Because You Loved Me (33 page)

For everyone involved that knew Jeanne and Nicole, September 8, 2005, was one of the most emotionally challenging days of the entire process. It was sentencing day for Nicole. But more than that, three of Jeanne’s closest friends and family were set to address the young woman as she was forced to sit and listen to the pain and suffering she had caused so many lives.

Chris McGowan wore a red sweater, black slacks. He looked ten pounds heavier than he had during Billy’s trial. It was clear the pain of losing Jeanne was still affecting not only his physical well-being, but his state of mind and, especially, spirit. Chris was crushed. In his view, Nicole, the one person he least likely suspected to destroy the life of the woman he loved, was just as responsible as Billy—if not more. The sentencing proceeding, which would likely result in Nicole getting the thirty-five years she had essentially cut a deal for, was a fraction of the time Chris believed she deserved. Nicole had escaped a life sentence only because she was willing to save herself. It had nothing to do, he felt, with setting the record straight and helping the course of justice for her mother. It was done solely for Nicole. Her life had been spared. She was young. She would see the light of day as a free woman again.

It was hard for Chris to wrap his mind around the person Nicole had been three years ago.

“She was never in trouble and was actually a good kid. She was an honor roll student in school and Jeanne was very proud of her. She was involved with the school chorus and actually has a very good singing voice. Jeanne and I would attend her chorus performances together. Jeanne was always very proud when she saw Nicole onstage. They were as close as a mother and daughter could be. Nicole would go to school and return home and then dive into her schoolwork.”

Now she was sitting in front of a judge facing murder charges. Chris couldn’t figure out how it all happened.

“It was
that
surreal.”

Chris stood before Nicole with tears in his eyes and directly spoke of the crimes she had committed and what she had taken away from the community of Nashua. He presented photographs of Jeanne and her many accomplishments.

Nicole wept. At times, she cradled her head in her hands as the tears drizzled down her cheeks and she stared blankly at the floor.

“A day does not go by that I don’t stop and reflect on the memory of your mother,” Chris said without temperance. He despised the sight of Nicole. Had a hard time looking at her. “She loved you, Nicole,” he said in almost a whisper. “She was proud of you. She knew that you moving to Connecticut was not in your best interest.”

And that’s what the murder of her mother had came down to: Jeanne’s refusal to allow her daughter to run off with an eighteen-year-old man.

“It’s ironic,” continued Chris, “to think what the last words you heard your mother say were as you were speaking to Billy on the phone. If only you had—if only, Nicole—you had simply gone home.”

That one statement brought Chris the most pain. The what-ifs had driven him crazy since the night he had found Jeanne.

Along the same lines, when Nicole’s stepsister, Amybeth Kasinskas, stood and spoke, she continued, in a way, where Chris had left off.

“If I had been a better big sister, if I had been a better adviser to you, that you would have made a better decision…I can’t fix this,” said Amybeth. “I can’t bring Jeanne back.” Then, “She’s gone because you allowed that to happen. I had expected to feel better when [the court case ended].” She paused. “But I don’t. Jeanne’s still gone. She’s gone forever…. I love you. But I may never forgive you. I’ve lost my opportunity to have hope for you.”

Those words stung Nicole. She was visibly shaken. Then, continuing, Amybeth added, “It was selfish…I can’t even fathom it…. You could have stopped it and you didn’t. I know you’ve taken responsibility and I’m glad.”

Jeanne’s ex-husband, Anthony Kasinskas, the one man perhaps least likely expected to speak with cadence, hadn’t planned on speaking, but stood and asked the judge for permission to step forward and address his daughter. Slowly, Anthony walked toward the lectern and began speaking frankly to a daughter who had repeatedly professed a burning hatred toward him: “Life is full of choices. You changed a lot of people’s lives…. Everything that everybody has said in this courtroom, think about it. You have plenty of time.”

“It’s very difficult for the court to comprehend such a senseless, vicious crime…,” Hillsborough County Superior Court judge William Groff said before sentencing Nicole to thirty-five years, with a few years shaved off if she completed school and took college courses. “The murder of your mother would never have happened without your complicity.”

