Jill Coit

Jill Lonita Coit (née Billiot; born June 11, 1943, or 1944[5]) is an American convicted murderer. A con artist and serial bigamist who has been married 11 times to nine different men since 1961,[3] Coit was convicted of killing her eighth husband in 1993 and is also suspected of killing her third husband in 1972. Coit is serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole at the Denver Women's Correctional Facility.[6]

Jill Coit
Born
Jill Lonita Billiot

(1943-06-11) June 11, 1943 or (1944-06-11) June 11, 1944
Lafitte, Louisiana[1]
NationalityAmerican
Height5 ft 6 in[2]
Criminal statusIncarcerated
MotiveFinancial gain, threat of pending litigation[3]
Conviction(s)First-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder[4]
Criminal penaltyLife plus 47 years
Partner(s)Michael Backus[4]
Details
Victims1 confirmed, 1 suspected
CountryUnited States
State(s)Colorado
Location(s)Steamboat Springs
WeaponsStun gun, .22 caliber pistol
Imprisoned atDenver Women's Correctional Facility
Notes
DOC Number: 86530

Biography

Coit was born Jill Lonita Billiot in Lafitte, Louisiana; she grew up in New Orleans.[5][1] She is of Native American descent.[1] Her upbringing was apparently normal and without any major trauma or unusual features, and she was described as popular at her school.[5] However, Coit did not fare well academically and dropped out of high school in 1961 to marry her first husband.[5][1] Less than a year later she filed for divorce and liquidated their shared bank accounts.[5]

She married for a second time, to Steven Moore, and gave birth to a son in 1964, filing for divorce soon afterwards.[7]

William Clark Coit, Jr.

Coit married engineer William Clark Coit, Jr. in January 1966 in Louisiana, while still legally married to Moore.[1] The couple had two children, William Andrew Coit (called Andrew) and William Coit III.[1] William Coit, Jr. adopted Jill's son from her previous marriage.[1]

William Coit, Jr. was killed on March 29, 1972, shot twice in the back by an apparent intruder shortly after he filed for divorce from Jill. She was suspected of the murder, but the police could never find sufficient evidence to charge her.[8] Additionally, she checked herself into a mental hospital to avoid further questioning.[7]

Shortly after Coit's death, Jill Coit moved to California, where she also persuaded an elderly gentleman to informally adopt her, and subsequently inherited "a large portion of his estate" after his death.[7]

Additional marriages

Coit's fourth marriage was to Donald Charles Brodie, an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. The couple divorced in 1975 after two years of marriage.[7]

Coit later twice married and twice divorced one of the lawyers who represented her during the investigation into William Coit's murder.[5]

While separated from her fifth husband, Coit married Eldon Duane Metzger in Ohio.[7] In 1983, she married husband number seven, a schoolteacher in Indiana.[5]

Gerald Boggs

While renovating a bed and breakfast with her sons, Coit regularly visited Gerald Boggs' hardware store in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. They struck up a relationship and in 1991 Boggs, a 52-year-old bachelor, married her, becoming (unbeknown to him) her eighth husband. Boggs' brother Doug was concerned by Coit's excessive interest in her husband's finances. He hired a private investigator who exposed Coit as a complete fraud. She had been married nine times, had several aliases, had been involved in various financial and insurance scams, and was still legally married to her seventh husband.[5] She had also faked a pregnancy, having had a hysterectomy.[1] On the basis of this information, Boggs annulled the marriage after seven months.[5]

After the annulment, Coit and Boggs were involved in an acrimonious lawsuit over the bed and breakfast business. Boggs had a substantial financial interest in the establishment that was complicated by her use of mortgage fraud, apparently to conceal her assets due to a financial judgment against her by yet another previous husband. The murder of Boggs happened shortly before the trial was scheduled to begin.[9]

Coit briefly married for a ninth time before entering into a relationship with Michael Backus and convinced him to help her murder Boggs. In October 1993, they acted on their plot. Wearing a disguise which included a false mustache, Coit and Backus broke into Boggs's home.[10] They shocked him with a stun gun, and ultimately murdered him using a .25 caliber pistol, later fleeing to Mexico.

