important that you search your memory,” Lee said.
“Okay.”
“If you picked up a prostitute—you picked up a prostitute, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“If you’re embarrassed about something like that—we really don’t care. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“We’re trying to get to the bottom of something. But if we start off like this, where it appears that you’re not telling us the truth … it doesn’t look good for you,” Lee explained.
“It goes downhill from there,” Nowak said.
“Okay,” Mailhot said.
“Did you ever pick up a prostitute?” Lee asked again.
“Yes.”
“Okay. When was the last time you picked one up?”
“Um, probably about, like, four or five weeks ago.”
“Okay. Do you remember who it was? Or what she looked like?”
“Um, she was … probably about my height, dark hair—that’s pretty much all I remember. I don’t remember any details.”
“What happened? Where did you bring her?” Lee asked.
“We went back to my place … and did the sex,” Mailhot said, not quite finishing his thought.
“Blow job? Sex?” Lee asked, not mincing words.
“Yeah, blow job,” Mailhot said.
“Okay, and everything went well? No problems?”
“Yeah, it was. Um, she, she left right after.”
That fact that Mailhot was a little tongue-tied wasn’t lost on Lee and Nowak.
“How many times were you with this particular girl?”
“Just once.”
“Just once? Do you remember her name?”
“No.”
“Was it on the weekend, or during the week?” Nowak asked.
“I think it was Saturday night.”
Mailhot told the detectives that she was the only prostitute he had ever picked up.
“How about any other girls,” Lee said.
“That’s the only one I’ve been with.”
“Are you sure about that?” Lee asked.
Mailhot said he was.
When Lee asked him if he had had a disagreement with the girl about anything, Mailhot immediately said no, but quickly changed his story.
“Nothing went wrong in the apartment?” Lee asked.
“No. Well, she kind of got upset because I didn’t have as much money for her as she would have liked.”
“How much did she want?” Lee asked.
Mailhot said she wanted $30, but he only gave her $20.
“After?” Lee asked.
“Yeah.”
“She took care of you without a down payment?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow. Pretty trustworthy hooker, huh?”
“Hm-hmm.”
Lee then switched from asking Mailhot about prostitutes to asking him about himself again. What was about to unfold in that small room was a lesson in interrogation techniques that would have made detectives working in big-city police departments proud.
Lee and Nowak wanted to have a friendly conversation with Mailhot so that he’d feel comfortable talking with them. They wanted to create a nonthreatening atmosphere. Then as soon as he started to relax, they’d begin talking about the assaults again. The detectives knew that once Mailhot started opening up to them, it would be hard for him to stop. And once Mailhot started to tell them the truth in response to inconsequential questions, it would be harder for him to lie when they asked him the real nitty-gritty questions. In addition, Lee and Nowak wanted to use his verbal and nonverbal reactions to the mundane questions as a baseline to determine his reactions to the tough questions—Interrogation 101.
“Do you have any problems in your life right now?” Lee asked.
“No.”
“No? Everything’s good? Mentally, okay?”
“Yup.”
“You’re a neat guy, huh?” Lee asked, referring to the state of Mailhot’s apartment.
“Yup.”
“Inside of your house.”
“I’m sure you saw.”
“Geez … you even fold your undies,” Lee said.
“What’s that?”
“You even fold your underwear,” Lee said as they all laughed.
“Huh? Yeah. I get that from my mom.”
“Oh yeah?” Lee asked.
“Yeah.”
“She taught you well,” Nowak said.
“Oh yeah.”
“Where does your mom live?” Lee asked.
“My mom’s dead.”
“She died?”
“Yeah, my mother and father—back when I was a kid. They both died of cancer. My mom died in 1988 and my father in 1993.”
“That’s terrible,” Nowak said.
“Your mom in ’88—how old were you?” Lee asked.
“Um, seventeen, and then with my dad, I was twenty-two.”
“Whew—same kind of cancer?” Lee asked.
“I believe it was lung cancer,” Mailhot said. “They were both fairly regular smokers.”
“How old were they?” Lee asked.
“My mom was forty-one. I think my dad was forty-seven.”
“You’re kidding me,” Lee said.
“Nope.”
“That must have been hard on you,” Lee said, crossing his arms, putting them on the table and leaning in closer to Mailhot. “Who took care of you? You were seventeen.”
“They divorced when I was nine and we moved,” Mailhot said. “They both remarried and I, you know, I’ve got a pretty large family.”
“You know what month they died in?” Nowak asked.
“What month? My mom was July and my father was September.”
“You coped with that pretty well?” Lee asked.
“Yeah, it was rough for, like, the first—I mean, when my mom died, it was like—it was devastating. It was obviously devastating.”
“Yeah,” Lee said.
“But, you know, after a little while, you know, you get over it.”
“Yeah,” Lee said.
“And with my father it wasn’t such a big surprise, you know, because—at first when my mom died, it was like, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t’—you don’t believe that somebody in your family is going to die like that—that young and stuff,” Mailhot said.
Lee then asked Mailhot if he had any problems with drugs or alcohol. Mailhot said he never took drugs, but he did drink beer, although he didn’t consider himself an alcoholic.
The detective also asked Mailhot if he had ever picked up a prostitute after he had been drinking.
“No, I was sober,” Mailhot answered.
Lee then wanted to know why Mailhot decided to pick up a prostitute.
“I had just been unlucky lately and it just happened.”
Lee again changed his approach and asked Mailhot if he had any hobbies or other interests.
“I drive motorcycles. I go on motorcycle runs and things like that,” he said.
“Weight lifting or anything like that?” Lee asked.
“Yeah. I don’t know if you saw my basement? I have a gym down there and it’s—that’s all my equipment.”
“All right, Jeff, I appreciate you being hones
t with us as far as telling us about the prostitutes. I know it’s embarrassing,” Lee said.
“Yeah, I apologize for that,” Mailhot said.
But Lee wasn’t about to let Mailhot get off that easily.
“But, to be quite honest here, I believe there’s a little bit more than that. Maybe a few other hookers at your apartment?” Lee asked.
“Well, not recently.”
“How about in the past year?”
“In the past year, probably three.”
“What about in the last two years?” Nowak asked.
“Like maybe a couple,” Mailhot said.
“Listen, we’re guys too,” Nowak said, trying to establish a connection with Mailhot.
“Yeah.”
“Do you remember what these prostitutes looked like?” Lee asked.
“No, not really.”
“What was the earliest date that you picked up a prostitute?” Nowak asked.
“It was probably, like, four or five years ago.”
“Four or five years ago—that was the first time ever?”
“Yeah.”
“So three in the past two years, you said,” Lee said. “And that’s about it?”
“Yeah, probably, like, one.”
“So … there’s probably been four prostitutes that came to your house or three?” Lee asked.
Mailhot explained that although he only took one prostitute back to his house, he went to motels with a couple others. He also said the first prostitute he had ever been with about four or five years earlier took him to her place in Providence.
“Is that when you were still living in Woonsocket or were you living on River Road?” Lee asked.
“I was living in Woonsocket. I was still living there.”
“How long have you been living in Woonsocket?” Lee asked.
“Ah, seven years, just since January of ’97.”
“And you were living on River Road before that?” Lee asked.
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