Because You Loved Me (30 page)

When Billy’s lawyers got a crack at Nicole the following day, June 30, she stood her ground and spoke with a fluency and clarity she had obviously polished while going to college in prison. School was Nicole’s main focus now: studying, rebuilding the long life she had left in front of her. She was still a teenager. With good behavior, she would one day be out of prison with enough time to have a life. She later said she couldn’t drain her strength by concentrating and focusing her energy on what had happened. She had to move forward. That person involved with Billy wasn’t the same person she had become.

Paul Garrity wasted little time before poking Nicole with a long stick. “This story you just told the jury about the medication—that’s the truth?”

During her direct testimony, Nicole had explained that Billy, by her estimation, never had trouble taking his medication on schedule. Part of Billy’s defense included Billy inadvertently taking his medication on an irregular basis.

“Yup,” said Nicole.

“You’re under oath, right?”

“Yup.”

She shook her head condescendingly.

“You know what an oath means?”

“Yup, I do.”

“You were previously put under oath back on May twenty-sixth of this year. Do you remember that?”

“Yup.”

“And you remember being deposed by Mr. Monteith?” Garrity asked, pointing to his partner.

Nicole leaned closer to the microphone. “Yup.”

“And you’re telling us now, I just want to make sure I’ve got this correct, that you told Detective Schaaf that Billy was not in his right mind and not on his meds and you did that because you were trying to come up with excuses for Billy?”

Initially Nicole had told Detective Schaaf that Billy hadn’t taken his medication and, because of it, he was acting bizarre. But that was a story she and Billy had concocted, Nicole explained. It wasn’t the truth.

“Right.”

“Do you remember telling Mr. Monteith in a deposition about a month ago, ‘I don’t know why I said that.’ Do you remember saying that?”

“Yup.”

Will Delker had heard enough. He chimed in, demanding the exact page number of the deposition.

“Page ten,” said Paul Garrity. Then, a while later: “Well, let me ask you this. When did Billy wield his wand over you and turn your happy house into a not-so-happy house?”

When Nicole had explained that Billy changed her entire character and disposition toward her mother—from loving daughter to mother hater—it was as if a bell had gone off inside her. She said it was a by-product of Billy manipulating her everyday life.

Paul Garrity had to deafen that bell. He had to convince the jury that Billy wasn’t sane enough to do anything of the sort.

“He wasn’t exactly wielding a wand,” Nicole answered sharply. She was clearly shaken up by the insinuation. “It’s not something that happens overnight, but it was over the course of time. I mean, our relationship escalated
very
quickly.”

Delker and Wilson looked at each other; they couldn’t have asked for a better answer.

With that, Paul Garrity moved on to anecdotal evidence, which revealed exactly how Nicole felt about her life during the time of her mother’s murder.

“In fact, your real level of concern about this case is shown by how you acted in the 7-Eleven parking lot, is it not?”

There was an innate sense of sarcasm in Garrity’s voice.

“I don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Let me clarify it for you. You’re in the car facing Dumaine Avenue after you buy a magazine, right?”

“Yup.”

“You’re sitting there [for quite a while], right?”

“Yup.”

“You say you had a phone call to Billy?”

“Yup.”

“And you were so much concerned for your mother, who was about to be beaten and stabbed to death, that you’re reading a magazine and don’t even see Billy until he’s right there by the car. Right?”

“Yup.”

“In fact, Billy has to bang on the hood to get your attention, you were so engrossed in the magazine?”

“I don’t believe he banged hard, but I did notice him when he was right there—and yes, I
was
reading a magazine.”

“Could he have been banging on the hood to get your attention?”

“Yup.”

Garrity got louder. “So when he kills, you’re reading a magazine without even looking to see whether Billy’s coming out of the house? That’s how you view this case, right?”

“No, it’s not!” Nicole was firm with her answer. She was upset. “It’s
very
far from it.”

“Well,” Garrity said in a haughty tone, “tell us
why
you weren’t looking at the house to see whether Billy’s coming out?”

“The thought of my mother being killed obviously hadn’t quite sunken in yet.”

“The thought of your mother being killed didn’t prevent you from reading a magazine?”

“Apparently not.”

Nicole’s sentencing was scheduled for July 11, just about two weeks away, but a postponement was inevitable because Billy’s trial was carrying on much longer than anyone had anticipated.

One thing was clear in the tone Nicole used and the words she carefully chose: she was blaming Billy for the hatred she felt for her mother before (and during) the time of the murder.

She made it sound, at times, as if Billy were some sort of David Koresh protégé, a practicing, mind-controlling guru who had manipulated her every move.

Simply not true. And Paul Garrity, to his credit, was trying to punch holes into that implication.

“It’s all Billy’s fault, right?” the lawyer asked near the end of his questioning, sensing Nicole was pushing the blame all on Billy’s shoulders.

Nicole appeared composed. Unrattled by the hardballs, not allowing Garrity to unnerve her.

“I wouldn’t say ‘fault.’” She paused, put her hand on her chin. “Influence.”

