Needle Work: Battery Acid, Heroin, and Double Murder (8 page)

He felt the neck and examined it closely. There was a hemorrhage into the soft tissue on both sides in relation to the puncture wounds. The larynx and trachea contained a large amount of blood.

Using a drill and saw, Dragovic cut through Billiter’s scalp and skull, eventually lifting off the skullcap. He noted “mild cortical swelling” but no fractures.

Cutting into her trunk, Dragovic probed the body cavity. He found blood in the bronchial tubes, caused by the blunt trauma to the face and the resultant bleeding. The liver, biliary tract, spleen, lymph nodes, pancreas, enitourinary system and gastrointestinal tract were all normal. The stomach contained about 200 milliliters of fluid with identifiable pieces of rice and brown beans.

Rice and beans. That had been Nancy Billiter’s last meal before she was murdered.

Back at the scene, Detective Shanlian had not been qualified to comment on “cause of death,” but Dragovic certainly was. Under
DIAGNOSIS
in his report, he wrote:

1. Asphyxia due to oxygen deprivation

2. Multiple blunt force injuries

3. Multiple acid injection burns

Under
OPINION
, Dragovic stated:

“This 45-year-old white female, Nancy Billiter, died of asphyxia due to oxygen deprivation brought about by aspiration of blood into the upper and lower airways resulting from blunt force trauma of the face/nose and blockage of the upper airways by gagging.

“The decedent was beaten, bound, gagged and tortured by multiple injections of caustic chemical (acid) into the soft tissues. There was no evidence of pre-existing disease. The decedent was under the influence of cocaine at the time of sustaining the above-described injuries. In consideration of the circumstances surrounding this death, the results of this postmortem examination and the toxicological analysis, the manner of death is homicide.”

Put another way, Nancy Billiter had been smothered to death but not before someone coldly beat and carefully tortured her. Beatings in homicide cases are common, but torture is unusual. That left police with questions: Who tortured her and why? Was it a sadistic killer or someone trying to elicit information, or maybe some combination of the two? Maybe it was a serial killer that didn’t feel anything but exacted pleasure by hurting women?

A quick check of law enforcement databases showed no similar modus operandi among active unsolved homicides believed to have been committed by serial killers. Then why was Nancy Billiter tortured before she died? It was up to the primary detective on the case to answer those questions.

Dragovic picked up the phone and called the detective bureau in West Bloomfield Township. He got on the line with Mike Messina. The cop and the coroner had a fruitful conversation.

An hour later, Chester Romatowski walked in the doors of the OCSD. Carol Giles was already waiting for him. He took her into the polygraph examining room. He explained how the polygraph worked. He read her the Miranda warning. Carol agreed to waive her rights and signed a statement to that effect. The waiver, though, could be superseded if the suspect verbally asked for an attorney. If that happened, the interview had to cease immediately. If it didn’t, anything she said after that could not be used in court against her.

Romatowski interviewed her and obtained the same version of the story she had told Shanlian the night before. Finally he hooked her up to the machine. With wires attached to her body, the other ends to the machine, Romatowski explained, “Not telling the whole truth will result in your not passing the polygraph.”

Suddenly, Carol looked worried. She hadn’t looked good when they started, but now she looked positively sick.

“Is there something wrong?” Romatowski asked.

Carol said nothing. It must have felt like the world was closing in on her.

“Are you withholding any information?”

Nothing.

“Do you want to speak to an attorney?”

“I want to speak to an attorney!” Carol blurted out.

It was as close to a constitutional crisis as the average cop ever gets. What do you do when the suspect says she wants a lawyer and you know if the lawyer comes in the suspect will clam up? You cannot deny the suspect that privilege. However, there’s nothing in the statute that says you cannot offer the suspect a choice.

Thinking fast, Romatowski answered, “You may speak to an attorney if you wish or you can speak to a detective.”

Carol paused to think. Romatowski seemed like a nice guy. So did the cops the night before. They were easy to talk to and she had some things she needed to get off her chest.

“I want to talk to the detective,” she said finally.

