Because You Loved Me (22 page)

Billy Sullivan was panicky and hyper. Watching Nicole run from the yard to the car, he stared at Jeanne’s house, then looked in all directions, anticipating someone watching them.

When Nicole hopped into the front seat, she screamed.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. She’s dead, Billy!”

Billy got angry. He banged on the steering wheel, then tried calming Nicole down, soothing her, telling her everything was going to be all right.

Crying, she wasn’t listening.

“I know you just saw the worst thing in the world,” Billy said after a moment, “but I just
did
the worst thing in the world.”

Nicole didn’t respond.

“I just looked at him and shut up.”

She was terrified.

Up the road from Jeanne’s house was the Pheasant Lane Mall. Billy parked near the Christmas Tree Shops after stopping by an ATM to withdraw some money.

“Go in and get me clothes. I can’t wear these. There’s blood all over them.”

Nicole was still crying, shaking her head.

“OK,” she agreed.

After purchasing a shirt—it was all she could find—Nicole ran out into the parking lot and jumped back into Billy’s car.

They took off.

Next Billy stopped at JCPenney just down the road. Nicole went in and bought a pair of pants and socks. She put the receipt in her front pocket.

From JCPenney, Billy drove to the Tyngsboro AMC Movie Theatre so he could change clothes in the back parking lot. It was dark there by the pond.

Perfect.

Right here
.

“We can throw all the clothes in there,” Nicole mentioned, pointing to the water.

“No, there’s too many people around.”

When Billy finished getting dressed, they took off toward Massachusetts.

As they drove through the backcountry roads of Nashua, Billy kept repeating himself: “Let’s drop the stuff here,” motioning toward an area alongside the road. “What about here?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. No. No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want those things out in public, Billy.”

Finally Billy came upon the entrance to Overlook Golf Course in Hollis, a few exits east of Nashua. He pulled into the driveway and found a dirt road heading into a wooded area.

“We have to get all the stuff out of the trunk,” said Billy, “and throw it in the woods here.”

“No, Billy.”

Nicole stood up to him, she recalled later, for what had been the second time that night, forcefully saying she didn’t want any part of seeing the bat, knives, his clothes, anything.

“You
need
to take care of this,” snapped Billy. “You need to do it. If I get out and do it, well, it’s gonna take too long. I’ll just pull up there and you run out and get it done.”

Billy pulled into a somewhat secluded area. After looking in all directions, he popped the trunk from inside the car. Nicole jumped out without thinking, grabbed everything in the trunk she could find, the clothes on the backseat, and placed them into a bag. Not too far from the car, she found a tree and tossed the bag behind it.

It had been a chaotic few hours for Billy and Nicole—but things were calming down now. As they drove away from Overlook, Billy suggested they go see Amanda, Jeanne’s best friend, to set some sort of alibi in play. On top of that, the trip would be worthwhile to see if Amanda knew anything about the crime that she might have heard from the news or someone they knew.

Walking out of Amanda’s after a quick visit, Billy drove back to Nashua. He wanted to drive by the house first, to see what was going on. But as they got closer, he panicked and pulled into the Dunkin’ Donuts up the street.

“I want you to check if there’s anything else in the trunk we might have missed.”

Nicole got out of the car. Standing underneath the parking-lot lights so she could see, she noticed the handle of a knife standing out.

“S- - -,” she said, looking around to see if anyone was watching.

Certain no one was, Nicole picked up the knife handle and threw it in the bushes near the car.

“You remember what we talked about?” Billy asked as he pulled out onto Amherst, heading toward Jeanne’s.

Nicole nodded.

“Here we go,” said Billy. “You need to promise me that you will
never
tell anybody what really happened—including the police.”

“I promise, Billy. I promise.”

Nicole stared out the window. She watched the lights of the cars and the dozens of restaurants and retail stores along Amherst in a blur as they passed her by. If they were going to pull this off, she had to collect herself before they returned to the house.

Later that night and into the early-morning hours of Thursday, August 7, Nicole sat with Detective Mark Schaaf and described her role in her mother’s murder. Once detectives separated Billy and Nicole and asked pointed questions, Nicole realized there was no way out of it. When Schaaf spotted the receipt in her pocket and asked about it, Nicole felt police were close to figuring out what she and Billy had done. But then Schaaf, an experienced interrogator, said, “We’ve found blood in the car. You know, Nicole, manslaughter isn’t as bad a charge as homicide.”

