Because You Loved Me

by M. William Phelps

  “Although I’m innocent,” he made a point to say, “I’m not taking any chances.” Living in New Hampshire, he was sure, invited problems. He wasn’t going to do it. No way. He hoped Tina understood.

  Tina promised to work it all out. There were more pressing issues to worry about at the present time. Like, for example, Billy’s mother, Pat. Tina wanted to know what she thought of their relationship. Tina was concerned. Did Pat know about her yet? Did Pat like her? Had Billy sent a letter and explained to Pat how serious they were about each other? Tina wanted Pat’s support. It was important to her that she have it.

  Billy brought up the subject of his mother quite often. Because of the relationship Billy had with Nicole (or, rather, the relationship Billy had told Tina he had with Nicole), Tina feared Billy’s family was going to reject her. She worried, based on Billy’s version of Nicole, that Pat and his siblings would snub their noses at her. It was important to Tina that Pat accept her unconditionally.

  Billy said he was certain she would. How could she not?

  “You’re perfect.”

  Billy thanked Tina for, as he put it, “staying clean and sober,” and promised he was “staying out of trouble,” too. When Tina kept bringing up Pat, Billy suggested she continue to lead a clean life and there was no reason his family wasn’t going to like her. Then he dropped the subject entirely.

  During the middle of August, Tina brought up serious questions about “N.K.,” as Billy occasionally referred to Nicole in his letters. She wanted to know Billy’s true feelings for her. After all, according to Billy, Nicole had set him up; she was the single reason why he was behind bars facing life in prison. A man should have strong opinions about the person responsible for taking away his freedom. Tina said she needed to know how Billy felt.

  “I wanted to know how was he dealing with that,” recalled Tina. “He rarely brought it up.”

  Billy’s lack of interest in the topic made Tina curious. Billy had expressed such strong opinions and emotion over so many different topics—yet, for someone who had stolen his life, he had little to say.

  For every serious question Tina posed about Nicole, or anything else, Billy shot an answer right back at her. During one telephone call, Tina asked, “What about the fingerprints they found, Billy? I read about it last night online.”

  “My fingerprints were on the bat because I had helped clean Nicole’s brother’s room that day.”

  For Tina, it wasn’t hard to buy.

  But, “Your DNA was found in the house—at least that’s what the papers say.”

  “I know, I know,” said Billy casually. “You wouldn’t believe this, but I stabbed myself in the thumb one day—really bad—while I was opening a coconut. Just like my fingerprints on the knives. Shit, Tina, I cooked meals in that house. Of course, my prints are on the knives.”

  Tina thought about it. It seemed possible, even plausible. Why should she be concerned?

  With that, Tina decided she could hate Nicole, too, for what “that bitch,” she soon wrote back to Billy, had done to him. Still, beyond Billy’s misgivings, Tina wanted to know what Pat thought of Nicole before all of Billy’s troubles with her started.

  “What I was facing, you know,” Tina remembered. “I just wanted to know him better.”

  Just recently, Billy explained, he’d had a conversation on the telephone with his mother about Nicole. He told Tina the story in hopes of explaining, by example, what Pat thought of her.

  “Do you have any pictures of Nicole you can send me?” Billy said he asked his mother that night. He wanted to send them to Tina. He didn’t have any because, he said, “the cops took mine.”

  “I had one,” Billy later said his mother responded, “but then I stepped on it and…picked up dog shit with it.”

  Billy told Tina that if he found any photographs of Nicole when he returned home after getting out of jail, he would “burn them.”

  In the same letter, it was as if the mention of Nicole brought out an unusual, depraved side of Billy. After talking about getting rid of all the photographs he had of Nicole, Billy turned his attention toward Tina and began fantasizing about what he was going to do to her when he was released. In the most vile language one can imagine, written in a juvenile manner, Billy spoke of having filthy, violent sex with Tina, doing things to her she had perhaps no idea existed. For a page, Billy carried on and on. Then, quite abruptly, changed his demeanor completely, ending with, “Well, baby, I’m gonna go for now,” as if he had just described a walk on the beach he was planning for the two of them. The varying of subject matter showed how unstable Billy was and how his mind wandered.

