Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle

by Michael Benson

  Jilica said the boys had not been quick to react, that they were “pretty much just standing there.”

  How did Jilica learn that Sarah was hurt?

  “I turned around and I saw that Sarah wasn’t standing up anymore.”

  Jilica could tell that Sarah needed medical attention. She grabbed for her purse, but she was nervous and dropped the phone. It hit the street and the back popped off. By the time she managed to get the plastic piece back onto the back of her phone, she looked at the blond girl, whose name she now realized was Rachel. She could see that she no longer had the knife. She let go of Janet and walked around the rear of the minivan, which she referred to as “the truck.”

  “I saw Sarah lying on the ground, and I scooped her between my legs and I was holding her chest a little bit.”

  “When you saw, did you scream anything at Rachel?” Hanewicz inquired.

  “Yes. I said, ‘You stabbed her! I saw you stab her, and you’re going to jail!’ That’s exactly what I said to her.”

  “Do you see the person who stabbed Sarah in the courtroom today?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Could you please point to her and identify her by an item of her clothing.”

  “She’s right there, wearing a black jacket,” Jilica said, pointing at Rachel.

  Hanewicz showed Jilica a CD that had been listened to and signed by the witness, who testified that it was a recording of the call she placed to 911 moments after the incident.

  According to the police, Jilica’s 911 call was made at precisely 12:45 A.M. Now the CD was played for the jury.

  “Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?” the dispatcher asked.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Jilica replied.

  The dispatcher tried to get her to give an address, but Jilica only knew the name of the street she was on, not the cross street or the house number.

  The dispatcher asked what city she was in. Jilica said Pinellas Park.

  “Pinellas Park. Okay. What happened?”

  “Fucking Rachel fucking stabbed her.”

  “Okay. What is the address? Ask what the address is.”

  “What the address is? Sarah is not even … What address is this?”

  Voices are heard in background relaying information.

  Jilica started to relate the address but interrupted herself to say, “Don’t let her get to her! Janet, come here!” Jilica finally managed to get out the address.

  “Where on her body was the patient stabbed?”

  “I swear to God this is …”

  “Where on the body is the patient stabbed?”

  “She’s stabbed in the chest. It’s Sarah.”

  “Where is the person who did this?”

  “She’s right here.”

  “This is a female patient?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, my name is Margaret. I’m going to put you right through to the police. There is already an ambulance on the way. Okay?”

  “Okay. Don’t hang up.”

  “I’m not hanging up.”

  On the recording, there was the sound of a phone ringing as the dispatcher tried to patch the call through to the police.

  Jilica, obviously impatient, said, “Come on, come on, come on!”

  Margaret finally came back on the line, the original dispatcher.

  “We got a girl on the ground and she’s passed out. I don’t know if she’s alive,” Jilica said.

  “All right, we have some help on its way. You say she’s passed out?”

  “I don’t know. She’s like coming and going. She’s trying to breathe.”

  Margaret again reassured Jilica that help was on its way. “I’m going to tell you what to do for her, okay? Is the knife out of her?”

  “She’s stabbed in the fucking chest. The knife is out.”

  “Is there serious bleeding right now?”

  “Yes, there’s bleeding. Sarah! Sarah, stay with us.”

  “All right, you say she’s stabbed in the chest. Is there more than one wound? Was she stabbed more than once, or is there just the one wound?”

  “Just the … I don’t know. I didn’t see when she got … I mean, I saw her get stabbed, but I don’t know how many times she stabbed her. I didn’t think she was going to do it. I just saw the knife. She’s foaming out the mouth. She’s breathing.”

  “And where is the person who did this, right now?”

  “Help is coming, Sarah. She’s, oooh, she’s standing right here. All right, I think the police are coming….”

  “Listen to me, you need to try and stay calm.”

  Jilica could be heard calling out instructions, apparently to police who had arrived. “She’s right there! No, not the girl in the orange shirt. Janet!”