Was it true—that is, police finding blood in the car?

“If they had really found blood in the car,” Nicole said later, “I didn’t think that there was any way to still be thought of as innocent. And he was…Billy told me to promise him that no matter what, that I wouldn’t tell them what really happened.”

When Schaaf brought up the possibility of manslaughter charges, as opposed to first-degree murder, Nicole said she “stared at the floor for about twenty minutes” trying to come up with a story that might still get her out of it.

“Me and my mom got into an argument,” she told Schaaf. “She hit me and pulled me back and told me not to leave the house.” Billy was there, Nicole explained. He got “really, really angry that she was putting her hands on me or whatever. And then he just went after her.”

Schaaf looked into Nicole’s eyes. “No kidding,” he said condescendingly.

Sometime later, Schaaf brought up the fact that Billy was in another room telling detectives a different story.

“After,” Nicole recalled, “they told me that Billy was telling the truth.”

Ultimately, Nicole broke down and told detectives all she knew. She even went on to describe how cold and vile Billy seemed after he stabbed Jeanne, saying, “Well, he told me that they were just talking for a while and then he ended up—she ended up, like, getting him really angry. So he…he said that’s why…that’s what got him to finally do it. He said that while they were struggling, he tried to stab her in the head and that the knife broke. And then he said something about her being ‘thickheaded.’”

By the time Nicole left the Nashua Police Department later that morning, en route to a county jail in Manchester, she was fully prepared to face off against the man to whom she had pledged her undying devotion. It was Nicole’s story against Billy’s now. One lover turning on the other. Nicole was tired, emotionally distraught. Billy was talking about the murder, she was told. If she had any chance of seeing the light of day again as a free woman, she knew turning on Billy was her only hope.

Yet, Billy, himself in jail waiting to be arraigned on first-degree murder charges, had a plan of his own—one that involved a soon-to-be new girlfriend on the outside.

As Nicole and Billy were processed through the justice system, Billy couldn’t help but disrupt the progress of his defense. For one, Billy was having a tough time dealing with his court-appointed attorneys, James Quay and Julie Nye. Since pleading not guilty in October 2003, he was being held without bail. Nye and Quay tried to build the best defense they could on Billy’s behalf. That work, however, depended on Billy’s input and his absolute honesty of the crimes he was accused of committing. Yet, Billy wasn’t all that interested in helping. And it became nearly impossible for Quay and Nye to extract even basic information from him.

On October 23, 2003, a grand jury indicted Billy on charges of conspiracy to commit murder. In a detailed indictment of the crimes that Billy and, as the indictment read, “N.K.” (because Nicole was a juvenile) allegedly committed, Senior Assistant AG Michael “Mike” A. Delaney bulleted thirty-one items. Each explained how Nicole and Billy went about planning and carrying out Jeanne’s murder. It was a sobering moment for Nicole, who sat in jail dissecting where her short life had slipped off-center. No one from Jeanne’s family had visited Nicole. Many had written her off completely. Many believed she should have known better. Why didn’t she stop her mother’s murder?

Most were appalled by the idea that such a seemingly quiet, lovable child could be involved in such a violent act against a mother she had obviously loved at one time. It wasn’t the Nicole everyone knew.

What happened?

From November 2003 to April 2004, the rift between Billy and his lawyers spiraled out of control. During that time, Billy wrote several letters—one of the only vices he had at his disposal—to his lawyers and Marshall Buttrick, the chief court clerk at Hillsborough County Court in downtown Nashua, where the proceedings against Nicole and Billy were being processed. In one letter, addressed to James Quay, Billy agreed with Quay’s assertion that his recent “decision to seek new representation [was] not based on facts,” but “[Billy’s own] opinions.”

One incident Billy was especially troubled over had taken place on a Friday night when Quay and Nye sat with Billy and discussed his case. According to Billy, Quay was frustrated by Billy’s lack of input. At one point, Billy claimed Quay shouted, “Grow up and be a man.”

In his letter, Billy said he “didn’t appreciate [the] comment….” He believed Quay, by striking out at him, had shown his “true colors.” At the same time, Billy apologized for “anything I may have said out of line,” but said he couldn’t back down from his “opinions or feelings.”

Billy Sullivan was—in a similar manner he had manifested throughout his life—trying to run the show; he was determined to micromanage his own defense and his lawyers refused to allow it, which caused great friction among them.

