Thanks to all of the friends who generously shared their memories of Jillian Catherine Russell Cahill and especially to her family, in whose hearts she lives on.
ST. MARTINS TRUE CRIME LIBRARY TITLES BY MARION COLLINS
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POSTSCRIPT
At the beginning of November 1999, with the thirty-day deadline about to expire, Jeffs lawyers filed notice of appeal. Acknowledging that the process would take years, Bill Fitzpatrick pointed out that no matter the outcome, there was one thing not in dispute. Jeff Cahill murdered his wife. To date, his defense had cost New York taxpayers over $400,000 and the Capital Defenders Office had estimated that that total could go substantially higher.
On February 6, 2000, Jills hometown held its own fund-raiser for her children, featuring an auction, where bidders vied for items donated by local football and hockey teams, including a Buffalo Bills football jersey autographed by quarterback Jim Kelly, items signed by the Bills Doug Flutie, hockey sticks autographed by the Buffalo Sabres and a weekend at Niagara-on-the-Lake. The event, dubbed Open Your Heart, which took place at the American Legion Post on Main Street, Tonawanda, raised $40,000 to help the family defray education and legal costs.
In the years that followed, Jeff Cahill settled into his new surroundings and just how well he acclimatized dismayed Jills family. The fact that you can take a death row inmate, said Debbie, and put him in an isolated room where nobody touches him, he doesnt have to deal with the rest of the prison population, he doesnt have to wake up every morning wondering whats going to happenhe had a very good life. I loved that he had adapted to it, he was very happy. The whole judicial system is ridiculous in New York State. He was going to Masses every Sunday, he was doing his penance.
For their part, Jills family were consumed with raising her children and getting back some semblance of the anonymity theyd known before the whole nightmare erupted. There was one piece of business still to be taken care of. Just a week before a trial was due to start in New York Supreme Court, they settled the wrongful death suit. In January 2003, The Doyle Group, the company responsible for security at University Hospital, agreed to ante up $850,000. After costs, approximately $500,000 was invested in annuities on behalf of Mary and Tim to pay for college tuition and to give them an income for the rest of their lives.
But just when they thought it was finally over, there was one more shock to absorb. During the ongoing litigation with Doyle, the Russells lawyer, Tom Shannon, disclosed that just a few days after the assault, Jeffs lawyer had arranged for him to see a psychiatrist at the hospital where he was barred from ever setting foot by restraining order. He made five scheduled visits to Dr. Wendy Armenta, whose office was two floors away from where his wife lay helpless, and popped in a number of other times to deliver cards and gifts to her. On the morning of the day he murdered Jill, hed stopped by to give his shrink a birdhouse.
It was a gut-churning revelation that took even Bill Fitzpatrick by surprise. I knew he was seeing a psychiatrist, but I did not know that he was in any way at the hospital, he said.
For the rest of that year an army of lawyers were busy haggling over what would be presented to the Court of Appeals in Albany. Although his office cooperated with the states Capital Defenders Office attorneys, Fitzpatrick wasted no time in second-guessing his decision to seek the death penalty for Jeff Cahill. The terror Jill must have felt when she woke to find him bending over her, and the subsequent hell her family endured, never left him. He lost no sleep over her killers pending execution.
As he had predicted on the courthouse steps after the sentencing phase of the trial, the process slowly ground through the system until it came before New Yorks highest court, the Court of Appeals, on September 22, 2003. In an 800-page brief, the defense scared up thirty-eight reasons for tossing the sentence, including Judge Burkes handling of Michelle Terrys collapse and the prosecutions stance that Jeff Cahill had unlawfully entered Jills hospital room as a prelude to killing her. But the main issue was the New York statute that lets a convicted murderer eventually go free if a jury is torn between the death penalty and life without parole.
Jeff was represented by the CDOs Chief District Attorney and Syracuse University professor of constitutional law, James Maxwell; Bill Fitzpatrick and Rick Trunfio made the case for the People. Special interest factions like the New York Civil Liberties Union and antideath penalty groups were also allowed a say. Ironically, on the panel was Chief Judge Judith Kaye, who, in tandem with Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, and with great fanfare, had set up the states first Combined Felony and Misdemeanor Domestic Violence Court in White Plains, NY, in 2001.
The court came back with its decision on November 26, 2003, five years after Jill was murdered. In a 63-page ruling, it tore up the warrant of execution and ordered Jeff to be resentenced to 25 years to life with the possibility of parole. In explanation, the majority held that Jeff Cahill had meant to kill his wife, but dismissed the idea that silencing her was the underlying motive. They also took issue with the inclusion of one juror who had admitted to a domestic altercation of his own and the exclusion of another who said she could not vote for the death penalty.
Debbie learned of the ruling when Bill Fitzpatrick reached her while she was shopping for Christmas presents in T.J. Maxx. She called Fred and Joan. To all of them it was a heartbreaking, asinine decision. As far as they were concerned, the jurors in Syracuse had listened to days of testimony and had gotten it right. Now all their soul-searching was being thrown out the window by a clutch of judges whod listened to just five hours of argument. Where was the fairness and legality in that? Everybody was so concerned about Jeff Cahills rights. Didnt he trade those in when he murdered their daughter? Didnt these fools read what he had actually done to her?