Christine Sullivan
Appearances
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
Christine was savagely beaten in the head and stabbed eight times. Jenna was beaten in the head and stabbed 43 times. And after he murdered them, the defendant concealed their bodies by wrapping them up and piling junk on top of them like trash.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
The defendant had started acting strange. He was using a variety of drugs. He grew distant and paranoid, at times not even seeming to be aware of what was going on around him.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
Dean and Christine were were drug dealers, and the defendant worked for them. In fact, the defendant would sometimes take over business when Dean and Christine went away, such as when they would go down to Florida.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
Apparently concerned for the drug organization he was involved in, the defendant asked Josh if Josh thought Jenna might be an informant or someone who provides information to the police. The defendant expressed concern over whether Dean knew Jenna was at the house and what Jenna might be doing there.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
From January 25th until late on January 28th, Dean was in Florida. What you'll hear is that Dean's cell phone repeatedly used cell towers in and around Cape Coral, Florida from January 26th through January 28th, including as he was talking to people back in New Hampshire and trying to reach out to Christine.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
At about 2 a.m. on January 27th, the defendant arrived back at 979 Meteorboro Road. Not long after arriving, the defendant began taking scattered steps to hide different areas of the house from view. First, the defendant blocked the view of one of the security cameras in the house. You'll see that the defendant went back and forth between the house and the garage multiple times.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
Crime scene investigators would later find that all of the ground level windows in that garage had been covered in green spray paint.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
The last video captured by the 979 Medeboro Road surveillance system on January 27th shows only the defendant. At about 6.57 a.m., the defendant quickly walked to the door and locked it. He was wearing a white trucker-style hat, a flannel shirt, and carrying his shoes in his hand. There are no more videos from the 27th.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
At some point after locking that door, the defendant struck. The murders were disorganized and hyper. They weren't cold and calculated. They were emotional and they were passionate. The defendant struck Christine multiple times in the head with a blunt instrument. These were extremely forceful blows, which caused bleeding in her brain.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
One of the blows was so powerful that it caused extensive fracturing around a large part of Christine's skull. You'll hear that Christine was alive for these blows.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
Christine tried to defend herself. She suffered broken and cut fingers in an attempt to ward off this vicious attack. but she wasn't successful.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
He stabbed Jenna 43 times in the neck, chest, and back. There was no evidence that she tried to defend herself. She was likely sleeping or unconscious at the time. After murdering these women, the evidence will show the defendant tried to clean up the scene. His efforts were as disorganized and hyper as the killings themselves.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
He hid the bodies by wrapping them in bedding, drop cloths, and a frayed tarp. He then discarded the bodies under the porch, piling junk on top of them as if they were trash.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
I imagine when I'm done speaking with you in a few minutes, the defense is going to come up here, and they're going to tell you that somebody else murdered Christine and Jenna. They're going to create a boogeyman, and they might even give that boogeyman a name.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
And it's true that Dean and Christine had a terrible relationship. Dean was abusive, and he didn't hide the way he felt about Christine, often saying and texting horrible things. about Christine to others. It was no secret among anyone acquainted with the two how Dean treated Christine. But on January 27th, 2017, Dean was in Florida.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
On January 28th, when Dean thought something was wrong in New Hampshire, he came back. And when Dean came back, he called the police. We're not going to make any excuses for Dean or the way that he treated Christine. But the evidence will show that when he thought something had happened to Christine, he didn't run. He wanted law enforcement to investigate.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
When the defendant arrived at Josh's, he grabbed a beer out of his car and went inside. Josh will tell you that when the defendant walked past him to enter the house, he said to Josh, interesting night. The defendant was behaving strangely and smelled strongly of body odor. He was wearing only a t-shirt, not the flannel shirt that he had on previously.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
Continuing with this strange behavior, the defendant asked Josh for a change of pants, which Josh provided and which the defendant then changed into right there on the spot.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
Over the course of the state's presentation, you're going to hear from witnesses who used and sold drugs. Their attitudes towards the police are probably a lot different than yours are. It's not necessarily their first instinct to call the police when something suspicious has happened. They likely lied to the police when asked about their own drug use and drug sales.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
But we want to ask you to consider, as you listen to those witnesses, is that while witnesses may lie about their own drug use and their own drug sales in an interest of self-preservation, that same interest does not give them a reason to lie about what they knew about the murders of Christine and Jenna.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
At the time, the defendant was at his brother Jeff's house in Newton, New Hampshire. The defendant and his girlfriend had taken his girlfriend's car to Jeff's house. The defendant told the trooper he was willing to speak with investigators and gave the trooper his brother's address. But after he got off the phone, he told his brother he was going outside to wait for the police.
Anatomy of Murder
X2 (Jenna Pellegrini & Christine Sullivan)
And then he left in his girlfriend's car, leaving his girlfriend behind. But before driving away, the defendant removed his girlfriend's New Hampshire license plates and replaced them with his brother's roommate's Massachusetts plates.