Because You Loved Me

by M. William Phelps

  When one of the detectives came back into the room, Chris was asked, “When was the last time you saw Ms. Dominico?”

  He took a swallow from the cup of water in front of him.

  “Geez…it was at work. We work together at the same company.”

  “She say anything to you about meeting anyone tonight?” The detective wrote something down on a notepad he had in his hand.

  Chris ran one of his hands through his hair, took a long breath.

  “No. Not that I know of. We had plans to meet up at the house. I was staying there this week. She was supposed to pick up a pizza, go home…and meet up with the—”

  “How?” the detective interrupted.

  “—the kids. Where are the kids? I need to find the kids.” Chris became nervous, suddenly worried. “I need to tell them before they find out some other way.” It had been on his mind the past few hours: how was he going to explain to Drew and Nicole what had happened to their mother?

  “No, don’t worry about the kids. We’re working on locating them.”

  “I gotta tell them.” Then, speaking more to himself than the detective, “Where are they gonna go? What are they gonna do now?”

  Chris shook his head and began crying.

  The Criminal Investigation Division (CID) of the NPD consisted of thirteen members on the day they began investigating Jeanne Dominico’s death. It was one of five divisions within the NPD’s Detective Bureau. Comprised of one lieutenant, two sergeants and ten detectives, the CID’s primary function, according to official policy, is to “further the investigation into all felony level crimes committed by adult offenders that occur within the City of Nashua.”

  Among a city housing some ninety thousand residents, a larger population, incidentally, than a majority of the nation’s cities, the NPD’s headquarters at Zero Panther Drive, near downtown, a modernized redbrick building, is up to date with all the latest investigative techniques, procedures and practices. Capable of investigating “all levels of crime,” the NPD stands in a relatively small class of police departments statewide that can boast of such diligent street-level crime-fighting strategies and crime scene investigation tactics. Homicide, kidnapping, violent assaults, sexual assaults, burglaries, thefts and corruption of all types generally encompass most of what the NPD prides itself on. Quite interestingly, the NPD Uniform Field Operations Bureau is considered its “most prominent,” simply because it is “called into action” and acts, mainly, as an initial response team the moment a major crime is reported.

  “The officer at the scene will conduct a preliminary investigation into the incident,” says official procedure, “documenting the facts as he learns them,” before forwarding a report to the attention of the Detective Bureau. “On occasion, based upon the seriousness of the offense, detectives may be called to the scene of the crime immediately after members of the Uniform Bureau have arrived and assessed the situation.”

  The NPD homicide investigating team is a tight-knit group of cops, whose primary focus is to be ready and willing to conduct any type of investigation required in order to solve a crime as quickly as possible. The safety of the residents of Nashua is the NPD’s number one concern, obviously. This is one of the reasons why the response at Jeanne Dominico’s house once Chris McGowan called 911 on the night of August 6, 2003, was so thorough and quick: in theory, like many of the police departments throughout the state of New Hampshire, members of the NPD were waiting for the call, ready to take action the moment a violent crime had taken place.

  What detectives from the NPD’s CID unit knew as the night moved forward and the investigation progressed was that violence was not an intense enough word to explain what had happened inside Jeanne’s kitchen. In fact, Jeanne hadn’t fallen from her countertop and split her head open, as most everyone now knew, nor had she gotten into a scuffle with a burglar, as many may have believed early on. Detectives knew immediately upon entering Jeanne’s home that she had been beaten savagely with some sort of blunt, solid object, and stabbed repeatedly with, authorities knew, two different knives. Some early estimates, as crime scene investigators worked the scene—taking videotape and photographs, collecting fingerprints, shoe prints and other evidence, and reported back to detectives—was that Jeanne had been stabbed approximately forty, or maybe even fifty, times. She had wounds to her face, neck, head, throat, along with what looked to be defensive wounds on her hands. Moreover, investigators uncovered a broken knife handle inside Jeanne’s kitchen sink; its blade on the floor nearby.

