“That pillow still at your apartment?”
“Yes.”
“Where? Where is it?” Nowak asked.
“I believe it’s in my living room.”
“What’s it look like?”
“It’s, like, a multicolored pillow. It’s, like, blue, tan—it’s the only pillow in my living room.”
The cops asked Mailhot if Audrey said anything to him while he was smothering her. Audrey wasn’t doing any talking, he said. After he choked her, he said, she was spitting up blood and she had her eyes open. That’s when he realized she was dying and he knew he had to finish her off. Same thing with Christine Dumont, except he didn’t use the pillow.
“We came back to my place and we were in my kitchen and I just did it again.”
“You came up from behind?” Lee asked.
“Yes.”
“Okay, and then?”
“The same thing—I just wrestled her to the ground and choked her until she died.”
“Okay, no pillow this time?”
“No.”
“This time you just held on until you knew she was no longer with you?”
“Yes.”
“Until she was dead?” Lee asked. “So you squeezed her until you knew she was dead.”
“Hm-hmm.”
“This wasn’t an accident?”
“No.”
“You—you made sure that she died?”
“Yeah.”
“In your choke hold this time?”
“Yeah.”
“No pillow after? [Then] what did you do?”
“Then I disposed of the body, like I said. I put her in my bathtub and the next day I cut her up and dumped her.”
“Okay. Stacie? Stacie Goulet—you’ve already said you picked her up on the way home and brought her back to your house. What happened?” Lee asked.
“Pretty much the same thing that happened with that one,” Mailhot said, pointing to the photo of Christine Dumont.
“With Christine?” Lee asked.
“Choked her, and with Christine, yes.”
“You choked her?”
“Yes.”
“The same choke hold?” Lee asked.
“The same choke hold,” Mailhot repeated.
“Until she—”
“Until she died,” Mailhot said before Lee could finish the sentence.
“How did you know they were dead?”
“I just left them laying there, and, I mean, I could just tell they were dead.”
“Did you check? Did you know how to check for a pulse or anything like that? Did you check if they were breathing?”
“I kind of felt if they were breathing or not, and there was no breath.”
“So, like the others, like Christine, this was no accident.”
“No.”
“You squeezed her until she died? You choked her until she died. Until you were certain she was dead? Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
Now it was Nowak’s turn to get some answers.
“How could you control it with the other girls? The girls that you choked that didn’t go this far?” The cops still weren’t convinced Audrey, Christine and Stacie were this guy’s only victims.
“I don’t know. It was just a situation-by-situation thing, I guess. I don’t know.”
“Were there some that you wanted to kill?”
“No.”
“All the ones that got away you allowed to get away?”
“No, no, the ones that got away, they struggled free. And the ones that passed out and I let back up, and I stopped and they left.”
“Did you think they were dead?” Nowak asked.
“I didn’t think so, ’cause they were still kind of breathing.”
“Okay, and what happened when they woke up?”
“They got up and they were confused and said, ‘Oh, my God.’ You know, they couldn’t believe what happened.”
“Why didn’t you finish the job on them?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“Did you tell yourself you wanted to stop then?”
“Yeah.”
“Were there some that, had they not fought with you, they wouldn’t be here either?” Nowak asked. “They’d probably be in trash bags?”
“Could be, yeah.”
Lee then asked Mailhot if he remembered one of the women who woke up naked on the floor and found something “sexual” on her chest. Lee asked Mailhot if he had ever masturbated on any of the women.
“No. No. I never did.”
“No? Never? How about any of these girls?”
“No. I never masturbated. I never got any sexual pleasure out of it.”
“Well, with any of the girls?”
“No.”
Mailhot admitted Audrey got naked, but that was because they were planning to have sex. But he said he didn’t undress her; she took off her own clothes before he choked her.
“Well, she was there as a prostitute,” he said. “And she had undressed herself.”
“Before you choked her?” Lee asked.
“Yes.”
Now Lee wanted to find out more about the choke hold Mailhot used on his victims. Mailhot explained that it was just a “normal choke hold,” something that just came naturally to him. It wasn’t something he researched on the Internet. Then Mailhot demonstrated his choke hold for Lee and Nowak.
“I just come up from behind them and put my arm around their neck, like this.”
“Okay, is it always that arm?” Lee asked, referring to Mailhot’s left arm.
“Ah, yes, it is.”
“Are you left-handed?”
“Actually, I’m right-handed.”
“You’re right-handed, but you used your left. What did you do with your right hand? Stand up and show us. Did you do anything special with your body?”
Mailhot stood up to demonstrate his choke hold.
“I hold on, like this,” Mailhot said, holding his left arm in front of his chest like he was gripping one of the women. The he clasped his left wrist with his right hand.
“I just reached like this and just kind of, like, leaned back.”
“What does the leaning back do?” Lee asked.
