“Give me some medication,” he told the doctor upon a visit, “and it’ll go away…right?”
After two weeks of taking medication, the symptoms seemed the same, and some worsened. So the doctor put him through a salvo of scans, MRIs and a battery of other tests.
Weeks went by and Chris didn’t hear anything from his doctor, so he called.
“What’s going on with me?” he wondered.
The shaking in his hands had gotten worse. His vision was cloudier.
“Well, it’s what we thought it was. The MRI came back positive. You have lesions in the brain consistent with MS.”
“MS?” asked Chris. “Yeah. OK. What are you talking about?”
Chris had no idea what MS was, other than an image of the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon he watched every year. Confusing MS with muscular dystrophy (MD), Chris saw visions of himself in a wheelchair, an astronaut-like breathing apparatus tied to his back, slurring his speech and drooling.
“It was ignorant of me to think that way,” recalled Chris. “But it’s the only picture I had. Come to find out, a very small minority of MS patients end up in wheel-chairs or in bed. It’s just not like that.”
According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, “MS is thought to be an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system (CNS),” meaning the brain, spinal cord, optic nerves. “Surrounding and protecting the nerve fibers of the CNS is a fatty tissue called myelin, which helps nerve fibers conduct electrical impulses.” Those afflicted with the disease, however, can suffer a wide variety of symptoms. For some, like Chris, “abnormal fatigue” might coincide with “severe vision problems” and a “loss of balance and muscle coordination, making walking difficult.” In others, “slurred speech, tremors, stiffness and bladder problems” are the norm. Some of the symptoms can “come and go over the course of the disease,” while others may last indefinitely.
One symptom Chris could relate to was bladder control.
“When I have to go, I have to go at that moment.” In fact, he had tried to make that clear to the officer escorting him around the crime scene.
Beyond that, Chris considered himself lucky. He suffered mild symptoms for the first eight years after being diagnosed, knowing at any time his life could change, and for the first seven years he was able to live and work without taking any medication. It wasn’t until 1997 when he had to start injecting himself once a week to divert any major symptoms.
“You know, I don’t go around telling people I have MS,” said Chris. “But Jeannie knew. I told her one night when we were going through the ritual of dating and getting to know each other.”
“So what,” responded Jeanne to Chris’s admission. “I’ll help you any way I can.”
And with Jeanne, when she offered what was a common gesture of goodwill, it wasn’t out of courtesy or simply trying to be nice. She meant it.
Weeks later, Chris knew exactly the type of person Jeanne was when she showed up at work one morning and seemed to know more about MS than he did.
“I was reading something online last night,” Jeanne said, “and learned so much about what you have. I can help you.”
Chris was pleasantly stunned. Here Jeanne was taking on a man with what could be a potentially incapacitating disease, yet diving headfirst into his life, learning all she could about it so as to better help him manage the daily ups and downs of the disease.
“She started asking me all sorts of questions about it, and really took a caring approach to how I was feeling. She wanted to know everything there was to know.”
It wasn’t that Chris was looking for someone to take care of him. But Jeanne, in all of her kindness, didn’t judge him or make the disease a part of their relationship.
“She didn’t look at me differently after she found out, or treat me differently. I appreciated that. It deepened my love for her.”
Sitting in his apartment during the afternoon of August 7, Chris felt the same way he had on the day he was given his MS diagnosis: helpless and immobile. He was paralyzed by the thought that he wouldn’t be driving to Jeanne’s that night, walking in the door, sneaking up behind her, grabbing her around the waist, kissing her on the cheek.
She had vanished from his life.
As he stared out the window, watching the birds peck at the lawn, Chris wondered what he had left.
“It was like, OK, now what the heck do I do? Where do I go from here? I was lost without Jeanne—and still am.”
CHAPTER 31
Like all of Jeanne’s close friends, Allegra Childs was devastated by the news of her friend’s death. Jeanne was not only Allegra’s mentor, but she—along with Nicole—had helped Allegra repair a fractured relationship with her oldest daughter. To think that Nicole was involved was implausible for Allegra to explore emotionally. It couldn’t be real.
“No way. Something’s missing. This isn’t right.”
Sitting next to Jeanne at work, Allegra knew the school had called Jeanne about Drew numerous times. According to Allegra, the older the boy got, it seemed, the more trouble he found himself in. Nothing major. Just typical teenage boy stuff.
“But he was the one that I worried more about of the two kids having any type of anger issues or problems,” remarked Allegra. “The crowd he was starting to hang around with was rough.”
Other than Nicole having one friend, which Allegra later thought to be strange for a girl Nicole’s age, there was nothing that led Allegra to believe Nicole was in the least bit temperamental or violent. There had to be more to what happened than what was being reported.
The fact that Allegra and Jeanne had both divorced men they saw as having “caused a lot of hardships” in their lives fused a bond between the two women. As they sat and talked about their past lives, the fathers of their children and how rough they had it, the comfort of knowing what each other went through was enough to help them get through life more easily.
“I understand,” Allegra answered one day when Jeanne spoke of what she had been through in her marriage. “Oh my goodness, Jeannie, the same thing happened to me.”