  This was no random act—Jeanne’s murderer was angry. Detectives knew right away there was a personal connection.

  From those early moments, it appeared detectives had some key pieces of evidence to go on, yet no viable suspect. Then, at 9:13 P.M., while searching Jeanne’s backyard, one of the investigating officers found something.

  “Over here.”

  Detective Denis Linehan and his boss, Detective Sergeant Richard Sprankle, had been at the scene for a little over an hour. When they heard the officer call out, both walked over to see what he had found.

  CHAPTER 18

  The questions detectives posed to Jeanne Dominico’s exhausted fiancé, Chris McGowan, didn’t much bother him as he sat sipping stale water from a Styrofoam cup, wondering how the love of his life had died in such a tragic manner. Chris wanted to help any way he could. Still, Why all the questions, he thought as he sat and stared back at the detective, if Jeanne had died of an accident? What is going on here?

  “I knew then,” recalled Chris, “that Jeanne hadn’t fallen. I had my suspicions back at the house, but there was so much going on, I didn’t have time to think about it.”

  Throughout the night, the conversation—and Chris viewed it as nothing more than a relaxed interview—turned back to the kids. Where were Nicole and Drew? Detectives wanted to know if Chris could reach them. A cell phone number? A neighbor who might know where they were?

  “I don’t know…I have to find them, though.”

  “You have no idea where they are right now?”

  “No. Nicole called me earlier and left a message that she and ‘her friend’ were out doing their stuff. I think they went bowling, shopping. I just don’t know where.”

  Chris then explained that Nicole’s “friend” was a boy named Billy Sullivan she had been dating. They had been together all week. He told detectives he would gladly play back Nicole’s voice mail from earlier that night, if only he had his cell phone.

  “I left my phone on the kitchen table at Jeannie’s.”

  “OK. That’s fine. We can’t get your cell phone right now.”

  From memory, Chris recalled Billy’s number.

  “I’m not sure if it’s right, because I have it in my cell phone on speed dial.”

  “That’ll do.”

  Both detectives walked out of the room—and so it went like that throughout the next few hours: detectives walked in and asked a few questions, then left the room for a while, only to return again wanting to know more.

  “Did Jeanne have any enemies?” began the next set of questions. It didn’t come across as pushy, or desperate, Chris remembered, but it still seemed like an odd thing to ask. For the first time, without anyone telling him specifically, Chris said he knew Jeanne had been murdered.

  Why else would they be asking me such a thing?

  “No. Absolutely not! The last person on this earth to have an enemy would be Jeanne.” Yet, as quick as the words fell off his tongue, Chris thought of Jeanne’s ex-husband, Anthony. “That motherf…,” Chris said, “if he came back and…I will…if he did this to Jeanne.” Chris slammed his fist on the table.

  “OK, Mr. McGowan, we got it. What about Drew and Nicole?”

  “Nicole is a model student. Model daughter.”

  The mention of Drew in terms of the crime, however, made Chris uncomfortable. He couldn’t fathom for a minute that Drew had something to do with Jeanne’s death. But as he sat and thought about the times
Drew had openly displayed his temper in the house, a lightbulb went off.

  “He was a hothead,” recalled Chris, speaking of Drew’s temperament lately. “As I sat there and detectives asked me questions about him, I began to go over in my mind the things Drew had been doing and how at odds he was with his mother up until the day she was murdered. It’s sad to say, but I thought for a brief moment it could have been Drew. I really honestly did. I feel bad about that now, but that is what I thought then.”

  “Tell us about Drew,” asked one detective after Chris brought it up.

  “Well, I know the kid has a hot temper. It was either his way or no way. I’ve replaced a couple of doors in the house because Drew—‘Mr. Tough Guy’—put his fist through the door after getting pissed off at his mother.”

