Jeffrey Mailhot

Case record: Jeffrey Mailhot

Background

Jeffrey Mailhot lived in Woonsocket and was described by neighbours as a “nice guy” and someone who fit in like family. He was a machinist and a factory worker at PROMA Technologies in Franklin, Massachusetts, and he also worked out at Power Shack Gym. He was known for nights out at Box Seats, where he sang karaoke as “Jazzy Jeff” backed by “Crazy Scott,” and he had an electric guitar and a Harley-Davidson. Authorities said he strangled three young women and dismembered his victims with a saw, then disposed of their remains in trash bags in area dumpsters.

The offence

Between February 2003 and July 2004, Jeffrey Mailhot strangled three young women: Audrey L. Harris, Christine C. Dumont, and Stacie K. Goulet. He dismembered their bodies with a saw and disposed of remains in trash bags placed in dumpsters around Woonsocket and other communities.

Mailhot told detectives he approached the women and brought them to his Woonsocket apartment at 221 Cato St., then choked them to death, cut them up with a handsaw in his bathtub, stuffed the remains in garbage bags, and dropped them in dumpsters. Prosecutors described that he strangled the three women at his 221 Cato St. apartment between 2003 and 2004 and disposed of their body parts in garbage bags in trash bins around Woonsocket.

For the first victim, Audrey L. Harris, Mailhot said he panicked about what to do with the body. He wrapped her in a cheap rug and loaded it into his SUV, drove around searching for a place to dump it, returned home, and left the body in his apartment for two days. He then used a newly purchased handsaw to dismember Harris in the bathtub. He masked the smell with aerosol spray, placed parts into trash bags, and made drop-offs under cover of night, including an additional stop before bedtime.

For Christine C. Dumont and Stacie K. Goulet, Mailhot told detectives that both women were killed in his apartment and that their bodies were dismembered and disposed of in trash containers. He later told investigators that he no longer considered the deaths accidents and described “Just an urge.”

Mailhot described his choke technique and said, “I lean back,” so it put more pressure on their neck. He also described that on two occasions his victims fell to the floor unconscious, then returned to consciousness within minutes and left. He described a third instance in which a woman who escaped stood outside shouting that she had called 911; police never showed. He also described one encounter in which a victim convinced him to back off by acting submissive, saying:

“She’s standing in the bedroom saying, please, master, please let me go,” he recalled.

Mailhot described one victim who gouged his eye to get away and said she had left “a couple of scratch marks.”

Mailhot gave a specific narrative about Audrey Harris and how the killing occurred. He told detectives:

“I was gonna have sex with her, just straight sex,” he told the detectives. “She got undressed, I got undressed…I went to get her the money, she turned around, and that’s when I went up behind her and started choking….She was kicking, scratching, trying to get away. As she was losing her breath she stopped struggling. Then I let her go. I looked at her — her eyes were open, but she wasn’t looking at anything. I figured she was dying. That’s when I got the pillow. I suffocated her.”

When Lee said, “So it wasn’t accidental,” Mailhot insisted:

“I didn’t want to do that,” he said. “But once I realized what was happening, I was scared to death. I had to finish it.”

Mailhot described his disposal approach for the Harris body:

The next morning he wandered to the toilet and was startled to see a corpse in the tub.
That evening he wrapped the body in a cheap rug and loaded it into his SUV.
…For two days the body lay in his apartment while he pondered how to make it go away. Then, like an episode from “The Sopranos,” he used a newly purchased handsaw to dismember it in the bathtub.
…The parts went into trash bags, and the bags into various commercial Dumpsters.

Investigation

Police investigated the disappearances of Audrey Harris, Christine Dumont, and Stacie Goulet, who were missing from Woonsocket’s street prostitution area. Detectives had no clues or suspects initially and handled them as missing persons investigations. Detectives discussed that the victims had disappeared and that “They just kind of vanished.”

