WILKES-BARRE — Long before police found Matthew Ryan Gailie dead on a blood-soaked carpet and his hysterical girlfriend screaming on the front porch, family members on both sides were aware of the couple’s toxic relationship.
Jurors, who will likely decide next week whether Jessica Alinsky, 32, murdered the 34-year-old correctional officer, heard testimony Friday that the fateful night Gailie died in September 2011 was the last chapter in a story filled with jealousy, anger and tears.
Alinsky’s father, Richard DeGregor, testified for the prosecution that early the summer before Gailie died, the couple had a dispute that left his daughter hysterical.
“I slapped her to try to calm her down,” he said, adding that he then picked her up and put her in a cold shower to calm her.
Then in August 2011, the couple was at it again in a confrontation prosecutors say ended with them smashing each other’s electronics.
DeGregor said Alinsky had bruises on her arms and knee and that he’d had enough — he brought her to state police who in turn cited Gailie and Alinsky for summary harassment.
But within a few weeks, Alinsky was back at the couple’s house on Muskegon Circle in Hazle Township.
Gailie later regretted getting back together, his father told the jury.
At the time of his death, Gailie had been biding his time until their lease ended that November so he could leave her for good, Frank Gailie testified.
“He was saying I have a couple more months to tough out and then I can go,” Frank Gailie said. “He was sad that he’d gotten back into the relationship, but other than that he just wanted out.”
Prosecutors allege Alinsky shot Gailie and tried to make it look like he killed himself over money troubles.
From the stand, Frank Gailie acknowledged his son’s financial troubles — describing him as a man who enjoyed remote-control vehicles, target shooting and fishing; and who often bought what he wanted impulsively.
But Frank Gailie also said his son knew he could get help — he was making payments to his father for a car — and that they had spoken about controlling his spending several months before he was killed.
“He was getting a handle on his finances,” Frank Gailie said. “That’s what he told me.”
Contrary to being depressed, Matthew Gailie had been looking forward to a golfing trip the father and son had been planning for months, he said. The trip was scheduled in the days shortly after the shooting, he said.
“He was looking forward to going golfing with me because we didn’t get to spend that much time together,” Frank Gailie said.
Dr. Richard Fischbein, a Kingston-based psychiatrist, backed up the claim that Matthew Gailie did not appear suicidal. He said he conducted a “psychological autopsy” based on medical reports and statements by friends and family that determined Matthew Gailie had some financial issues, but did not show high-risk factors for suicide — such as a history of substance abuse or previous suicide attempts.
“The risk for suicide in this gentleman was very, very low,” Fischbein said.
However, under cross-examination by attorney Demetrius Fannick, Fischbein acknowledged a neighbor previously testified at a coroner’s inquest that Matthew Gailie once locked himself in a bathroom with a gun.
Fischbein said he characterized that as a “suicide gesture,” not an attempt, and that no one else backed up that claim.
“I do remember that there was one statement out of many that he threatened suicide,” the doctor said.
The night he died, Gailie returned from his job at State Correctional Institution/Frackville to find Alinsky already home, having gone out for drinks with friends at Bottlenecks Saloon and Eatery.
Her co-worker, Stanley Peter Tarutis III, testified he gave her a ride home after she’d been drinking Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola and that she was crying and upset about her relationship with Gailie on the way home.
A short time later, state police found a bloody Alinsky crying on her porch and later took her to the barracks in Hazleton, where she told Trooper Nicolas De La Iglesia during a smoke break that Matthew Gailie “may have had the gun out and that she may have pushed it away,” the trooper testified.
The story he got was the same as Alinsky told her mother, Lisa DeGregor, and sister, Nicole DeGregor, who testified she told them that she had been upstairs when she heard a shot and went down to find Matthew Gailie dead. But the account was strange, Nicole DeGregor said, because Alinsky said she saw Gailie get shot, although that would have been impossible from upstairs.
State police were quick to question Alinsky’s story, which changed several times and included explanations of Gailie committing suicide and the gun going off by accident during a struggle.
Cpl. Shawn Williams recalled escorting Alinsky to a patrol car after the shooting and seeing her turn and look at the house, giving him an “eerie” feeling as she said, “Did I kill him? My finger was on the trigger. ... Our fight caused this to happen.”
At the barracks, Alinsky maintained they had been in a fight but the gun went off after she went upstairs. She told police she came down to find Matthew Gailie on the floor next to a table and she ran over to prop his head up to stop the bleeding, Williams said.
But during another interview played in court, Alinsky also mentions a struggle for the gun.
“I tried to get it away from him,” Alinsky said in the recording. But when asked if the struggle happened that night, she replied, “I don’t think so. I don’t remember.”
Over the course of several interviews, Alinsky eventually admitted she was next to Gailie when he fired the shot and that she had moved his body and then cleaned the scene up because she was afraid of how it would look, Williams said.
She also admitted to a 16-minute delay in calling 911 because she “needed some time to think,” he said.
During cross-examination, Fannick alleged police “interrogated” Alinsky, who had been awake for nearly 24 hours and was wearing little more than a bath robe. Fannick also questioned why police only recorded one of the interviews with Alinsky and never video recorded the sessions for the jury to see Alinsky, who he said was drunk and hysterical.
“It was intentional because you didn’t want them to see her,” Fannick alleged.
“No, that’s not true at all,” Williams said.
Testimony continues Monday morning.