Lowell widow testifies at trial

Highland man charged in fatal basement shooting

A Lowell widow testified Tuesday that her memory was spotty the night a Highland man fatally shot her husband in their basement as they drank and hung out.

Defense attorneys questioned why she would later ask the other woman there to “recant” what she told police so their stories matched.

Timothy R. Thomas, 40, was charged with murder in the Jan. 3 shooting death of Nicholas Lile, 42. He was initially charged with voluntary manslaughter.

Prosecutors said Thomas shot Lile while he was unarmed. The bullet pierced his chest, paralyzing him after piercing his spine before he died. Defense lawyers said Lile was charging at Thomas and threatening to kill him — characterizing it as self-defense.

Jessika Lile testified she invited a friend over for a “girl’s night” at her home around 5 p.m. for drinks and dinner to catch up, because the woman had recently separated from her husband.

When the woman was texting a man throughout the evening, Lile told her to invite him over. The woman said Thomas was a new romantic interest she met on Facebook.

His arrival around 10:30 p.m. was uneventful, with Nicholas Lile showing him the sports memorabilia around their basement, she said. There was some “friendly banter” about their respective military branches — “which is better” — with some tension later creeping in their conversation.

Thomas was an Army veteran who then worked as a police officer for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, while Nicholas Lile was a veteran Navy Corpsman once embedded with U.S. Marine units.

“I told them they should back down,” she said. “Not take it so seriously. It wasn’t a big deal.”

Sometime later, while sitting at their basement bar with her friend, she heard gunshots where the men were on the other side of their pool

table. Thomas ran up the stairs, she said.

“I saw my husband begin withering to the ground,” Lile said. She ran over to him and he died in her arms, she testified. She screamed for someone to call 911. She testified she had no memory of calling herself.

In the call, she was nearly indecipherable with grief as she said Thomas shot her husband.

“He’s in my arms,” she said of her husband. “He’s dead.”

Jessika Lile blamed several gaps in her memory on her trauma that night. She refused defense attorney Ben Murphy’s characterization that she was heavily intoxicated, more likely “buzzed” from beer and wine.

Her mental state was “completely delirious,” “inconsolable,” “traumatized,” “shocked,” Lile said.

Murphy questioned why details in her initial police interview that night recorded on a body camera, such as Thomas arriving at 8 p.m., differed with later police interviews. Lile said her memory had cleared a bit that week as she sat in her grief. By the second meeting with police, she had a “clearer recollection,” she said.

As police were over, her friend was upstairs on her couch, almost in the fetal position, Lile said.

Days later, Lile admitted she “consulted” with lawyer Mark Thiros, a family friend of her husband’s, because she didn’t know what to expect or who would file criminal charges.

Once she read the police reports and charging affidavit, she admitted contacting the other woman because the details of what she read in news articles didn’t match the details she remembered.

She recorded two phone conversations with the other woman to have a “record” of what she said, Lile testified. The woman had checked herself into a mental health facility to deal with the trauma of that night, lawyers said. Lile testified she was out of contact with her for about a week.

“We are both the only ones that know what happened,” Lile said to the woman, according to Murphy, telling her to “go retract your statement” to police.

Lile said her words were “improper” but she meant she wanted the woman to “tell the truth.”

Deputy Prosecuting attorneys Keith Anderson and Michelle Jatkiewicz are leading the state’s case, with Christopher Cooper working on the defense.

Thomas is charged with murder, aggravated battery and battery. The murder charge carries a penalty of 45-65 years. The charges have a firearms enhancement, which would add 5-20 years to a sentence if convicted.