  As a single mother, Jeanne had her hands full with two teenagers. Raging hormones. Problems at school. Peer pressure. Neighborhood kids. There wasn’t a home in America inhabited by teenagers that hadn’t suffered from the same teenage angst at one time or another. Yet every argument, misunderstanding or bad word said about Jeanne was now going to be analyzed under a different light.

  After Chris answered a few more questions about Drew, detectives left the room. When they returned, one of them, wearing latex surgical gloves, asked Chris if he would agree to give a buccal swab DNA sample.

  “Not at all,” said Chris, opening his mouth. “Absolutely.”

  With a cotton swab, the detective scraped the inside of Chris’s cheeks.

  “Thanks,” the detective said, popping the cap back on the buccal swab, walking out of the room.

  CHAPTER 19

  Billy and Nicole arrived at the house somewhere near 10:15 P.M. The scene was still bustling with people, crime scene investigators and plainclothes detectives. Facts were becoming clearer as the investigation progressed, but investigators were still scratching their heads wondering how a woman of Jeanne’s stature could have ended up dead on her kitchen floor. The surreal ambience that hung in the air all evening, as community members stood stunned, wondering how such violence could take place in an otherwise unassuming neighborhood, seemed to grow as rumor and speculation fueled conversation.

  “The whole thing is unbelievable,” truck driver Douglas Milroy, shaking his head in disbelief, told a Nashua Telegraph reporter as he looked on. Milroy lived down the street from Jeanne near the corner of Dumaine and Deerwood. He had watched Nicole and Drew grow up. “It’s like a Sunday-night movie.”

  Parker Smith was standing in the street in front of Jeanne’s when he recognized Billy’s car “creeping” its way up the opposite end of Dumaine. Jeanne’s house was close to the corner of Dumaine Avenue and Amherst Street, Route 101A, the main drag running off Route 3. Police had Dumaine blocked from Amherst. Just east of Dumaine, about one city block, was the corner of Deerwood Drive and Amherst, where the 7-Eleven convenience store sat across the street. Standing in Jeanne’s backyard, you could see the 7-Eleven and the bank. Billy had obviously, Parker assumed, driven by the roadblock, turned right on Deerwood and connected with Dumaine on the back end.

  “He was driving slowly,” recalled Parker. “I saw him and Nicole coming up the road from the opposite side.”

  Nicole’s window was down. As Billy moved his car closer to the house, Parker said several police officers stood in front of the car with their hands up, motioning for Billy to stop.

  “Hold on…,” said one officer. “Stop!”

  Then, according to Parker, several officers rushed to each side of the vehicle as Nicole and Billy got out of the car.

  “What’s going on?” asked Nicole.

  (“Pardon the expression, but it was like deathly quiet at that moment,” remembered Parker. “At that point, I didn’t know what to think—if they were going to tell her right there or not.”)

  Most who knew Nicole and Jeanne were concerned for Nicole and wondered how she was going to react to what had occurred.

  Officers quickly surrounded the two lovers after they got out of Billy’s car.

  “Who are you?” asked an officer.

  “Nicole…why? What’s going on here?” She seemed surprised by the commotion. Concerned. Worried.

  Detective Denis Linehan, who had partially questioned Chris McGowan, had left Chris with Detective Mark Schaaf at the NPD and returned to the scene shortly before Billy and Nicole arrived. While Linehan was talking to Assistant Deputy Medical Examiner (ME) Wayne DiGeronimo, he noticed Billy and Nicole, though not by name or sight, talking to uniformed officers by Billy’s car.

  “Give me one minute,” Linehan said to DiGeronimo. From where he stood, Linehan noticed the license plate on Billy’s car.

  Connecticut?

  Then he recalled how Chris had told him that Nicole’s boyfriend was from Connecticut.

  As Linehan walked over, Billy spoke to an officer on the opposite side of the car and explained that he lived out of state.

  “I’m her boyfriend.”

  “What’s going on?” Linehan asked as he approached.

  “That’s my girlfriend,” Billy stated.

