SLAY MYSTERY
Film probes killing of boy, 12, & acquittal of suspect
Garrett Phillips was strangled in his family’s secondfloor apartment in upstate Potsdam in October 2011. He was 12.
His killer is still out there. The two-part HBO documentary “Who Killed Garrett Phillips?” doesn’t solve the mystery but looks at the case through a critical lens.
Two years after the slaying, Garrett’s mother’s exboyfriend, Oral “Nick” Hillary, was arrested, tried for the murder and acquitted. He is a Jamaican immigrant who was living in a community that was 94% white — a fact crucial to understanding how the justice system failed Garrett, Brooklyn-based director Liz Garbus told the Daily News.
“There was systemic racism and police tunnel vision but when both are linked it becomes really problematic,” Garbus said. “And, once I started working on the film, I realized that another major issue was the lack of oversight and the free reign given to the district attorneys.”
Garbus’ film, which debuts on Tuesday, uses police footage and photos, video evidence and interviews to recount what went wrong in meticulous detail.
According to the documentary, once police focused in on Hillary — an Army veteran and respected soccer coach at nearby Clarkson University — other investigative avenues were not explored.
There was word that several other boys were with Garrett when he died.
There was another former flame of his mother Tandy Cyrus — a local sheriff’s deputy against whom she had previously filed a complaint saying he made her “fear for the safety of myself and my sons.”
And then there was the potential witness about whom prosecutors never told the defense — a revelation that nearly led to the trial’s dismissal.
“Nothing is ever 100%, but Nick is a highly decent lovely person, with no sign of a temper and no weird evasions,” explained Garbus, who says she came to the table with an open mind.
The filmmaker interviewed Mark Murray, who led the police investigation, Mary Rain, the former St. Lawrence County district attorney, and William Fitzpatrick, the Onondaga County district attorney who headed the trial team. Garbus questioned them about their missteps and lack of physical or DNA evidence tying Hillary to the crime. Cyrus did not want to participate.
Rain, who was elected on her promise to crack Garrett’s case, saw her law license suspended for two years for misconduct, which included hiding potentially exculpatory evidence from the coach’s defense team.
In 2006, Hillary was acquitted of murder after a trial before a judge without a jury
Hillary has since moved back to the city, where he coaches soccer. He’d like to see the film put pressure on cops to solve the murder.
“I would hope the objective is to pursue the killer and do the right thing by Garrett Phillips.”