  Then there was silence. The call had been terminated.

  In the courtroom, there was a pause as everyone recovered a bit from the horrible recording they’d just heard. Both Jilica, on the witness stand, and Rachel, at the defense table, had wiped away tears as the tape played.

  ASA Hanewicz broke the silence by asking, “Jilica, could you please walk us through what we just heard?”

  Defense attorney Hebert objected to that, saying the tape could speak for itself without color commentary.

  Judge Bulone sustained the objection and asked Hanewicz to ask a more specific question.

  Hanewicz asked the witness what she was doing when she first called 911.

  Jilica reiterated that she was sitting on the ground with Sarah’s head between her legs, trying to comfort her. She put a little pressure on her chest wound, but she wasn’t sure if she was doing it correctly. She was talking to Sarah—no response.

  By this time, a couple of neighbors had come out of their houses to gawk. She was limited in what she could see because she was sitting next to the car. It was hectic and she’d been screaming Janet’s name, because she didn’t know if they were still fighting. She didn’t want her friend to get hurt.

  When the cops arrived, Jilica pointed out Rachel as the one who’d done the stabbing, and made sure they didn’t confuse Janet—who was wearing an orange shirt—with Rachel.

  “No further questions, Your Honor,” Lisset Hanewicz said.

  Jay Hebert, looking angry, paced in front of the witness, setting up the easel with the photos of the crime scene pasted on it. Hebert began by asking about the time, on the night of the incident, when Jilica was outside Janet’s house in a car talking to a friend.

  “Who was the friend you were in the car with?”

  “Justin.”

  “Last name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Hebert wondered to whom Janet was talking outside the house.

  Jilica said she didn’t know that guy’s name at all.

  Hebert was interested in intoxicants. No, Jilica didn’t observe anyone smoking marijuana that night. No, she didn’t personally smoke any marijuana that night.

  “Not that I know of,” she said.

  “Not that you know of?”

  “I don’t think I did.”

  She hadn’t seen any vodka that night, either. She was outside most of the time, sitting in her friend’s car. She wasn’t sure when Janet came out and went in, but she was pretty sure Sarah didn’t come out until the McDonald’s run. Joshua never came outside.

  Hebert drew Jilica’s attention to the red car that passed by that night. “Isn’t it true that you thought there were two people in that car?”

  Jilica replied that she couldn’t really see. All she saw was hair. She knew someone had to be driving; but as for whether or not there was a passenger, she couldn’t be sure. She might have said it looked like there were two people in the car.

  Jay Hebert pointed out that in her deposition, page 25, line 24, she definitely said that at first it looked like there were two people in the red car.

  Jilica acknowledged that those were “probably” her words. She had said them a long time ago. The thing that drew her attentio
n to the car wasn’t just its speed, but the length of time it stopped at the corner. It had definitely not been “just a regular stop-sign stop.”

  Hebert then focused on the encounter with Ashley Lovelady. Jilica didn’t know Ashley, had never seen her before, and had no idea that she was Sarah’s friend. She thought Ashley might have been driving a white car.

  Up until the news from Ashley, everything was calm in Sarah’s minivan. In contrast to Ashley’s testimony, she remembered the cars facing in opposite directions when they stopped and had a conversation.

  As Jilica recalled events, the two drivers, Sarah and Ashley, could easily roll down their windows and speak to one another. Jilica wasn’t “really tuned in to the conversation,” but she did overhear the phrase “Javier’s house.” She didn’t know, or didn’t remember, the context.

  “You would agree that it was then that all hell broke loose, and that the drive from then on, until the time the van stopped, was a completely different drive.”

  “Yes, I would agree with you.”

  “Sarah was mad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sarah wanted to fight,” Hebert stated.

  “I don’t know what was going through Sarah’s head. I know she was angry.”

