00:00:01
Tonight on Dateline. I was in a deep sleep. I remember the barrel of a gun to my mouth.
00:00:09
I felt like my head was on fire. I was at his mercy. He told me if I called the police that he would be back to kill me.
00:00:17
We didn't know if we had some sort of night stalker running around. The lieutenant began ridding me my Miranda Rice.
00:00:24
You have the right to remain silent. Exactly. I was livid. I wanted to hear one of them from limb to limb.
00:00:30
The investigation was completely bungled. Did you worry that someone else could be a victim?
00:00:37
Absolutely. All of a sudden I had a very forceful arm wrapped around my chest and then over my mouth.
00:00:44
The police stopped him. What was in that van? There were two slipknotes ready to go.
00:00:49
There was a tarp. I know we have the right guy. He was hiding in plain sight. The wolf in sheep's clothing.
00:00:56
Yes. A woman survives a brutal assault only to have to clear her own name. It was devastating.
00:01:06
I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with Evil Paid a Visit.
00:01:26
It was warm that September night, so Donna Palumba cracked open her second-floor bedroom window
00:01:34
to let the breeze in. She was beat. She'd worked all day, then taken her two young kids to a concert,
00:01:42
getting home at bedtime. I just remember shutting the door, unlocking it, and then getting the kids in their PJs
00:01:51
and saying their prayers, tucking them in. Just another Friday evening, except for the fact that Donna's husband John was away for a few days.
00:02:01
This is pretty incredible, but you and John had gone years without ever spending a night apart?
00:02:08
We were married 12 years, and that was the first time that he was away. He was a little concerned, but I assured him we would be fine.
00:02:17
By midnight, her lovely leafy neighborhood in Waterbury, Connecticut was in darkness,
00:02:22
and the 36-year-old mom was asleep. Her children tucked in down the hall. All was well.
00:02:30
Then, noises. I heard footsteps. Footsteps? She knew she shouldn't be hearing. It didn't sound like little children's bare feet.
00:02:41
I immediately became alarmed. Was there any part of you that thought maybe John came home early?
00:02:47
Honestly, I didn't have time to think much. She'd left the bedroom door ajar so she could hear the children, ages five and seven, if they woke.
00:02:56
I saw this shadowy figure come in the room. Was it a man? Could you tell? I could tell that the silhouette was of a man and he was wearing some type of face covering.
00:03:07
And I obviously immediately became alarmed and jolted out of my sleep. A shadowy figure. A man. She screamed.
00:03:17
and he jumped me and he covered my mouth with his hand. She bit down into a glove.
00:03:26
He cranked my arm up behind my back and he said, if you don't cooperate, you're going to get hurt.
00:03:31
Did you recognize the voice, the smell, anything? No, no, I didn't recognize at all.
00:03:40
Again, I was caught so off guard. What is going through your mind at this point?
00:03:45
because this is all happening probably so fast. It was terrifying. And I really, it took a few seconds to realize what was happening.
00:03:57
And of course, my first thoughts were of my children. And so I realized that if I continued to scream,
00:04:03
they would be the ones that would hear me. And I certainly didn't want them to be walking into anything like this.
00:04:10
She was face down on the bed. She didn't move. even when he jammed his knee into her back,
00:04:16
bound her wrists and eyes with nylons, and covered her head with a pillowcase. I knew at that point I was unable to fight him,
00:04:26
and so I just thought I've got to do what I can to survive. To survive, did that mean staying quiet?
00:04:34
Did that mean not resisting? I couldn't resist at that point because I was bound.
00:04:39
So I just remember him cutting my clothing while I was still in my stomach, and then he flipped me over, and he raped me.
00:04:56
The next thing she remembers was a gun against her mouth, then her temple. Donna Palumba prayed.
00:05:03
I didn't think that I would survive, so I actually said out loud to God, please absolve me of all my sins.
00:05:09
and I waited, and I saw my life flash before my eyes. You really thought you were going to die in this moment.
00:05:16
I did, and I pictured my children finding me. That's the worst thought right there.
00:05:22
Oh, my gosh. Is to be feeling that in that moment. That's a horrible, horrible thought.
00:05:27
It was unbearable. And then he flipped me onto my stomach and put the gun in my back,
00:05:36
And he said, if you call the pigs, I'm going to come back and kill you. With that warning, a flicker of hope, maybe, just maybe, she would get through this alive.
00:05:49
So I immediately went into a mode of what can I do to make him leave And I said this is between you and I I have no idea who you are i could never identify you i never tell a soul you didn hurt me i was saying anything anything i could
00:06:08
to will him down those stairs you're begging for your life i am i am i thought this was the only
00:06:18
way that he could possibly leave if I tell him that, and I did. And incredibly, he did leave.
00:06:28
Donna listened to him go down the stairs and close the door behind him. She was shaking,
00:06:32
in shock, and profoundly grateful. That must be such a bittersweet feeling that,
00:06:38
okay, I've just been through the worst experience of my entire life, but I'm alive.
00:06:44
And that's how I felt, Andrea. It's like I was so disoriented on the bed when he left,
00:06:52
but so grateful when I heard that door close and I knew he had left the house. I just was immediately so relieved, but my first thoughts were of my children,
00:07:06
and I could not get to them fast enough. She managed to loosen the pillowcase and the nylons tying her wrists,
00:07:13
and she ran to them. I think about you before you've reached their bedrooms and that fear of, oh God, please let them be okay,
00:07:23
please let them be okay. Because you don't know if he's willing to do what he did to you,
00:07:27
who knows what he's capable of. Exactly, and I didn't know if he had gone to their rooms
00:07:32
prior to coming to my room. I didn't know, oh, I could not get to them fast enough.
