Because You Loved Me (32 page)

The most convincing legal arguments are rooted in uncomplicated facts. Will Delker knew that sticking to the basic facts of the case was his greatest asset as he prepared to address the jury one final time before they retreated to deliberate Billy’s fate. Thus, Delker started the state’s closing by putting one important, undeniable detail—an indisputable reality—out in front of the jury.

“Billy Sullivan stabbed Jeanne Dominico again and again and again. He aimed for her heart. He aimed for her neck. He aimed for her
throat
…. No single blow was fatal, in and of itself. Jeanne’s death was slow. It was painful. And it was terrifying.”

An uncomfortable silence befell the room. Jurors sat mesmerized. When it came down to it, in a few sentences, AG Will Delker had refocused the trial back onto the one person where it belonged: Jeanne Dominico.

The state needed to convince the jury that Billy’s actions were premeditated and deliberate. Billy’s attorneys had argued, Delker explained later, that Billy “flew off the handle when Jeanne made some comment to him about Nicole. He was saying that it was ‘blind rage’ that took hold of him. During my closing, I wanted the jury to understand that even if you ignored all of the planning that went on before the murder and just looked at the facts of the killing itself, the facts showed how Billy
intended
to kill Jeanne.”

There was no question about it.

The jury had to consider several factors in determining whether the murder was premeditated: Did Billy use a deadly weapon? Did he inflict injuries on vital organs? Was the crime particularly brutal? How long did it take to actually claim Jeanne’s life?

“Billy’s actions during the stabbing itself,” added Delker, reflecting back on the case later, “amply illustrated the premeditated nature of his attack. Even though the killing didn’t go according to plan—i.e., Jeanne didn’t die from the baseball bat attack—the defendant was resourceful and able to continue the assault relentlessly until he completed his goal, which was to kill Jeanne Dominico.”

Addressing the jury once again, Delker said, “The defendant’s conscious objective was to
kill
Jeanne Dominico. His actions were premeditated and deliberate.”

Near the end of his closing, Delker tried his best to humanize Jeanne.

“Time and again, she went out of her way so that the defendant could spend time with Nicole. Jeanne invited the defendant into her home and she cooked dinner for him. But Jeanne drew the line at letting her daughter live with the defendant in Connecticut before she was eighteen years old. And the defendant chafed at that limitation. He responded to Jeanne’s generosity by plotting her death and executing her in her
own
home.”

In the end, Delker called Billy’s behavior “selfish and self-centered.” He said it was “foolish,” “ruthless,” “brutal,” “premeditated,” “deliberate,” but “
not
insane…. He committed this murder knowing full well the consequences of his actions. His actions were
not
the product of a mental illness.”

Several people brought to the attention of court officials that one particular juror, a former state representative, had “nodded off” during certain portions of the trial. There was no way the man could be objective and look at all the evidence—simply because he wasn’t awake for some of it. What right did he have to decide the fate of a man on trial for murder, a man facing life in prison?

As deliberations got under way after closing arguments, the jury spent the better part of a ten-hour day discussing the case. As that first day came to a close, Judge Hicks was informed that the same “sleepy” juror had also turned to a legal dictionary for advice during that time and had “persisted” in sending questions to the judge after he was warned a number of times not to do so.

With that, it was clear the guy was going to delay the judicial process. After three weeks of testimony, a mistrial based on juror incompetence would be a terrible blow to the memory of Jeanne Dominico, her friends and family—not to mention a slap in the face of justice and a terrible waste of everyone’s time.

Based on the allegations, Judge Hicks decided a replacement was in order. Thus, an alternate was chosen and deliberations started over.

Paul Garrity and Richard Monteith frothed at the mouth when they heard. They claimed the juror was being tossed improperly and said they would file an appeal with the supreme court immediately.

The juror under discussion had a history of tampering with the hand of justice, according to Will Delker and Kirsten Wilson, who had completed their own investigation and were convinced the man had tried to “tamper with a civil case” in a neighboring court sometime before Billy’s trial by sending the judge notes and giving him advice on how to rule.

In any event, the juror was booted; an alternate put in his place. And deliberations once again were under way. If Billy’s attorneys had a problem with the decision, they could take the appropriate action and use the system to their advantage to win Billy’s appeal—if, in fact, he was convicted.

