Because You Loved Me (26 page)

By October 2004, the
State of New Hampshire
v.
William Sullivan
was back on track. AG Mike Delaney had officially stepped down. Will Delker had taken over. Billy settled his differences with the court and was appointed two new attorneys, Richard Monteith and Paul Garrity, both seasoned trial lawyers, confident they could handle any antics Billy might toss at them. Because of Billy’s claims of incompetence and the positioning of new attorneys, the trial had a continuance until the following year, which gave both parties a chance to regroup and develop strategies.

Will Delker, however, was still in need of a partner. The genesis of the state’s case might have appeared cut-and-dry. But it was much more complicated than anyone knew.

It just so happened that around the same time Delker was searching for help, a young, attractive female attorney, Kirsten Wilson, was brought into the mix of the AG’s office and asked to assist him with what was shaping up to be one of the most high-profile first-degree murder cases the AG’s office had tried in quite some time.

Wilson was perfect. She could bring a fresh attitude and new vision to the case. Since graduating from Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, in 1991, where she earned degrees in police science and English literature, Wilson had essentially traveled the world. Spending a college semester in Italy had inspired her to set goals high and to live life to the fullest. After teaching skiing in Breckenridge, Colorado, after graduation, where she met her future husband, they headed farther north into Washington state. A year later, they decided a change was in order and headed due south to Baja California, Mexico, where Wilson took a sailing course before eventually heading back east.

If her college years and those after were any indication as to what awaited Kirsten in Boston, she had to believe the Northeast was going to be full of surprises.

“I interned and worked at a large public relations firm for about one year in Boston before we moved to New Hampshire,” recalled Kirsten. “I started law school in 1994, and during law school held various clerkships and was a law clerk at a small insurance defense firm in Boston.”

In 1997, Kirsten worked as a law clerk for what was called the “Jury Trial Project” in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, “and was hired under contract to work on one
very
large case at one
very
large firm in Boston.”

It turned out to be the apprenticeship she had been searching for all along—an opportunity she couldn’t resist. The experience alone was well worth the move back to the big city.

“I stayed there for less than a year and then took a position in 1999 at the Rockingham County Attorney’s Office,” which forced Kirsten and her husband to look for permanent housing in New Hampshire.

After prosecuting felonies for five-and-a-half years in the Rockingham office, a job opened up in the AG’s office. And it just so happened that in October 2004, as Billy Sullivan’s case moved forward and Will Delker was searching for a hardworking attorney to assist him, Wilson walked into her “closet-sized” office at the AG’s office and, ready to go to work, plopped her briefcase down on her desk.

At first, the Sullivan case was overwhelming. Wilson later described it as “an elephant in the room,” simply because she had a second-degree murder case scheduled within six weeks of taking the new job, and hadn’t even met most of her colleagues in the office.

The Sullivan case, all ten binders of it sitting on a shelf in back of Wilson’s desk, “loomed,” she said, as if calling out to her.

That first day in the office, recalled Wilson, was surreal. After a quick walk through the office and introduction to her new coworkers, she was led into her office and given two immediate tasks.

“We have a large drug investigation case we need you to begin,” said her boss, “and a second-degree murder case that is going to trial in a matter of weeks.”

Wilson stood stunned.

“Oh yes, and the William Sullivan murder case—the binders are right there—is coming up.”

“OK.”

What have I gotten myself into?
Skiing the mountains of Colorado and sailing in Mexico seemed like another lifetime.

“Reading the Sullivan materials was in and of itself a daunting task,” said Wilson. “After I finished my second-degree murder case, I spent about a month just going through the materials and familiarizing myself with all of it.”

Paul Garrity and Richard Monteith decided that insanity was the best defense they could offer a jury on Billy’s behalf. Despite Billy’s obvious rational and predictable behavior during his relationship with Tina Bell, and the fact that Billy gave police a videotaped confession, a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity was, in theory, Billy’s only chance to escape the worst possible sentence: life behind bars without the possibility of parole. With any luck, Billy could settle for confinement in a mental hospital, a place he was quite familiar with.

An insanity plea is often interpreted to mean the person being charged with the crime is mentally incapable of understanding what he or she has done. Or that at the time of the crime, the perpetrator could not deduce right from wrong. By definition, an insanity plea claims the alleged perpetrator is not guilty because he or she lacks “the mental capacity to realize” he or she “has committed a wrong.” Or, rather, doesn’t understand why it is wrong. In other words, at the time of the crime, the accused perpetrator could not make balanced, sane judgments. It almost beckons one to consider that if the perpetrator wasn’t capable of understanding right from wrong at the time of a crime, how could he or she be competent to stand trial (essentially, the foundation of Billy’s argument) to begin with?