“It stops them, you know, like they’re struggling, so it kind of, like, puts more pressure on their neck.”
“And you never learned that anywhere? That’s something you just picked up?”
Mailhot said he was never shown the choke hold, nor did he ever pick it up from watching wrestling or karate.
“That’s not where I got it from,” he said. “I just wanted to suffocate them.”
Nowak told Mailhot he still couldn’t understand why he let some of the women go.
“I mean, you’re telling us some of them would be in body bags, had they not fought with you… . Why did you let some of them go?”
“I just didn’t want to kill ’em.”
“Did you realize something was going on at that moment, but you didn’t realize it with these other girls?” Nowak asked. “Was there anybody else?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“I would tell you. I have nothing more to hide.”
“Any that you may have blocked out?”
“No.”
Mailhot told the cops that he was living on Cato Street when he first started choking the women and that was the only place he had ever choked or killed anyone.
“How many girls have you choked, including the three that have passed away, altogether?” Nowak asked.
“I couldn’t give you an exact number. I would say probably upward of about, like, ten, twelve.”
“Including those?” Nowak asked, pointing to the pictures of the three dead women. “Do you remember where all these happened?”
“In my apartment.”
“All of them happened in your apartment?”
“Yes.”
“Not anywhere else?”
&n
bsp; “No.”
“But we’ve got some stories from girls who were choked in other places.”
“No,” Mailhot repeated. “I’ve only choked them when they’ve been in my apartment.”
“When did you usually pick up these girls?” Nowak asked. “On weekends, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re a working guy?”
“Hm-hmm.”
“Did you go out, like, drinking with the plan to say, ‘Hey, you know what? I’m going to have a few beers. I’m going to pick up a chick and bring ’em back to my place,’ knowing what you’re going to do all along?”
Mailhot explained that on his way home after a night out drinking beer and shooting pool with friends, he’d see a girl and decide to pick her up. But he said he never went out with the intention of killing anyone. It just happened.
“I never went out there with the intention of, you know, tonight I’m going out and killing somebody,” he said. “I never went out with that intention.”
“It just happened?”
“It just happened.”
Chapter 11
Lee and Nowak knew they were in it for the long haul. They wanted to make sure Mailhot was going to tell them everything about the murder of the three women, so they tried to make him as comfortable as possible.
“You hangin’ in there okay?” Nowak asked.
“What’s that?”
“You hangin’ in there okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You feeling a lot better?”
“I am feeling better—nervous, obviously.”
“Obviously, you’re going to be nervous,” Nowak said. “But you feel better and you’ve gotten it off your chest. And, again, we’re going to continue talking to you, obviously.”
“Yes.”
“Because we’re going to want to know everything that happened.”
“Yeah.”
“And we’re going to continue to ask you about other girls,” Nowak said.
“Okay.”
Nowak told Mailhot that he really appreciated the fact that he was telling them what he had done to the women.
“I think you’re a good man for doing what you’re doing. I really do, no matter what you’ve done,” Nowak said, trying to make Mailhot think that he was on his side.
Mailhot, however, had a different view of himself.
“I’m not a good person. You know what I mean? A good person doesn’t do this shit, you know?” he said.
“You’ve got issues, but you’re going to be fine, okay? We’re going to help you through it and there’s a lot of people who are going to help you through it,” Nowak said. “But there may still be more that you need to tell us, okay? And we want to know that, all right?”
“I’m gonna tell you. I know I lied before … but, on my life, those are the only girls I’ve killed.”
“Okay.”
“And I have choked out more, like I said, but I have never killed anybody else.”
“Okay.”
“Thank you,” Mailhot said.
“Okay, relax. It’s tough, you know. It’s tough.”
“You’ve been doing this a long time, right?” Mailhot asked Nowak.
“Hm-hmm, a little while.”
“Have you ever seen anybody do what I do?”
“I’ve seen people do some bad things.”
“But, I mean, just be like all fucked-up about it, you know?”
“Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it happens,” Nowak said. “This is a crazy world, man. Bad shit happens all the time.”
“Yeah, but you know what the fucked-up thing is? I mean, nothing really bad ever happened. I mean, yeah, my parents died, but people’s parents die every day and they don’t go around fucking choking girls out.”
“I’m going to have to be honest with you. We’re not psychologists here, we don’t know what happened,” Nowak said.
“Right.”
“Ah, we don’t know why you did it. I mean, you don’t know why you did it, so there’s no way I’m going to be able to tell you why,” Nowak said. “The problem is that you did it and what we need to do is find out [about it]. We obviously recognize that you have a problem, or you’ve admitted that you have a problem…. You’re actually helping now. You’re in the process of healing now by helping the families of those girls, okay? And helping these girls because they need a proper [burial], they shouldn’t just be going off into the wind, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“But what we want to know is, [are] there others? That’s what we’re trying to get at, okay? There’s other girls that you’ve attacked.”
