The identity of the mystery woman who showed up day after day for the trial of trust fund killer Tommy Gilbert is finally revealed in a new book about the psycho who shot his father for cutting his allowance.
She is Lila Chase, the niece of actor Chevy Chase, who secretly dated the Princeton grad for two years, says true-crime author John Glatt.
No one could work out who the attractive brunette was who would turn up in court with Gilbert's mother Shelley to show her support as Tommy went on trial in Manhattan in 2019 for killing his 70-year-old father Tom Gilbert Sr. after he had cut his allowance.
But in his book Golden Boy, Glatt reveals Chase's identity.
'Lila is the one person who has stood by Tommy through everything,' Glatt told DailyMail.com.
'And she says she will stick by him for the rest of his life. She still really feels for him — she still loves him.'
Thomas 'Tommy' Gilbert Jr., 37, is serving a term of 30 years to life for the murder of his father Thomas Gilbert Sr. in January 2015. He went to his parents' apartment on Manhattan's tony Beekman Place after his father gradually cut his allowance down from $800 to $300 a week and shot him dead
At his trial, a mystery brunette woman turned up with Tommy's mother Shelley to support him. True crime author John Glatt reveals in his upcoming book Golden Boy, out July 20, that the mystery woman is Lila Chase, the niece of actor Chevy Chase
But Lila, now 36, cannot be with her love. He is currently Inmate Number 19A3615, locked up in the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, a six-hour drive from Manhattan.
Gilbert, 37, is serving a term of 30 years to life for second-degree murder. His earliest release date is in April 2044.
DailyMail.com has been given an exclusive look at Glatt's book which will be released on July 20.
Tommy Gilbert went to his parents' eighth floor apartment in tony Beekman Place on Manhattan's East Side, on January 4, 2015, saying he wanted to speak to his father, who had gradually cut his allowance down from $800 to $300 a week.
Golden Boy: A Murder Among the Manhattan Elite hits shelves on July 20
He asked his mother to get him a sandwich and Coke. She went out but had a feeling she shouldn't have left the two alone and turned back.
When she returned Tommy was gone and Tom was dead, lying in a pool of blood in his bedroom, with a .40-caliber Glock pistol in his left hand.
He had been killed by a single hollow-point bullet to the head. Forensic tests showed the gun was pressed so hard against the older man's temple that when Tommy had attempted to fire a second shot, it jammed as the first casing wouldn't eject.
'By the time Tom Gilbert hit the floor, he was dead,' Glatt writes.
Prosecutors said Tommy made the scene look like a suicide by placing the Glock's grip in Tom's hand, then clenching his dad's fingers into a fist and placing the hand and gun on his chest.
'Tommy then rushed out of the bedroom, leaving his father lying dead on the floor with blood and brain matter oozing into a puddle below his head.'
When Shelley called 911, she told the dispatcher she knew who had killed her husband. 'My son, who's nuts,' she said. 'But I didn't know he was this nuts.'
Tommy Gilbert had driven 600 miles to Clarksburg, Ohio, to buy the gun illegally seven months earlier, Glatt writes.
Even as a child Gilbert had delusions. He considered certain people and things were 'contaminated' and avoided New York's JFK Airport at all costs.
During a trip to Princeton, Gilbert wrote: 'My dad made me pull over for gas near JFK which at the time was severely contaminated. This led to all my new clothes being contaminated.
'It was one of the single most traumatic experiences of my life.'
He told a psychiatrist that skits on Saturday Night Live — the show that made Lila's uncle famous — were poking fun at him, and he planned to hire an entertainment lawyer to sue the show.
Tommy's parents approved of Lila, now 36, and talk of marriage was in the air, Glatt reveals, but his heavy cocaine use drove them apart. Shelley and Lila are pictured sitting in court together in 2015
Police arrested Thomas Gilbert Sr.'s son on a murder charge after they say he went to his father's Manhattan apartment, shot him in the head after an argument about money, and tried to make it look like a suicide
A dated family photo shows Thomas Gilbert Jr. appearing happy with his parents Shelley and Thomas Sr. before killing him in cold blood
Shelley Gilbert (pictured leaving court in 2019) testified against her son as the court heard her 911 call after finding her dead husband and pointed to her son as the murderer
This is the upscale Manhattan apartment building where the murder took pace
He allegedly tried to kill former roommate Peter Smith because he thought he was mistreating his dog. Although he has never been charged, he is suspected of throwing a Molotov cocktail into the Smith family's 300-year-old house in Sagaponack in the Hamptons and burning it to the ground around 5 am one September day in 2013. Smith would normally have been alone in the house, but by chance he was staying with a friend.
Lila Chase — whose father is Chevy Chase's (pictured) older brother Edward Chase —was his one true romance. 'It was the first serious relationship for both of them,' Glatt writes. 'And they were in love'
Glatt's book, published by St. Martin's Press, paints a picture of a spoiled man-child who refused to grow up and get a proper job. Instead, his life consisted of wild drug-taking and frequent overseas surfing trips.
His hedge-fund-manager father supported his lifestyle with cash. Apart from the weekly allowance he financed his Jeep, expensive club memberships and other costs. He kept him on the payroll of his firm even though no-one knew what the younger man did.
Even that was not enough, so Tommy would often approach his mother for more handouts. In 2012, the year he turned 28, his parents gave him a total of $74,000. The following year
