Treehouse murder perjury case: Grand jury questions are focus of defense case

WORCESTER ― The brutal murder of Brandon Chicklis was recounted in graphic detail during witness testimony on the first day of Jonathan Lind’s perjury trial.

Lind is the ex-boyfriend of Julia Enright, who was convicted of murdering Chicklis in a treehouse near her Ashburnham home in 2018.

The perjury trial started Monday in Worcester Superior Court. Lind is also facing charges of accessory to murder and disinterring a body, which will be tried on a later date.

Prosecutors allege Lind helped Enright dump Chicklis’ body off a highway in New Hampshire, where it sat for weeks before being found and lied about it to a grand jury. The defense argued that the grand jury didn’t ask any pertinent questions, so Lind didn’t perjure himself.

In her opening statement, Assistant District Attorney Shayna Lee Woodard said this case is about lies, which Lind told the grand jury to protect his girlfriend, Enright and himself.

To understand the web of lies, Woodard said, one must first know the specifics of the murder at hand.

Woodard talked about the couple’s shared obsession with the macabre, trading texts fantasizing about murder and engaging in sexual “bloodplay,” as well as Enright’s fondness for collecting dead animals.

She recounted the murder, as well as the search for Chicklis.

Woodard said Lind was told to tell everything he did including where he went and who he was with during the weekend of Chicklis' disappearance and murder.

When asked to testify under oath to the grand jury, Woodard said, Lind said he didn’t go to the treehouse where the murder took place, didn’t talk about Chicklis with Enright and didn’t go on the trip to New Hampshire where the lifeless body was dumped, despite evidence and phone records that showed otherwise.

Woodard alleges Enright called Lind to help dispose of the body and to move the victim’s car, which had been parked on a dirt road near the treehouse.

Woodard said Lind clearly lied to the grand jury and is guilty of perjury.

In his brief opening statement, Kevin C. Larson, attorney for the defense, said his client didn’t kill Chicklis, didn’t assist Enright in disposing Chicklis’ body and didn’t help Enright in moving Chicklis’ vehicle.

Larson also insisted that Lind didn’t perjure himself.

Larson said two state troopers knocked on his client’s door the evening of Oct. 16, 2018, to slap him with a subpoena to appear before the grand jury the next morning.

Larson rattled a series of questions that he believes the prosecution should have asked his client but didn’t, including: "Did you help to wrap up Chicklis’ body? Did you move Chicklis’ body? Did you drive to Rindge, New Hampshire?" and, "Did you play any role in disposing Chicklis’ body?"

Arguing that his client wasn’t asked any direct or pertinent question about the murder and the subsequent disposal of the body, Larson maintains Lind never lied and didn’t commit perjury because he can only answer questions that he was asked, not the questions that he should have been asked.

After opening statements from the defense and the prosecution, several witnesses were called to the stand including Trisha Edwards-Lamarche, mother of the murder victim; Jocelyn Williams, girlfriend of the murder victim; and Leanne Roy, Enright’s next-door neighbor, who owns the land where the treehouse stands; as well as Westminster police Sgt. Nicholas Auffrey, Greenfield police officer Michael Eneguess and Ridge Police Chief Rachel Malynowski.

In her murder trial, prosecutors argued that it appeared Enright had stabbed Chicklis multiple times in a treehouse she had outfitted with restraints; Enright, taking the stand in her own defense, admitted to stabbing Chicklis, but alleged she did so in self-defense.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Jonathan Lind perjury trial in treehouse murder case opening arguments