Jun 10, 2002 3 min read

Judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys are fond of reminding juries that they are the ultimate triers of facts. After hearing all the evidence that a judge will allow both sides to enter, juries then must weigh only the facts that they heard during the trial and render a judgment: guilty or not guilty. Twelve men and women on Thursday after reviewing the evidence presented in the case against Roberta Gillin found that there wasn’t enough to convict her of conspiring with her husband in 1992 to kill their adopted retarded adult daughter, Helen, and then burn her body over a backyard BBQ pit. The family pretended for years that Helen had simply run off with a biker boyfriend until relatives turned them in and police and archeologists confirmed the bizarre murder story by finding 2,200 bone fragments that belonged to Helen.

Those who recall the gruesome details of the trial that led to James Gillin’s conviction last year and a life plus 14-year prison sentence, find it hard to comprehend that Mrs. Gillin would be acquitted.

Hadn’t Mrs. Gillin been willing then to admit her guilt to a lesser charge in a plea bargain arranged by the Fayette County District Attorney’s Office that would have seen her locked up for four to eight years in exchange for her help in nailing Mr. Gillin?

Didn’t a judge after hearing testimony at Mr. Gillin’s trial refuse to accept her plea because witnesses had claimed that she was the one who initially poisoned Helen, ordered her husband to finish her off and even handed him a knife? And didn’t testimony also indicate that she threw another log on the fire to help conceal the remains.

It was a dicey move on the judge’s part to refuse Mrs. Gillin’s plea in the interest of serving justice, in the interest of seeing her tried for homicide. It was also a courageous and necessary ruling, and he should not now regret having made that call.

Trials are always a gamble. No one knows how an independent jury will rule, who they will believe. And this was a different trial, a different presentation – one that seemed watered down from Mr. Gillin’s trial and one in which Mrs. Gillin took the stand in her defense to shed a few tears and to deny and minimize her involvement.

Apparently a jury bought it.

It’s just too bad the district attorney didn’t call Mrs. Gillin to testify against her husband last year as was expected. And it’s too bad the district attorney didn’t present the same kind of hard-hitting case as before.

We can only wonder what story Mrs. Gillin would have told then and if it would have changed the outcome of her own case.