Because You Loved Me (29 page)

As June 23 passed, Delker and Wilson were confident the state’s case against Billy Sullivan was going well. As the trial continued, Billy wasn’t helping himself much. At one point, he made a sign out of a piece of paper and tried holding it up.

“F- - - the media,” it said.

But his lawyers stopped him before he could embarrass himself.

It was the media’s fault now. First Jeanne. Then Nicole. Now the press was responsible. One more indication that although he had admitted stabbing Jeanne to death, Billy wasn’t prepared to take any responsibility for his crimes.

The state put Detective Denis Linehan on the stand next, so he could explain how a conversation he had with Billy on the night of the murder turned into an interrogation—and finally a confession. Linehan had brought Billy into the NPD to simply get his story, same as he had scores of other witnesses. Billy broke down, Linehan implied. He vomited into a garbage barrel.

Then he confessed.

After giving a blow-by-blow account of his night at the house and interview with Billy, Linehan summed it up.

“Mr. Sullivan indicated he killed Jeanne Dominico. Mr. Sullivan indicated he and Nicole wanted to be together, sooner rather than later.”

What more, really, was there to articulate?

About three-quarters of the way through Linehan’s testimony, Kirsten Wilson brought up the shopping trip Billy and Nicole went on after murdering Jeanne.

“[Billy] said that they went to get him a shirt,” Wilson said. “Did he tell you why they needed to go get him a shirt?”

“He had to go get a new shirt because the shirt that he was wearing was covered with blood.”

Powerful explanation. An insane murderer would not have likely made such calculated decisions. One who is literally “crazy” and irrational might sleep in those bloody clothes for days without even knowing it. But Billy—he and Nicole drove around town trying to cover up a murder.

“Where did the two of them go?”

Linehan ran down the list of stores.

“Did he tell you who went into the store?”

“He said that Nicole went inside the store.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Because he was covered with blood.”

Cause and effect: Billy made important decisions based on the unnerving idea of being caught—hardly the choices a madman might make.

As Linehan recounted Billy’s detailed confession—which was littered with violent, graphic particulars that many in the courtroom found outwardly offensive—Billy raised his hand and indicated he needed a time-out. He said he “feared” he would have an “outburst” soon if he continued listening.

“I want to be in the courtroom,” he stated. “I want to see what’s going on. [But] I don’t trust myself being here.”

Billy said he wanted to return to the jail, where he was being held during trial, but Judge Hicks ordered him to remain in the holding cell inside the courthouse. No special treatment. If Billy wanted to exit the courtroom, fine. But it was going to be on the court’s terms. Not his.

As security prepared Billy to leave, Hicks explained to jurors, “The defendant has an absolute right to attend a trial of this nature. He has an absolute right not to attend. You are to draw no inference from his absence.”

Near the close of Linehan’s direct testimony, Wilson posed a question that ignited an interesting discussion.

“During the course of your investigation,” she asked the detective, “did you go down to Connecticut at any point?”

Linehan explained how he had driven to Billy’s mother’s house in Willimantic to serve a search warrant. Among the items seized from Billy’s home, Linehan talked about Billy’s prescriptions. One clearly specified that Billy was supposed to take his medication “at bedtime.” And he had, in fact, filled the prescription that April.

Then Wilson asked Linehan to reach into an evidence bag and take out its contents.

“And the photograph, can you take that out? Did you obtain that, I believe you said, down at the defendant’s home as well?”

“That’s correct,” answered Linehan. He spoke like a cop: direct, serious, unemotional.

All business.

“And who do you recognize in that photograph?” the prosecutor wanted to know as Linehan studied the picture. It was Billy and Nicole. They looked like two young kids in love posing for a teen magazine. Billy was standing in back of Nicole with his arms stretched around her shoulders. He peeked his head around the side of hers. They looked happy, as if the world around them didn’t matter. It was easy to tell that when he took his medication, Billy was a normal, loving human being.

“I recognize William Sullivan Jr.,” Linehan said, looking down at the photograph, then back up at Wilson, “and Nicole Kasinskas.”

After a few directions to the court, Wilson said, “I have nothing else at this time. I believe defense counsel may have some questions….”

The following day, Billy’s defense lawyer Paul Garrity went to work on impeaching Detective Linehan’s testimony.