Messina had arrived and was outside the polygraph room. He was surprised when Chet came out with Carol so quickly. Romatowski introduced them.

“Mrs. Giles. Hi, I’m Sergeant Messina,” he said with a smile and an extended hand.

They shook hands awkwardly.

“Sergeant,” Romatowski explained, “we didn’t do the test.”

Uh-oh. Messina had learned long ago when you didn’t know what to say, say nothing.

“Carol didn’t think she’d pass it,” Romatowski continued. “She would like to talk to you.”

Messina felt relieved. He smiled easily.

“Why don’t we talk down here?” he offered, leading the way with an outstretched arm to the interview room in the investigators’ bureau down the hall. While Carol seated herself, Messina spoke with Romatowski briefly.

“Thanks, Chet,” he said and closed the door.

He sat down across from Carol and reviewed the case file that he had brought with him. He saw that Timmy Collier had been arrested and charged with Nancy Billiter’s murder. Carol’s story was something like, “Yeah, I was there when it happened; He was riled and on coke. He held a gun on me and made me help him in some ways.”

She was a witness to a murder, Messina felt, and her veracity needed to be determined before they put her on the stand. The hope was that she would testify against Tim. Unfortunately, she couldn’t. At least, not yet.

By her own admission, she couldn’t pass a polygraph. What was she leaving out?
Something isn’t making sense here
, thought Messina.

He was convinced that the reason she wouldn’t take the polygraph was that she was more involved in Nancy’s murder than she was letting on. She was probably worried that the polygraph would trip her up.

“Okay, Carol, we’re going to go over this one more time with you,” Messina began. “What I’d like you to do is before we start—first I want to ask you, do you know you’re being taped at this time?”

“Yes,” Carol answered, looking down at the tape recorder that Messina had just turned on.

“Okay, and it’s with your permission?”

“It’s fine,” she answered.

Once more, Messina went over her Miranda rights, the speech anyone who has ever watched a police show can recite verbatim. Except that in real life, after the cop reads the suspect her rights, the suspect signs a waiver that she has been informed and is waiving those rights. That way, the suspect can never claim she didn’t know what she was doing. It was actually the second waiver Carol signed that day, the first for the polygraph that never took place.

“Okay, I’m gonna witness it,” said Messina, signing next to her name. Then he looked at his watch. “The time is 6:10
P.M.
”

Messina now adopted the posture of sympathetic listener. No matter what he thought of her personally, whether she was a scumbag or an abused woman caught in the middle, he had to treat her sympathetically. Otherwise, she’d clam up.

“Do you need a rest room, or if you’d like to get something to eat? Do you feel okay?”

“I’m fine,” Carol reassured him.

“Okay, then, fine. I’d like you to tell me what happened regarding the death of Nancy. Start at the beginning and just tell it like it was. I want you to make sure that you don’t leave out anything regarding what happened before or after, so make sure that you include everything in your statement. First, before we start, I want you to tell me what your full name is.”

“Carol Lynn Giles.”

“And, Carol, what is your date of birth?”

“November 4 of ’71.”

Only twenty-six and already involved in a murder.

Inside, the detective shook his head in weary acceptance. Outside, he remained emotionless. He had seen all too many women who, for one reason or another, pick the wrong people to partner with.

“Okay, how do you feel now? Physically, are you okay?”

Translation: Have we beaten you in any way? Or, are you too ill to talk?

“Physically, I’m fine.”

“All right, go ahead and start, Carol.”

Good cops really listen and Messina was one of the best.

Listening intently, he realized that this wasn’t a simple case. Forget about how easy it was to identify the body. Figuring out who did exactly what, and why, that was going to be the real challenge.

PART TWO

Seven

When she was younger, Carol claimed, her dad molested her. That had been a long time ago. Yet with all those years between then and now, when her father touched her, she still didn’t feel comfortable.

Carol was so scarred that even today, there was no way she’d go to her dad’s house in Port Huron, north and east of Detroit, unless there was someone else accompanying her. She hated the son of a bitch. She wanted her father dead.

She’d fantasized about the details, but so far, it was still fantasy. The problem with making it into reality was that there might be other people around when it was done. What then?