Three months after Nicole was sentenced, she reached out to Chris McGowan in the form of two short letters. In one, Nicole expressed an interest in sitting down and talking. She explained how she needed a copy of his driver’s license number, birth certificate and telephone number in order for him to get into the prison.

“I’m not going to call you, because I assume you don’t want me to….”

Nicole’s instincts were spot-on. Chris had no use for Jeanne’s daughter at present. It was a struggle for Chris. He felt Jeanne would want him to go up and visit Nicole, make sure she was doing OK. He was convinced Jeanne wanted him to forgive, forget and make amends so Nicole had someone to fall back on while spending the next thirty-five years of her life behind bars. But Chris couldn’t bring himself to sit and “be there,” as he put it, “for the one person who could have stopped her mother’s murder.” He might be able to do it in the future, but not now.

In a second letter, sent sometime later, Nicole said she had rethought her position and decided she was “having doubts” about setting up a meeting. Undoubtedly, not hearing from Chris after she sent the first letter got Nicole thinking.

“You and I both have had a lot to deal with during the past [two-and-a-half] years…until each of us comes to a certain level of acceptance…we can’t possibly be ready….”

Good,
Chris thought after reading the short note.
Saves me the trouble of telling you no.

When Jeanne’s best friend, Amanda Kane, heard the news of what happened at Jeanne’s house on that humid summer night in August, she didn’t know Nicole had gone back into the house after Billy committed the murder. Amanda thought Nicole had waited in the car and took off with Billy, but one of the detectives investigating the case explained to Amanda a week or so after the murder that Nicole had actually stepped over Jeanne’s body and walked through the crime scene.

That one fact unnerved Amanda. To think Nicole had mustered up the courage to walk over her mother’s dead body to collect evidence and help cover up the murder was a shot in the heart.
How could the same girl not be able to just run away from home?
Amanda wondered later.
Or weigh her options. Murder your mother on the one side, or run away with your boyfriend on the other?
Amanda sensed it took a certain type of person to choose the former—and she agonized over whether Nicole was that person.

“At that point,” Amanda remarked later, “I started thinking that maybe this was Nicole’s idea. You see, she was always such an intelligent girl. Very smart. I thought maybe she talked Billy into it. Things were still too raw for me then. I didn’t think it through. Everything was so emotional. I was so mad at her. I could care less about Billy. I had no vested interest in him whatsoever. But Nicole, Jeanne was her mother.”

Amanda felt it was Jeanne’s wish for her to stand by Nicole. For that, Amanda decided to be there for Nicole. Yet during Billy’s trial and Nicole’s sentencing, Amanda promised herself not to talk to Nicole, visit her, write letters, anything, until after all the testimony was concluded and Billy and Nicole were, in her words, “sent away.”

“I was not interested in contacting Nicole before all the legal stuff was concluded. It wasn’t until I listened to Nicole’s testimony and all of the testimony that it gave me the picture of what happened.”

Thus, after Nicole was sentenced, Amanda started visiting her at the prison a few times a month. It was time, Amanda said later, to sit with Nicole, talk things through and start over.

“That’s what Jeanne would have wanted me to do.”

Several jurors reached out to Chris McGowan after the trial concluded and Billy and Nicole were comfortably checked in to their new digs. These specific jurors wanted to talk to Chris about Jeanne. They wanted to know more about her life. During trials, the person most overlooked is the victim. Testimony is centered around—and perhaps it is just the course that justice must take—the accused. The victim, a prop, really, plays a bit role. Some of the jurors wanted to find out more about Jeanne. They had sat for three weeks and listened to testimony and evidence, found Billy guilty and were now hungry to know the woman he had murdered on a more personal level.

Chris suggested lunch.

They met at Martha’s Exchange, a quaint little restaurant in downtown Nashua. It was a marvelous autumn Sunday afternoon. The type of day that beckons change, new beginnings, a fresh perspective.