“This entire scenario was crazy, wasn’t it?” Garrity asked.

“I wouldn’t say so, no.”

While questioning Linehan, Garrity stared at the transcripts of the detective’s testimony from the previous day. He read a little. Paused. Then asked a question. It was a tactical move more than a natural characteristic. Lawyers—at least
smart
lawyers—know how useful affect and tone are when presenting facts. It often worked. Jurors sometimes hung on every word.

Not long into his cross-examination, Garrity asked Linehan, “Are [your] notes still in existence for us to look at?”

Garrity was referring to a certain set of notes Linehan had taken regarding one of his conversations with Billy.

“No.”

“Those were destroyed. Is that correct?”

“That
is
correct.”

“Based on your training, it’s fair to say that on August sixth and seventh you were an experienced officer and detective, right?”

“I would say that at the time I had a fair amount of experience, yes.”

In actuality, Detective Linehan was new to homicide work. Paul Garrity was, even if his questioning sounded patronizing, simply pointing out that Linehan, although he might have conducted himself as a professional, didn’t have a wide base of hands-on homicide knowledge to cull from.

“In fact, you had been the primary detective on three prior homicide cases, right?”

It was a trap.

“Two other priors, prior to this,” said Linehan, holding up two fingers. “Two priors. And I was the primary.”

After Garrity finished with Linehan, because there had been so much talk of Billy’s interrogation—or was it an interview?—Judge Hicks said he was going to “reconsider” his earlier ruling not allowing the videotape in. Billy’s team had argued to keep it out, but Will Delker spoke up, saying, if Billy’s team was going to quote from portions of the videotaped interview, the jury deserved to see and hear all of it. Anything short of that might mislead them. A few words here or there, taken out of context, could change the entire integrity of the interview.

Judge Hicks said he’d take it under consideration.

On June 27, Hicks opened the day’s proceedings by allowing the jury to see the videotaped interview Billy gave on the night of the murder.

As the videotape began, Billy left the courtroom.

The video was a huge score for Will Delker and Kirsten Wilson. It showed a man coming to terms with a crime he had committed. It explained, in direct detail, how the murder, although Billy said it wasn’t planned, took place, and how bad he felt about it afterward. In addition, he was able to articulate the entire scenario, which spoke to his sanity at the time.

Over the next few days, the state brought in several experts to explain the forensic evidence and describe how Jeanne actually died. At times, testimony was explicit and sobering for those who knew Jeanne.

Dr. Jennie Duval, deputy state medical examiner, testified how the stab wounds Jeanne sustained proved that she “died slowly, after a long struggle.” In total, there weren’t forty wounds, as originally thought, but Duval counted “between forty-eight and fifty-three,” along with several “cuts,” which ranged in significance from “tiny superficial marks to deep,” penetrating lesions. Remarkably, Duval said, there were twenty-eight stab wounds on or near Jeanne’s neck and face. In Jeanne’s chest, mostly above her heart, Duval said there were an additional twenty-five wounds, many of which pierced “deep” into her body.

Quite extraordinarily, only one stab had hit “a vital organ.”

Jeanne’s left lung.

The wound that ultimately killed her.

“Stab wounds tend to close themselves to a point, and minimize the bleeding,” Duval explained. Because of this, she added, “no major arteries were severed,” which meant Billy could have continued to stab Jeanne “for a long time” without actually killing her.

“All these wounds are being inflicted, but none of them are causing immediate incapacitation.”

Duval suggested Jeanne, even though she was being stabbed repeatedly, fought for her life. She wanted to live.

But Billy never let up.

Some later suggested Nicole Kasinskas had a proclivity for ghosts and the “darker” side of life—that perhaps she was “into” things of a supernatural designation. It was likely just a fad some kids go through, wherein they read creepy books and watch scary shows on television that play directly into their fantasies and beliefs in the afterlife. Was it true that Nicole dreamed of making contact with evil spirits and used that power in her life?

Possibly so.

Either way, as Nicole sauntered into the courtroom on June 29, a dark Wednesday morning with mysterious-looking black clouds hovering over Nashua, a loud crack of thunder rolled across the sky and seemingly shook the building. Many in the courtroom took note and immediately quieted down. It was as if Nicole’s arrival brought a sense of reality to what had been several days of disbelief that Jeanne could have gone through so much in her life, only to be taken from the world in such a violent manner, partly by the hand of her own child. Here was the duchess of darkness herself, some believed, entering the room, summoning once again the spirits she had relied on to get her through that violent day in August.

