Daughter recounts mother’s role in slaying
Mary Jo Overly cried once on the stand in Fayette County Court on Monday as she told jurors how her mentally retarded sister’s body looked in a fire pit in the backyard of the family’s Bear Rocks home. “She was muddy and her head was bent backwards,” said Overly quietly, of 25-year-old Helen Gillin’s body.
Overly was in court to testify against her mother, 53-year-old Roberta Gillin, who is charged with criminal homicide, abuse of a corpse and two counts of criminal conspiracy in Helen Gillin’s death.
She told the seven-woman, five-man jury that she watched her father, James Gillin, stomp Helen Gillin to death at her mother’s urging.
“My mom kept yelling at my dad to do something with (Helen), that she couldn’t stand looking at her,” testified Overly, who said that her mother was angry that James and Helen Gillin were having a sexual affair.
Helen Gillin, according to Mary Beth Farabaugh, the mental retardation director at Cambria County Mental Health Mental Retardation, needed help doing even the smallest tasks such as bathing. Before she lived with the Gillin’s full time, she was in a group home that had constant supervision.
Although she was not sure of the specific day in the summer of 1992, Overly testified that she watched her mother mix blue bleach and heart medication. When she asked her mother what she was doing, Overly testified Roberta Gillin said she was trying to get rid of her pills.
Overly testified she never saw her mother give Helen Gillin the mixture to drink, she realized Roberta Gillin had done so when she saw Helen Gillin vomiting a blue liquid and staggering around the backyard.
“I ran to my mother and asked her why, because I put two and two together. She said, ‘I just want her to fall asleep and not wake up,'” testified Overly.
As her sister walked around the backyard, where Overly testified she spent most of her time sitting on a rock, Roberta Gillin urged her husband to get rid of the girl, said Overly.
When she saw her father go outside, Overly testified she ran to an upstairs bathroom and, “I heard bones cracking like when you break chicken bones, and I heard her gasping for air like how people do when they come up after they’ve been under water for a long time.”
Overly testified she went to her mother, asking her to stop James Gillin, but said Roberta Gillin only grabbed a knife and walked outside.
“She told me he twisted (Helen’s) head around and she wasn’t dead yet so she needed a knife,” testified Overly.
That knife was never used, said Overly, because Helen Gillin died and her parents took the truck and went for gasoline.
Despite her now-husband’s refusal to allow Overly outside, she told jurors that she did go out to see her sister’s body.
During interviews with police, however, Overly testified she left that part out until her father’s preliminary hearing.
“That was a precious moment for me and I didn’t think anybody needed to know,” testified Overly of her reasoning.
What Overly testified was her “precious moment,” defense attorney Paul Gettleman told jurors was her line of ever-changing stories on the events surrounding her adopted sister’s death.
Claiming Overly’s statements were “replete with falsehoods and misstatements,” Gettleman asked the panel to use common sense in determining if what Overly says on the witness stand is true.
“Some of the things you’re going to hear from Mary Jo’s mouth are so preposterous, they can’t be believed,” said Gettleman.
He also told the panel that Roberta Gillin would take the stand in her own defense, and reveal that James Gillin was sexually involved with Helen Gillin.
“He would throw it up in (Roberta Gillin’s) face. He told her this, and of course it caused problems in the house,” said Gettleman.
He also said that Gillin was “a good Christian woman who wanted to keep her family together no matter how dsyfunctional it was.”
While Gettleman argued Overly’s credibility, he did not have a chance to cross-examine her Monday. After about 20 minutes on the stand, Judge Gerald R. Solomon stopped the trial for the afternoon and asked jurors to return this morning at 9 a.m.
Overly will re-take the stand at that time, and prosecutors will likely question her about the wire she wore while talking to her parents about Helen Gillin’s death. During James Gillin’s trial last year, prosecutors played that tape for jurors.
First Trial Assistant District Attorney Joseph M. George Jr. said in his opening remarks that prosecutors were seeking a first-degree murder conviction, punishable by a mandatory life term in prison.
“After you hear how Helen Gillin died, there will be no doubt in your mind that this is first-degree murder,” said George.