“They had fallen so much in love with Jeannie,” said Chris, “that they just wanted to hear more about her.”

As they ordered meals, one of the jurors explained how there wasn’t “a day” during the trial in which they had lost sight of the impact Jeanne’s murder had on those closest to her. She was on their minds every day, filling up space, claimed the juror. They had wanted to let Chris know they hadn’t lost Jeanne’s memory in the crux of Billy’s life as it played out during the trial. It was important to them that he knew that.

Chris was overwhelmed.

For three hours, he sat and listened to six of the jurors as they spoke of Jeanne and her commitment to the community, her children and the lives she touched. She wasn’t just a victim, some sort of prop in the crime scene photographs, or referenced name on police reports and bags of evidence.

To them, Jeanne was a real person.

Two of the jurors then mentioned how pleased they were to see one juror tossed from the proceedings, which made Chris feel as though justice had truly been served.

“It would have been a hung jury for certain,” said one man, “if he had stayed.”

“No kidding,” responded Chris.

“Yeah, this guy was a real nut job. One of the questions he had in his notebook to ask the court was ridiculous. Regarding the crime scene, he wanted to know, ‘Was there snow on the ground and, if so, were there footprints in the snow?’”

Jeanne had been murdered on one of the hottest days of the summer.

“No kidding,” said Chris.

“Yes! Can you believe it?”

“Here’s a guy,” Chris concluded later, “who was deliberating the fate of this kid—I can’t even say his name anymore—for life in prison, and he’s asking questions about snow in August.”

When the lunch ended, Chris stood and hugged each juror. Thanked them for reaching out the way they did. He understood it was rarely done. Jurors serve, and then go back to their lives. But these people truly cared about Jeanne.

Leaving the parking lot, Chris cried, adding how he had become “quite an expert lately at sobbing.”

Jeanne had stirred the spirits of those six members of the jury and they hadn’t even met her. That was all Chris had been trying to say since the day Jeanne had been murdered: her life had mattered, she
was
one in a million and the gifts she gave to everyone—including the children whose lives she had changed and Nicole, one of her murderers—
will
live long after Billy Sullivan dies in prison.

Driving into Nashua on Route 3, which is a subsidiary of Interstate 495, the fresh smell of country air, like the interior of a new car, invades your senses. Nashua is a remarkable place, actually; houses and buildings from the Colonial Era still stand erect, and people who have lived in New England all their lives greet you with a welcoming sense of reassurance and salutation. I have always lived in New England. I love the delicate balance of life here and enjoy the rural landscape that spreads in any direction, amid rolling hills and towering mountains. All this, mind you, with the soft velvety texture of beach sand and the salty taste of the ocean breeze no more than a two-or three-hour drive away.

I mention this because it is rare that I am attracted to a crime story in the Northeast. I have written two books thus far based in New England:
Perfect Poison
and
Lethal Guardian
. Yet, I haven’t dug into a case here for many years. The story of Jeanne Dominico’s death, however, was a case I had followed from the day it began. I was immediately taken by Jeanne and the love she spread so freely: her seemingly saintlike existence in a world cluttered with the same dysfunctions that plague many families today stood out to me. Jeanne was, I began to learn, a woman who gave a considerable amount of herself to the community, in every sense, a woman without an enemy. There was not one person I could find who had a bad word to say about Jeanne. She embodied the good that is in most people, but took it to another level entirely by giving of herself without expectation or debt. Jeanne did things for people that most of us would never consider. Not because we are narcissistic, selfish people—but because, unlike Jeanne, most of us simply do not put the happiness of others before ourselves. It is human nature to run through life and not look back. Jeanne wasn’t like that. She pleased others before she even thought about taking a moment for herself.