  Tina, though, fell for it.

  That first X-rated letter was the beginning of dozens of pages of writings from Billy over the next several days, which became more explicit with each sentence he wrote. Tina wasn’t fanning the flames by promising Billy anything, other than “I can’t wait to see you…and make love to you, too.” But it seemed once Billy got started exploring his sexual fantasies, he couldn’t stop—as if it became an addiction.

  For Tina, it didn’t faze her. In fact, she felt closer to Billy than she had ever been and soon began answering his letters with fantasies of her own. Still, the true theme of Tina’s letters, that is after she fulfilled Billy’s desire to verbalize her own sexual desires, was grounded in a fairy-tale love. Tina spoke of their future together: having kids, setting up a house and Billy waiting for her to finish high school. In his responses, Billy went along with whatever Tina said, juxtaposing his degrading sexual fantasies against the backdrop of transparent promises for the perfect suburban life after he beat the charges against him. Two minds were at work: one feeding into Tina’s romanticized version of the future; the other speaking of triple-X dreams and the twisted needs of a sexually frustrated inmate who had been locked up now for over a year.

  The way Billy worked was consistent with that of a sexual predator. Instead of just coming out with it, saying, “This is what I want to do to you,” Billy phrased his sexual desires in the form of a dream.

  “I had this weird dream last night…,” he’d begin a section of a letter. Something like, “It’s going to be strange, but let me tell you what happened.” Billy felt safe in that dream state. He could explore a side of himself and let his mind ramble.

  Billy waited to see how Tina responded to the letters before going forward with another. When Tina encouraged him, even in the slightest way, he took it a step further. One “weird, weird dream” he claimed he’d had consisted of a unique request from a girl. In the dream, the girl asked Billy to masturbate and climax into a plastic bag so he could send it to her from prison.

  “How’d that get into my head?” Billy wondered after describing it.

  Tina asked Billy for his idea of the “perfect wedding.” She dreamed of a knight. She ached for that perfect young man. She thought she had him in her grasp. She described in one letter something that had happened to her when she was thirteen. It was the worst experience of her life. She was sharing it with Billy because she loved him “that much” and wanted him to know all of her secrets.

  Billy felt bad about what had happened. However, no sooner had he expressed compassion, then he was back describing his sexual fantasies.

  For Tina, reading about Billy’s fantasies was “fine.” She could allow Billy an outlet to express himself. But what about love? How would “you love me” when “you’re released”? she asked.

  Of course, Billy continued with the same language he had spewed on Nicole for fifteen months: “I owe you my heart & soul” “I love you” it feels “good” to be “so open and honest” with each other.

  By August 12, Tina and Billy were counting the days until their first face-to-face visit. Tina was in over her head and didn’t know it. Billy had a plan. He had worked his manipulation over the past two weeks and had Tina exactly where he wanted. It was obvious in the way Tina spoke to him. She wrote to Billy on August 13 that she didn’t “th
ink she could live without him.” She had been watching Court TV the previous night and just the images of court and jail had made her cry. Billy was now the “love of my life.” It was as if Nicole had written the letters herself. They were similar in tone, substance and actual wording.

  As Tina fell deeper, a jealous interest in Nicole turned into a bloodthirsty disgust. Billy had managed to convince Tina—using subtlety and charm—that Nicole was their arch nemesis. And what must have made Billy smile when he read it, Tina wrote one day about some of her goals in life and the things she wished she could change in the world. At the top of the list, she wrote, “A child would not need a parental guardian to make decisions for them and would have the option to do whatever they wanted….”

  Sound familiar?

  Then came perhaps the most important sentence of the letter.

