Because You Loved Me
Page 27
Round one to the prosecution.
As for Billy’s videotaped confession, the judge said he was going to make that decision at a later date.
CHAPTER 69
June 13, 2005, was a balmy Monday morning. Billy arrived downtown wearing a blue dress shirt, gray slacks, black shoes. Although he had always been skinny and frail, the enormous weight of his life hanging over his head had obviously beat him down. His face appeared pockmarked with acne, gaunt, skeletal. His dark eyes were droopy, distressed. Billy had rarely changed his hairstyle and this day was no different: there he sat at the front table, his lawyers flanked on each side, donning a buzz cut, perfectly rounded helmet of brown hair that he’d had most of his life.
Jury selection was still going on as Monday fell into Tuesday. Judge Hicks ruled videotaped evidence was not going to be part of the trial.
Round two to the defense.
Keeping score, it was 1–1.
For Billy, the tragedy that his life had become was evident in the way he walked and spoke—and the notion that he could spend the rest of his life in a state prison. Billy surely acted rough around the edges, as well as harshly casual, and presented himself as if the first day of his trial was just any other day. But the telltale expressions on his face spoke of the uncertainty he undoubtedly felt. The simple reality was, regardless of whether the state proved Billy was competent to stand trial, the kid had a rough childhood. He had taken another human being’s life. He was being accused of committing what seemed to be a violent, incomprehensible murder that had shattered many lives. Could anyone look at him and feel compassion or empathy for the way his life had turned out? It seemed as if he was a marked man already, before he had a chance to explain himself. Would it matter that Billy Sullivan, from the time he was born, had had hardly any guidance? Would jurors care that there was no one there for Billy during his formative years? The indication that Billy was a smart kid, even intelligent (he had always held down A’s and B’s, no matter what was going on around him), who had dreams and goals same as any other, wasn’t going to bode well for him now. His anger issues and emotional problems, because he failed to deal with them, were coming full circle.
In truth, William Sullivan Jr., as his life was laid out in front of a jury being chosen as he sat and looked on, quite possibly never had the opportunity to live a normal life. One could say objectively, he had a future, but not a chance. No direction when he needed it the most. No father figure worth a darn. No mentor. No one there to jab him with a reality check every once in a while. In fact, as testimony proved, from the time he was in his mother’s womb, Billy had been slighted and set on a path of destruction, with no one there to tell him any different. This was going to become his core argument: that with no formal life plan, or parents to guide him through what was a turbulent childhood rife with emotional pain, abuse and violence, how could anyone expect that same boy to become a productive adult member of society?
Most would say Billy had choices, like everyone else. Mental illness is not an excuse—or license—for murder. Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of children are abused and brought up in poverty and squalor and don’t grow up to commit murder. Billy could have, same as Nicole, walked away. He’d had plenty of opportunity to stop, and even questioned what he was about to do as he walked into Jeanne’s house.
When jury selection concluded later that week, six men and nine women, ranging in age from their early twenties to late sixties, were chosen. By Monday, June 20, 2005, the trial was under way. The courtroom was packed. Media. Family. Jeanne’s friends.
All there for different reasons.
Billy’s mother, Pat, along with his sisters, according to one source who was at the courthouse every day, arrived in a van together and, that same source said, “slept in that van in the parking lot, like a band of damned gypsies.”
Officially opening the trial—after deputy court clerk Michael Scanlon read out loud thirty-one “overt acts,” at least one of which Billy was said to have committed with Nicole—Scanlon said, “Members of the jury, Mr. Sullivan has been arraigned on each of these charges. He puts himself upon [you]. He has pleaded not guilty and puts himself upon his county for trial, which county you are.”
Scanlon’s words echoed throughout Judge Hicks’s courtroom as everyone got settled.
“Please hearken to the evidence.”
The courtroom, with its whitewashed walls and oak pews, beautifully carved handrails and witness stand, seemed to shudder with silence as Scanlon reminded everyone that justice in America was based on evidence presented in a court of law. Public speculation and rumor had no place side by side with justice. Each side was going to present its case and the jury would decide Mr. Sullivan’s fate. It seemed awfully pedestrian to put it all in such simple terms, yet there was no guarantee juries knew any different.
The jury took a field trip on day one. When Scanlon finished his rather sobering rendition of the charges, and the judge spoke of a few incidentals, New Hampshire state vans pulled up to the front of the courthouse and jurors—each one of them—were packed into the vans like senior citizens on a day trip to a casino, then carted off to view firsthand many of the locations central to the state’s case.
Billy went along, too, escorted by his lawyers and four Hillsborough County deputy sheriffs packing plenty of firepower, should he try to further prove his insanity defense by running off or causing trouble.
The caravan visited Jeanne’s house, then headed around the corner to the 7-Eleven, where Nicole said she waited for Billy. After that, and a quick trip to the bank across the street, they headed to Overlook Golf Course, where Billy and Nicole dumped much of the evidence. Before ending the trip, they visited Pheasant Lane Mall, where the state could prove they went shopping after the murder.
After everyone arrived back at the courthouse later that afternoon, the judge dismissed jurors for the day.
