Because You Loved Me (13 page)

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.

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 understand 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.

There was one more thing, Billy explained before ending the letter. It was something that made him tingle with affection. On the telephone one night, Nicole had pointed out the potential Billy had in life. She brought it up. She believed he was a person who could actually live out his dreams, whatever they were. He had already made it clear to her that he worked at McDonald’s, but insisted he was no cashier or simple line cook. He was a line-cook manager. Big difference—in his mind.

To that, Nicole said, “You should open your own McDonald’s someday. You’d be great!” Billy had explained how passionate he was about a management position, if even on a small scale. Later, he talked about how he “loved” management. “It took me almost two years to get where I was…,” he wrote to another girlfriend. He said if he didn’t enjoy the work, the “50 hour weeks” would bother him. But they didn’t. People “laughed,” he added, at his quest for a management position at McDonald’s. But “I [am] happy there; I [don’t] let them influence me.”

“I’m no cook,” Billy told Nicole one night when she sounded confused about his actual job. “I
manage
the cooks.”

“Well,” said Nicole, “you could own your own store one day, Billy.”

“Wow, you really think so?”

“Yeah.”

Billy mentioned that conversation in a postscript to one of the first letters he wrote to Nicole. It made him feel important, he said, as if he could truly do it someday. Nicole was empowering him. Making him understand the difference between sitting in your living room talking about a dream you’ll never pursue and fulfilling it with hard work. She gave him a sense of worth and self-confidence.

In what was a daily ending to their marathon telephone conversations, Billy said, “I love you, Nicole. Call me in the morning before you go to school.”

“Love you, too, Billy. Talk to you in the morning.”