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
he can assert his fifth amendment privilege. april 2012. tom purposely picked a non-descript conference room in potsdam s municipal building for nick s deposition. he chose not to videotape it. i wanted to keep it low-key. cause in the event he s talking, i want him to keep talking. how did it go? well, mr. hillary was talking. tom s main goal was to get nick to admit that he was in the car seen on that security camera video. up until then police had suspicions, but no proof. unlike the movies, you can t zoom in on the license plate or let s let s zoom in on the guy s eyeglasses and oh, that s that s so-and-so behind the wheel. it doesn t work that way. so the number one question at that time was, is that nick hillary in his car in that parking lot? so tom asked a series of questions and, to his surprise, nick readily answered them. mr. hillary, at any point on october 24th of 2011, were you at potsdam high school? yes. how did you get there?
as they saw it, stalking garrett. that s the most important witness in this case. a neutral camera sitting on top of a school. the state also presented that critical video of nick, under oath, from his deposition in his civil case. something happens, which i will affectionately refer to as the gift that keeps on giving. that person is telling lies, frankly, too numerous to catalog. one lie, according to the state, involved nick s damaged ankle. remember, during his deposition nick said he hurt it before garrett s death. mr. hillary, at any point prior to october 24th of 2011, did you suffer an injury to either one of your lower legs? objection, relevance. yes. can you tell me the circumstances under which that occurred? i was moving furniture around in my new apartment. prosecutors attacked that story when the medical examiner took the stand.
it goes to motive. it goes to what s his underlying state of mind. can you describe for me your relationship with garrett up until the point in time where you and miss cyrus broke up? objection. relevance. we had a positive relationship. do you know if garrett liked you? he never said he disliked me. tom also probed nick about his behavior after tandy moved out. did you ever show up in ms. cyrus s apartment in the late evening hours, letting yourself in on your own? no. if ms. cyrus has provided a sworn deposition to the police indicating that that did in fact, occur, was she lying when she gave that testimony? yes. police had a theory that the killer was injured in the escape leap, and they claimed they had video of nick limping at the soccer game the next night. when tom asked him about it, nick admitted he had injured his ankle. but said it happened before garrett was killed. mr. hillary, at any point prior to october 24th of 2011, did you suffer an injury to
state, involved nick s damaged ankle. remember, during his deposition nick said he hurt it before garrett s death. mr. hillary, at any point prior to october 24th of 2011, did you suffer an injury to either one of your lower legs? objection, relevance. yes. can you tell me the circumstances under which that occurred? i was moving furniture around in my new apartment. prosecutors attacked that story when the medical examiner took the stand. he commented on photos police took of nick s ankle just two days after garrett was killed. his ankle is swollen. it s got a very fresh cut. dr. sikirica, our m.e., said the cut is 24 to 48 hours old. a fresh cut, prosecutors theorized, caused by nick s desperate escape leap from garrett s second floor apartment. and then what prosecutors called another lie, the big one at the heart of their case, when nick talked about where he went after driving out of the