The following morning, June 21, Assistant AG Kirsten Wilson stood in front of jurors and laid the groundwork for the state’s case. Without losing a beat, she began with the words she knew would have the most powerful impact.
“The defendant and Nicole had been plotting ways to kill Jeanne Dominico all week because Jeanne would not allow her…daughter to live with the defendant in Connecticut. The defendant and Nicole knew that they had to succeed with the plot on August sixth because unless they killed Nicole’s mother, the defendant was scheduled to return to Connecticut without Nicole the following day.”
For Will Delker and Kirsten Wilson, it was important to keep the focus on both Billy and Nicole. She was just as guilty. Jurors would not forget that important fact.
Wilson then explained to the jury how Jeanne had arrived home on her last day and found herself facing a teenager with a baseball bat in his hands. Next she talked about the murder itself, explaining the horror and brutality she believed Jeanne faced on that summer night.
“And he plunged that knife deep into the base of Jeanne’s neck. And as Jeanne struggled with the defendant to escape, the knife broke off.
“Undeterred, the defendant grabbed another knife.”
The sharp state prosecutor then explained how Billy and Nicole met in an Internet chat room in May 2002. Reading from Billy’s and Nicole’s statements, their words seemed rather adolescent. Yet, Wilson’s commentary following the excerpt made the basis for Billy’s argument of insanity seem insignificant and trite.
“Mr. Sullivan’s confession proves the murder was cold, calculated and extremely selfish, but not the product of insanity.”
Each action Billy took before and after murdering Jeanne, Wilson reminded jurors, was not made by a man who suffered from mental illness, but, rather, a man who knew exactly what he was doing, while rationalizing each thought. The murder was premeditated and planned. An insane man could not go to such lengths. To plan a murder in such stark detail and then claim insanity was illogical at face value—an argument that made little sense to a balanced mind.
Powerful words—almost as if Wilson were reading from a movie script.
To explain Billy’s nervousness after the crime, Wilson explained that his behavior was to be expected, considering the nature of the crime he had just committed. She encouraged jurors to think about it for a minute.
“Nervous to be with police?” she asked. “Yes!” answering her own question. “Anxious about being caught for committing a murder?” She paused for a moment. Then, “Of course,” she said a bit louder than her normal tone. “But insane? No! Mr. Sullivan was not insane.”
Acutely aware of not wanting to take up too much of the jury’s time, Wilson said near the end of her short opening statement, “Altogether the defendant inflicted over forty stab wounds before Jeanne uttered her last words, ‘OK, I’m done’—the state submits, ladies and gentlemen, that all of these actions are cold, calculated and extremely selfish—but they are not the product of insanity…. And we ask that you hold him”—she pointed to Billy, who sat there smirking coyly, acting as if his trial were some sort of high-school play he was starring in, “accountable.”
CHAPTER 70
Looking quite dapper in a shiny gray suit over a standard white shirt and striped tie, Richard Monteith stood up from his seat next to Billy and walked toward the jury. Monteith, a bit shorter than Billy, addressed jurors in a calm manner, explaining the facts (as he and Garrity saw them) of the case. Monteith, like his partner, believed Billy was insane. And the facts, he argued, supported this contention.
Not drama. Speculation. Or armchair analysis.
Evidence!
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Monteith began, “it’s true in this case that a horrific crime occurred, an ugly, ugly crime.” He let those words hang for a moment. A person giving a speech, one who knew when to pause, expressed authority and confidence. Monteith certainly seemed as if he knew the power of contention. “And we’re not disputing that. It’s a sad, sad case. But this case is going to be about insanity, mental illness and mental disorders.”
From there, Monteith went through and explained the many hospital stays Billy endured throughout his young life. Then he walked jurors through the long list of medications Billy had been on.
Later, he stated, “He did hit Jeanne Dominico, and he did stab her and stab her. Sadly, that does support our case here…but this crime is nothing but a product of his mental illness. We have to take William Sullivan as he is: Billy is not normal. He is still ill.”
After a brief period of silence to collect his thoughts, Monteith broke down the charges against Billy.
“The crime was nothing but a product of his mental illness. Nobody, not in his position, would do this. Nobody would do this. Billy is not guilty by means of insanity. He had suffered these illnesses. This crime was a product of those illnesses.”
It was a strong statement. Important points, which the jury could accept, perhaps, on some level.
The first few witnesses after opening statements were a mirror image of the pretrial hearings. Kurt Gautier explained what he found when he answered the 911 call Chris McGowan made minutes after finding Jeanne’s lifeless body.
On June 22, the second “official” day of testimony, Chris took the stand, allowing Will Delker and Kirsten Wilson their first opportunity to develop a bond between their case, Jeanne Dominico and the jury, through Chris’s emotionally wrought words.
Same as he had during the pretrial hearings, the judge afforded Billy the opportunity to leave the courtroom anytime he felt he couldn’t handle himself. All Billy had to do was raise his hand. He would then be escorted from the courtroom by a guard, while his trial continued without him. Billy’s lawyers had indicated to Judge Hicks before proceedings began that Billy was unstable. He might act out. A defendant does not have to be present for his or her trial. If he chooses to depart, however, the judge instructs jurors that such an exodus should not play a role in the defendant’s guilt or innocence, and jurors are not to draw any type of conclusion from such behavior.