While jurors deliberated, Chris McGowan stood down the hall from the courtroom with his hands in his pockets. Waiting. Contemplating. Thinking about Jeanne. He wondered if a guilty verdict—if, in fact, it happened—was going to act as a first step toward closure for him. Chris believed it was Jeanne’s verdict, not Billy’s. A way for Jeanne’s friends and family to take back her memory. Chris felt a soreness in his neck. His arms ached. Chest tightened. Stress could wreak havoc on the body. Having spent years dealing with MS, Chris knew as much. But this, the possibility that Jeanne was finally going to get back her integrity, went far beyond any of that. The trial and verdict were for Jeanne and the vitality she had injected into so many lives. All of the hurt Chris had gone through, those nights tossing and turning, arriving at work to see Jeanne’s desk empty, all the time he had spent daydreaming about what
could
have been, it was finally over. Very shortly, Chris was convinced as he paced the hallway waiting for the call to go back into the courtroom, wherever she was, Jeanne was going to be set free.

Of course, if Billy was found guilty.

As Chris stood rubbing the back of his neck, checking his watch every so often, going through the trial day by day in his mind, he felt the cell phone in his front pocket vibrate. Chris stood stunned; he didn’t have to look at the number to know who was calling.

It was time.

Anything can happen,
Chris thought as he turned toward the courtroom.
It could go either way. Prepare yourself.

As he looked toward the entrance to the courtroom, Chris couldn’t believe the “mayhem” ensuing in front of the doors. Reporters, trial watchers, Jeanne’s friends and family. Everyone was bustling about, making their way into the room.

Outside, police cars lined the streets.

“When I pulled into the building parking lot, after getting word the verdict was in,” said one friend of Jeanne’s, “I couldn’t believe all of the cops and cop cars. They were expecting
something
. They must have thought Billy was going to ‘react’ if he was convicted.”

Jenn Veilleux was at work. There had been no reason for her to hang around the courthouse and wear a path in the tile floor during deliberations. She knew Chris, or someone else, was going to call when the jury came back. And indeed, when she got the call, Jenn took off and, checking her watch every few minutes, raced down Route 3 to make it in time.

Once word came in that the jury had reached its verdict, the court promised it would give everyone thirty minutes to make it back into the courtroom. Now Chris, walking toward the double doors, found out he had but ten minutes to call everyone he could, break the news and grab a seat himself.

Chris sat next to Jennifer Hunt, the victim’s advocate, on his left. Jeanne’s brother, Chuck Dominico, sat on Chris’s right.

“I remember just reaching out and grabbing them both—one with my right hand, the other with my left,” recalled Chris. Clearly, he was nervous. No one knew what to expect. Juries were a strange bunch. One hold-out and Billy had himself a free pass into a mental hospital. “I had no idea where the verdict was going,” admitted Chris.

Jenn made it to the courthouse with little time to spare and took a seat in back of Chris. As she sat down, there was a minor delay. Billy’s attorneys hadn’t made it yet and Billy refused to be present for the verdict. As long as Billy was still “the accused,” the judge agreed, he had a right not to attend his trial.

After Billy’s attorneys arrived a bit later, the jury foreperson stood and pronounced Billy guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. What else could he expect? He had admitted murdering Jeanne and every witness presented by the state had, in a sense, backed up Billy’s own words. In addition, any claim of insanity was nullified by Billy’s behavior before and after the murder. An insane person, by definition, would not have been able to do what Billy did. In terms of the law, and the jury’s interpretation of insanity, it could not have been more simple.

Chris McGowan jumped up and hugged the people he was sitting next to. Then he smiled for what seemed like the first time in two years. The legal part of his journey was complete. The healing was to begin.

Or would it?

Once Billy was a convicted murderer, the judge demanded he be present for his sentencing. Billy had very few rights left now. Will Delker argued that Jeanne’s friends and family deserved a chance to address him. His days of raising his hand for a time-out, or simply walking out of the courtroom on his own, were over.

To everyone’s amazement, court officers carried Billy into the courtroom in shackles after he refused to be present for sentencing.

“He was bound and hog-tied,” one woman claimed. Quite noticeably, Billy’s eyes were glazed over. Tears ran down his cheeks. But it wasn’t from a crying fit at the thought of life in prison. Some in the courtroom later reported that “court officers had to pepper-spray Billy” in order to get him under control so he could face the judge.