Police quickly centered on Coit as a suspect. After she confided to her younger son about the murder and asked for his help in covering it up, he instead went to the police. She was arrested in December 1993, during a visit from Mexico.[5] Subsequent investigation, as well as testimony at her 1995 trial, revealed that she began making plans to murder Boggs as early as the summer of 1993, going as far as to solicit several people to come to Colorado and kill him.[1] She was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder[4] and sentenced to life without possibility of parole [5] plus an additional 47 years on the conspiracy charge. Michael Backus was also convicted and sentenced to life.

Coit, Colorado Department of Corrections #86530, is currently serving her sentence at Denver Womens Correctional Facility. All of her appeals have been exhausted. She has repeatedly attempted to find a new husband via the internet.[5]

In media

Books
  • The 1995 book Charmed to Death, by author Stephen Singular tells the story of Jill Coit's conviction for killing her husband, Gerry Boggs, and depicts her long history of bigamy and embezzlement.[11]
  • The 1995 book Poisoned Vows, by investigative journalist and true crime author Clifford L. Linedecker, is a biography of Coit and her criminal activities.[1]

Television

Coit was portrayed by Bonnie Bedelia in the Fox made-for-television film Legacy of Sin: The William Coit Story (1995). Coit's story is told from the point of view of her son William Coit III (played by Neil Patrick Harris).[12] The movie is based on the Stephen Singular book Charmed to Death.[13]

Coit's exploits have been recounted by several true-crime documentary television series:

References
  1. Linedecker, Clifford L. (2014-07-01). Poisoned Vows. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9781466874855.
  2. "Colorado Department of Corrections Offender Search". Retrieved 2018-03-20.
  3. Weller, Robert (1993-12-26). "After 10 Marriages, Woman Is Jailed on Murder Charges : Violence: Jill Coit and a boyfriend are being held in death of husband No. 9. No. 3 also met an untimely end". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2018-03-20.
  4. "Woman Guilty Of Murdering Husband No. 9". The New York Times. 1995-03-19. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-03-08.
  5. Tiffany Abbott, et al. Jill Coit: "The Louisiana Black Widow", Radford University, Dept of Psychology
  6. After 10 Marriages, Woman Is Jailed on Murder Charges : Violence: Jill Coit and a boyfriend are being held in death of husband No. 9. No. 3 also met an untimely end. - Los Angeles Times, Articles.latimes.com, ASSOCIATED PRESS, 1993-12-26, retrieved 2014-08-01
  7. "Jill Coit - Crime Museum". Crime Museum. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  8. Donnelly, Keryn (4 November 2017). "TRUE CRIME: America's "black widow", the woman who had 10 husbands and 'killed two'". www.msn.com. Retrieved 8 February 2018. William Clark Coit had been shot in the back twice. Although police suspected Coit for the murder, they never had enough evidence to charge her
  9. People v. Coit, Colorado Court of Appeals, Div. II., 961 P.2d 524 (1997)
  10. Cunningham, Susan (20 September 2003). "Boggs trial details recounted". Steamboat Today. Steamboat Springs, Colorado: Swift Communications, Inc. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  11. Singular, Stephen (1995-10-01). Charmed to Death. Kensington Publishing Corporation. ISBN 9780786002573.
  12. "Legacy of Sin: Subtitled". tribunedigital-chicagotribune. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  13. Goble, Alan (1999-01-01). The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110951943.
  14. "Forensic Files - Season 8, Ep 12: Order Up". youtube.com. FilmRise. 2 February 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  15. "Forensic Files: "Order Up" | Season 8, Episode 15". www.amazon.com. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  16. "Serial Wife (American Justice)". amazon.com. A&E Home Video. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  17. "American Justice - Season 13 - Serial Wife". fan.tv. 1 December 2004. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  18. Knox, James (2010). "Deadly Women: "Fortune Hunters"". imdb.com. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  19. "DEADLY WOMEN | Fortune Hunters | S4E3 - Video Dailymotion". Dailymotion. 2 October 2017. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  20. "Facing Evil | The Black Widow Bride". TVGuide.com. 16 December 2011. Retrieved 8 February 2018. Former FBI profiler Candice DeLong interviews criminals featured on the 'Deadly Women' series.
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