Mailhot again admitted that he had attacked and choked other women, but reiterated that he never killed anyone else. He also said he never thought about killing Audrey before he actually started choking her. He told the detectives he didn’t remember every girl he choked, but he did remember Audrey, Christine and Stacie because they died.
“Did you ever think about it beforehand—before the first girl happened?” Nowak asked.
“No.”
“You never thought about it?”
“No. That first girl that I choked, she was the first one that I ever did that to.”
“Okay. We’re going to be talking for a while, obviously, okay? And there may be others that come in. But can you remember every girl that you choked out?”
“I don’t remember every one. I mean, I remember those three specifically because they died.”
“Okay, so, obviously, those are very important to us,” Nowak said.
“Okay.”
“We can’t stress this enough, you know. We can’t be any more honest—if there’s others, you’ve got to tell us,” Lee said.
“I swear there are no more, just these three,” Mailhot said. “I mean, like you said, you noticed [my reaction] right away when you put those pictures down.”
“Yeah,” Lee said.
“I couldn’t believe you had the three of them right there,” Mailhot said, referring to the photos of the three women Lee had placed on the table at the beginning of the interview.
“Oh no,” Lee said.
“And I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ It just brought back the fact that I really did that. But I’m not going to waste your time anymore by not … telling you [if] there was anybody else.”
“Okay,” Lee said.
“Those are the three. Those are the three,” Mailhot repeated.
At this point Nowak asked Mailhot if he wanted a soda. Mailhot said he didn’t drink soda, but he would like water or juice. So Nowak went out to get Mailhot some juice and Lee a cup of coffee.
“Would you be able to take us to those Dumpsters?” Lee asked.
“Yeah.”
“You were last there only what?”
“Like, within the last month.”
“With Stacie?”
“Yeah.”
Mailhot said he dumped some of the trash bags containing the body parts of all the women in a Dumpster on the left side of the Brunswick Walnut Hill Bowl bowling alley on Diamond Hill Road in Woonsocket, as well as other area Dumpsters. However, he didn’t know which parts of which women went in which Dumpsters.
“Let’s clarify with Stacie?”
“Hm-hmm.”
“What Dumpsters was she in?”
“Um, Brunswick.”
“Where is that located?”
“Brunswick bowling alley on Diamond Hill.”
“Yeah, but where’s the Dumpster?”
“It’s in the back of the place,” Mailhot said. “If you drive around into the parking lot and you’re facing the front of the building, it’s, like, around the side, on the left-hand side of the building.”
“And you recognize that same Dumpster? Has it always been in the same spot?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, for Stacie, what did you put in that Dumpster? Do you remember what body parts?”
“Actually, I don’t remember, ’cause it was just a b
unch of bags at that point and I just put them in there.”
“Which vehicle were you driving for Stacie?”
“The Blazer—my current vehicle.”
“The Blazer that’s right out in front of your house right now?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Registration on that? Do you remember?”
“It’s the same.”
“The plate number—do you know your plate number?”
“Um, OU-145.”
“Okay, and that’s the car you used for Stacie?”
“Ah, and for the second one.”
“Christine?”
“Yes.”
“Audrey?”
“Audrey was my GMC Jimmy that I traded in for my Blazer.”
“Okay. All right, so you don’t know which parts you put of Stacie where?”
“No.”
“How many parts do you think Stacie was in?”
“She was in, uh, six parts.”
“Six parts, and let’s go over the parts, which would be?”
“The head.”
“Head,” Lee repeated.
“Arms.”
“So we’re talking the arms counted as one or … ?”
“Ah, two, each arm, yeah, right arm, right leg, left leg and the torso,” Mailhot said.
“Are all the girls the same?”
“No, what’s the name, Christine? The second one, she was almost the same as her, except I cut her torso in half.”
“So she’s in how many parts?”
“She’s, um—seven.”
“Seven parts, which are head,” Lee said.
“Head, two arms, two legs, and torso in half.”
“Why her torso in half and not the other girls?” Lee asked.
“Um, the first one, Audrey, I did her torso in half too.”
“Okay, so seven parts for Audrey?”
“Actually, there was more parts for her, ’cause I cut her hands from her arms and her feet from her legs.”
“Okay,” said Lee, who was really having a hard time believing what they were talking about.
“So, like, eleven or twelve for Audrey,” Mailhot said.
“You just counted them up,” Lee said. “What is it?”
“Let me see—two feet, two hands, two arms, two legs, a head and a torso in half—so that’s eleven.”
“Okay, and why not her torso in half?” Lee asked, pointing to Stacie’s photo.
“I don’t know.”
“She was the last—you didn’t feel the need to make it any smaller? Obviously, the first one, Audrey, you cut up the most.”
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