In rare cases, defendants are allowed to argue that they “understood their behavior was criminal, but were unable to control it.” As any defense lawyer will likely agree, an insanity defense is a desperate effort and hardly the best defense to present to a jury. Billy had confessed; Nicole was slated to testify against him. On top of that, the forensic evidence collected was going to back up Nicole’s testimony and Billy’s confession beyond a reasonable doubt.

Prosecutors call it a slam dunk.

Still, despite how desperate it seemed to plead insanity, short of pleading guilty to a lesser charge under a deal with the prosecution (which the state wasn’t offering), Billy essentially had no other alternative. Insanity was the only way he could hope to receive a sentence that would land him in a psychiatric hospital, as opposed to a maximum-security prison—and judging by his size, age and attitude, such incarceration would likely put a bull’s-eye on his head and, to be frank, his ass.

Statistics regarding the effectiveness of insanity pleas in the United States didn’t support Billy’s chances. Most defense attorneys worry that just the nature of pleading guilty by reason of insanity itself sets a bias in place before they have a chance to argue their cases. It’s not an inherent prejudice, per se, more than simple ignorance. One misconception is that if an insanity defendant wins his or her case, at some point down the road, he or she will be allowed to walk away from confinement. When, in reality, according to an article published by the University of Pittsburgh in 2002, “Actual statistics show that defendants who were found not guilty by reason of insanity actually spent
more
time confined to institutions than people who were convicted of crimes and served [prison] sentences.”

Although insanity defenses might seem common among defendants who commit heinous acts of violence in which death results, insanity defenses are “raised in just [5 to 14] percent of homicide cases,” that same article contends. Additionally, out of those cases, one 8-state study in the early 1990s found that fewer than “one percent of defendants pleaded insanity,” and fewer than one-third of those involved murder cases.

Of those murder cases studied, one-quarter “won an acquittal.”

So, the odds were against Billy, but his lawyers were fully prepared to show jurors that their client had a long history of mental illness, for which he had been treated as far back as fourteen years prior to Jeanne’s murder. If there was ever a defendant that met the criteria for a textbook insanity plea, Billy was—at least on paper—that person.

Garrity and Monteith could also argue that Billy suffered from bipolar disorder, depression and several other psychiatric ailments long before he met Nicole. And after beginning a relationship with Nicole, which quickly escalated into chaos after Jeanne wanted to put an end to it, the strain Billy was put under exacerbated his mental capacity to be able to discern right from wrong. But the question remained: how to get a jury to believe such a complicated argument, one that was rooted, in a sense, in opinion—doctors, family members, Billy himself and his prior behavior? Medical reports could be introduced, along with Billy’s history of violent and unstable behavior. But the bottom line couldn’t be overlooked: would a jury get it?

Adding to Billy’s troubles, on Monday, March 28, 2005, Nicole made a plea bargain with the state. In court, she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, which paved the way for her testimony against Billy.

Then, if things couldn’t get any worse, Will Delker and Kirsten Wilson filed a motion on April 25 “to admit evidence that the defendant attempted to tamper with a witness and provide false exculpatory evidence.”

Referring to Tina Bell by her initials to protect her identity, the motion laid out the relationship Billy had initiated with Tina and quoted several letters he had written to her. Now it was clear that every word Billy had scribed to Tina—and Nicole, for that matter—was going to be part of his trial.

As pretrial hearings were scheduled and witnesses prepped, Billy’s behavior behind bars provided a fair amount of proof to back up his contention that he was, in fact, mentally incapable of understanding that his prior actions were the result of his current situation.

By May 2005, almost two years since Jeanne Dominico’s death, attorneys on both sides began sifting through what seemed like an endless litany of motions, rulings and evidence, and set their sights on the first day of trial. Some were saying the trial was going to last anywhere between five to seven weeks. The charges—first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder—against Billy were extremely tough matters to prove in a court of law. Although they were confident in their case—backed up by forensic evidence, confessions, a “star witness” who had taken part in the crime and a surprise witness—Will Delker and Kirsten Wilson never took for granted the notion that any murder case was easy to prove. A jury could be swayed easily. Billy had just turned twenty, but he was eighteen—a junior in high school—when he murdered Jeanne. Get one mother on the jury to feel sorry for him and Billy had himself a mistrial—or worse, an acquittal, which was a reality Will Delker and Kirsten Wilson had to consider as they began final preparations for the first of Billy’s pretrial hearings.

Be it a premeditated plan on his part or not, Billy Sullivan launched a campaign as pretrial hearings got under way in May that seemed to reinforce his argument that he was insane. As the first hearing was set to begin, Billy’s mental capacity to take part in his upcoming trial became a hot-button issue. The hearing had been scheduled for mid-May, but had to be postponed due to a surprise (second) hearing on Billy’s mental competence to stand trial. Billy’s lawyers were convinced their client was mentally incapable of undergoing such a rigorous process, one in which his life, essentially, hung in the balance. Trial judge Gary Hicks became rather impatient as Billy seemed to unnecessarily delay proceedings.