If Billy left, jurors, as much as they said it wouldn’t affect their decison, would undoubtedly view it as a weakness. Jurors take everything into account—even that of which they are instructed not to. Whether he realized it, Billy ran the risk of alienating himself from jurors if he chose to walk out of the courtroom.
Judge Hicks once again approved Garrity and Monteith’s request to be able to have Billy removed from the courtroom at any time he felt he couldn’t control himself. All he had to do, the judge said, was raise his hand and signal one of the guards, who would then escort him out of the room as the trial continued.
With that out of the way, the trial resumed as Billy listened to Chris sit and describe the remnants of the crime scene after he arrived to find Jeanne on the kitchen floor. Within the first day of trial proceedings, the jury heard how a simple man, spending the best years of his life with the woman of his dreams, had it all stripped away from him in an instant.
Sitting and staring, looking comfortable in his role as a defendant, Billy didn’t flinch. He seemed unhindered by the man he had spent a few days with that week in August and considered a “great role model and father figure” for the girl he had loved. Chris had written Billy off entirely. He had spent little time thinking about him over the past two years.
“Why waste my time?”
At various portions throughout Chris’s testimony, he stopped. It was as if no time had passed. While describing the moment he realized Jeanne was possibly dead, Chris broke down.
“I knelt down next to her and I started calling. I called out her name,” Chris said before telling jurors he shook Jeanne after getting no initial response. Realizing Jeanne was unconscious, Chris explained, he “noticed she was lying in a puddle of fresh blood.”
That’s when he called 911.
After the 911 operator told him to check for “signs of life,” Chris testified, “I put my hand on her back, and I didn’t feel anything. I was just too shaken. There was no way I could have felt a pulse.”
As Chris cried, having trouble controlling his emotions, Judge Hicks motioned for a break.
Billy, fidgeting with anything he could find on the table in front of him, raised his hand. He needed to leave.
Then he quickly changed his mind for some reason.
The judge asked his attorneys if there was a problem.
“I want to be here,” Billy said stoically, with little feeling, “but I can’t handle it.”
After a short break, Chris resumed his place on the witness stand and explained how he met police at Jeanne’s door.
“As I was on the 911 call and I heard the sirens, I knelt down next to Jeanne…brushed the hair away from the side of her face to kiss her on the cheek, told her I loved her and then noticed her eyes were wide open and blank…. That’s when I knew she was gone.”
The room sat in silence. Chris sobbed.
Will Delker and Kirsten Wilson had a clear-cut strategy: present the evidence in a narrative that outlined how the case evolved. By simply presenting the facts, they believed, Billy’s culpability and admission would speak for itself.
Next up was Detective Brian Battaglia, who showed the jury the videotaped footage he took of Jeanne’s house—inside and out—on the night of the murder. For the first time, the jury juxtaposed images of the crime scene with Chris’s testimony. The blood. The obvious struggle. The broken coffee table. Jeanne herself lying there dead on the kitchen floor. It was eerie and shocking, depicting a scene of intense violence.
As Battalglia explained the videotape, snapping on latex gloves, he took out each piece of evidence collected that night and allowed jurors to make an
actual physical connection with, among other items, the knives, baseball bat, bloody socks and T-shirt.
CHAPTER 71
On this, the first week of Billy Sullivan’s trial—amid what was a catharsis of grief—Jeanne’s friends, family, coworkers and Chris McGowan were able to find some solace in the fact that Billy—and Nicole—were finally being held accountable. Jenn Veilleux had known Jeanne for twelve years and considered her a great friend. Sitting in the courtroom, watching the trial, Jenn was appalled by the way in which Billy Sullivan carried himself much of the time. In her opinion, his actions showed little respect for the due process of law and justice, for Jeanne or for anyone who held a memory of honor and respect that Jeanne deserved. Billy seemed to be mocking the entire process. Jenn was there every day. She’d made a deal with herself to see it through—all of it. She’d sit and watch Billy nervously pick at his face, stare at a pen or pencil or whisper something to his lawyers. And it bothered her.
Jenn had met Jeanne during the summer of 1991. Jenn was outside, sitting in the pool area of the condominium complex in Nashua where she lived.
“I was really pregnant and relaxing.”
As she sat with her hands folded across her big belly, checking people out underneath her sunglasses, she watched a “dark-haired woman with two kids” going about her day in a gingerly fashion. What at first was a quick glance turned into Jenn “observing” this woman all day, perhaps hoping to learn a few motherly tricks by watching her. As the woman tended to her kids’ needs, Jenn couldn’t help but think, What a wonderful mother: kind, firm and genuinely full of love for her children. Jenn could tell by the way the woman smiled, how she’d put her hand on her child’s shoulder and explained the dangers of running on the pool deck. “No diving,” she’d said more than once, but in a gentle way that made the kids want to listen. Just the type of mother, Jenn thought, she only hoped to be one day.