Because You Loved Me. M. William Phelps
going to die when she finds out her mother is dead,” Carla had told one of the officers nearby, before she had been allowed back into her home. Now she was worried how Nicole was going to react. Nicole was prone to depression. Although she and Jeanne hadn’t gotten along well lately, Carla believed Nicole loved her mother. She was likely out with Billy, Carla thought, driving around town, just being a kid, spending her final night with her boyfriend. This, while her life was being turned upside down back at home and she didn’t even know it.
“I believed Nicole was a sweet girl,” Carla said later. “Jeannie worked hard to provide for those kids….”
Carla couldn’t sit still. She ran outside for a moment and told police again: “You’ve got to find Jeanne’s daughter and son, Drew and Nicole.”
Some of the neighbors congregated outside insisted that Drew was at a friend’s house and was due to come home anytime now. What was going to happen when he walked in on all of this?
“You’ve got to find Nicole,” Carla said again. Then she asked one of the officers standing closer to her driveway, “Was this a random attack? Should we be worried? I’m home alone over here.”
“We can’t really give you any information, ma’am. We don’t know who it is. But don’t be worried. OK?”
After that, Carla returned home and called Donna. She was still distressed.
“I can’t believe this, Carla. I cannot believe it.”
“I know, Donna. I know.”
“Come over here.”
Carla walked across the street and sat with Donna for a while. While consoling each other, they discussed a group of kids Drew had been hanging around with that summer. Donna later said the kids were known around the neighborhood to be “bad kids always getting into trouble.” She wondered if perhaps one of the kids tried to burgle Jeanne’s house and fought with Jeanne.
“I never once thought Drew was involved, but the kids he hung around with were always getting into trouble. That was one of the reasons why Drew and Jeanne were, at the time of her death, butting heads so much.”
Yet that theory quickly dissolved after two police officers stopped by Donna’s house and asked if she and Carla had seen anything peculiar earlier that day.
“No,” both women said.
Donna had even walked through Jeanne’s yard somewhere between 6:00 and 6:30 P.M. to go get one of her kids at the day care facility adjacent to the back of Jeanne’s house.
“It was easy to cut through Jeanne’s yard,” recalled Donna, “and Jeanne certainly didn’t mind. But I didn’t see anything at the time I walked through.”
“Can you come into the station with one of our officers to answer a few questions? Just routine stuff.”
“OK,” Donna said.
It was well after eight o’clock. Donna made sure her children were taken care of before she left.
Outside Jeanne’s house, in the front yard and down the street, the crowd—uniform police officers and detectives, medics, neighbors—had swelled with curious onlookers. One officer took Donna by the arm and led her through a group of people standing around, wondering what was going on. As they walked, Drew emerged from the crowd; he had just returned home.
“What’s going on, Donna?” Drew asked when he saw Donna walking with the officer. Like everyone else, the boy was confused. The flashing lights. Crime scene tape. Police asking questions, directing traffic.
“What’s going on?”
Donna and the officer stood by a police cruiser she was going to travel to the Nashua Police Department (NPD) in and didn’t react to Drew’s query.
“Donna, where’s my mom? I want to see my mom,” Drew said.
Donna dropped her head. She started to say something, but had trouble getting the words out. “Just as I began to talk, the officer ducked me into the cruiser and closed the door. I never had a chance,” she added through tears, “to say anything to poor Drew.”
Within seconds, Donna was on her way to the Nashua Police Department. She was panic-stricken by that point. What was going to happen after she left? she wondered. What was Drew going to do when he found out about Jeanne? And Nicole. Poor Nicole, Donna thought. The girl was going to “freak out” when she realized her mother had been murdered.
CHAPTER 14
Although Nicole’s pregnancy test had turned out negative, right before she found out her “second mom” had been murdered, Donna Shepard was on her way over to the house to tell Jeanne what was going on with Nicole lately. Because Jeanne had always been such a good friend, concerned neighbor, mentor to her children and outstanding mother to her own, Donna felt obligated to inform her that Nicole was sexually active.
“Nicole and I had an understanding that she could talk to me,” recalled Donna. “I had always talked to her about things going on in her life. She knew that if I thought she was in trouble, I would have to tell her mother.”
While Nicole was at Donna’s the previous day, she explained how she thought she was pregnant with Billy’s child. Donna said it occurred to her immediately that she was going to have to tell Jeanne. She believed Nicole was in over her head. Jeanne would know what to do.
Donna’s story contradicts a rumor that later surfaced about Nicole trying to get pregnant so she could trap Billy into staying with her. Some had said Nicole was worried about losing Billy, not only because of the distance between them, but to another girl. Billy had other girls in his life. Nicole knew. Just a few months before his visit to Nashua, Billy had told a girl in Connecticut—someone he had met when they were hospitalized together—that he and Nicole were “engaged.” The girl was disappointed, and later said she wished she had “told Billy how she felt about him….”
Any indication that Nicole might have wished she was pregnant was washed away on the day she came out of Donna’s bathroom with the results of her test in her hand.
“I am so relieved,” Nicole told Donna when she emerged with the negative results. “I don’t know how I would have ever explained that to my mother.”
There would have been, Nicole explained to Donna, a major “blowout” between them, had she been pregnant. It would have ruined everything. As it were, Jeanne was unhappy with Nicole and Billy’s relationship, especially how fast it was moving. Beyond that, Jeanne was convinced Billy was a bad influence on Nicole. Chris McGowan later said it hurt Jeanne to get up in the middle of the night that week and hear Nicole crying. Jeanne would use the bathroom, which was directly underneath Nicole’s room. The walls and floor were so thin, Jeanne had heard Nicole weeping and knew it was because of something Billy had said. Billy needed to go back home that Thursday, Jeanne was sure of it after that night. There was no question he was leaving. Jeanne felt Nicole would someday see for herself that Billy was no good for her.
“Jeanne was hoping Nicole would get a job, meet other boys and forget about Billy,” said Chris. “Which she would have.”
As Nicole babysat Donna’s kids over the course of that spring and summer, she and Donna talked about a lot of things. In the weeks and months leading up to Jeanne’s death, Nicole told Donna how mad her mother was about the phone bills. Billy and Nicole talked for hours on those nights they weren’t together. Some of Jeanne’s phone bills were in excess of $500 to $1,000. Jeanne expected Nicole to work and pay them off herself. There was one time that spring when Nicole showed up to babysit and explained to Donna that Jeanne had grounded her for running up the phone bill so high. “I need to babysit as much as I can,” said Nicole, “so I can pay off the bill. My mom won’t let me talk to Billy until I do.”
Donna had met Billy for the first time the night before Jeanne was murdered. Of course, Nicole had mentioned Billy on numerous occasions. “He’s wonderful. I love