Needle Work: Battery Acid, Heroin, and Double Murder(42)

After Upchurch left, Shanlian sat down at his cluttered desk to think.

Collier had given the can containing the gasoline he’d poured over Nancy Billiter’s body to his uncle Sammy, who had, in turn, secreted it in his car. And that night, when Collier went up to Flint while Giles slept, before he came back to dispose of the body with her, he got drunk with another relative. Yet, Tim Collier didn’t drink.

Why did Tim Collier drink the night after they got rid of Nancy Billiter? Did he have a conscience, too? Did he drink out of guilt for causing Nancy’s death? Or was he drinking in celebration of it? Was he even capable of celebration?

The one thing Shanlian had no doubt of was that Tim Collier was capable of double homicide.

November 17, 1997

The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office issued warrants for both Carol Giles and Timothy Collier. The charges were first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

They were arraigned in Judge Edward Avadenka’s 48th District Court. Sitting in on the proceedings were Phyllis Burke, Nancy’s mother; and Stephanie Johnson, Jessie’s daughter, whom the kids referred to as Aunt “Stephi.” As they were led into court in their orange prison jumpsuits, Carol Giles and Tim Collier did not talk to each other.

“How do you plead, Mr. Collier?” Judge Avadenka asked.

“Not guilty to both charges,” Tim announced.

“Mrs. Giles?”

“Not guilty, Your Honor.”

“Your Honor, considering the seriousness of the crime, I ask that the suspects be held without bail,” said assistant Oakland County prosecutor Kate McNamara.

“Suspects held without bail, pending a preliminary examination [formal arraignment] on December first.”

He banged down his gavel. Outside the courtroom, reporters jockeyed to get statements from the principals.

“How long they took [to murder Nancy] is unclear, but she did suffer,” said McNamara. “They accomplished their objective, which was murder, and they took their time doing it.”

“Everyone assumed [Jessie] died of natural causes,” added deputy Oakland County prosecutor James Halushka. “Now we’re going to have to petition a court to have his body exhumed.”

The medical examiner had told prosecutors, Halushka said, that he could employ various toxicology tests to determine if Giles died from a heroin overdose.

Stephanie Johnson, twenty-three, who had come to court after prosecutors told her that her stepmother was a suspect in her father’s death, told reporters that Carol received a significant inheritance when Jessie died. That implied a financial motive for the killing.

“She got a boyfriend pretty quickly. But there were kids involved. Whoever this man is, he’s good,” Johnson observed, implying Collier had conned his way into the Giles family. She blamed Tim Collier for masterminding the killing.

Reporters moved down the courtroom corridor to speak to Phyllis Burke. She recalled a conversation she had had with her daughter soon after Jessie died.

“Nancy told me, ‘Mom, Carol’s the best friend I’ve got and I’m not going to let anything happen to her.’ This just makes me so sick.”

Eddie Grant, Nancy’s boss at the restaurant, said that he gave Nancy a warning before she died.

“I told her, ‘I know she’s [Carol’s] got problems, but you should try to get as far away as possible from her.’ She had a big heart and that kind of turned out to be her downfall.”

Late that day, Helton passed by South Boulevard Station on his way home from work. In the twilight, a sign on the window out front said, WE MISS YOU, NANCY.

November 19, 1997

Dr. Dragovic, the county medical examiner, was advised of the suspicious circumstances of Jessie Giles’s death. He checked his records and confirmed that an autopsy had not been done and issued a letter requesting that Jessie’s remains be exhumed.

Messina met with Maddie Marion and told her what was going on. If the family didn’t want an autopsy, the police would have to get one anyway, but it was a lot easier, and less painful, if the family went along.

They did. In his report, Messina wrote that Maddie gave permission to exhume “the body of Jessie Giles for investigative purposes.” This information was then faxed to the prosecutor’s office, where an official exhumation order was prepared.

November 22, 1997

Maddie Marion looked around the home. It was empty now, dusted for fingerprints, stripped of evidence, sterilized by the presence of cops and lawyers and medical examiners and all the rest. But to her, it had once been a home, her brother’s home—her brother and sister-in-law’s and her niece and nephew’s.

The children. What would become of the children?

It was a question that Maddie and her husband, Philip, had answered by opening their home to them. Susan Garrison, Nancy’s sister, later claimed that after the kids came to live with Maddie and Philip, Carol called the couple from jail.

According to Garrison, during that conversation, Carol told her kids that she had killed Nancy and she was going to jail for a real long time. Maddie and Philip would take care of them as long as she was gone.

“Mrs. Marion?” said Tom Helton. “You wanted to remove some personal property?”

That’s why Maddie was there.

“Just let us know when you leave,” Helton advised, and then he was out the door, leaving her alone to her memories and her grief.