On July 16, 2004, the police arrested Jeffrey S. Mailhot, who remains at the Adult Correctional Institutions awaiting trial for the killings.

01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, July 16, 2005

BY CYNTHIA NEEDHAM
Journal Staff Writer

WOONSOCKET -- The apartment on Cato Street sits empty. The shades are drawn.

A year ago today, it was a different scene entirely.

That evening, the police handcuffed resident Jeffrey S. Mailhot and thrust the sleepy street into a statewide spotlight.

Mailhot, they said, fatally choked three women, chopped up their bodies and disposed of them in trash bins.

Within hours of the arrest, detectives were trampling the grass at 221 Cato St. as they carted away evidence. They sweated in the heat, some vomited on the lawn.

These days, the street when Jeffrey Mailhot lived and allegedly killed is quiet. The house could use a coat of paint, but the grass is trimmed and neat.

Mailhot, now 34, remains jailed without bail at the Adult Correctional Institutions awaiting trial for the murders of Audrey L. Harris, 33, Christine C. Dumont, 42 and Stacie K. Goulet, a pregnant 24-year-old, all of whom had histories of drug abuse or prostitution and disappeared after the police say they accompanied Mailhot to the now-infamous apartment.

The building's owner hasn't bothered trying to rent the place, or even repair it after the police tore it apart. The city promised to reimburse him for the costs, but it seems too soon.

Several months ago, detectives sent an unnamed relative to pack up Mailhot's belongings. Whoever it was came and went quickly, leaving much behind.

Across the street, life has moved on. A condominium development has popped up in the dusty lot where reporters once congregated.

"When we heard what had happened we were more surprised than anything," said Duane Boucher, a Realtor affiliated with the Historic Village Condominiums development, which was in the planning stages a year ago.

The developer and Realtors agreed to go build the project, despite what had happened. Today, seven new condos are on the market, some for as much as $250,000. At least one has been sold.

Several streets away, the healing process has been slower. Three purple ribbons hang from a second-floor porch, one for each victim.

Inside, on Thursday, Madeline Desrochers sat at the kitchen table where she's spent most of her time in the 15 months since her sister, Christine Dumont, disappeared.

"The whole first year for me has been so devastating. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't bury her. It feels like longer than a year; it feels like five."

Despite the frantic search for evidence last summer, the police recovered only Goulet's body, in the Central Landfill, in Johnston.

With nothing to bury, Desrochers affixed a picture of Christine to her parents' grave at a cemetery in Bellingham, Mass., but it's not the same, she says.

And without a body, she has not been able to obtain a death certificate.

Health Department spokesman Robert Marshall said the victims' families can file a petition in Superior Court requesting that the department issue "a certificate of presumed death."

In Rhode Island, such certificates are unusual, according to attorney general spokesman Michael J. Healey. The last time they were issued was after the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, which plummeted into the ocean off Nantucket in 1999.

So far, neither Dumont nor Harris' families have made any such request.

In Woonsocket, the police say prostitution has "absolutely dropped" in the year since Mailhot's arrest, though late this week they were unable to provide statistics to document that decline.

And they say there still are problems. Recently "we've had two girls approach us about strange dealings with suspected johns, violence when they were picked up," Capt. Luke H. Gallant said yesterday.

Those victims, he said, refused to file complaints, but the department is seeking the men.

Desrochers says she has a hard time believing there's been any change in prostitution practices. "After all this, I still see girls who walk by here," she said, gesturing toward the street in front her apartment.

"Some of the girls -- they'll look up here as they go by. That's why I put the ribbons up out there, so when they do they'll remember Christine and Audrey and Stacie."