  Hebert once again referred to Jilica’s deposition, during which she’d been asked if Sarah was angry and wanted to fight, and Jilica had answered yes. Did she recall answering that way?

  “I do recall answering that way—but that was kind of two questions in one,” Jilica complained. “As for whether Sarah wanted to fight her or not, I don’t know what was going on in Sarah’s head. You asked me if she was upset and ready to fight, and I said yes because she was upset.” And, yes, from then on everything changed. It was not a pleasant drive.

  “There was no stopping Sarah at that point. Isn’t that correct?”

  “She was angry. I don’t think we would have been able to stop her.”

  “Sarah wasn’t going to stop?”

  “No.”

  “And at that point, you knew you weren’t going to McDonald’s anymore.”

  “Yes.”

  Getting out of the van was not an option then. Sarah was clipping around corners.

  Hebert changed the subject to the “Mexican boy friend” statement. Had Sarah’s phone been on speakerphone?

  Now aware that Hebert was using her earlier statement to make it seem as if she were changing her story, Jilica admitted she probably said it was on speakerphone at one time because she had heard it so clearly—but now looking back on it, she couldn’t be sure. She didn’t remember Sarah turning the phone to speakerphone.

  “Miss Smith, you spoke with an officer that night.”

  “I spoke to a couple of officers.”

  “You spoke to an Officer Simpkins and you gave him a statement. Is that correct?”

  “I don’t remember the officer’s name, but yes, sir, I gave a statement.”

  “Do you remember if during that statement, you mentioned this ‘I’m going to stab you’ phone call?”

  “I’m not sure what was mentioned and what wasn’t mentioned,” Jilica replied.

  Hebert tried again, but Jilica repeated that she didn’t know.

  “Okay, would you admit that Janet was mad that night, pretty fired up about the situation?”

  “She was mad.” Jilica didn’t have a good feeling about things as Sarah screeched to a halt in front of Javier’s house. In fact, she was pretty sure something bad was going to happen.

  In order to ask the witness which direction the minivan was headed when it stopped in front of Javier’s house, Hebert showed Jilica a large blowup of the aerial photo taken by the Pinellas Park police of the neighborhood.

  Jilica looked at it and saw nothing she recognized. “I don’t really know Pinellas Park,” she said. “Is this Javier’s house?”

  Hebert said it was, and Hanewicz objected, pointing out that Hebert was now the one testifying. After some discussion, it was stipulated which house was Javier’s, so Hebert could finally get to his question regarding which direction the van was headed.

  The photo was admitted into evidence as defense exhibit number six. Still, there were problems. Jilica said she wasn’t sure from which direction Sarah pulled into the neighborhood, but she recalled that she stopped “on the right side of the street.”

  Hebert tried again. Jilica was allowed to step down from the witness stand and look at the photos as they were set up on the easel. This time Jilica thought about it for a while and she looked at the photo carefully.

  “No, I don’t remember which way,” she said.

  Hebert gave up on the aerial photo, and showed the witness the ground-level police photos taken of the crime scene, which depicted the vehicles in question. Jilica recognized the scene and testified that Sarah was driving fast, and came to an abrupt stop, and that Sarah and Rachel’s cars were pointed in opposite directions. Even then she wasn’t enthusiastic about it.

  “I was in the backseat. This looks right to me,” she said.

  Hebert tried to get Jilica to say when Janet got out of the car. Jilica wasn’t sure. Hebert asked if the car was running when they got out. Jilica didn’t know. She knew Sarah stopped but couldn’t recall if she took out the keys.

  “Was it dark that night?”

  Hebert showed her two police photos, one taken with a flash and one without. Jilica acknowledged that the one without was darker. Jilica realized at one point that she was standing so that the jury couldn’t see the photos and apologized as she moved to one side. Jilica acknowledged that, according to the photos, Sarah stopped her van “somewhat in the middle” of the street, rather than on the right side, as she’d earlier testified.