This part of the story interested me greatly as both a human being and writer. I wanted to learn more about this person and, with any luck, tell her story so others could see the benefits of unconditional love. Hence, exploring Jeanne’s life—although her immediate family was, I was told a few months into the project, entirely against this book—was a delight and pleasure for me. Jeanne was such a wonderful person. There are not many people in this world like her. The example she set should be used as an elegy for how human beings should treat one another. I was totally taken by the relationship Jeanne and Chris shared. It is rare—that “love of a lifetime.” Some feel it does not exist anymore, only in storybooks. Chris allowed me to read personal e-mails and letters between him and Jeanne with the promise—which I kept—that I not quote from them. When I say that these two people showered each other with respect, love, commitment and affection at all times, it is an understatement. I encourage anyone wanting to learn more about Jeanne Dominico to visit Chris McGowan’s memorial Web site: http://jeanne-dominico.memory-of.com/About.aspx. Once there, light a candle in Jeanne’s name; blog about the person you came to know through reading this book; or just send Chris McGowan a devotion of goodwill.

Embedded in this remarkable story, however, lies the yin to Jeanne’s yang—which further piqued my interest. You see, Billy and Nicole are unlike any other criminals I have set my sights on previously. Early on, I had opened my mouth to a reporter writing a story about my desire to do this book, and spoke out about Billy. “Sociopath” was the word I used during the interview. This has become a hackneyed term in crime reporting. During coverage of the Scott Peterson trial, for example, it was used probably over one thousand times by various reporters and media pundits. Peterson became—rightly so—some sort of inhumane psychopath who cared little for the feelings of those he hurt.

When I used that word in my description of Billy Sullivan, I based it on my spectrum of professional criminal knowledge, along with the opinions of the two psychiatrists that participated in the trial and examined Mr. Sullivan. Billy, in the end, showed little remorse, sorrow or compassion for any of the victim’s family or friends, and never once said he was sorry. To me, that is the definition of a sociopath, defining perfectly the nature of a person who could commit such a brutal murder: a person who just doesn’t care about the trauma and pain he or she has perpetrated on society.

I feel the title of this book truly captures the essence of the story. Whatever happened during the course of Jeanne Dominico’s life over the period of time I covered in this book was circumvented by love. The way Jeanne felt about children with special needs, Chris McGowan, her friends and family, Nicole and Drew. The title speaks to that unpredictable metronome of healthy and harmful love, so closely juxtaposed against each other in this story: the good and bad. It is an inherent part of every family and plays a role in every relationship. Also, the idea that obsession and true love walk such a fine line next to each other.

In his wonderful book
Soul Mates,
Thomas Moore writes, “A soulful relationship offers two difficult challenges: one, to come to know oneself—the ancient oracle of Apollo; and two, to get to know the deep, often subtle richness in the soul of the other.”

Jeanne gave of herself in this language that Moore speaks so fluently. In her relationship with Chris McGowan, her children and, especially, those children she taught and cared for, Jeanne knew her soul intimately and wasn’t afraid of the “subtle richness in the soul of another.”

Can the same be said for Billy, Nicole, the relationship they had and the relationships they had with others?

Later on in his book, Moore speaks of the very personal, “soulful aspects of modern life,” mainly, writing letters. “Something happens to our thoughts and emotions,” Moore says, “when we put them into a letter; they are then not the same as spoken words. They are placed in a different, special context, and they speak at a different level, serving the soul’s organ of rumination rather than the mind’s capacity for understanding.”

This is an important observation as it pertains to Billy Sullivan. Writing letters was Billy’s way of expressing his inner self. For not many people I spoke to for this book, who knew Billy well, could say that he opened up during one-on-one conversation, or in a social setting. He was shy, in other words, at least according to those I spoke to. Because of this, one can assume, Billy felt the need to pour out his heart in the letters he wrote; but also, pointing more to the person he became, letters were a way to free his true soul, as Moore might explain it, and subconsciously expose his innermost thoughts.

I read hundreds of Billy’s letters. Dozens of Nicole’s. Diary entries Nicole made. Cards. Poems. Notes. Interviewed scores of people. Studied police reports, court documents, trial transcripts. Through this, a certain level of understanding regarding who all the people in this book are emerged. One begins to truly comprehend the core of a person by simply putting various pieces of that individual’s life together.

