Proper burial has yet to come
By Chris Foreman
Mary Jo Overly says the least that her murdered adoptive sister, Helen Louise Gillin, deserves is a proper burial.
For the last two years, Overly, of Greene County, thought her sister's remains were given to their mother, Roberta F. Gillin, who was acquitted in 2002 of any role in the 1992 stomping death of Helen Gillin near their home in Bullskin Township, Fayette County.
On Wednesday, Overly verified that a canister of about 2,200 bone fragments of the 25-year-old mentally retarded woman had never left the custody of the Fayette County Coroner's Office. A forensic archaeologist salvaged the skeletal fragments in August 1999, four years after investigators first learned the woman was burned after she was killed.
Overly's father, James D. Gillin Sr., 58, was convicted in 2001 and is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder, abuse of a corpse and two counts of criminal conspiracy.
Overly assumed that her mother, who put in a claim for the remains in August 2003, had retrieved and possibly discarded them.
However, coroner's officials said they considered the canister evidence, and Roberta Gillin had not approached them after the original claim with any plans to bury her daughter.
The Tribune-Review inquired about Helen Gillin's remains last week after learning the coroner's office retained custody more than two years after Roberta Gillin told the newspaper that she was prepared to collect them.
The coroner's office is making arrangements, which are pending, to turn over the canister to a relative of Helen Gillin.
"Knowing that she was never released was a shocker," the 36-year-old Overly said during an interview at her home near Waynesburg. She said she thought her mother had her sister's remains and disposed of them. "I thought she'd be in a landfill by now."
Earlier this week, Roger Victor, the coroner's chief investigator, said the office was giving the remains to the John S. Maykuth Jr. Funeral Home in Masontown so they could be transferred to a funeral home designated by Roberta Gillin in Johnstown, Cambria County.
As a parent of Helen Gillin, who was not married, Roberta Gillin, 56, is designated by state law as being the first in line to receive the remains.
Overly said Roberta Gillin agreed yesterday to sign over the remains to her, but the Tribune-Review was unable to make an independent confirmation. She said the Edward Moskal Funeral Home is handling arrangements in Johnstown.
A spokesman for the Moskal funeral home hung up on a reporter. John Maykuth did not immediately return a phone message yesterday.
Gillin, who remarried in 2003, could not be reached by telephone yesterday. Nobody answered the door at a Westmont, Cambria County, home once listed in her new husband's name.
Coroner Dr. Phillip Reilly said yesterday his office was checking with District Attorney Nancy Vernon and state police to corroborate that prosecutors no longer need to retain the bone fragments as evidence. Vernon did not return a message left at her office yesterday.
Reilly also said there might be claims by two family members for Helen Gillin's remains, so officials want to be sure they are releasing them to the right person.
"We have retained those body parts and always stood ready to release when we were ready to," Reilly said. "We would automatically retain that (canister) until we were absolutely certain."
Trooper Daniel Venick, one of the investigating officers in the case, said police had not requested that the remains be held.
During the trials for her parents, Overly testified her natural father stomped her sister to death, then burned her corpse in a fire pit. The stomping followed an alleged episode in the family's home in which Helen Gillin was fed a cocktail of heart medicine and bleach, Overly contended.
Investigators searched the fire pit in 1995 but found no evidence of human remains. Timothy Gillin, a son of James and Roberta, led authorities to the wooded area across from the family's former home.
After her parents, who were living in Yukon, were arrested in 1999, Overly said authorities promised she would receive the remains. She responded by reserving a plot at Green Ridge Memorial Park in Pennsville, Bullskin Township, and buying a name plate.
"All I ever wanted to do was the right thing," Overly said. "She deserved the proper burial. She at least deserved that."
Helen Gillin had the mental capacity of a 5-year-old and had no friends, Overly said. She was adopted at age 12 by James and Roberta Gillin, who had been foster parents for other children with disabilities.
Helen Gillin's birth father died of a heart attack, and her birth mother died from cancer, Overly said.
Roberta Gillin initially pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in March 2001, saying she hoped her plea would grant some peace to her daughter's soul. The former certified nursing assistant withdrew the plea at her scheduled sentencing, then was found not guilty in June 2002 of the same counts her husband faced.