Yesterday the jury
in the Upper Deck murder case watched video of Chesterton Police Chief Dave
Cincoski’s interrogation of Christopher Dillard.
Dillard has pled
not guilty to the murder of Nicole Gland, who was killed in the early hours
of April 19, 2017 behind the former Upper Deck Lounge, 139 S. Calumet Road,
Chesterton, after she closed the bar. Gland had been a bartender there, and
Dillard a bouncer.
Yesterday, the jury
watched a portion of Cincoski’s interrogation of Dillard from the day after
the murder and heard testimony from Cincoski and a Porter County Sheriff’s
Police Detective.
Only a small
portion of the approximately 12-hour interrogation was admissible at trial
because an appeals court ruled that Cincoski violated Dillard’s Miranda
rights because Dillard was held for over 11 hours, during which time
Cincoski ignored three of his requests for counsel and requests for
medication and persisted in questioning Dillard while Dillard was lying face
down on the floor.
The interrogation
began at 10:30 p.m. April 19, 2017, and concluded at approximately 10:32
a.m. the next day. 87 minutes in--at 11:57 p.m.--Dillard made his first
request for legal counsel. Everything Dillard said after that point is fruit
from the poisonous tree, including a taped confession Dillard made to his
girlfriend while in police custody where he said, “I destroyed my life,” and
“I killed that girl.”
Cincoski testified
yesterday that he took photos of Dillard before starting his interrogation.
The photos show Dillard had abrasions to the left side of his head and his
left knee and a cut on his right ring finger. Dillard was wearing dark
shorts, sandals, and a gray long-sleeve shirt in the photos.
In the video,
Dillard said he briefly stopped at Upper Deck around 11:30 p.m. on April 18
then went to Danny O’s Bar & Grille down the road. He repeatedly denied
returning to Upper Deck after leaving Danny O’s and said he went to a
friend’s house in Portage to buy $200 or $300 worth of drugs. He wouldn’t
say who the friend was, only that he was “not a nice guy.”
Dillard told
Cincoski in the taped interview that he had used all those drugs since
buying them less than 24 hours before. The video also established that
Dillard didn’t leave Danny O’s with a couple hundred bucks and couldn’t say
where he had gotten it.
Lindsey Janiga, who
was also a bartender at Upper Deck at the time, testified last week that she
usually left the bar with between $200 and $300 in tips. A former Danny O’s
bartender has also testified that Dillard asked her how much money she made
and if she tended to walk to her car alone the night of the murder.
Cincoski asked in
the video when Dillard changed out of the jeans and flannel shirt he is seen
wearing on security footage at Upper Deck and Danny O’s before Gland was
killed. Dillard said he didn’t know, but it was daylight when he stopped at
home and changed in his garage, leaving the clothes there.
That night, Dillard
also told Cincoski he had agreed to sell $45 worth of marijuana and cocaine
to Gland and left it in her car under the driver’s seat the night before the
murder. Cincoski said no drugs were found in Gland’s SUV.
Cincoski asked what
Dillard meant when he told his girlfriend that he had messed up and couldn’t
come home the day after the murder. “Did it mean taking Nicole’s money and
killing her?”, Cinsoski asked in the interview. Dillard denied that.
Dillard’s defense
attorney Russel W. Brown asked Cincoski why Dillard’s clothes were packaged
in paper grocery bags instead of standard evidence bags. Cincoski said the
Department had run out when he was collecting Dillard’s clothes. Brown also
asked if the footage eventually collected from Danny O’s was from the wrong
date. Cincoski said that was correct, from his understanding.
Brown asked if
Dillard denied going back to Upper Deck 30 times in the interview. Cincoski
said he hadn’t counted.
Brown then asked if
Cincoski was removed from the case or the case was reassigned away from him
at some point. Cincoski said the case was taken over by a task force, but he
doesn’t know that he was deliberately removed. “I was asked by the
Prosecutor’s office if I minded if they formed a task force to review
evidence in preparation for trial,” he said.
Brown then asked if
it was true Cincoski also interviewed Gland’s then-boyfriend Santos Ortiz
following the murder. Cincoski said he had. “Does Santos Ortiz have an
alibi?”, Brown asked. Cincoski said Ortiz doesn’t. Cincoski had told Dillard
in the video that Dillard needed an alibi.
PCSP Detective Mike
Spicer testified that he was asked to look for Dillard’s clothes after
Dillard revealed in the interview that he had gone home to change and left
his clothes in the garage.
Spicer said he and
another Detective went to the home Dillard shared with his then-girlfriend
Beverly Galle and got her consent to search the garage. They did not search
the house.
In the garage, they
found a large pile of scrap metal covered in dust and cobwebs that looked as
if it hadn’t been disturbed in a while. They searched the entire garage,
including the rafters, and searched the pile by climbing and moving larger
items. They found nothing after about an hour and a half, Spicer said.
Brown asked if the
Detectives had moved all the scrap metal out of the garage. Spicer said they
hadn’t, but there was no possibility that they missed something. He said
they would have noticed if anything had been disturbed recently, and they
were able to look down on the pile with flashlights.
Spicer said he was
also asked to confirm that Family Dollar stores Dillard may have visited in
Hammond and Calumet City on April 19 sold the brand of clothes Dillard was
wearing when he was arrested. They confirmed that those stores, and the two
Family Dollars closest to Dillard’s home, do carry those clothes. The stores
in Lake Station and Hobart didn’t have surveillance footage, and Dillard was
not seen in footage at the other stores, according to Spicer.
In a question
submitted to Judge Jeffrey Clymer, a juror asked Spicer to describe Galle’s
demeanor when they came to search the garage. Spicer said Galle was very
helpful and cooperative.