"Oral “Nick” Hillary is a free man after being found not guilty of the 2011 murder of 12-year-old Garrett J. Phillips. Presiding
Judge Felix J. Catena rendered his verdict Wednesday morning after a
week of deliberation in the bench trial against the former Clarkson
University men’s soccer coach which began on Sept. 12. Mr.
Hillary, 42, formerly of Potsdam, was found not-guilty of second-degree
murder after he was accused of strangling Garrett, between 4:56 p.m. and
5:30 p.m. on Oct. 24, 2011, at the 100 Market St. apartment where the
boy lived with his mother, Tandy L. Collins, and younger brother Aaron
Collins. Mr. Hillary stood in tears as he was embraced by his
defense team following the verdict. The room was divided by cheers and
sobbing, with Mr. Hillary’s sister, Pamela Winters shouting, “Thank you
Jesus,” and Garrett’s uncle, Brian A. Phillips shouting, “Karma is going
to get you.” But the true defining moment when Mr. Hillary was
given his freedom back was that moment when he was handed back his
passport that kept him from leaving the country and going back to his
native Jamaica. Earl S. Ward, a New York City attorney on Mr.
Hillary’s defense team, had told Judge Catena during his closing
arguments Thursday, that prosecutors cobbled together a “torn and
tattered quilt” of circumstantial evidence that wasn’t able to put Mr.
Hillary in Garrett’s apartment or even on Market Street at the time of
the murder. And Judge Catena agreed, when he took the bench, that
the case was 100 percent circumstantial. He said it was because of that
fact that he took the time to “fully and fairly” review the evidence
presented by both sides. Among that evidence, Judge Catena said
prosecutors brought in 22 witnesses to testify and entered more than 100
exhibits into evidence in their case against Mr. Hillary. The defense
brought forward eight witnesses and seven exhibits. The only
physical evidence Onondaga District Attorney William J. Fitzpatrick, who
took the lead of the prosecution against Hillary as special assistant
to St. Lawrence County D.A. Mary E. Rain, attempted to bring in at trial
was a DNA sample that was produced by STRmix, a forensic software tool
used in testing DNA that could implicate Mr. Hillary in the Garrett’s
death. The motive for that murder, Mr. Fitzpatrick said, was
because Garrett’s mother broke up with him when she said she decided to
put her sons first, after they expressed their displeasure with the
conditions of the relationship. That was a motive that the defense also challenged. “It
is not the type of theory that you bring into the courtroom and ask a
judge to find a man guilty of murder on the second degree,” Mr. Ward
said during his closing remarks. And the cornerstone of the case
against Hillary was his left turn out of the parking lot of Potsdam High
School on the afternoon of Garrett’s death because he was “hunting” the
boy. Again, there was no evidence to support that theory that wasn’t purely circumstantial, the defense team argued. But
the case against Hillary had prosecutorial bungles when Ms. Rain had
been questioned about a convicted rapist who said he saw St. Lawrence
County sheriff’s deputy John E. Jones Jr., ex-boyfriend of Garrett’s
mother, Tandy Collins, entering Garrett’s 100 Market St., Potsdam,
apartment building just minutes before Garrett did on the afternoon of
his death. Hillary’s defense team filed a motion for a mistrial
with prejudice after a hearing was held in which it was determined Ms.
Rain ordered investigators to interview the potential witness in April
2015 and failed to turn over the statement and notes generated from the
interview the defense."
http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/news05/nick-hillary-found-not-guilty-in-murder-trial-20160928