So soured by that first marriage, Jeanne refrained from dating after she divorced Anthony. Chris was, essentially, the first guy Jeanne had dated seriously since her divorce.
Anytime Allegra had an issue with one of her kids, or something unceremonious going on in her personal life, she’d go to Jeanne for guidance, advice. Now her sounding board and friend were gone. What was she going to do? What about Nicole? How had Nicole allowed a boy to influence her life to a point where she felt murdering her mother was all she had left?
These were questions, many thought, without answers. But when the truth finally emerged, it was more than anyone could have imagined. If people thought they knew Nicole, even those closest to her, they were terribly wrong.
PART II
BILLY AND NICOLE
CHAPTER 32
As a teenager working her way through Nashua High School South, Nicole Kasinskas was never part of a clique, or particular group of kids. She was her own person, a trait Jeanne admired in her daughter. With olive skin and long black hair, opaque and shiny, it was easy to accept Nicole had been blessed with her mother’s Italian distinctiveness. She was “big-boned,” but not overweight. Had a nice figure, proper curves, and was developing, at an early age, into a respectable, enchanting young woman. By the time she turned thirteen, shortly before she met Billy, Nicole secretly entertained the desire to date several different boys in school, yet never dredged up the courage or self-confidence to initiate a conversation, much less a romance of any kind.
Some who knew Nicole claimed she had “lesbian” tendencies and, at one time, had preferred girls to boys. But in the dozens of letters Billy and Nicole exchanged, along with scores of diary entries Nicole authored, she at no time mentioned a preference for the same sex. Instead, like a supposed penchant she had for ghosts and the “dark side,” a rumored lesbian life was one more piece of conjecture that
had little foundation in fact. If Nicole had partaken in homosexuality as a lifestyle, it was experimental at most and hidden well.
Because she was so shy, sitting at a computer and meeting people was easy for Nicole, same as it is for millions of other kids. She enjoyed the baseless, enigmatic nature of hiding behind electronic words. Thus, on May 10, 2002, while surfing several different Internet chat rooms that teens from all over the world frequented, Billy sent Nicole a random, seemingly childlike, instant message (IM), introducing himself.
“Can you help me get out some information on an ex-girlfriend?”
Nicole waited briefly, then tapped out her pithy answer.
“Sure.”
Over the next few days, they chatted for hours at a time. Nicole explained later how their conversations online shifted quickly from Billy’s ex-girlfriend, whose reputation he was determined to destroy, to the two of them. Within a day, Nicole sent Billy her telephone number.
From then on, they talked for hours every day over the telephone. On May 14, after a long conversation, just four days since they had met, Billy said, “I love you, Nicole.”
She was stunned. Sucker punched. And didn’t know how to respond. She thought no boy would say those words, better yet mean it. For some reason, she felt Billy’s emotion was genuine.
Still, “I have to go,” Nicole said. She freaked out. It made her nervous. She felt exposed.
Before hanging up, they promised to call each other the follow morning before school. Billy knew something was wrong. In a letter he wrote a day later, Billy claimed he was disappointed after getting off the telephone with Nicole, adding, “Sorry if I scared/annoyed you etc. when I told you I love you.” He articulated how pleasant it was for him to have “finally met someone who is as nice as you are.” He was playing right into Nicole’s hand, perhaps without knowing it. It didn’t matter how far apart they lived, Billy continued. Once he got his license, “which will be by the end of the year,” he said, they could see each other as often as they wanted.
Nicole was elated. Everything she had wished for and hoped to one day experience now seemed possible. Her dream boy had fallen into her lap via cyberspace. She couldn’t hide her enthusiasm.
Once again, farther along in the same letter, Billy talked about his “ex-girlfriend,” who was still, he claimed, causing trouble for him. But he was in the midst of developing the “perfect…childish plan,” he said, “(like the evil genius I’m called so much),” to get back at her. He encouraged Nicole, because she was now considered one of his close “friends,” to be a part of his diabolical plot to destroy the girl’s reputation.
Reading it, Nicole nodded her head yes. She was in. They were partners.
During those first conversations, Nicole had talked about her weight, making Billy fully aware of the fact that she viewed herself as fat. He told her not to “worry about” it. “You know something,” he wrote, “the girl I lost ‘it’ to last summer was 5'4" and 160 lbs.” He thought overweight girls were “cute.” Not “a big deal.”
The next night, for the second time, Billy told Nicole he loved her.
To his surprise, she reciprocated.
“I love you, too, Billy Sullivan.”
Like a lot of kids her own age, Nicole wasn’t thrilled about doing laundry, washing dishes or cleaning the house, and more or less avoided domestic chores at all costs. This laziness, if you will, bothered Chris McGowan as he became a more constant fixture in Jeanne’s life.
“Jeannie would come home from job number three totally exhausted,” recalled Chris, “and have to do all those things—laundry, dishes, cleaning up after the kids, cooking.”
There were days when Nicole changed her clothes two or three times, which made it more difficult for Jeanne to keep up with the laundry load. But Jeanne never complained. She did all of the household chores herself under the belief that it was her job as the kids’ mother.
