X

Prison inmate expected to testify he saw someone other than Hillary about the time 12-year-old was murdered in Potsdam

Posted 9/13/16

By ANDY GARDNER Updated 9:13 p.m. Sept. 13 CANTON -- A state prison inmate who the defense says puts someone else at the scene of Garrett Phillips’ murder will be moved to Canton tomorrow and may …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Prison inmate expected to testify he saw someone other than Hillary about the time 12-year-old was murdered in Potsdam

Posted

By ANDY GARDNER

Updated 9:13 p.m. Sept. 13

CANTON -- A state prison inmate who the defense says puts someone else at the scene of Garrett Phillips’ murder will be moved to Canton tomorrow and may take the witness stand the same day.

About half of Tuesday’s proceedings were a hearing for a motion to dismiss the indictment and declare a mistrial in the murder case against Oral “Nick” Hillary. He is charged with second-degree murder for the Oct. 24, 2011 death of Garrett Phillips, 12, in Potsdam.

Read more about the judge’s decision to continue the trial here.

According to the defense, Brown saw John Jones entering the 100 Market St. apartment building that day shortly before Phillips’s death. Jones is a former paramour of Phillips’s mother and a St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s deputy.

“Gregory Brown will be in local lockup at 9:30 tomorrow morning,” prosecutor William Fitzpatrick told the judge toward the end of Tuesday’s court session. “We’re ready to move into evidence and exhibits.”

The prosecution will also enter video evidence against Hillary during Wednesday’s proceedings. In opening statements, Fitzpatrick had described the videos as “the people’s most important witness,” alleging they place Hillary in the vicinity of Phillips when he was murdered.

Hillary is charged with second-degree murder, facing a bench trial for the Oct. 24, 2011 slaying of 12-year-old Garrett Phillips in Potsdam.

Tuesday’s testimony ended with Phillips’s paternal grandmother testifying about phone conversations she had with the defendant. She told the court he wanted her to urge Phillips’ mother, Tandy Cyrus Collins, to get back together with Hillary after they had split following a yearlong relationship.

The prosecution also called witnesses to verify the route Phillips took from school back to his home where he was killed.

Patricia Phillips, Garrett Phillips’s paternal grandmother, told the court that Hillary called her sometime after Collins broke up with him in June 2011.

“I had a phone call from Nick and he was really upset and he said Tandy was leaving him because of Garrett. I said ‘Garrett’s only 12 years old, you two are the adults. It shouldn’t have nothing to do with Garrett’,” Patricia Phillips said.

In opening statements, Fitzpatrick said Hillary’s motive to kill was his blaming Garrett for the break-up. Collins testified on Monday that she dumped Hillary because her children weren’t happy in the home they all shared.

Patricia Phillips also testified to a second and third call from Hillary. The second, on a date she could not specifically recall, went similar to the first, she told the court.

The third was on the night her grandson was murdered.

“He told me he was sorry he had not seen Garrett since the last soccer game, he said ‘Did he talk’ and I just hung the phone up,” she testified.

Those three words of what may be an incomplete sentence became the subject of a heated exchange between Phillips and defense attorney Peter Dumas under cross-examination.

“To you, it sounded suspicious, didn’t it … ‘Did Garrett talk’ … it’s important,” Dumas said.

“Very important,” Phillips answered.

Dumas pointed to a deposition Phillips gave on March 29, 2012, where she talked about that phone call, but on the witness stand she couldn’t recall exactly what she said four years ago and clammed up when Dumas pressed her about it.

“You don’t recall everything in that statement?,” Dumas asked after handing her a copy of her statement to review.

“No. After five years of going through everything we had, I’m lucky I remember my name,” Phillips said. “I know what he said to me.”

Dumas asked her to take a second look, and she refused.

“If I handed it to you again, could you tell me if it’s in there?” Dumas said.

“No thank you,” Phillips said, refusing to take the document.

“No further questions, your honor,” Dumas said, and Phillips was dismissed from the stand.

The prosecution then called four witnesses verifying what Garrett Phillips was doing the last hour or two he was alive.

His friend Caleb “Teddy” Rice testified they played basketball together in the A.A. Kingston Middle School gym. Dale Kingsley, who was a custodial supervisor at AAK at the time, said he told Rice and Phillips they had to leave the gym sometime after 4:30 p.m. because they were unsupervised. Kayla Phillips, Garrett Phillips’s cousin, said she was watching a varsity soccer game and saw him walking away from school. Dale Rice testified to picking up his son, Caleb, after Kingsley had told them to leave the gym.

The Rices each also said they saw Hillary in his car.

Both Dale and Caleb Rice said they were heading north on Leroy Street when they saw Hillary driving south on Leroy and turn right onto Grove Street.

“He was by the hospital turning down Grove Street … he went from Leroy to Grove,” Dale Rice testified.

At the time, Hillary lived three doors down from the Rices on Leroy Street, Caleb Rice told the court.

In opening statements, the prosecution said part of their case centers on Hillary driving around that area and turning onto streets he normally wouldn’t use to get home from scouting the varsity soccer game as the defendant claims was the case. Fitzpatrick said this is because he instead went to Garrett Phillips’ home at 100 Market St. and killed him.

The defense used cross-examination to challenge the notion that Hillary was “hunting” Phillips, as Fitzpatrick said in his opening statement.

During cross-examination, defense attorney Earl Ward questioned Dale Rice as to Hillary’s demeanor when they crossed paths on Oct. 24, 2011.

“By the time you got to Leroy and Grove, it would have been what (time)?” Ward asked.

“About 4:45 (p.m.),” Dale Rice answered. Fitzpatrick said during opening statements that neighbors called police reporting a disturbance in Garrett Phillips’s apartment at 4:53 p.m.

“Was he moving at a normal pace, or speeding?” Ward asked.

“Normal pace,” Dale Rice replied.

When Kayla Phillips testified about her last ever encounter with her cousin Garrett, defense attorney Peter Dumas asked if she noticed anything amiss, as Hillary was in the parking lot scouting the game, or if she saw Hillary and Garrett together.

“Never saw anything abnormal … anything out of the ordinary … you never saw Nick Hillary, never saw Nick Hillary do anything to Garrett?” Dumas said.

“No,” Kayla Phillips answered.

Fitzpatrick contended during openings that Hillary knew Phillips’s daily schedule, which made it easier to stalk and kill the boy.

Ward, when cross-examining Caleb Rice and Kingsley, tried to establish that Phillips didn’t really have a regular schedule outside when school stared and ended.

Kingsley said he ejected the boys from playing basketball at the AAK gym on Oct. 24, 2011.

After questioning by Ward, he said he had never seen the boys playing that late in the gymnasium.

Caleb Rice said he and Phillips didn’t hang out every day after school, and when they did, some days they did homework, others they played sports.

“It’s best to say Garrett didn’t have a particular schedule?” Ward said.

“No,” Rice replied.