Not me.
"Man held without bail in death of Marblehead woman; Witnesses heard couple fighting" by Peter Schworm, Globe Staff December 22, 2014
LYNN — In a drunken altercation last month, John Devine repeatedly threatened to kill his girlfriend, Tanya Nichols, after drinking an entire bottle of vodka, according to a police report.
Over the weekend, authorities allege, he followed through on his threat.
Devine, a 28-year-old with a lengthy record of assaults and thefts, is accused of fatally beating Nichols, 51, in her Marblehead apartment, where she was found lying in a pool of blood Sunday morning with obvious head wounds.
I don't like the age difference.
Two days earlier, a witness told police, Devine and Nichols had a loud argument punctuated by the sound of breaking glass and crashing furniture. The next morning, the witness said he walked by Nichols’s bedroom and saw her lying on the floor with some blood on her leg but didn’t think it was serious. She was still breathing, he said.
The next day, Devine was arrested after he was seen driving Nichols’s rental car, police said. Under questioning, Devine admitted he had thrown a night stand at Nichols during the altercation, hitting her in the midsection. But he then went downstairs and had no further contact with her, he told police, and said he had heard her use the bathroom three times.
Devine pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Monday. His lawyer, John Morris, said Devine denies the charges and “doesn’t know why they arrested him.”
“I didn’t hear anything to suggest he was involved,” Morris said. “Other people were at the scene.”
Essex County prosecutor Kim Gillespie said Nichols’s body was found with blood-soaked articles of clothing piled around her head. The rear glass bedroom door was shattered, and a night stand with the legs broken off rested on the floor. A bedpost was on the dresser.
The medical examiner’s office ruled that Nichols died from blunt force trauma to the head.
Devine, who wore a hooded sweatshirt in court, was ordered held without bail.
In the altercation last month, Devine allegedly cornered Nichols, who yelled at him to “Please get out of my way! Please let me go!”
“She was definitely in fear,” a roommate told police.
Devine was knocking things off the counter “in a rage,” the report stated. Devine had been drinking vodka for a few hours and told police he had consumed an entire bottle.
“When speaking with him, I noticed he was slurring his words and had red, glassy eyes,” a Marblehead officer wrote. “I asked him what had happened here tonight and he stated ‘Nothing, I was just drinking with my friends.’ ”
Nichols insisted there was no fight and did not seek a restraining order against Devine last month. He was charged with assault and was released on a bail warning after prosecutors sought $1,500 in bail.
The couple’s troubles dated back further. In July, Nichols reported that Devine had stolen her car and computer. She told police Devine had “fallen on hard times” and was homeless until she took him in.
Police found that Devine wanted to use the car to raise $200 for court fees.
In 2010, Devine allegedly assaulted a previous girlfriend, placing a knife against her throat. He attacked her after she lowered the volume on the television and threw his beer bottle against the wall, police wrote in a report.
“She was in fear because she thought he was going to kill her,” Lynn police wrote at the time.
Toni Troop of Jane Doe Inc., a domestic violence advocacy organization, said domestic violence fatalities are “the most predictable of homicides.”
“There are red flags,” she said.
In Nichols’s death, a downstairs neighbor told police that he was awakened early Saturday by a large disturbance upstairs. In the morning, he texted Nichols but didn’t hear back. That night, the apartment was quiet, “which was very unusual,” according to a police report.
The witness who told police Devine and Nichols had been fighting initially told officers he smoked pot with Nichols and Devine before leaving but later admitted he had lied and had spent the night at the Marblehead apartment.
Isn't that a crime?
During the fight, he said, he heard glass breaking, which he likened to a baseball bat hitting a car windshield. After he saw Nichols lying on the floor, he saw that Devine had left and that the car was not in the driveway. The witness said he then made a fire and had a bowl of cereal.
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He's lucky this didn't happen in Oklahoma.