“Billy refused to attend and the judge forced him to be there,” recalled one of the lawyers in the courtroom that day. “It was quite dramatic…. I know he was restrained (I don’t think he was literally hog-tied). I don’t [remember] anything about [him being] pepper-sprayed.”

Nonetheless, Billy Sullivan was forced to sit and listen to Judge Hicks’s sentence, whether he wanted to or not.

Every one of Jeanne Dominico’s friends agreed she had a subtle radiance about her, making it impossible not to feel the love that emanated from every part of her being. Each person who later voiced his or her opinion of Jeanne said there wasn’t—and never will be—another human being like her. Two years prior to Billy’s conviction, when Reverend Harry Kaufman, who oversaw Jeanne’s funeral, looked out at an audience of tearful mourners, he had said, “It’s hard to imagine she will no longer be with us to share her love. But she will be remembered for her great love of life.”

“She was an angel here on earth,” Jenn Veilleux told reporters during that desolate period, “and without question, she’ll be one in heaven.”

With the verdict finally in, the judge allowed a few of Jeanne’s closest friends and family to address Billy Sullivan directly, which was what Billy had perhaps feared most as he literally fought not to be present. For some, it was time to look Billy in the eye and let him know how deeply the impact of his crime had been felt.

“‘I appear before the court on behalf of myself, to represent my fiancée, Jeanne Marie Dominico,’” said Chris McGowan, his voice cracking with each word. “‘More than anything else, however, I do this to honor her. Because if the roles were reversed, Jeanne would be standing here today.’”

Chris took a moment to wipe his brow, collect himself.

“‘Seven hundred and nine days ago,’” he continued, “‘Jeanne was admittedly murdered by
you,
Billy Sullivan…. Jeanne was a loving, caring and giving woman with a heart as big as the world. She was a friend to everyone she met, including
you,
Billy Sullivan. She would give you the last dollar in her wallet, the shirt off her back or a place to stay if needed. She was intelligent. Reliable. Sensitive to others’ needs. She was compassionate. Caring. And nonjudgmental. She cared about people,
all
people,
especially
children! She looked for the good in everyone she met. Jeanne and I both were looking forward to sharing our future together. We were looking forward to watching her two children grow to be young adults, even as difficult a task as it appeared to be at times.’”

Chris was, of course, still crushed by Jeanne’s death. A guilty verdict hadn’t made life any easier. Standing in the courtroom facing her killer, however, was something he looked forward to doing. But no sooner had he started, did he break down into quiet sobs while staring at the words on the page in front of him that he had spent a week or more composing.

Billy stood, not really listening, smiling coyly like a devil on a little boy’s shoulder, while shaking his head in disgust. Billy and Chris had never had any serious issues between them. While Billy and Nicole dated, Billy and Chris had always been quite cordial to each other and did a few things together during that week Billy spent in Nashua. Chris had even helped Billy work on his car. But now they were bitter enemies. The hate Chris had for Billy was evident in the tone of his voice, his body movements and the aura emanating from him. Billy had taken away from Chris the only woman he had ever truly loved. The one person who had made his life better. As Chris saw it, he had been choking on loss. He could never love again. For that, he would hate—yes, hate, forgiveness was not an option Chris said he could ever entertain—Billy and Nicole for what they had done.

As Chris continued with his impact statement, Billy lashed out at him.

“Fuck you,” Billy shouted as his lawyers tried to contain him. “Fuck you, Chris!”

“‘When
you,
Billy Sullivan,’” continued Chris, undeterred by Billy’s obvious need for attention, “‘took her life, my life and that of her family and so many others were shattered…. You deserve to be miserable for the rest of your life. You deserve no forgiveness, Billy Sullivan, and I hope that you live a very long,
miserable
life. Words seem trite in describing what follows when the most loved person in my life is murdered, stripped from my life. I can, however, give you some idea of what I went through….’”

Chris then described the moment he entered the house and found Jeanne. It was as if the memory had been etched on a blackboard and Chris was staring at it, describing what he had seen. It was almost, he said, as if it had all happened to someone else. He had been there, sure. He had seen Jeanne. But it was not his life.

“‘What kind of person—or animal—could possibly do this?’” asked Chris, speaking of how Jeanne had been left on the floor to die. Then came the guilt: “‘I will always ask myself why I had taken so long gathering my belongings to go over to Jeanne’s home that evening. If I had been there sooner’”—he had to stop for a moment—“‘I certainly would have been able to prevent this from happening.’”