Tim always said you never leave witnesses. Which brought her right back to Jessie. It was in 1986 when fifteen-year-old Carol met Jessie Giles who, at the time, was thirty-three years old.

Carol had begun to rebel during her early teenage years. She had to, to survive the horrors of home. But she took a teenager’s rebellion a step further, repudiating her middle-class white father and upbringing by taking up with a black man.

At six feet tall and 468 pounds, Jessie was a big, proud black man. To Carol, he was the father she never had. To Jessie, Carol was the daughter he wanted. Their own personal neuroses fit together nicely.

Jessie managed Carol like she was his daughter. Though they didn’t marry until 1993, Carol would eventually function not only as his wife but also as his business associate.

Jessie worked in maintenance at Mercy Hospital in Pontiac, but that was his day job; the vocation that netted him the easy money was dealing drugs. According to Carol, she helped out on some of his business dealings, going so far as to sleep with clients to cement deals. The latter is not an uncommon occurrence in drug-dealing circles.

If she had any sense of self, Carol would have bailed. But her sense of self had apparently been destroyed by incest. In turn, incest had left her with a strong sense of survival. Carol did what she needed to get by from day to day.

And sex was different. If Jessie got on top of her and started pumping, all that weight would crush her chest. She wouldn’t be able to breathe.

So they made love … carefully.

Carol and Jessie had two children. Jesseca was born in 1990. Then came Jesse, nicknamed “L’il Man,” born two years later in 1992. By all accounts, Carol was a good mother. The kids, of course, didn’t help the marriage. They never do when a marriage is built on unfulfilled childhood desires.

As the years went by, Jessie’s health deteriorated. His unchecked obesity led to diabetes, and circulation and heart problems. He suffered through a heart attack and a stroke. Eventually he was forced to leave his day job and go on disability.

Between his health and his weight, Jessie became bedridden. He looked like a beached whale under the cover of their bed. Reduced to playing nursemaid, Carol delivered Jessie’s injections every day. It was her responsibility to make sure he got the proper amount of insulin to keep his disease in check. She also had to administer his other medications.

As Jessie’s health failed, so did their marriage.

Jessie kept bothering her, telling her what to do, what to say, what to think. Sure, everyone that met him liked him. Jessie was charming with company. But when the door closed at midnight, he became a dictator.

Carol was an attractive twenty-six-year-old blonde, tall, slim, with a damn good body and a sweet smile. Attractive designer glasses framed her eyes. She was vibrant, alive. She wanted to be with someone who, like her, wanted to enjoy life in big gulps. Instead, she gave injections to a husband who treated her like a daughter.

She had married her father, or a man like him, who abused her, if not physically, then emotionally. Because of her childhood problems, she wasn’t aware how she had set herself up for the marriage to fail. But that’s exactly what was happening.

Eventually, Carol and Jessie fought all the time. Every little word they said to each other started an argument. Jessie was always telling her what to do and she hated it. Jessie just didn’t understand that she wasn’t his daughter.

Probably, Jessie didn’t care. He had his drug business to be concerned about. And he was upwardly mobile. He wanted to move away from Pontiac, a middle-class/working-class area twenty miles northwest of Detroit, a place best known for a white elephant of an indoor football stadium, the Silverdome. The goal was to relocate south, to one of the more affluent Detroit suburbs.

Jessie Giles had an incredible amount of nerve. But not just ordinary nerve—abject nerve. The kind of nerve you need when you’re a drug dealer and decide to set up shop within eyeshot of police headquarters.

That’s exactly what Jessie Giles had done.

In the summer of 1997, Jessie moved his family south, into the fancy suburb of West Bloomfield. The home he chose was a quarter of a mile down Walnut Lake Road from West Bloomfield Township Police Headquarters. Who would ever think to look for him there? What could possibly be a safer place to do his business than a few blocks down from police headquarters?

Besides, he wasn’t wanted for anything. Compared to the big guys in Detroit, he was small potatoes. What harm was he doing to the township? The cops had better things to do than bust him.