Needle Work: Battery Acid, Heroin, and Double Murder(53)

Carol pulled the drapes aside and watched from an inside window. The van drove down the street. After a few seconds, it was out of view. And just like that, Jessie Giles’s life ended.

Carol picked up the phone and dialed.

“It’s done,” she said.

Carol was still concerned. What if they did an autopsy and the toxicology screen showed the heroin in his bloodstream?

In that case, all Carol had to do, Tim advised, was tell the cops that Jessie was a drug dealer. He just sampled some of his own merchandise and it was his misfortune to use a little too much. Miles away at his apartment in Pontiac, Tim hung up the phone.

A few days later, Jessie was buried. With him at last in the ground, Carol was now ready to take her relationship with Tim to the next level. Tim moved in—lock, stock and pit bull.

Tim had a pit bull. The day he moved in, he brought the dog over to the house with him. Carol wasn’t crazy about having the dog around her kids, not with the reputation of the breed. Tim assured her that the dog was okay, the kids would be fine, and nothing would happen. In fact, he was so certain of that, he decided that Carol could take care of the animal herself.

As soon as he moved in, Carol gave him the keys to Jessie’s gold-colored Caddy. Jessie loved that car. It was a status symbol. Now it was Tim’s, and Tim decided to use it for a road trip.

On October 1, 1997, just three days after they killed Jessie, Tim drove the Caddy west along Interstate 80 for California. He was headed for Sacramento, where he’d visit his mom and some friends. He told Carol he’d be home November 3, in time for her birthday, November 4.

As Tim drove west into the setting sunset, Nancy Billiter moved in to comfort her friend and her kids over their loss.

“I just want people to know why I did what I did,” Carol said. “When I did it, I looked at it as the only way out,” Carol continued, finishing her direct testimony.

“No more questions,” said Basch.

Judge Steven Andrews looked at Skrzynski, who got up and began the cross-examination from the lectern.

“Mrs. Giles, how did you feel after your husband died?”

Carol said she was relieved when Jessie died and his death was initially thought to be by “natural causes. I didn’t think in doing this that I was going to spend the rest of my life in prison,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes.

What else could the prosecutor ask her? She had done his job for him. At the defense table, Tim Collier bowed his head. After that, Basch rested his case.

“I’ve been a judge for twenty-three years and I’ve never heard a defendant get on the stand and say, ‘I murdered my husband,’” Judge Andrews commented after the juries left the courtroom.

“I advised her that if she testified, she would make up the elements of first-degree murder,” Basch told reporters afterward. “That’s exactly what she did.”

Why had she done it? Was it guilt that drove her to make the confession or anger at Tim Collier for suggesting murder in the first place?

Collier had no choice now. He, too, had to take the stand.

June 17, 1998

Tim Collier swore to tell the truth and then promptly testified under oath that he knew nothing of Carol Giles’s plan to kill Jessie.

They were not intimate lovers, as she had insisted. No, he was just using her for casual sex. He never gave her any heroin or even suggested she kill her husband. He had no desire and no reason to want to kill Jessie. Why would he?

That was Tim’s story. It had been his story right from the time that he’d been arrested and it was still his story. He was sticking to it.

June 18, 1998

During closing arguments, Skrzynski didn’t have much to say about Carol Giles’s guilt; she had said it all for him and he reminded the jury of that. As for Tim Collier, Skrzynski told the juries that beyond Giles’s allegations of abuse, Collier had his own motive for murder.

“The idea was for them to be together, and once Jessie was dead, he lived in Jessie’s house with Jessie’s wife and drove Jessie’s car. Carol Giles told you the truth.” He reminded the jury that Tim had told her, “The best way to get rid of the pain was to get rid of your problem.”

In his closing, Collier’s attorney countered that that statement was just casual advice.

“Tim Collier had no reason to kill Jessie Giles. Carol Giles has admitted to first-degree murder and now she wants to take somebody else with her.”

John Basch stated unequivocally during his closing statement, “Carol Giles never had a chance.”

Basch reviewed Carol Giles’s testimony that she was just fifteen years old when she ran away from home and was taken in by Jessie Giles, a man more than twice her age, who got her pregnant twice before marrying her.

“She worked for him, sold drugs for him, and when the fights became more frequent and more abusive, she tried to leave him,” Basch continued. “When she couldn’t, she turned to Tim Collier, thinking he was a friend. He turned out to be a monster. She sought comfort from a man who schooled her in murder. He told her to kill her husband and he showed her how to do it. The saddest part of this whole case is that she listened to him.”

It was an eloquent defense and he implored the jury to take all this into consideration when considering their verdict.

With closing arguments concluded, the judge charged both juries, explaining the laws, the crimes and what the sentences could be. Then he dismissed them to separate jury rooms to consider their verdicts.