It had all begun in late 2004. Billy’s attorneys first raised the issue of whether Billy understood what was happening to him and was sane enough to participate in his own defense. Of course, without his input, Billy’s lawyers couldn’t present a case. Although Billy could choose not to sit in court during his trial and basically leave the courtroom whenever he needed, he had to participate in building his case. In theory, without an effort on Billy’s part, it was nearly impossible for his lawyers to prepare.

In November 2004, after a brief hearing on the matter, in which Billy’s lawyers failed to explain the actual reason that brought about their concern, Judge Hicks listened as they explained how their client wasn’t taking his prescribed antipsychotic medication regularly. There was also an argument about the medication itself. According to Billy’s lawyers, it wasn’t the same prescription Billy had been taking before he was incarcerated. Then, at some point during the hearing, Paul Garrity asked that Billy be transferred to a different jail.

“Defendants,” Will Delker argued, “do not get to
choose
where they will be incarcerated.”

With jury selection slated to begin on June 7, 2005, as the first hearing got under way on Wednesday, June 1, Monteith and Garrity presented witnesses to further support Billy’s continued claim of incompetence, while Billy himself, although he wasn’t slated to testify, did his best to convince the court that his mind was somewhere else.

Dr. Albert Drukteinis, the state’s psychiatrist, first explained that Billy was, in fact, “pretty defensive and not willing to suddenly give a confession” on the night of the murder, and “denied any involvement in the crime…only to later begin to reveal his involvement.”

Indeed, Billy first told detectives he had no idea what had happened to Jeanne, but then admitted killing her in a fit of rage. Most criminals will lie until they are faced with unmitigated evidence proving their guilt—and then cop to the crime.

In his professional opinion, Drukteinis added, if Billy was mentally indisposed and had not known the difference between right and wrong, there was no way he could have spoken with detectives in the manner he did—that by clinical definition alone, Billy’s behavior on the night of August 6, 2003, in and of itself, proved he knew exactly what he was doing, what he was saying and, more important, what he was leaving out of the conversation with police.

Billy must have sensed the tide shifting away from his argument, because as Drukteinis spoke, Billy became restless and disturbed, whispering things in Richard Monteith’s ear, while writing words on a notepad in front of him.

Focused on his witness, Will Delker had his back to Billy and couldn’t tell what was going on.

According to Monteith, Billy leaned over at one point and threatened to “stab” the doctor if he continued testifying.

A while later, as Will Delker questioned Billy’s expert, Dr. Richard Barnum, Monteith noticed Billy wrote “strike two” on a piece of paper. Moments after that, Billy wrote something to the effect of his wanting to again “stab” someone—but this time it was Will Delker.

When Monteith noticed what his client had written, he looked alarmed and frightened. Billy then pushed some papers off the table, which created somewhat of a minor commotion.

Monteith then interrupted Will Delker’s cross-examination of Dr. Barnum and asked to approach the bench.

Good lawyers protect their clients at all costs. They stand beside them, regardless of what they are accused of, what the evidence proves or perhaps even how they feel personally about the criminal and/or the nature of the crimes he or she committed. Still, there is a line most defense attorneys will not cross, one of which Billy’s lawyer Richard Monteith knew he had to expose to the court.

During the early-morning hours of June 2, Richard Monteith took the stand and spoke about several death threats Billy had made against Will Delker and the state’s witness Dr. Albert Drukteinis.

When Monteith finished, Delker stood. He was unhindered by Billy’s obvious acting out to bolster his insanity plea. So he argued that the threat—although taken seriously—was a further ploy on Billy’s part to convince the court he was too unbalanced to continue. It was just an act. Typical Billy. If he couldn’t get his way, he’d see to it that the process was disrupted. But the truth of the matter was, Delker argued, that Billy Sullivan knew exactly what he was doing.

Judge Hicks denied Billy’s claim of incompetence, stating, “The state, in essence, has met its burden of proof that Mr. Sullivan is competent by a preponderance of the evidence. The court, accordingly, finds that he is competent to stand trial, and these proceedings
will
continue.”

Billy might have been able to control a few teenage girls, but he was dealing with a court of law now. It was clear he wasn’t running the show any longer.

After issuing his ruling, Judge Hicks ordered “additional security” for Will Delker and Dr. Drukteinis, before ordering the defense and state to begin presenting witnesses concerning trial evidence. Part of Billy’s pretrial argument included the notion that “the stress of being questioned by police” so quickly after the crime “rendered” him “incapable of making a voluntary decision” to waive his constitutional right to remain silent and request an attorney. Beyond that, Garrity and Monteith fought against the videotaped confession Billy agreed to give on the night of the murder. They claimed it should be thrown out on the same grounds, and the fingerprint evidence police collected shouldn’t be allowed into trial because police searched Jeanne’s house without a warrant.

Some major issues were on the docket.