Because You Loved Me (27 page)

Nicole Kasinskas celebrated her eighteenth birthday behind bars on Monday morning, June 6, 2005. On that day, there had to be a subtle voice inside her head saying, “If I had only waited.” By New Hampshire law, Nicole was now an adult. She could have left her house in Billy’s arms and never looked back—with or without her mother’s consent. But instead, Nicole sat in prison waiting to testify against her former lover, anticipating what sentence the court was going to give her. The judge had made a ruling that Nicole, although she had pleaded guilty and cut a deal with the state, was not going to be sentenced until Billy’s trial was completed. All she could do was sit, wait and prepare for the day she faced Billy once again.

The day dawned cool in Nashua, as temperatures in the 60s throughout the previous night had dropped to between 51 and 55 degrees by sunrise. A cold front in Canada had moved in somewhere around 3:00
A.M
. and blanketed the region with an autumnlike chill that was to continue sending mercury levels downward as the day progressed. Rain was forecast, and the gloomy skies, so innately depressing, cast a shade of gray over everything, setting the tone for what was to take place inside Hillsborough County Superior Court throughout the next few months.

Jury selection was under way, as were discussions and arguments over allowing certain pieces of evidence into trial. The buzz around town was that justice for Jeanne was on the horizon.

Finally,
Chris McGowan thought as he prepared himself emotionally for the trial.

When Chris took the stand as the second day of pretrial hearings started, he recounted for the judge what he found on the evening of August 6, 2003, after arriving at Jeanne’s, and seeing her on the kitchen floor in, he said, “a puddle of blood.”

It was the first time the community had heard of the horror inside Jeanne’s modest home. Now everyone had an image. Jeanne was no longer an accomplished community member; she was the victim of a brutal murder.

Chris had gained about forty pounds since Jeanne’s death. He’d had a tough time socializing. Didn’t leave the house much. Had little use for Nicole. And although it had been two years since his fiancée’s death, therapy and what-ifs now took up much of his mind space. He had dated—a night out with a friend of a friend, drinks with friends trying to set him up—but nobody could match the beauty and serenity he had found in Jeanne Dominico.

“She was one in a million,” he said later, “and I don’t care how clichéd that sounds. That was Jeanne. There will never be another woman in my life like Jeanne.”

There were days when Chris drove around town listening to the same music he and Jeanne had enjoyed together. When he felt he needed to talk to Jeanne or get close to her, he made the two-hour trip to her grave in Massachusetts and ate a picnic lunch by her gravestone, or sat and thought about what little time they’d had together.

Jeanne’s death had deflated Chris’s desire to move on. He couldn’t, even after two years, picture himself with another woman. Maybe the trial could put some closure on it all?

Then again, maybe not.

After Chris finished testifying, NPD officer Kurt Gautier explained how he had responded to the 911 call and met Chris at the front door, shortly before entering the house and determining Jeanne was dead. It was standard police testimony: direct, procedural, symbolic of a police report.

Ending the day, testimony more pertinent to the matter of allowing fingerprint evidence and Billy’s confession into the trial resumed. Chris McGowan’s and Kurt Gautier’s testimony had set the stage: both men put a face on the name, described the murder scene in graphic detail and allowed the judge to gain an understanding of how vicious the attack on Jeanne had been.

Will Delker and Kirsten Wilson called Stephen Ostrowski, the state’s fingerprint expert, who hailed from the New Hampshire State Police Forensic Lab. For the most part, Ostrowski testified that although no scientific study existed regarding the “error rate in fingerprint identification,” there had been only “twenty-two known mistaken identifications in more than eighty years of fingerprint analysis throughout the world.”

Incredible numbers, considering how many cases had been tried worldwide and how many of those undoubtedly included fingerprint evidence. Fingerprint analysis seemed like flawless science. It didn’t prove a murder suspect guilty, but it could certainly place a suspect at a crime scene.

Ostrowski’s testimony spoke to how rarely fingerprint evidence was taken to task during trials, which made some wonder why Billy’s team was even fighting to get the prints thrown out.

Fundamentally, Monteith and Garrity’s core dispute centered around that exact argument: people
assumed
fingerprint evidence was never questioned, but that wasn’t the case.

“No two people,” Ostrowski continued, speaking words that most in the room had likely taken for granted, “have ever been found to share the same prints, even genetically identical twins.”

The fingerprints in question—a bloody palm print impression Billy supposedly left on the freezer door in Jeanne’s kitchen, along with a latent print Billy apparently left on the baseball bat used to render Jeanne defenseless—had been identified by the state’s experts as his. Additionally, Billy had admitted hitting Jeanne with the bat and struggling with her. Was there any question whose prints they were?

Garrity and Monteith had every right to question the authenticity of
any
fingerprint, and promised to bring the house down with the testimony of a man who wrote the book on the history of criminal fingerprint identification, literally. It was a book, in fact, that discussed partly a theory of how the process of analyzing fingerprints as evidence “is far murkier than we have been led to believe.”

Sit back, Billy’s lawyers seemed to promise. Forget what you’ve heard about fingerprint evidence, because the testimony on its way will speak for itself.