Regardless of the reasoning behind his decision, Billy said he could not “work with” Quay or Nye “any longer.” He felt—like most defendants do about court-appointed lawyers—both attorneys were “too busy” for him.

Quay and Nye were consummate professionals. They valued their clients’ opinions. The main conflict, they suggested later, was rooted in Billy’s “mental illness he’s battled for most of his life.” Billy couldn’t control himself. Or his outbursts. He had sudden spasms of anger. Nye and Quay certainly understood it, but they didn’t have to put up with it.

In a letter Billy sent to court clerk Marshall Buttrick, he spoke of his desire to find new court-appointed counsel. Through the letter, however, Billy displayed how sane he was—which was to become the number one issue facing the attorney general as pretrial hearings got under way.

“I do not feel comfortable being represented by James Quay and Julie Nye,” Billy wrote to the court. It was “especially” important, he noted, “since I am facing Life in Prison [Billy’s capitalization] without the possibility of Parole.”

Apparently, Billy comprehended clearly the charges he was up against and understood the law. Without a doubt, he knew the role his attorneys played in his defense. For a man arguing insanity, it appeared he knew the possible outcome of the charges. If nothing else, Billy Sullivan showed how adept and informed he was regarding the legal system. Apparently, he could make decisions and write clear, legible arguments, not to mention express his rights and make clear what he wanted from his attorneys.

Was this the action of an insane man?

As the cliché defines, a defendant who represents himself has a fool for a client. On April 7, 2004, that old saying was never more cogent to the group of lawyers involved in Billy Sullivan’s case as he was afforded his day in court regarding his unhappiness over having been forced to accept court-appointed counsel. By the time court concluded, Billy said he wanted to fire—his words—both of his attorneys and represent himself.

Maybe he was mentally challenged?

Billy suggested Quay and Nye were “against [me] as much as the state was…. It’s just basically the trust,” Billy told the judge, “being able to work with people. I don’t really know how to say it, honestly.”

“I’m going to deny your request,” the judge smartly said. “You have completely competent lawyers, Mr. Sullivan.”

After court, AG Michael Delaney, who had spear-headed the case against Billy from the moment Jeanne’s body was discovered, told reporters, “What the law in New Hampshire says is an indigent defendant is entitled to competent counsel, but not counsel of their choosing. That was the law discussed today and ultimately the basis for the ruling entered.”

Delaney displayed polish and experience. He had an outward charm that was evident in the way he handled himself against the backdrop of the mahogany courtroom he worked his magic in. With Delaney, the state of New Hampshire and Jeanne Dominico were adequately represented.

After four years on the job as AG, Delaney got a call to be second in command, deputy attorney general—a job he obviously couldn’t say no to. With Delaney out, the new assistant attorney general assigned to take on Billy Sullivan and Nicole Kasinskas was Will Delker, a youngish-looking, college professor type, who had actually been called to the Nashua Police Department on the night of the murder along with Delaney. Delker had knowledge of the crimes and was fully capable of leading the state’s fight for justice. While at American University, Washington College of Law, Delker ranked second among a student body of 383; he had been with the AG’s office since July 1, 1998, appointed senior assistant in December 2000. Many of his colleagues said Delker maintained that perfect combination of trial attorney and supervising attorney, and could certainly see the cases Delaney had initiated against Billy and Nicole through. Having supervised twenty-two attorneys, eight investigators and an additional seven support staff for the Criminal Justice Bureau of the AG’s office, Delker was well aware of the responsibility he had taken on when Delaney left. With a firm base of the law, many thought the young lawyer was a lock to convict both Billy and Nicole. The only major hurdle early on was that he had several other cases to contend with on the day Delaney walked into his office and dropped Billy and Nicole’s cases in his lap.

“I was dealing with two separate cases,” Delker explained later, “both involving double homicides…first-degree murder—and had too much on my plate with those cases and other homicides.”

Yet, when Billy began a crusade to represent himself, thus raising serious issues of his competency to stand trial, the delay he caused in his trial actually gave the AG a chance to conclude his other cases and thus put his full attention toward New Hampshire’s most high-profile murder case in quite some time.

Apart from the media exposure building each day, coupled with Billy’s utter determination to muddle with the many legal challenges ahead, both cases demanded an additional prosecutor—another attorney with possibly the same experience and drive Delker had displayed already, spending long nights and even longer days preparing. The question became, however, who was it going to be?