Witness to Murder Lives in Fear
/The Boston Herald
She never expected to be living like this, to be afraid in her own house, to be afraid not just for herself but for her husband and children. She never expected to feel so angry and helpless and betrayed.
Two-and-a-half years ago on a summer night she witnessed a murder, and her life hasn't been the same since. 'My husband had just started a bath for the kids. I heard a scream, and I flew immediately. I went downstairs, and I looked in the bedroom window and he was beating her. I started ringing the bell and banging on the door. I couldn't get in. I ran upstairs to call the police and then came back down. It went on for 20 minutes. I heard her pleading from the other side of the door. I kept banging and screaming. I called the police three times.' When the police finally arrived Jenevive Adelson, 39, mother of two, sole support of her family in Haiti, a woman who worked two jobs and attended school, was brain dead, her tissue and blood all over the walls, furniture and floor of her Roslindale apartment. The police found her murderer, Jean Versailles, 42, in the bathroom taking a shower.
He had it well planned, police later told her. He confessed to buying the murder weapon and rubber gloves. He confessed to hiding in Adelson's house the night before he killed her, with the intention of killing her and her new boyfriend. When they didn't appear he left. He confessed to returning the next evening during his dinner break from the nursing home where he worked. And he confessed to removing his own clothes before bludgeoning her, so he could wear them when he returned to work afterward.
''It's classic first degree.' That's what the DA's office told us. 'We want you to testify against him, and we'll put him away for life. If he ever did get paroled, which he probably won't, we'll deport him to Haiti.”
'We were so naive, so gullible. This was way out of our experience. We didn't even know a person in our life who had been mugged. We believed everything we were told.’
The witness testified before a grand jury and was ready to testify again at a trial. But the DA's office plea bargained first degree murder down to manslaughter and life in jail became a maximum 11 years.
'They told us it costs $1 million to try someone for murder. They said that if they can save the state $1 million they do it.'
Officials promised to keep the witness apprised of Versailles' whereabouts.
They haven’t.
'We've never received anything except right after he was put in jail.'
The witness was not notified when Versailles was transferred from one prison to another. Nor was she told that he is getting a new lawyer because he now claims that he killed Jenevive Adelson in self-defense.
'There's not even an inkling of truth in this. I was there. I saw through the window, and I heard the whole thing. My testimony would contradict this.’
Which is why she's scared.
'I thought when I testified that he was going to be put away forever. The police told us he's angry about our testimony. He's a vicious murderer who thought nothing about killing. Now he has all this time in prison, and he's just sitting there in jail. Is he waiting to come for me and my family?’
The witness has been told to think about investing in a security system for her home. 'They said I should put locks on the windows and doors and that I need to show my children a picture of him and tell them all about what happened. They said we need to plan what to do if they see him. We need to have a room in our house where we can all go and lock the door, and it needs to have a telephone so we can call for help. 'I sit here with my knees shaking. Every day there's a murder, and this is why. I just can't believe the state of things. He committed first-degree murder. He beat a woman to death. Now he has a parole date.
'We wanted to make a difference. We've been active in our community. We sent our kids to public schools. We've been trying to make it work. But we're gonna sell and get out. It's too much. This happened. Then we were robbed twice. Then there was that robbery and shooting a few weeks ago at the pizza shop. We've tried to be brave but we've had it. I worry about this guy coming back. I worry about the kids. I can't live like this.’
The witness has lost faith in the system. She has seen it fail Jenevive Adelson in life and in death. She has learned that she has to protect herself.
