A deadly affair

Jonathan Nyce was charged with murdering his beautiful, much younger wife Michelle, bashing her head in on the concrete floor of the garage at their gated community home.

At his bail hearing, Nyce argued that he has no history of physical violence against any person. "I never ever had ill intent toward my wife at any point," said Nyce. "And what happened was a pure accident."

In trial, Nyce’s attorney Robin Lord was fierce in her opening argument:

Robin Lord, defense attorney (in court): Jonathan Nyce did not murder his wife nor can the state beyond a reasonable doubt convince you otherwise.

The defense attorney portrayed Michelle Nyce as a run-around tramp who spent her idle hours not at home with her kids, but having trysts at cheap motels. What’s more, the defense lawyer asserted that Michelle had been planning to do in her husband since at least the summer before her death, saying she and her lover, Enyo the gardener, had hatched together that alleged extortion scheme involving the sex tapes.

Lord, defense attorney (in court): My theory of the case is that both Michelle and Enyo arranged for the phone calls to be made.

Nyce’s lawyer claims that Michelle wanted out of the marriage and she was scheming to take some of the value of the house with her.

Lord, defense attorney (in court): Half a million dollars was the equity in the home and she would have half a million dollars, and she would leave with the gardener. 

So, after yet another motel night with the gardener, Michelle, the defense attorney argued, arrived back home fully prepared to kill her husband in the garage.

Lord: She lunges at him. He reacts to get away from the object.  And simply, in one move, throws her down out of the way. And she unfortunately falls and receives serious injuries.

Dennis Murphy, Dateline correspondent: Serious injuries? Awful looking wounds to her head.

Lord: Yes, terrible.

Murphy: How do you get injuries like that if it’s an accident falling, what, three feet from the driver’s street down to a concrete floor in the garage?

Lord: She had what’s called “contracoup” injuries— classic fall injuries. They are injuries to the brain, direct opposite to the point of impact.

The defense attempted to explain the head injuries as an accident, but there were still questions: If that were true, why didn’t Nyce call 911 right away? Why in the world would he stage a car crash and cover-up the so-called accident in the ghoulish manner he did? A lesser charge against him was tampering with evidence: his wife’s corpse.

Defense opening (in court): He panicked. That’s all he did. And I’m not gonna stand here and tell you that he didn’t attempt to stage an accident.

Lord: We always took the position we were guilty of tampering with evidence. And that’s what we did. He is not proud of the decision.  He can’t believe that he actually picked up this woman, that he loved to death, put her in the car… and drove her away, and left her.

The attorney argued that Dr. Nyce the medical researcher was much too smart to murder his wife by bashing her head into the concrete.

Lord: He is a genius when it comes to drugs, he could have created a drug that would have went undetected. There were so many different manners in which he could have killed her, and gotten away with it…  which I think supported the fact that he did not intend to harm his wife. That this was a pure accident.

But was it?

Not according to the prosecution. In her opening statement, prosecutor Doris Galuchi cut right to the quick of the case. The prosecution saw a much darker side of Jonathan Nyce:

Doris Galuchi (prosecution opening statements): When you’re Mrs. Jonathan Nyce, your husband brutally beats you to death by smashing your skull into a concrete floor… When you’re Mrs. Jonathan Nyce, you pay for your extra-marital indiscretions with your life.

Galuchi: We had to start with what this case wasn’t about.  And we felt that our mission was really to explain to the jury that this case was not about Michelle Nyce having an affair. The case was her husband who brutally beat and killed her.

The prosecution said there never was a plot against Nyce by Michelle and the gardener. That was all the invention of an aging husband losing his favorite possession, his pretty, once compliant wife.

Galuchi: We found that he was a very controlling person, very jealous person. He had to have Michelle, his wife’s, life very much under his thumb in his control. 

Michelle’s best friend Larissa Soos recalls Jonathan wanting to know Michelle’s whereabouts at every moment, making sure she didn’t come in contact with other men.

Larissa Soos, Michelle Nyce’s best friend: She always wanted to be a model, but she knew in her heart that she’ll never ever be because obviously you would be exposed to a lot of people. She said she couldn’t even join a gym because there were other men working out.

Galuchi: He didn’t want her to see everything else that was out there. And part of her did want to see that.

Murphy: She was getting out a little more?

Galuchi: And I don’t think he adapted well to that change. Everything then reversed. She was out, she was meeting people. And I think that really got to him. 

So, the state argued, Michelle Nyce paid with her life for her curiosity about life beyond the confines of Keithwood Court.

Galuchi: What we believe happened was that they had an argument about her seeing someone else and that she, again, told him that she wanted to move out. She had the suitcase packed, and was ready to go. And he would not let her leave. I think she got as far as the garage with that suitcase. And that’s when he killed her— threw her to the floor of the garage, and banged her head on the floor of the garage. The forensic evidence does establish that.

There was other forensic evidence that the prosecutors presented to nail down the secondary charge, tampering with the body. Remember the boot tracks leading away from the car in Jacob’s Creek? Crime scene investigators found cut up, size 14 boot soles hidden in nooks and crannies all over Jonathan Nyce’s garage. When they put the soles back together, like a jigsaw puzzle, they matched the tracks in the snow.

In closing arguments it came down to one last argument from each side. Robin Lord for the defense:

Defense closing arguments: The issue is that she in fact lunged and he reacted, and she fell. That’s what the issue is.

The prosecution hammered home to the jury that Nyce had known of his wife’s infidelities for months: This, the state argued, was a not crime of passion—a man suddenly losing it—but a calculated killing. A murder.

State closing arguments: The defendant chose to kill her. Remember, she’s a human being.

Galuchi: Our position was there was no surprise in this case. He knew she was out with her boyfriend. It’s not as if he came home and found her in bed with the gardener.

After a five-week trial, the jury was out for three days. The verdict it returned evoked gasps from both sides.

Dr. Jonathan Nyce was guilty of passion provocated manslaughter: manslaughter, not murder.The jury decided that on January 16^th 2004 Jonathan Nyce had acted in the heat of passion when he confronted his wife in the garage. The difference between a verdict of manslaughter and murder was decades in prison.

Murphy:  Was it a difficulty in court that this very tall man, Dr. Nyce, with a resume of wonderful science that he’s brought the world—was that a problem? 

Galuchi: Whether he’s got a Ph.D. or a sixth-grade education, it didn’t matter in that garage.

Nyce was sentenced to 5 to 10 years for killing his wife and tampering with evidence.

Murphy: Look, is there a queasy message here that in New Jersey, you can kill your wife and only have to do five to ten years?

Galuchi: I think some people could certainly derive that message from this verdict. I hope they don’t. 

Dr. Nyce is planning his appeal. He’s currently serving time at a New Jersey State prison. He’ll be eligible for parole in five years.

Nyce: I do not expect to be in jail for that period of time.  I expect to win my appeal. And actually I expect to put other people in jail who lied to put me here. You can mark my words on that.

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