The investigation progressed after a tipster’s call to police headquarters in mid-July 2004. The caller suggested detectives contact Jocelyn Martel, a local woman with an arrest record for drug offenses and prostitution. Police found Martel at the Gloria McDonald Awaiting Trial and Medium Security Facility in Cranston, and Martel described a harrowing encounter in which a man offered cash for sex and then attacked her inside his apartment. Detectives said the description matched 221 Cato Street. Detectives obtained Mailhot’s name from utility bills and his picture from the DMV, then showed Martel a photo spread; she picked out Mailhot as her assailant.

Detectives later located other women describing similar assaults, including Teese Morris, who signed a complaint. This led to arrest warrants for assaults and eventually a case that detectives tied to the missing women.

Police described how they identified Mailhot through utility bills and a DMV photo, and that Martel and Morris identified him in a picture lineup. Detectives said they believed Mailhot was “playing choking games,” and they staked out the Cato Hill apartment building waiting for him to return home.

A later search for evidence included processing Mailhot’s apartment and evidence collection tied to blood traces and the saw marks in the bathtub. Investigators searched the bathroom at 221 Cato St. using Luminol and they removed parts of the bathroom structure, including the tub, toilet, shower stall, and parts of tiled wall and floorboards, packaging and labeling debris for forensic scrutiny. Police also seized Mailhot’s home computer to determine if he had discussed his crimes online. They found a Halloween party snapshot showing him dressed as a TV wrestler and choking a teddy bear.

Investigators found a handsaw in the basement matching Mailhot’s description of the saw used to cut up the bodies. Police also reviewed surveillance footage from a local hardware store and discovered footage of the suspect buying the tool a day after the last victim’s disappearance.

Police also investigated disposal claims involving a latex glove and small body pieces by flushing them down the toilet. Investigators explored the sewer line outside his building with a video camera attached to a long cable, then a public works crew dug up sections of the sewer line. They reported that tiny worms were attracted by high-protein material and determined that Mailhot’s diet provided a feast for the worms, describing that he consumed protein shakes to bulk up at the gym.

In addition, investigators conducted a search at the Central Landfill in Johnston. They said that 12 days after Mailhot’s arrest, an officer-in-training tore open a plastic trash bag and found human body parts inside. The state medical examiner collected DNA material and compared it with samples from relatives of the three missing women. Investigators matched the remains to Stacie Goulet and informed her parents. Investigators said that the landfill search turned up nothing of Harris or Dumont, while DNA tests on blood evidence from the apartment corroborated Mailhot’s confession.

Police said they gathered more than 170 items of evidence in the investigation.

Arrest

On July 16, 2004, Jeffrey Mailhot returned home from work and found officers waiting to arrest him. He was seated in a small room at the Woonsocket Police Station, where detectives questioned him.

Detectives told Mailhot they had a warrant charging him with assault with a dangerous weapon, specifically his hands, and that the complainants were two women he had met on Arnold Street. Detectives asked him repeatedly, “Ever picked up a prostitute?” and he first said he had not, stating he had seen women on Arnold Street but claimed he had picked up a girl he thought needed a ride and that she propositioned him.

After the detectives showed him pictures from missing persons files, Mailhot responded that he did not know the girls shown. Detectives told him that the women in the pictures were missing. During the interrogation, he eventually acknowledged “Yes” when asked again if he ever picked up a prostitute.

Police later described that Mailhot began to talk and confessed during the assault investigation to the murders. One account described that he confessed within two hours of his arrest to strangling Harris, Dumont, and Goulet and to attacking Martel and Morris.

Another account described that he was arrested on July 17, 2004 on the steps of his house after detectives staked out the building, and that at the police station he leafed through photos of known prostitutes, pointing out a few he knew, until detectives presented the photos of Harris, Dumont, and Goulet and he cracked.

Trial

Jeffrey Mailhot did not proceed to trial. Police said that none of the collected evidence was presented in court because he decided to forgo a trial.

Sentencing

On February 15, 2006, Jeffrey Mailhot pleaded guilty in Providence Superior Court to three counts of murder and two counts of assault. The judge sentenced him to two life terms plus ten years.