Several questions later, Garrity wanted to know if Billy had explained in any detail what happened inside the house. He knew Billy had, of course. But he wanted the jury to understand Nicole’s culpability. She wasn’t going to sit up there, trash his client and act like it was all Billy’s doing, as if she were some innocent child tricked into conspiring to commit a murder. Stockholm syndrome played no part in any of it. The jury needed that information.

“He told me she really put up a fight. He said, ‘While they were struggling, he had tried to stab her in the head, but the knife broke.’ He mentioned something about her being thickheaded.”

Nicole never winced.

Later, Garrity suggested, “You were taunting Billy to do what you wanted done,” referencing a telephone call Nicole had made to Billy while he was inside the house quarreling with Jeanne.

Nicole took a breath, then laughed.

“I’m sorry to laugh,” she said before turning quite serious, adding, “but you’re making me
sick
.”

Ending what had amounted to three days of testimony, Garrity asked Nicole to read from a Christmas card she had sent to her grandparents, Jeanne’s father and stepmother, during the 2004 holiday season. In portions of the letter accompanying the card, Nicole spoke of how hard the holiday season was for her.

“Believe it or not,” she wrote, in a failed attempt to gain their sympathy, likely because no one from Jeanne’s side of the family had ever been up to the prison to visit her, “I miss her just as much as you.”

“It was only after you struck the deal [with prosecutors],” Garrity said in closing, “were you willing to take responsibility for your actions.”

The courtroom rustled a bit. It was a smart move on Garrity’s part to put some of the focus on Nicole and imply, in not as many words, that Jeanne Dominico would not have been murdered if his client had never met her daughter. And that Nicole was only willing to say she had taken part in her mother’s murder when her testimony served her own purpose—and afforded her the opportunity to receive a lighter sentence.

Although few knew the impact her testimony was going to have, the state’s most anticipated witness, Tina Bell, spent the Fourth of July holiday thinking about what she was going to say on the stand. Tina was prepared to provide Will Delker and Kirsten Wilson with a version of manipulation, mind control and influence by Billy Sullivan that was stunningly similar to what Nicole had explained in brief while on the witness stand. Jurors would no doubt compare the two situations. More than that, Tina was going to offer a second confession of the murder Billy had made a year after his first.

Quite nervous, Tina walked into the courtroom on Tuesday, July 5, wearing a white blouse and black skirt. She looked as beautiful as ever. Her reddish hair flowed down past her shoulders and accented her perfectly tanned, bronze skin. Now sixteen years old, Tina lived with a friend and had, in many ways, become a woman, setting out in life on her own, which she had discussed at length with Billy in the dozens of letters they had shared throughout the summer and early fall of 2004.

Now Tina was taking back control of her life. She had allowed Billy to exploit her vulnerability and expose her weaknesses. Every promise he had made, every lie, every filthy sexual fantasy, were coming back to kick him. Tina was not about to withhold anything. Her testimony was going to be powerful. She was not a central part of the case in a sense that she was connected to Jeanne or Nicole. She was an outsider, someone who had allowed adolescence and ignorance to dictate the decisions she had made. An obviously disturbed man had trampled over Tina’s spirit. This was her chance to begin again. Right a wrong.

Wilson questioned Tina, leading her carefully through the details of her story. At first, Tina spoke of how she met Billy and became entrapped immediately in the lies he spun so well.

“He told me he was innocent and that he was going to get out soon. We started making these plans. He told me he wanted to get married.”

It all sounded so familiar.

Sometime later, Wilson had Tina read a letter Billy had written to her, where he had asked her to “contact Nicole.”

“‘If she doesn’t testify,’” Tina read aloud in her naive little voice, “‘we both walk. No joke. This is the break I need. My life is in your hands.’”

The jury paid close attention. It was the first time, essentially, the jury had an understanding of Billy’s concern over Nicole’s testimony. He was worried she might destroy his chances of being acquitted. If he was insane, some had to consider, how could he manage to come up with such a diabolical, concerted plot?

Sensing Tina’s obvious edginess, Wilson asked Tina if Billy ever mentioned the “idea of emancipating [you] from [your] parents?”

“We both threw the idea around, but I cannot recall who actually brought it up.”

Billy’s letters to Tina, which the jury was going to have access to during deliberations, proved he brought it up.

The plan, said Tina, was for her to take off to Rhode Island and go live with Billy’s aunt—until, of course, he was found not guilty. Then they could be together.

Tina explained how, over a period of days, she fell for the plan. Then, as if the state scripted the line, Tina offered, “He said, ‘No matter what my mother would say or do, nothing could keep us away from each other.’”

Those words shocked the gallery, and, no doubt, jurors. It was as if Nicole were back on the stand explaining the progress of her relationship with Billy.

“What type of questions did Mr. Sullivan ask when you first started writing to each other?”

Wilson was outlining a pattern of behavior, proving to jurors how Billy went from one young girl to the next, barely changing his shtick.