There had been a delay in the start of proceedings, some sort of transportation problem with Nicole.

“I apologize for the delay,” said the judge, “there was a mix-up in transport. But everything that goes right or wrong here is ultimately my responsibility, so I apologize for that. Please proceed.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” acknowledged Will Delker.

No sooner had Delker started questioning Nicole, then Billy indicated a desire to leave the room—only this time he got up and walked out without telling anyone.

It was so characteristic of Billy—still playing by his own rules. There was his hubris once more, heightened by arrogance, on display for everyone to see. Exactly what he wanted.

Bailiffs, quite shocked by Billy’s disregard for authority, not to mention the contempt he demonstrated to the court, ran after him. As everyone sat in respectful silence, bailiffs tackled Billy outside the presence of the courtroom, on the opposite side of the wall. Many heard several loud “thuds” as Billy struggled with bailiffs.

All things considered, it appeared that whenever there was any type of pressure put on him, Billy reacted. Any testimony even remotely emotional (or personal) was cause for Billy to squirm in his chair, whisper things or opt for his choice to leave. He couldn’t sit and face up to what his life had become, or where it was obviously heading.

For Nicole, some were beginning to feel as though she played a larger role in the murder than she might have led authorities to believe. Part of her demeanor on the stand was conceited, as if the court were lucky she was taking part. She even appeared stubborn and cocky, like she was doing everyone a favor by being there.

“The ice princess,” said one woman who had sat in on the entire trial. “I had known Nicole since she was a child, and she was cold and unfeeling on the stand. The only time I saw her cry was when they started talking about her sex life.”

The same woman, who was close friends with Jeanne for over a decade, believed Nicole had multiple opportunities to stop her mother’s murder and failed to make even the slightest effort. Quite particularly when Nicole called the house and asked Billy, as he spoke to Jeanne, what was taking so long. It was at that moment, some believed, that Nicole could have walked into the house and put an end to it all.

But, of course, she hadn’t. Instead, she hung up the phone and continued reading a magazine.

For the most part, Nicole described how her relationship with Billy materialized into obsession over just a few days, all born from a random IM that Billy had sent her one night. It was astonishing for many to sit and listen as Nicole talked about the letters she and Billy exchanged. There, in black and white, from her own hand, was a developing, burning hatred for the same woman who carried her for nine months, looked after her and gave her a decent life. How could she sit now and talk about planning her mother’s murder without expressing some sort of emotion over what she had done?

Initially Will Delker had Nicole set the stage for her testimony by reading a few of the letters, followed by several entries she made in her journal around the same period.

“‘I know you’re going to bash on me for always…thinking about my problems,’” Nicole read aloud as the courtroom sat captivated, “‘but it’s not like I got much to look forward to in my everyday life….’”

“What are you referring to in this letter?” asked Delker.

“I was just venting.”

“I’m sorry…”

“I was just venting. I think it speaks for itself.”

Nicole’s answers were brief; they offered little more insight than she was pushed to expound upon. At one point, Delker asked a series of questions regarding how often she and Billy saw each other.

“Yup” was all Nicole said.

“Nope.”

“Yup.”

“Yup.”

“Nope.”

A seesaw of nonverbal, unemotional, open-ended, straightforward answers.

Delker later spoke of how important trial experience is to a prosecutor. He said Nicole’s refusal to give detailed answers to his questions was not that unusual.

“Once you have tried a number of cases, you learn that, initially, witnesses are uncomfortable and hope to get by with providing as little information as possible. I remember being really frustrated when I first started trial work because I didn’t have the skill or experience to draw the witnesses out. I felt as though I looked foolish when I couldn’t get witnesses to offer more than a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Eventually you learn how to get around this by asking questions a different way, going on to a different subject and then coming back to something you want the witness to open up about….”

Indeed, after some prodding, Delker was able to get Nicole to give more complete answers. And when she did, it was hard to believe the same girl who had been so close to her mother—the innocent child who had sat on the couch while her mother plucked her eyebrows and spent time with her gardening, shopping, taking piano lessons, doing homework, day trips to the zoo,
before Billy came along
—was the same person partly responsible for her mother’s brutal slaying.