  Billy was pacing, Linehan said later, “back and forth between his vehicle and [a cruiser nearby].” He was so squirrelly that Linehan, at one point, said, “Try to relax, man, best you can.”

  “I take medication for high anxiety,” Billy offered. “Sorry, but I can’t stand still.”

  “You’re going to have to come down to the police station and give us a statement,” one of the officers told Billy.

  Billy said he’d have no trouble doing that.

  About ten feet away, another cop explained the same thing to Nicole.

  From there, Nicole and Billy were separated and moved to the “edge of the crime scene.”

  Detective Sergeant Richard Sprankle then conferred with one of the officers and explained what to do next. “Separate them and transport them in different vehicles.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It was important to get separate stories.

  After Billy and Nicole gave each other a quick peck on the lips, they were separated and watched. It was standard NPD practice to transport witnesses to the station house in police vehicles. It didn’t mean you were being viewed or targeted as a suspect, said one law enforcement official, but NPD’s policy dictated that witnesses shouldn’t be allowed the opportunity to change their mind and drive away while en route to the NPD. Still, if a witness is adamant about driving to the station house alone, there is no law preventing the NPD from allowing it.

  “I need to lock up my car and turn off the lights,” Billy said to the officer escorting him around the scene.

  “Sure.”

  When they returned, the officer stood with Billy by the cruiser and chatted a bit.

  “His mood would change,” the officer noted later, “from being jovial to being agitated. He was extremely talkative and constantly pacing back and forth.”

  “I’m going to be sick,” Billy said. He walked toward the back of the car and, dry-heaving, began hacking.

  Noticing what was going on, Detective Linehan, going back and forth between the crime scene and where Billy and Nicole stood, walked over and spoke with the officer. When Billy saw them talking privately, he became excited again and asked, “What’s going on? What’s happening?”

  “Relax,” said Linehan. “Come on. Relax as best you can.”

  “Sorry,” said Billy, “It’s my anxiety—” He said he needed to take his meds.

  “Let’s get you out of here then. Would you mind coming downtown and giving us a statement?”

  “Can’t I go with Nicole?”

  “Sorry, Mr. Sullivan, we can’t do that.”

  “OK, then.”

  “Do you need your medication?”

  “I take it at night.”

  “OK.”

  Later, Billy said it was at that moment when he began to break down. He thought, I’m screwed. Something’s wrong—otherwise they would let me get in the car with Nicole. />
  This move by Linehan to get Billy and Nicole downtown, later scrutinized, was not unusual. Many people in the neighborhood were being brought in to give statements. Husbands and wives were not allowed to ride together. Standard procedure. There was a brutal murder scene inside a home on Dumaine Avenue. Heck, Jeanne Dominico’s body was still on the floor of her kitchen (where it would stay for about the next twenty-four hours). What people said and the differences in their stories were vital parts of the investigation. Good investigators knew the slightest discrepancy in statements, although not pointing specifically to guilt, could ultimately solve a case.

  Linehan got into the backseat of the cruiser with Billy. Another officer drove. It was about 10:30 P.M.

  “We’re heading out,” Linehan told Sprankle.

  As they drove, Linehan asked Billy, “So how long have you and Nicole been together?”

  Billy seemed uncomfortable, antsy. “Fifteen months.”

  “How’d you guys meet?”

  Casual conversation. Linehan wasn’t fishing; he just wanted basic facts. Billy was under no obligation to answer.

  “A mutual friend,” said Billy. It was a lie; they had met in a chat room on the Internet.

  For the next few minutes, they discussed where Billy was from and the town of Willimantic itself. Billy seemed quite captivated by the town’s recent popularity.

  “The town was featured on a TV program; you know that?” asked Billy.

  “Actually,” Linehan said, “I saw it.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Bad publicity for the town, though, huh?”

  The program had depicted the town of Willimantic as a haven for drug use, especially heroin.

  Billy said, “Me and some of my classmates have tried to boost the town’s reputation.”