WILKES-BARRE — In the days before Matthew Ryan Gailie was fatally shot, he had plans to leave the jealous girlfriend who often yelled at him over the phone — but there was one reason he hadn’t done so, his former co-workers at State Correctional Institution/Frackville testified Thursday.
“He was just basically afraid to do it,” Robert James Cress, a nurse at the prison, said. “He told me if he left her, she’d kill him.”
Prosecutors alleged that was exactly what happened the night of Sept. 2, 2011, when Jessica Alinsky shot Gailie in the face and tried to make it look like he killed himself at their home on Muskegon Circle in Hazle Township because of financial troubles.
For more than two days, testimony at the murder trial against Alinsky, 32, has focused on the forensics and why prosecutors said the scene was all wrong for a suicide. At the end of the third day of the trial, prosecutors paraded Gailie’s former co-workers before the jury to demonstrate the toxic relationship between the couple.
Correctional Officer Nathan Whitko and Sgt. James Stotler, now retired, testified they frequently used to carpool with Gailie, who would usually get phone calls from a loud woman they assumed was Alinsky.
The night of Gailie’s death, they picked up a six pack of beer to share on the way home, they said. Gailie had talked about leaving Alinsky when their lease ended that fall, and once mentioned Alinsky had pointed a gun at him during a dispute the previous summer, Whitko said.
Both men said Gailie didn’t seem upset or depressed the night he died. He was looking forward to playing golf with his father and had been seeking overtime at work, Stotler said.
According to Cress, Alinsky had a tendency to “fly off the handle” when Gailie talked to other women. Her jealousy may have had some foundation in the facts.
Cress testified that leading up to Gailie’s death, a female nurse at the prison had been pursuing him. Twice, she had performed oral sex on Gailie, and Alinsky may have had her suspicions, Cress said.
“Two or three days before the incident, he did stress to me that he felt she knew,” Cress said.
In the weeks before he died, Gailie repeated his concern that Alinsky would kill him if he left about three or four times, Cress said. About the same time, Gailie showed up with a black eye, saying “the bitch hit me,” Cress said.
“For several weeks that was the only way he referred to her,” he said.
Cress said he started to believe Gailie and told him to leave Alinsky but that he didn’t tell police what he knew because his wife told him not to get involved. He only entered the case a few weeks ago after a supervisor sent out a request for information on the case, he said.
“I should have did something more,” he said.
During cross-examination, defense attorney Demetrius Fannick pounced on Cress’ belated appearance in the case, expressing disbelief he failed to give an interview with police until more than four years after his friend died.
“My wife had told me not to get involved and I didn’t,” Cress responded.
For nearly two years, Gailie’s official manner of death remained undetermined. But earlier Thursday, forensic pathologist Dr. Gary Ross testified that it had always been clear to him.
“From the moment I saw Mr. Gailie’s body, I thought this was a homicide,” Ross said.
Ross testified that the shot placement under Gailie’s nose was “extremely unusual” for a suicide and that the circumstances of the shot, which was fired from about a half-foot from Gailie’s face, were “extremely suspicious.”
“In 35 years of practice, I’ve never seen a frontal gunshot wound to the face in a suicide,” Ross said.
Ross testified the shot entered Gailie’s face under his left nostril and traveled backward at an upward trajectory — also unusual in a suicide — before severing his brainstem and immediately incapacitating Gailie.
“It was like cutting an electrical cord,” Ross said. “Everything went out immediately.”
Prosecutors have highlighted that point repeatedly because police found an old bank statement next to his body. The statement had a bloody hand print on it they say could only have been left by Alinsky.
Ross said the case also didn’t appear to be a suicide because Gailie had no soot or blood spatter on his hands, and the gun was found in his hands.
“It’s very, very rare that the gun is actually in the hands of a suicide victim,” Ross said, noting that the weapon is usually thrown aside by the recoil or moved by someone before police arrive.
After the shooting, Alinsky admitted to moving the weapon, although state police said they found it in Gailie’s left hand with his index finger on the trigger. Gailie was right-handed and the gun was backward at an improbable angle for Gailie to have fired it, according to police.
Assistant District Attorney Jill Matthews asked Ross if he had ever heard of someone putting a gun in a suicide victim’s hand.
“Absolutely never,” Ross said.
Testimony continues Friday morning.