“If I don’t do it,” she told Chris one day, “who will?”
“They need to help you more,” Chris shot back. “That’s all I’m saying.”
One night, Jeanne and Chris talked about the role the kids needed to play in helping Jeanne out around the house. Of course, as they spoke, Jeanne was doing what she had done every weeknight: juggling three different chores at the same time, while getting on the kids about homework and cleaning their rooms. In between, she’d stop and chat with Chris as he followed her around the house.
“They can do these things,” Chris said. “My goodness, you work three different jobs…least they can do is help.”
“I know, Chris. I know.”
“Tell them to help you, Jeannie!”
“Chris…just let me handle it.”
As Chris continued making Jeanne aware of his feelings over the course of their relationship, she slowly took his lead and stepped up her efforts to get on the kids to help out. It took time, but Nicole popped in a load of laundry every once in a while and Drew cut the lawn and raked the leaves. They weren’t consistent or even ambitious, but they made an effort, said Chris.
“And that’s all Jeanne wanted.”
Still, it was a continuous struggle for Jeanne. She would stomp her feet and tell the kids to do something, and they would. But, according to Chris, it never lasted.
As Drew grew older, he stepped into the risky world of hanging with the neighborhood hoodlums and spent as much free time as he could away from home. Nicole’s journal entries clearly outlined her concern (and disgust) for her brother. She worried about him, but realized there was little she could do to stop him—especially while having to deal with severe bouts of depression herself that came on like a flu and lasted days and weeks, even months.
During early spring 2002, Nicole had her mind on things besides keeping Mom happy and helping around the house. A loner in many respects, Nicole used her journal as a means to vent her feelings of frustration over having to live under someone she perceived as controlling. The pen and page became Nicole’s friend, ally and emotional outlet. She started to unravel feelings she thought she couldn’t discuss with anyone else. She loved Jeanne and even thought of Chris as the father figure. But her writings proved it was life in general that brought Nicole the most anguish.
“I need to get…out of this house,” she wrote. There were “dreams” she needed to fulfill, and she hardly viewed Nashua as a place that could help execute those dreams. In the form of a poem, she let her thoughts wander one afternoon.
“You do unto me as I do unto you,” she scribbled in the body of the poem. She wanted to be “set free.” Farther down, near the end of the piece, it was clear Nicole felt few people in her life truly understood her feelings, or cared much about what she was going through. “Yet my dreams are inexistent [sic]” to all those around “[me] at this time.”
Even meeting Billy did little to curb Nicole’s wish to move on with her life and away from Jeanne, Drew and Chris. Her diary entries and poems became darker in tone as the days of spring passed and Billy became part of her daily life. In a distressing moment, she blamed her biological father for abandoning “us.” That rejection, it was clear, had an effect on the love she was beginning to feel for Billy. Even so, as much as Nicole held others responsible for what she viewed as a miserable life, she also blamed herself.
“I don’t deserve to be here.”
She felt she was “bringing others down” with her depression and negative attitude. And being alive “serve[s] no purpose.” She often wondered if there was a reason why she had been born at all. If so, she couldn’t find it—at least not then.
But then Billy stumbled into her life.
“Normally,” he wrote to Nicole shortly after they met, “it takes me a long time to love someone….”
It was Nicole’s laugh, he said. Just the sound of her voice on the telephone. Her garrulous personality, the “way you act toward me…” He loved it all. Savored every moment he’d had with her. She was easy to love, he insisted. He couldn’t underst
and why she hadn’t found love already.
Talking about the early affection Billy showered on her, Nicole understood that she was falling in love with an image of romance. It was like a fantasy that had come true.
“I was fascinated with the idea that someone would love me…,” she later said in court. “Within only a week…we both felt we were so in love.”
Billy walked into her life at a time when Nicole thought she needed someone most. It was “meant to be,” she wrote more than once, responding to how she felt about their early relationship. “God” had brought them together because, she felt, “He” knew they needed each other.
The relationship served two purposes: For Billy, he believed a void left by the turbulent childhood he had and the fact that his father was never part of his life was being filled not only by Nicole, but the other females he was dating at the same time. For Nicole, life at home had become so emotionally vacant and unfulfilling that Billy’s presence was a blessing at just the right time. It was as if just when she was about to give up, a lifeline appeared—this seemingly perfect person stepping in to save her.
Salvation.
Billy didn’t expect Nicole to love him back, he wrote the day after he told her on the telephone he loved her, but he said he just wanted her to understand how he felt. It was important to him. There was no sense in hiding his feelings, he said. He thought she was “wonderful” in every way and he couldn’t hold back. It didn’t matter to him what she said, or if she wanted to ditch him. He wasn’t about to let her go without telling her exactly how he felt.
“You’re [sic] personality is the best out of any [girlfriends] I’ve ever had.”
Nicole made such a difference in Billy’s daily life, he claimed, it was as if they had known each other all their lives.
“I’d love to be with you forever…,” he wrote.
Because You Loved Me Page 13