Touching more on Billy’s future, Chris added, “‘You will
never
know what it is like to love, or to be loved, by anybody,
ever
again. I sincerely hope you
never
laugh or express joy in doing anything that you
ever
do for the rest of your life…. You deserve no forgiveness, Billy Sullivan, and…thereafter may you rot in hell for eternity for what you have done.’”

Billy’s mother, sisters and aunt sat in the back of the courtroom. Their lives had been shattered, too. As Billy’s fate was being given to him in increments in the front of the room, all they could do was sit, weep and wonder how it had all come to this.

Billy and his attorneys had made the decision that Billy wasn’t going to make a statement. And after Jeanne’s brother Chuck spoke and Jennifer Hunt read a few brief words written by other members of Jeanne’s immediate family, Judge Hicks announced that Billy “deserved the mandatory sentence of life in prison without the chance of parole,” before adding an additional, “consecutive, maximum sentence of fifteen to thirty years for the conspiracy charge…. Mr. Sullivan,” a stern-sounding Judge Hicks intoned, “this was an act of consummate savagery. As you were brutally destroying the life of Jeanne Dominico, you were also destroying your own life.”

Sitting, watching the proceedings, Jenn Veilleux felt somewhat vindicated, having sat through the entire trial. None of it seemed real to Jenn until after, she said, Billy was found guilty. Before that, the entire ordeal—from the day they found Jeanne’s body, to the hearings and trial testimony, to the verdict—felt to her as if she were “going through the motions” of someone else’s life. When those words rang out that Billy was a convicted murderer, and Jeanne his victim, Jenn suddenly experienced a pang of emotion that authenticated her friend’s death, making it real for the first time. As long as there was a hearing or day of testimony to sit through, Jenn felt, Jeanne’s life was on pause. But now someone was legally responsible for taking that life. The verdict, in effect, convinced Jenn it
must
have happened.

As for Billy, hallway gossip throughout the trial was, Jenn said, “that he was crazy…. Billy was this, Billy was that. I sat there every day and got all of my questions answered…. You see, Jeannie was poor, but she had class. She never had money, but she was regal. She just had that majestic presence about her, no matter what.”

Jenn remembered a day when Jeanne had called and explained how she thought she didn’t have enough oil in her tank to make it through the night. Nor any money to fill it. Jeanne was never one to ask for monetary help.

“Can I bring the kids over if we lose heat?” Jeanne asked when she called and explained the situation.

“Of course, Jeannie.”

“The thing was, even though she was running out of oil,” recalled Jenn, “she
did not
complain. It didn’t matter to her that she had no money and no oil.”

Whereas someone else might carp over never having enough money while working three jobs, Jeanne never viewed her life in that respect. She always evaluated the situation and looked instead for a solution. She knew complaining about an empty oil tank would not fill it.

Leaving the courtroom, Jenn walked into the bathroom to freshen up before going home. As she went for the door on her way out, it popped open and members of Billy’s family ambled in.

For a brief period, Jenn stood startled. She hadn’t expected to face them that close. They all knew who she was and where she stood regarding her loyalty to Jeanne, her family and Chris.

They were all “bawling,” Jenn said. Hugging each other. No one knew quite what to do with themselves. To their credit, Billy’s family stood by him throughout the trial. They believed in him. They truly felt Nicole was the mastermind behind the entire murder plot and deserved the harshest punishment for manipulating Billy into murdering her mother.

Facing Billy’s family for what was the first time that closely, Jenn thought,
What do I do? What do I say?
Then, without thinking about it, she blurted out, “I am so sorry for your loss.” As she said it, Billy’s aunt walked in and shot her a “dirty look,” according to Jenn.

“I am so sorry for your loss,” repeated Jenn to Billy’s aunt. “We all lost something in this.”

Then, without second-guessing herself, Jenn hugged Billy’s aunt and walked out of the room.

Jenn had been carrying around a lot of anger as Billy’s trial played out in front of her. She harbored a resentment toward Billy she couldn’t shake, no matter how hard she tried. Now that he had been found guilty and sentenced, she was able to leave that hate and anger in the courtroom where it belonged. Jeanne
could
rest in peace now. One of the only unanswered questions Jenn contemplated as she walked out of the building concerned Nicole: how could she have been so cold on the witness stand?

“Nicole wasn’t the same girl I knew—and that bothered me.”