A separate account described that he pleaded guilty to three charges of first-degree murder for the deaths of Stacie Goulet, Christine Dumont, and Audrey Harris, and received three life sentences, with two to be served at the same time and the third following. It also described that he pleaded guilty to two assault charges stemming from attacks on two other women and received concurrent 10-year prison sentences on those charges, including one count of assault with intent to murder and one count of felony assault with serious bodily injury. Police and officials said he would be eligible for parole end of 2047, when he was 77.

In court, Mailhot addressed the judge and said:

“Nothing I can do can take away the pain,” he told the court. “I hope God can give the families — both the victims’ and my own — some peace.”

Appeals

No appeal information appeared in the provided record.

Outcome

Jeffrey Mailhot was convicted through guilty pleas and was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of three women, along with additional years for assault charges. Detectives reported that they used his confession plus forensic evidence to identify the victims’ remains, including DNA matches confirming Stacie Goulet’s remains.

Aftermath

Relatives continued to struggle with the legacy of the killings. Steve Krieg, Goulet’s ex-husband and father of her two children, said he still got nauseous when seeing garbage trucks.

Officials described changes after the arrests: the cops who prompted Mailhot’s confession received promotions, with Lee becoming captain of detectives and Nowak becoming a lieutenant. Buddy’s Cafe on Arnold Street closed its doors after forty-eight years.

Martel, who provided information used to link assault cases to the missing women, described looking forward to staying clean and settling down, with an 11-year-old son and plans to live with her mother in Woonsocket. She said she did not consider herself a hero and emphasized that she felt an obligation because she had gotten away.

Other details

Names and victims

• Audrey L. Harris, 33
• Christine C. Dumont, 42
• Stacie K. Goulet, 24 (described as “a pregnant 24-year-old” in one account and also described as “reportedly pregnant” in landfill discovery context)
• Jocelyn Martel (also spelled Jocelin Martel/Jocelin; used as “Jocelin Martel” in one account)
• Teese Morris

Prior life details described in accounts

Mailhot was described as 35 at sentencing in February 2006. One account said Mailhot was 33 at the time of the first victim’s disappearance, and described his upbringing and personal habits, including that his parents divorced when he was nine, his mother died of lung cancer when he was seventeen, and his father died of the same disease when he was twenty-two. Another account described him as a “camera shy” student with a blank spot where his photograph should have been in his 1989 Woonsocket High School yearbook, with the words “camera shy” beside his name.

Quotes from court or investigators

Several quotations were provided in the record, including statements by detectives and officials:

Detective Sergeant Edward Lee asked:

“Ever picked up a prostitute?”

Detective Sergeant Steve Nowak added:

“It goes downhill from there.”

Mailhot stated during questioning:

“I just want to be totally honest,” he said. “I don’t want to hide any more. I don’t want this shit inside me anymore. I want to do what I have to, to help the situation, any way I can, and I want that to be my last act. I’m not expecting forgiveness.”

About his planned attacks and motivation, Mailhot was quoted as saying:

“Just an urge.”

A detective described the confession as:

“He said he was sorry, he didn’t know why he did it, it was an urge that was bigger than him, and he was glad that he got caught because he knew he wasn't going to be able to stop.”

In another courtroom context, Martinel told Mailhot:

“believed God spared [her] life” the night of her attack so she could help unravel the case.

In sentencing coverage, Jocelin Martel was quoted saying:

“Mr. Mailhot, I hope you get all you deserve today because a lifetime of suffering is never enough.”

A quote attributed to prosecutors and officials included:

“It was panic.” (as quoted from Lynch in one account) and: “I have no feelings for Mailhot,” he said. “He is an evil and depraved individual.” (as quoted from Attorney General Patrick Lynch)

Assaults related to his arrest

The record included that Mailhot attacked Jocelin Martel and Teese Morris at his Cato Street residence and that Martel fled after jamming her finger in Mailhot’s eye. Morris described kicking and fighting before escaping. These assaults were tied to assault charges against Mailhot that were part of his guilty plea.