Francoise Gallant tells of wrapping a towel around his girlfriend’s neck.
AUBURN – The day that Francoise Gallant killed Cherie Ann Andrews was like most others in the couple’s 16-month relationship.
Gallant woke at 8 a.m., and Andrews brought him a can of beer and a couple of her anti-anxiety pills.
By 9 a.m., the couple finished off a 12-pack of Milwaukee’s Best left over from the previous night. Then Gallant made his first trip to the store to buy another 12-pack with change from their piggy bank.
Throughout the day, three friends came over with more beer and wine to share with the couple. Andrews continued to place her pills by Gallant’s beers, as if they were presents.
And Gallant made a couple more trips to return the empty cans, sell Andrews’ Food Stamps and buy more beer.
In the early evening, before eating the cheeseburgers and french fries that Andrews cooked earlier in the day knowing that she would be too drunk to do it later, the couple started fighting – as usual.
By 9 p.m, Andrews was dead, lying on her bed with bruises from the towel that Gallant wrapped around her neck.
“I was just hoping that she’d pass out and go to sleep. I just wanted the screaming to stop,” Gallant said Tuesday, testifying before the 14 jurors charged with deciding whether he is guilty of murder, manslaughter or nothing.
Criminal intent
Gallant, 54, is currently standing trial in Androscoggin County Superior Court charged with murder, which carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
He has admitted to killing Andrews, but his lawyer, James Howaniec, has argued that he was too drunk, high and depressed to understand what he was doing.
Both the state and Howaniec rested their cases Tuesday. The jury is expected to begin deliberations Wednesday after hearing closing arguments from both sides.
If the jurors decide that Gallant did not intentionally or knowingly kill Andrews on the night of Jan. 24, they cannot convict him of murder.
They can, however, convict him of manslaughter, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison. In order to convict Gallant of this less serious charge, the jury must find that Gallant killed Andrews by acting negligently or recklessly.
“A murder was not committed,” Howaniec said after the trial Tuesday. “There was no criminal intent.”
As for his argument against manslaughter, Howaniec said he planned to spend the night reviewing records and looking for ways to raise doubt in the jurors’ minds.
Doctors
Howaniec called two psychologists to the stand Tuesday, both of whom evaluated Gallant in recent months. Both doctors agreed that his judgment would have been impaired by the more than 30 beers and 15 pills that he claimed to have consumed that day.
“Things you might not do when you are sober are easier to do when you are drunk,” testified Dr. Brian Rines, who runs a private practice in Augusta.
But, said Dr. Anne LeBlanc, the director of the state forensic service, “Based on his description, he did have the capacity to act intentionally.”
Gallant told both doctors that he started drinking when he was 13 and he has been addicted ever since.
‘The one’
When he met Andrews in September 2001, he thought he had found his match.
He moved into her apartment immediately, and the couple started their daily drinking routine, using Andrews’ Social Security checks to buy booze.
“When we first met, we laughed and joked,” Gallant testified. “We cried on each other’s shoulders about how our lives have gone. I thought she was the one.”
But the laughing didn’t last, Gallant said. It got to the point where nearly every day ended in a drunken argument.
Gallant was hospitalized twice in 2002, after overdosing on Andrews’ prescriptions pills in an attempt to commit suicide. He also learned that he had Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and cirrhosis.
But, Gallant said, things got better in December. He helped Andrews buy Christmas presents for her family, and they started laughing more.
Again, it didn’t last.
Sometime in January, Andrews told Gallant that she wanted him out of her apartment by Feb. 1. On the night of Jan. 24, she decided that she didn’t want to wait.
“Out of the clear blue, Cherie said, ‘I want you out of here now,'” Gallant testified. “She started yelling, ‘Get out. Get out.’ I said, ‘Where am I going to go? It’s freezing.'”
Towel
Gallant testified that he was afraid that someone would hear Andrews’ screams and call police, so he straddled her and put his hand on her mouth. After she bit his hand, he grabbed a pillow and attempted to smother her.
When he lifted the pillow, she started screaming again. So he reached for a towel, wrapped it around her neck and pulled.
Gallant testified that he let go of the towel after Andrews went limp, then he took off her necklace to sell it for money to get more beer.
He claims that when he left the apartment to go to a friend’s house, he didn’t know if she was dead. But he hoped that she was OK.
“I loved that woman to death,” Gallant told the jury. “I didn’t try to kill her. I just wanted her to calm down and stop screaming.”
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