  “If I had control over N.H. at all, I would get you out of jail and make inaccurate media illegal.”

  Billy had been blaming his confinement, in some ways, on the media coverage surrounding his case.

  He had chipped away at the truth surrounding his incarceration. It worked. He had manipulated Tina into thinking the entire state of New Hampshire—the newspapers, television stations, lawyers, Nicole, everybody—was out to get him. He was being framed. It was all a setup.

  Billy must have jumped for joy when he read the last part of Tina’s plan.

  “I also probably would put Nicole to death (but I didn’t say that)…,” Tina wrote.

  Then and there, standing or sitting in his cell reading the letter, Billy had to know he could soon ask Tina for her help. He hadn’t talked about it yet or brought it up because the situation hadn’t felt right. But it was looking more and more like everything was falling into place. Tina could be trusted.

  Near the end of the letter, “I’ll do whatever you ask,” she promised before signing off, “Tina Sullivan.”

  Looking forward to meeting her new love, Tina called Billy’s aunt in Rhode Island on or about August 14 and made arrangements. Billy couldn’t get through to his own house back in Connecticut and was worried his mother was going to show up during the same visit, so he asked Tina to call his aunt and explain the situation.

  “Everything’s taken care of,” Tina told Billy over the telephone a night before the visit. “I’ll see you soon.”

  CHAPTER 61

  Billy’s aunt picked Tina up at a local Manchester pharmacy on August 16 and they drove to the jail. Perhaps she was a little naive, or expecting too much, but the visit didn’t live up to Tina’s expectations. There she sat across from Billy, two-inch-thick Plexiglas separating them, talking on a prison telephone. It was loud. Dirty. The place smelled of a men’s locker room. All those fantasies she had about riding off into the sunset with Billy and having three kids, a big house, nice jobs and a picture-perfect life, at least for the time being, were washed away by the reality of prison. Did she want to be another woman sitting in the visitor’s room every Saturday morning, wondering about her man, having to drive up to a prison to see the father of her children? Failed promises. Lies. Was this the life they had talked about for the past three weeks? As Tina sat and stared at Billy, she could only think, What if he never gets out of here? I’m going to wait thirty years for my life to begin?

  Finally a light went off.

  Billy’s aunt took a walk while Tina and Billy talked. Billy put his hand up on the Plexiglas and Tina put hers against it.

  “You’re beautiful,” said Billy. “I had no idea.” He was in awe, really. The photographs Tina had sent were nothing compared to what she looked like person.

  Holy shit…

  Tina was speechless. There really wasn’t much to talk about. It was easier—perhaps safer—to sit on her bed back home and write to a man she envisioned. Now he was real. Billy looked like every other inmate walking around.

  “If anybody looks at you,” he said, “I’ll get them later.”

  “Oh, Billy.”

  “Did you do what I said?”

  “Yup.”

  “It worked. I told you it would.”

  Billy had told Tina to make up a fake name to get in to see him. Act like she was his sister.

  Tina had mixed feelings when she left the jail. She didn’t know what to think anymore. She still loved Billy, but something didn’t feel right. Something was different.

  Sensing, perhaps, that he was losing her, in his next set of letters after the visit, Billy put his insecurities front and center. He asked Tina how she was feeling and apologized for acting strange during the visit.

  “I would change everything to be with you,” Tina wrote back. “Everything!”

  She talked about a dream she had where they were married and she had Billy’s son.

  “I was so nervous seeing you the other day. I was so afraid you’d think I was ugly…maybe you’d hate my nose ring or hair.”

  Billy wondered if she was crazy. Tina was perfect. She was everything—and more.

  After the visit, Tina caved into Billy’s sexual energy and started describing some of her own fantasies in more detail. Although quite graphic themselves, it seemed Tina was more concerned about satisfying Billy’s desires and keeping him happy rather than exploring the depth of her own sexuality. It was all about Billy. He dictated the subject of the letters: whatever he wanted to talk about, Tina followed.