Opening the day’s testimony on June 9 was assistant criminology professor at the University of California, Irvine, Simon Cole. Cole had a doctorate in science and technology studies. A bookish-looking man in his mid-thirties, donning black-rimmed glasses and boasting shiny black hair, Cole specialized in the “historical and sociological study of the interaction between science, technology, law and criminal justice.” His best-known book,
Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification,
was awarded the 2003 Rachel Carson Prize for a Work of Social or Political Relevance.

Cole was Billy’s expert—on the stand to float the notion that fingerprint identification wasn’t the infallible scientific method to determine one person from another it had been cracked up to be throughout history. If Billy wanted the one person in the nation who could sit and talk about the reliability of fingerprint evidence until crickets chirped, Cole was that person. The main thesis of his book, however, wasn’t that fingerprint evidence should be ousted from American courtrooms, but that our court system should at least weigh fingerprint evidence against some “margin of error.” Right now, courts rarely did.

It seemed to be a logical point. And as he spoke, Cole backed up his theories with some rather eye-opening comparisons.

“All human faces are unique,” he said at one point, “but we don’t contend from that, that all eyewitness testimony is reliable.” After all, “eyewitnesses have been found to be highly unreliable.”

In other words, ask ten people what they saw and each will likely give a slightly different version of the same event. Cole suggested fingerprint evidence should be scrutinized under the same set of guidelines.

“We don’t know how reliable it is. We haven’t done sufficient studies. Every latent print identification is phrased as being a matter of certainty, and yet we
know
there is an error rate.”

Cole’s argument made perfect sense. There was no definitive study to prove how accurate fingerprint identification was. So why trust it unquestionably, without debate?

By the end of the week, word came down that Nicole Kasinskas, the one person who could place Billy at the scene of the crime and, in a sense, corroborate the state’s contention that those
were
his fingerprints in Jeanne’s kitchen and on the baseball bat, was going to take the stand early the following week. It would be the first time since they were separated by police in front of Jeanne’s house on the night of August 6, 2003, that Billy and Nicole were in the same room together.

Nicole Kasinskas had put on a little bit of weight since her incarceration, but still had that same cute, pudgy Italian look Billy had arguably fallen in love with. Her hair was thick, dark black and flowing halfway down her back. She looked somber and subdued walking into the courtroom, wearing an orange jumpsuit over a white T-shirt. She certainly wasn’t the child Billy had so easily manipulated. It was implicit in the way she carried herself as she sauntered into the courtroom. For two years, Nicole had sat behind bars thinking about what she had done. One woman close to her later said Nicole had come to terms with the tragedy by then and accepted responsibility for her part in her mother’s murder. Yet, there was not one person on Jeanne’s side who could bear the hurt of hearing Nicole out, writing to her or visiting her. Chris McGowan certainly wasn’t interested in talking to Nicole then, nor did he feel he ever could.
I just don’t see how talking to her would help me understand what she had done.
Many couldn’t get around the questions: Why didn’t Nicole just run away with Billy and shack up in a trailer park, have five kids and go on welfare? Why didn’t she stop Billy? She’d had multiple opportunities.

With Nicole on the stand, anyone in need of answers was going to hear some version of what happened that night and, perhaps, how Nicole had turned from loving daughter to savage killer. Billy’s lawyers hadn’t called Nicole to the stand to hear her account of Jeanne’s death, however. They had called Nicole so she could reinforce their theory that cops failed to give Billy the option of calling an attorney before giving police what was a very detailed confession.

Nicole said she and Billy discussed how they were to approach police once they returned to the house, then she explained Billy’s temperament on the night he killed Jeanne.

“He was very upset,” she testified. “He kept having flashbacks, seeing what had happened. He kept freaking out…hitting the steering wheel. I was trying to calm him down. I was a wreck. I didn’t know what to think, what to do. I was beyond help at that point.”

Then she claimed police “immediately separated” them when they returned to the scene of the crime.

Once at the NPD, Nicole said, no one told her she could “leave” if she wanted. It never occurred to her that she didn’t
have
to go to the police department to give a statement. She was a child. What does a child know about constitutional rights?

Billy and Nicole never made direct eye contact throughout her daylong testimony. Billy was seen taking notes and whispering in his attorney’s ear at times, while Nicole avoided any chance of looking at him.

Still, it wasn’t the last time they were going to see each other.

After a combined eleven hours of testimony over a three-day period, Judge Gary Hicks ruled that “the ACEV [Analyze, Compare, Examine and Verify] methodology” used by just about every law enforcement agency in the world to analyze fingerprint evidence “is the product of reliable principles and methods.” Thus, Will Delker and Kirsten Wilson could plan on offering expert testimony regarding fingerprint identifications during trial.

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.

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.

“Most importantly, ladies and gentlemen, you will know from your common sense: The defendant and Nicole focused for days,” Wilson said, raising her voice a bit, “on killing Jeanne Dominico…. They made attempt after attempt after attempt on Jeanne’s life, and they planned and they planned and they conspired and they prepared and they covered up.”

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.”