As soon as they heard I was preparing to write a book about Billy Sullivan, his supporters began sending me reproachful e-mails. They accused me of many things—and placed the blame for the crimes Billy committed almost entirely on Nicole’s back.

“Billy’s not like that…. He is a good person” was one common remark. “You don’t know him!”

Interestingly enough, when I asked these anonymous people to step forward and explain themselves, talk about Billy’s life and answer questions, none did.

As I began to look into Billy’s life, truly study his behavior over the course of many years, read the testimony of the doctors who had evaluated him, along with their reports, read his statement and place all of that in the context of the hundreds of letters I carefully read throughout writing this book, I sensed there was a lost boy there somewhere who could have done great things with his life if he had chosen to. In a way, Billy was intelligent (many murderers are). He certainly had dreams and goals like any other kid. But he made a choice to throw it all away in lieu of making his own rules and living his life under them. Many people, upon the eve of Jeanne’s death, asked, “Why didn’t Nicole and Billy just run away?”

Great question. Why not take off, like so many other teenage lovers?

As you know from reading this book, this was an option Nicole and Billy had mulled over, but Billy justified Jeanne’s murder by telling Nicole: “If we run away, the cops will be at my door in two days.”

Murder became, then, Nicole and Billy’s only option.

There is no general rule explaining where the old saying “What goes around comes around” originates. Some claim the Bible has references to it. Others claim a Russian philosopher coined it with his “call and echo” statement. Regardless, Chris McGowan believes the quotation holds some sort of personal meaning.

Chris e-mailed me one night in March 2006 and asked me to watch the morning newspapers for a story about Billy.

Stephen Mann, a thirty-three-year-old New Hampshire man serving life in prison for murdering his wife, had reportedly stabbed Billy five times after the two men got into an altercation inside the state prison. Billy was rushed to Concord Hospital, where he was treated and released sometime later. Apparently, an argument between the two convicted murderers turned heated, and Mann slashed Billy with a homemade knifelike weapon. When it came to investigating the altercation later, neither Billy nor Mann would speak about it. So the investigation, I have been told, was dropped.

Billy filed an appeal, arguing for a new trial on the basis that his lawyers were incompetent. On Tuesday, October 3, 2006, Billy sat in the witness chair and explained what he would have told jurors if his lawyers had allowed him to testify during his trial.

Not surprising anyone, Billy blamed the entire murder plot on Nicole, saying at one point, “It tore me apart. I loved her for a period of time, a
good
period of time.”

He then said he knew darn well that those botched attempts to kill Jeanne would never result in her death—that’s why he went along with them in the first place.

“I expected they would fail,” he claimed. “I had no problem with Jeannie. I just went along with it.”

Of Jeanne, Billy said, “It sounds stupid, thinking of it now, but I’m a lot more mature now. I had no problem with her. I was close to her. She treated me very decently.”

He also said that he was being medicated now the way he should be—but wasn’t during the time of the murder.

Later, when asked about Nicole, Billy added, “She strongly influenced me. I didn’t want to lose her, so I did what she wanted me to do.”

Speaking to the actual crime that he committed alone, Billy surmised, “I wasn’t thinking ‘kill,’ I was thinking, ‘Get out of this situation.’ I had two people yelling at me at once (during that final telephone call with Nicole) and Nicole was asking if I was going to do it. She wanted me to kill her mom.”

While bashing Jeanne’s head in with a baseball bat, Billy said, “I was fighting with my conscience. I lost control of myself, and I hit her in the back instead of the head, what I was aiming for.”

In the end, the judge didn’t agree with Billy’s request for a new trial and failed to grant it.

Nicole Kasinskas passes the years in prison, likely waiting for the day when she can sit in front of the parole board and plead her case. As of this writing, Nicole spends most of her time in a twelve-bed dormlike room at the New Hampshire State Prison for Women. She braids other inmates’ hair, fills her time reading, studying and attending softball games her fellow inmates are involved in. She and Chris McGowan, as of this writing, have not sat down together and spoken. The only visitor closely connected to her former life that Nicole receives is Jeanne’s best friend, Amanda Kane.