  With Tina now tapping into her own sexual fantasies, it fueled Billy’s cravings. He soon spoke of their next visit and encouraged Tina to “wear a dress where it’s easy access….” He asked her to “play w/yourself quietly and sneakily….” No shirt or bra, either, he suggested, but “only a zipper jacket to cover your chest….”

  Next Billy devised a plan—although not too original—to get Tina’s mother to accept him. Tina hadn’t yet told her parents she was dating a con. Billy suggested that he write Tina’s mother a letter.

  “Huh,” thought Tina. “Might just work.”

  Billy had a way of dropping ideas into his letters by spinning them as jokes. For example, “Tell Scott and Steve [two friends of Tina’s] to threaten my jury—LOL,” Billy wrote on August 18. He and Tina had been discussing his case and the chances of him being released. “Looks good,” Billy told her that night on the telephone.

  Tina was confused. In a letter, she wondered, “What did you mean by telling Scott and Steve to threaten your jury?” Then, as if the comment didn’t bother her, she continued laying out their plans for after his release. “If you want, I will get married to you August 1, 2006, become pregnant November 1, 2006, and have our first child on August 1, 2007….”

  Billy kept the focus on Tina’s mother. He replied by saying that if they were married, her mother “would then have to allow us to be together….”

  Tina’s ambivalence and anxiety after their first visit vanished as quickly as it came on. Billy sensed he had back that hold on her—maybe stronger than ever.

  In his next letter, Billy mentioned an article in the newspaper regarding AG Michael Delaney stepping down from his position to take another job.

  “Delaney rarely loses,” Billy said. He viewed it as a victory, calling it “great.”

  He said on the day he read the article, he was “jumping up & down.” It was, he believed, “…a sign from God.”

  “You are everything in my life right now,” Tina wrote back.

  Tina’s mother began to put the brakes on the relationship. She picked up the telephone while Tina was talking to Billy one night. Later, she asked Tina, “Who was that? Who are you going out with now?”

  “I do not want you to call on this phone line anymore,” Tina told Billy. “God, I hate this! But we will get through it.”

  Emancipation became a recurring theme in Tina’s letters. Under Billy’s direction, she promised to look into it and do everything she could to find a way to break loose legally from her parents.

  “I’d do anything for you—anything!” Tina pledged.

  She called Billy’
s aunt and cried to her over the situation she faced at home. Billy heard about the call.

  “I mentioned…the option of running away together,” he wrote, “this is a real possibility…. My aunt will help.”

  Billy made a point to say that running away was plan B—that if Tina’s parents continued to forbid the relationship, well, they could take off together.

  “[But if] they accept it, this is unnecessary.”

  In his next set of letters, Billy never answered Tina’s query regarding what he meant by her two friends threatening his jury; however, on August 25, Billy expressed a “need to know what you are willing to do if worst comes to worst to be with me?” He said he had some “pretty wild ideas,” but wanted to know Tina’s “limits” before going forward and detailing his plans.

  By now, Billy was sleeping with Tina’s photographs. Cuddling with them at night because, he said, he felt so alone. The telephone numbers of his mother and aunt were blocked for some reason and he couldn’t talk to anyone.

  “You’re it, baby.”

  Tina wrote back and expressed her concern over some of the things Billy had written.

  He said he was sorry for causing such stress. But he was “losing it.” The walls were closing in around him. He desperately needed to “do something” soon. And although she didn’t know it yet, Tina was going to play a role.

  CHAPTER 62

  As September fell on southern New Hampshire, Billy focused on the idea that Tina’s parents were stuck on busting up their relationship. He worried nightly about losing his new love. He spoke of not knowing if he could live without her. There was no way, Billy suggested, he was going to allow it to happen to him again.

  “They can try to separate us,” he wrote, meaning Tina’s parents, “but will never succeed. I promise!”