BARNSTABLE – A grieving mother’s sorrowful words were the final message at the murder trial of Quoizel Wilson.
A Barnstable Superior Court jury convicted Wilson yesterday of first degree murder in the 2010 shooting death of Trudie Hall of Nantucket. The jury took two days to render the verdict in the two-week trial.
The 12 members of the jury and four alternates filed into the courtroom at 1:35 and delivered the verdict. They found Wilson guilty of first degree murder with deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity and cruelty.
He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Hall’s mother, Vivienne Walker, gave a victim statement to the judge before the sentencing.
She said that the January before her daughter was killed, Trudie called her and said she broke a mirror.
Walker acknowledged the omen. “I said to her, daughter, it’s not good. Just be careful.”
“From that day, I knew something was going on that’s not right,” Walker said.
On July 28, 2010, she texted her daughter and there was no response. This was highly uncharacteristic for Hall.
Hall had flown to Hyannis the day before in order to be able to get to an early morning appointment in Boston on the 28th. Wilson flew to Hyannis and reported her daughter missing.
Five years later, the man who Vivienne Walker said killed her daughter was convicted of the crime.
“It has drained us emotionally, financially and spiritually,” Walker said. “I don’t eat or sleep and I don’t trust anyone as I used to anymore. Our family has suffered sadness each and every day of our lives not having Trudie around. She was the light of our family and not having her is like the sun has been eclipsed for five years and there is no sunlight in the darkness.”
After the trial was over, Walker offered a statement while leaving court. “There’s no win winning in anything. Everybody’s hurting. Everybody’s lost something precious. The verdict today can’t bring back my daughter.”
First degree murder convictions come with an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole, but such convictions also come with an automatic appeal.
On leaving the courthouse, Wilson’s defense attorney Robert Galibois said, “We respect the jury’s verdict. They worked very hard obviously over the past two days. Obviously, we have a disagreement but we definitely respect the verdict.”
He said an appeal will be filed within the next week. He believes there are solid grounds for an appeal.
“He has a very viable appeal. This was a matter that was subject to a pretrial motion to suppress regarding the cell site location information that you heard so much about during the course of the trial. And how the law enforcement officials gained access to those records will be dealt with on the appeal,” Galibois said.
Galibois said his client was still dealing with the news of the guilty verdict. “Right now he’s just soaking it in. It’s going to take a little time.”
Wilson will be imprisoned at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution Cedar Junction at Walpole.
On leaving the courthouse, First Assistant District Attorney Michael Trudeau, who prosecuted the case for the Cape & Islands District Attorney’s Office, said, “It’s obvious with the amount of time [the jury] spent in the deliberations that their attention to detail was focused on their job and it was a serious job. I appreciate their verdict and it’s my hope that it brings some satisfaction and peace to Trudie Hall’s family.”
Cape & Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe watched parts of the trial.
After the verdict, O’Keefe said, “I thought that Mike Trudeau did a magnificent job putting together a compelling circumstantial case. You know, people often think somehow that direct evidence is better than circumstantial evidence . . . but actually circumstantial evidence can be much more compelling than direct evidence.”
O’Keefe acknowledged the importance of the discovery of Hall’s body almost two years after she went missing.
“Trudie told us some things and they were very important to this case, so it was very important that she be found,” he said.
O”Keefe also said that while there was a possibility that Wilson received some help after the crime, nevertheless, this marks the end of the case.
“I think this is pretty much the end of it,” he said. With regard to anyone else being involved, he said, “Their involvement may be beyond the reach of the law with respect to various legal privileges that exist.”
By LAURA M. RECKFORD, CapeCod.com News Editor