  Hebert asked Jilica to repeat where the tragic confrontation had taken place. She pointed to a spot near the left front of the minivan. Again she added that she’d been in the backseat, so she couldn’t be certain.

  That opened a door that Hebert charged through. Jilica was in the backseat and had a poor view of the action; yet she had testified that she’d seen Rachel walk across the front of the van with a knife in her right hand. Hebert asked Jilica to show the jury, using a pen, how Rachel was holding the knife. Jilica assumed a position that had the tip of the pen pointing downward.

  “It was kind of down,” she said, a phrase that Hebert liked so much that he had her repeat it.

  “Do you know if Janet saw the knife?”

  Jilica didn’t think so. “I don’t think she would have tried to go at her if she did,” Jilica said.

  Hebert asked how the girls held their hands as the confrontation began.

  Jilica put her dukes up and assumed a classic boxing stance.

  “Like they were defending themselves?” Hebert asked.

  “Like they were fighting,” Jilica replied. She saw them fight, hair being grabbed, hands flailing.

  “And you saw that from Sarah? …”

  “I saw that from both parties.”

  How tall was Sarah? Jilica said that Sarah was taller than she was, and she was five-six, so that would make Sarah five-eight, five-nine.

  How much did Sarah weigh? Jilica didn’t know, and wouldn’t hazard a guess.

  Was Sarah bigger or smaller than Rachel? Bigger.

  Jilica was allowed to return to the witness stand.

  Hebert asked the order of events and Jilica was insistent that she and Janet didn’t get out of the car until after Sarah was stabbed. Hebert had to do something about that. His whole case depended on the notion that the girls had ganged up on Rachel, and that she had reasonably needed a weapon to defend herself. Hebert tried to get Jilica to say that Janet attacked Rachel. Jilica responded that Janet couldn’t attack Rachel because she was holding her back.

  Hebert repeatedly tried to put words in the witness’s mouth, but she was stubborn.

  “At some point in time, Janet did attack Rachel,” Hebert said, once again coming very close to doing the testifying himself.


  “Yes,” Jilica said tentatively.

  “You didn’t see that?”

  “I was with Sarah. I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t see Janet grab Rachel by the hair and drag her across the lawn?”

  “Oh yes, yes, I saw that,” Jilica said. “They were fighting. You said attacked.”

  “Janet was beating Rachel up.”

  “They were fighting.”

  “You saw Janet grab Rachel by the hair and drag her across the dirt!”

  “I was the one dragging. I grabbed Janet and was dragging her away from Rachel. Janet was mad. She’d just stabbed her friend!”

  “Did you see Janet take one of her shoes off and beat Rachel with it?”

  “She had a shoe, her sandal, in her hand. I didn’t see her hit her with it.”

  “You would agree with me that, at that time, that was a pretty chaotic situation. Explosive?”

  “Yes.”

  Jilica explained that after the situation at Javier’s house was over, she and Janet realized they had no way to get back home, and they had started to walk. Jilica had no idea where she was, but Janet knew the way. They were walking, and a police car pulled up. They got in, and the cops gave them a ride home. While in the car, they answered some more questions.

  The prosecution wanted the jury to believe that police had separated the witnesses immediately so that there had been no opportunity for them to put their heads together and come up with a common story they were going to tell.

  Hebert now asked if Jilica remembered being sequestered at any time that evening. She didn’t understand the question.

  “You were not put in a room and told to stay there, or put in a squad car and told to stay there?”

  “No, sir,” Jilica replied.

  “You were able to walk around and later walked home with Janet. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s all I have, Judge.”

  “Redirect?” Judge Bulone asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Hanewicz said, and began her questioning of Jilica Smith.

  “Jilica, when defense counsel was asking you if you knew that Sarah and Rachel were going to fight, was there any talk of fighting, in the car, on the way to Javier’s house?”

  “She was mad. I don’t know what was going through her head.” (Jilica went to the well with that line once too often.)