Murder Story

The murder of Garrett Phillips

There’s a good miniseries on this case on HBO Max called Who Killed Garrett Phillips? that I feel covers an important aspect of it, but doesn’t quite go far enough.

As the story goes, Garrett Phillips was found murdered in his bedroom shortly after coming home from school. Neighbors thought they heard noises, but nothing that would incriminate anyone or lead them to investigate immediately. Oral Nick Hillary, a local Jamaican-American soccer player and coach, was arrested for the murder sometime later. There was virtually no evidence against Hillary, other than the fact that he had dated and recently broken up with Garrett’s mother and was seen on surveillance footage driving in the direction of Garrett’s house shortly before the murder, instead of driving in his usual direction home. Hillary was ultimately acquitted of the murder and appears on the miniseries; although law enforcement stands behind their investigation and arrest of him, it is believed that Hillary was considered an easy target for being a PoC in a rural, white town.

What doesn’t sit right with me about the case is that there were other potential leads law enforcement just didn’t pursue, due to their fixation on Nick Hillary. One theory suggested that kids from school killed Garrett, and a more compelling one was that the local police chief himself was involved- he had also dated Garrett’s mother in the past, was said to have a bad temper, and may have been jealous of Hillary. This little kid didn’t get justice because cops were more concerned with getting a conviction and- maybe- covering for their own, and it’s frustrating.

2. The murder of Jennifer Lin

I just listened to this on a podcast yesterday. Jennifer Lin, like Garrett Phillips, was found murdered in her home some time after returning home from school in May of 1994. Lin was a studious and mature 14-year-old girl, and she seemed to have no enemies or anyone in her life who would want to hurt her. Over the years, there were several persons of interest, most notably Sebastian Shaw, an Oregon native who would later confess to multiple murders and serve prison time for sexual assault as well. Shaw was reportedly in the Bay Area of California- where Jenniy lived- at the time of her murder, but his DNA did not match that found at the scene, and Shaw maintained his innocence fervently until his death in prison in 2021- weird for a guy who confessed to 10 other murders. However, there was another suspect in the case, Jenny’s neighbor Doug, who gave police conflicting alibis of what he did that day, and one has to think his presence in the area would not have aroused suspicion. Doug, however, was never aggressively pursued and was eventually ruled out.

What doesn’t sit right with me here is the fact that, based purely on the information in the episode I heard, Doug sounds like the much more likely suspect; he was Jenny’s neighbor (statistically much more likely to be the killer, FWIW), but mostly it was the fact that he changed his story- first claiming that he was home all day until he picked up his girlfriend in the evening, then that he was at work that day- that makes me suspicious. If he’s innocent, what was the reason for lying? Meanwhile, Sebastian Shaw repeatedly denied any involvement even while admitting to being a murderer, and no evidence has been linked to him. I think Jenny’s parents leaned too hard on their belief he was guilty, when the real killer might have been right across the street…