“He asked me normal stuff, like what I liked to do, the songs I listened to,” remarked Tina, who appeared more relaxed as her testimony carried forth.

But what about the charges he faced? Didn’t that worry you? Weren’t you at least curious as to why he was facing life behind bars?

“He said he was set up by the police—and by Nicole. He said Nicole had another boyfriend and that
they
killed Jeanne.”

Tina believed it all.

After several questions relating to how fast their relationship escalated, Wilson had Tina focus on the day she met Billy for the first time in person.

“His aunt brought me to the jail…. I used a fake name to sign in…. Billy’s aunt arranged it. She picked me up at a pharmacy.”

After Tina’s friends went to her parents and told them about Billy, Tina explained to the jury, she lied to Billy and told him she was pregnant. Tina said she was frightened of him by that point. Even terrified. He was a murderer. He had killed a woman in a savage fashion.

When Wilson concluded her questioning, Richard Monteith stood up and shook his head. In the grand scope of it all, Monteith had to know there wasn’t much he could do to impeach Tina’s testimony. It was powerful evidence, painful, for sure, to listen to. The best way to approach Tina might be to ask a few unimportant questions and get her off the stand.

Monteith’s main theme was obvious as he began his questioning. Billy had lied throughout their relationship, right?

Yes.

So why would Tina believe him when he admitted killing Jeanne? Couldn’t that statement also have been another one of his lies?

Tina said it sent her running to the Internet to look up his case again.

“And you do a word search for William Sullivan, right?”

“Yes.”

“And articles pop up in that word search, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Do you recall how many articles popped up?”

“I’m not sure. It was a long time ago.”

A few more questions later: “OK. Now, in these articles, you did find out that he was in jail for murder, right?”

“Yes.”

“You learn that he tried to or is charged with trying to blow up the house, right?”

“Yes.”

From there, Monteith talked about the other ways in which Nicole and Billy tried to kill Jeanne. He wondered if Tina knew about those, too.

She said she knew of the bleach episode, but not the attempt with cold medicine.

But that was also readily available information online. How could she not know?

Billy’s defense was trying to back Tina into a corner and show the jury that she knew she was corresponding with a potentially dangerous person, yet continued the relationship, anyway. Now feeling scorned, she was perhaps getting back at him. It wasn’t such a stretch to think that instead of Billy explaining all those details, that she went online and read up on the case herself so she could stick it to him good.

“But at that point he was telling me that it was all a big setup,” explained Tina, resolutely defending her actions.

Monteith ignored the comment. Instead, he kept working toward an obvious agenda.

“Now, in September 2004, you receive a letter that scares you, right?”

“Yes.”

“And it’s this letter,” he said, then stopped to change the subject and make a point: “You saved a lot of his letters. Is that fair to say?”

“Yes.”

“[But] this letter we
don’t
have, right?”

“No.”

“This letter, the letter we don’t have, is where Billy supposedly tells you that he tried to set the bed on fire, right?”

“Yes.”

“And the other two acts, too. He tried to blow up the house by putting a rope in the oil tank, right?”

Tina thought about it for a moment. She sensed the lawyer was trying to confuse her, or worse, imply that the information in the letters Tina claimed Billy wrote to her—in which he admitted killing Jeanne—was accessible to her on the Internet. She could be making it all up.

“I didn’t know about the rope, either, but yeah.”

“Would you agree with me that all that information that was supposedly in these letters is also on the Internet?”

It was a tenable route to go down; however, it would have worked better if Billy had denied any part in the murder whatsoever. Here, Billy admitted killing Jeanne, but was trying to prove he was insane at the time. Why try to make Tina out to be a liar if her testimony could actually bolster Billy’s core argument? To many, Monteith’s questioning made very little sense. He came across as a bully.

“Not all of the information,” Tina answered firmly, with confidence.

Next came a few of the letters Tina saved. Monteith had her read portions of them. He kept trying to get Tina to confess that the admission letter Billy wrote to her could have been an object of her imagination and never actually existed.

But Tina held tough. She stood by her words and contention.

Ending his questioning, Monteith provided a document to the court that showed a list of visitors to the jail on the day Tina said she went to see Billy with his aunt. The list did not include Tina’s given name, or the alias she claimed she used to trick the jail into thinking she was related to Billy. Tina couldn’t explain it, but for some reason her made-up name never made it on the list.

“As much as I did testify against Billy,” Tina summed up later, speaking of the relationship she had with him, “he couldn’t, overall, help what happened to him and how his life turned out. The type of person that he is, I wouldn’t want it to look like he is a complete bad guy. He did not completely manipulate me…and I never felt that way about him. He never really had a chance. He should be punished for what he did—and what he did was a horrible crime—but he had it rough at home growing up. The story of him is completely different. If we took pity on people like that, the world would be chaotic. But it’s sad that he is a ‘good person’ and he is in jail. But I felt that testifying was the right thing to do. I needed to do it.”

Tina Bell was Will Delker and Kirsten Wilson’s final witness.