“Had you and [Billy] been having any problems in your relationship…?”

“We had problems all the time. We argued probably more than we didn’t. I don’t know. We argued over a lot of different things. I mean almost—almost every day, I’d say, a couple of times a week. But I mean that didn’t really matter.”

“How was the distance between Connecticut and New Hampshire affecting your relationship?”

“It was pretty bad. Both of us were really—I think me more than him—we were both, I was just miserable without him. And knowing that he was so far away made it that much more worse. I couldn’t—I couldn’t function normally without him. And it just, it was really a strain on both of us.”

Again Delker explained how he was able to extract information from Nicole without, perhaps, her even knowing what he was doing.

“I knew from meeting with Nicole prior to trial that she was capable of offering detailed information about the case, and her relationship with Billy—even when it was quite embarrassing. My job at trial was to get her comfortable so that she opened up and the jury saw who she really is. I think by the end of the process she was there, but it took some time.”

He further pointed out the fact that although Nicole sounded intelligent and perhaps looked like a woman, she was still young—in spirit and mind.

“She was quite different from recalcitrant witnesses (even nominally cooperating witnesses) who refuse to provide any details in their answers. Those situations are very aggravating. In those cases, the witness is wholly unwilling to open up, no matter what I do. In that situation, I just have to get out as much as possible. Often those witnesses are trying to hide something (usually to protect the defendant) and the jury can usually see through that, so that the witness’s refusal to answer questions itself tells the jury a lot about who the witness is.”

During Nicole’s second day of testimony, Delker kept her focused on the murder and what she and Billy did afterward. Her culpability was implicit in her testimony as she recounted in pointed detail every moment after Billy stabbed her mother, as though she were describing the plot of a horror novel she’d just read.

“Do you know if your mother was still alive when he called you that time?”

“Yup.”

“How do you know?”

“I heard her say, ‘Nicole, come home.’”

There was a gasp in the courtroom when Nicole spoke of the last time she and her mother communicated. For some, it was distressing. If Nicole would have just gone home then, Jeanne’s life could have been spared. She’d still be alive, helping the community, making people happy, sharing her luminous smile with the world.

“OK…what was [Billy’s] tone or demeanor on that first call?”

“He was really quiet. I can tell he was nervous, too.”

A while later, Delker veered his questioning into the realm of Billy and Nicole talking about marriage, and again Nicole chose to reply like a defiant war prisoner.

“So you and he were planning to live together when you turned eighteen?”

“Yup.”

“Were you going to get married at that point for real?”

“Yup.”

“Where were you going to live?” wondered the prosecutor.

“At his house.”

“Where, in Connecticut?”

“Yup.”

“Was there ever any discussion about him moving to Nashua to live near your mother?”

“I didn’t want to live in Nashua,” said Nicole, quite brazenly, as if to imply the question was below her intelligence. “I
wanted
to move to Connecticut.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want to be in my house. I wanted to be with
him
.”

Delker had touched a nerve. Nicole wanted to be with Billy, she said, and by what means made little difference.

Still, that was then. She was older now. She claimed she understood the mistakes she had made.

“Was there any discussion about leaving? Did you and the defendant ever discuss leaving your home before you turned eighteen?”

“Yup.”

“Can you explain,” Delker said tiredly, looking down at his notes, taking his time, “to the jury what that discussion was?”

Nicole finally opened up.

“He was telling me about trying to become emancipated,” she started to say, but then stopped for a moment. It was as if she had taken herself back to that day. The question had dredged up what seemed like a lifetime ago: when she believed every word Billy said, every idea he proposed, every feeling he claimed to have. “And I thought it was a good idea, because at that point I felt as though he was the only one that cared about me—”

“Let me ask you,” Delker said, staring at Nicole, “when you say you wrote or he talked to you about being emancipated, can you explain more clearly what that means? What do you mean by becoming emancipated?”

It was an important question. Most in the gallery knew what the word meant, but it was vital for the state to make sure the jury fully understood Nicole, a juvenile then, knew what she was doing at the time.

“So that I could become emancipated. It’s to be an adult, not have any…not have any parental guide over you. And the only reason I wanted that was because I figured that would be the only way, excuse me, the only way to move down to Connecticut
before
I turned eighteen.”

“Whose idea was it for you to become emancipated?”

“His.”