will never go away. i m never going to have my son back. i don t get to go to his high school graduation. or see him go to college. i had no idea what had happened! it was like a meteor hitting. potsdam rescue, need an ambulance. a 12-year-old kid. loved to ride his scooter everywhere. lost his life at the hands of a killer. he s a soccer coach! great person on and off the field, a great role model. there is absolutely nothing connecting him to this case. they don t have the fingerprint. they don t have blood. they don t have the witness. there s a darkness that s at work here. you believe nick hillary killed your boy? yes. people call me a murderer. i m 100% innocent. you could have heard a pin drop in that courtroom. way upstate new york. a small speck on the map on the road to the canadian border. that they like to joke up there that there s more cows than people, and i don t think they re joking. in this sleepy place, with a main street from th
there when he finally gives up? yes. they can t bring him back. no. how awful for you. garrett phillips, unstoppable in life, was dead at age 12. what happens in the next few hours, tandy? it was kind of a blur. we were at the hospital for a while. we got sent home. and i slept in aaron s room with him. at the hospital tandy had been joined by some of the men in her life, her ex-husband casey collins and john jones, the sheriff s deputy. but no one notified nick hillary. turns out, he and tandy had split up the month before and he was no longer in her loop. so lieutenant mark murray of the potsdam pd called nick. mr. hillary speaking. it s mark murray of the potsdam police department. we had an incident occur this evening and we d like to speak with you in regards to it. minutes later, lt. murray and two other investigators were at nick s door, a courtesy
but i had no idea what had happened. and couldn t understand how my 12-year-old had a heart attack. did you think at first that maybe this had something to do with his dad s problem? maybe there was something genetic, aneurysm or something that had happened to him? i honestly was in shock. and couldn t wrap my head around anything. and i don t really want to take you back there. but you re there when he finally gives up? yes. they can t bring him back. no. how awful for you. garrett phillips, unstoppable in life, was dead at age 12. what happens in the next few hours, tandy? it was kind of a blur. we were at the hospital for a while. we got sent home. and i slept in aaron s room with him. at the hospital tandy had been joined by some of the men in her life, her ex-husband casey collins and john jones, the sheriff s deputy. but no one notified nick hillary. turns out, he and tandy had
it s got fated love. and those elements for a writer are irresistible. reporter: the woman in the el middle of it all, tandy cyrus.ep a very pretty woman in a town where pretty women stand out. reporter: one of her lovers stood out too, nick hillary, as a black man in a predominantly white town. you still have people who will not accept interracial relationship.te reporter: what happened between tandy and nick would tip the balance in a political ee campaign, give rise to a controversial lawsuit, and lure high-profile, big city attorneys to confront each other in a -p murder trial that attracted national attention. this has become a story that kind of echoes beyond st. lawrence county, and even beyond new york. reporter: except, when you drill down, it s as local as it gets, all about a small-town boy. this one. 12-year-old garrett phillips, tandy s son. garrett was a blur of a kid,
garrett. six-months after garrett s death, this civil lawyer had breathed new life into a dormant murder investigation, extracting what seemed like powerful new evidence from the prime suspect. but would it be enough for the reporter: but the person he had to convince was nicole duve, the then district attorney for st. lawrence county. so he sent her the transcript of nick s deposition where he admits to being in the high school parking lot and which seemed to be tailing garrett before he was killed. but the d.a. said it still wasn t enough. she believed there was not enough evidenced to convict nick hillary let alone arrest him. not a winnable case. not a winnable case. reporter: the d.a. met with tandy and told her the same thing. she used like a scale as example and it was one little pebble at a time and they just didn t have enough yet. she couldn t get enough pebbles to tilt it this way. right.