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
the soccer field, where his respectful teammates gave him a nickname. nick was the general. he was a leader. the general. so that was a tip of the hat both to his career as a vet yeah, absolutely. but also his traits as a person. yeah, his leadership traits for sure. i mean it fit him to a tee. in 1999 nick led st. lawrence to an undefeated season and a national championship, cementing bonds of friendship that remain tight today. just great person on and off the field. a great role model. yeah, he was our brother. he was our big brother. he was the glue that kept us all together. he brought us together. he arranged dinners at his house. he cooked for the whole team. is that the rasta pasta nights? the rasta pasta. absolutely. i mean, it was a staple of who we were as a group. after the championship season and graduation, nick kept leading. he became a coach and, in 2009, landed a plum job, head soccer coach at clarkson, just minutes from his alma mater. life w
deposition, safe to say, was very important. extremely important. we couldn t have put him in the places where he put himself. on may 15th nick hillary was indicted and arrested. 100% innocent. charged with second-degree murder, he was led away in handcuffs by lead investigator mark murray. no ruckus? no to-do? no ruckus, no to-do. just us walking nick into the station. nothing, however, has been ordinary in this extraordinary case. five months later, a judge threw out that indictment on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct. the judge in the case decides that mary rain acted inappropriately. that she injected opinion. that she obviously was not pursuing justice, per se, but was pursuing nick. the judge read transcripts of the proceedings and determined that the d.a. bullied nick s daughter, an alibi witness, asking her the same question 13 times. it s cross-examination. there was no bullying. he s not there. he doesn t know my tone of voice. so he s surmising som
her saying that this happened. investigators started knocking on doors all over potsdam to get the lowdown on nick. tandy s side didn t pull any punches. attorney for the potsdam p.d., tom mortati family, friends, relatives. they all immediately thought, well, there s only one person that we can think of that might do something to garrett, and that was nick hillary. that he has reason to have a grudge against garrett, what, for breaking up this relationship? essentially, yeah. still wants to be with the mom? yep. tandy s parents gave statements to police. her mother wrote he kept telling me it was tandy s fault they broke up and that garrett was a factor. nick had gone to her parents to basically lobby them to help help me get back in tandy s good graces. i m good for garrett. i m good for her. you know, help them see the light. as investigators continued targeting nick, they say they still had the other ex-boyfriend, fellow cop john jones, on their radar. he