00:07:39
And when she did, she burst out crying. They slept through the whole thing. They were sleeping.
00:07:45
And at that moment, I thought, if they were untouched and I had survived, we're going to get through this.
00:07:52
I immediately was hopeful. The kids were fine. And Donna, still standing after the most terrifying experience of her life, still able somehow to count her blessings.
00:08:05
I know I was fortunate. I know I was fortunate. your attacker, as horrible as he was to you, he spared you.
00:08:16
Yes, he spared my life. I don't know why to this day, but I thought at that point that the worst was over.
00:08:25
But it wasn't. Little did I know what lie ahead. Coming up, turns out Donna was only minutes away from another shock.
00:08:35
That happens in horror movies. An unnerving discovery forces her to find even more courage.
00:08:43
I made a very, very difficult decision. Donna Palumba was raped in her Connecticut home back in 1993 when her husband John was away.
00:09:05
Her attacker disappeared into the night, leaving Donna alive and her two young children asleep and untouched.
00:09:14
This is every woman's worst nightmare. It really is. I could not believe I was in the middle of this.
00:09:24
Donna was in shock, but she knew she had to report her assault. She didn't have a cell phone. Few people did three decades ago.
00:09:32
So she picked up the landline in her bedroom. It was dead. The kitchen phone was dead, too.
00:09:40
That happens in horror movies, thrillers where people cut the phone lines. Did you think about how scary that was,
00:09:47
that he methodically cut your phone lines? I just knew that I've just been attacked and assaulted
00:09:56
and I cannot call for help in my home where I can be with my children. She was cut off from the world.
00:10:04
and for all she knew, her attacker was still out there, lurking, waiting for her to leave to get help.
00:10:13
If she ran to a neighbor's, would her kids be safe in the house? Why not wake them up and take them and say,
00:10:20
look, we've got to go get some help, something happened. I did not want to frighten them.
00:10:25
I also could not physically carry them down. I didn't want to endanger them. but she also knew she couldn't sit tight in the house until morning the sooner the police knew
00:10:38
about the assault the sooner they could track down her attacker i made a very very difficult
00:10:44
decision to leave the children to run for help that was that was really difficult but i i knew
00:10:53
i had to get help i knew that i couldn't stay like that so where do you go you you come out the front
00:10:59
door right here. I came out the front door, ran down the sidewalk, and my neighbors on either side
00:11:06
were elderly, and the lights were off. And so I ran to my neighbors, and his back porch light was on,
00:11:15
and I knocked on the door. He answered? He did. And who was it? It was actually a distant cousin
00:11:22
of my husband's, Cliff, and he took one look at me. I mean, I can't even imagine what I looked like.
00:11:29
I had the nylons on my neck, on my wrist. Oh, my gosh. I was in a bathrobe, and I just said I'd been attacked.
00:11:36
But I was worried about the children, so I just kept saying, Cliff, he told me he'd kill me.
00:11:40
I don't know what to do. John's away. The children are home by themselves. I ran for the telephone, and I called 911.
00:11:47
We have an assault, a sexual assault. Okay, where did the sexual assault? I know.
00:11:52
What is the address? Listen I the victim Donna terrified trembling took the phone from Cliff He cut my phone line from him so I met a neighbor My children are okay but they in the house by themselves
00:12:05
How old are the kids? They're seven and five. Seven and five? Please, I don't want to leave them alone.
00:12:12
What should I do? Cliff grabbed an axe and ran to Donna's house to stand by the door,
00:12:20
guarding the children in case her attacker returned. It started to dawn on me that we've got a maniac that broke into her house and assaulted her in her bedroom.
00:12:30
Yeah, there was no other choice. I just ran to a neighbor because he cut the phone lines.
00:12:35
Okay, you stay where you are for a second. Let us get the police in the area. Donna relived her nightmare.
00:12:41
He told me if I called the police, they would be back to kill me. She was hyperventilating.
00:12:46
The gentleman that did this said... Do you know him? What? Do you know the guy? No, I don't know him at all.
00:12:51
All she could think of was her attacker's threat and that gun. Okay, try to stay calm.
00:13:22
Yeah, oh yeah. The officer on the phone counseled her. Okay, don't change your clothes or anything.
00:13:28
I didn't touch any. I'm all ripped. Listen, don't wash. I didn't. Okay. But she was frantic to get back to her children.
00:13:35
Oh my God. Oh my God, I can't believe it. Okay, you're doing good. Just hang in there.
00:13:42
A police officer arrived at Cliff's and Donna handed the phone to him. The two officers shared a somber assessment.
00:13:49
Is she all tied up? The officer then asked for a key to Donna's front door and took off to her house.
00:14:00
Donna started calling family members. Your phone jolts you out of your sleeve? Bill Palumba is Donna's brother-in-law, John's younger brother.
00:14:09
Does she say exactly what happened or just that you need to get to the house? I needed to get to the house.
00:14:14
Somebody broke into the house and she was clearly upset. Bill threw on a pair of sweats and tore out of his house.
00:14:20
Donna, waiting at Cliff's house as she'd been told to do, could stand it no longer.
00:14:25
She ran to her home, now a crime scene, crawling with officers. I just remember seeing flashing lights and walking into this scene that was so surreal in my own home.
00:14:39
And my first thoughts were of my children. And I was able to go upstairs and check on them, and they were still asleep.
00:14:46
Wow. Even as officers show flashlights in their faces. Bill Palumba arrived and helped carry the sleeping children to their grandmother's house nearby.
00:14:55
And then a discussion ensued. Had you said to Donna, we need to call John? I think when all my brothers were in the kitchen with her, we really said, you know, we're going to need to tell him.
00:15:06
But she was very hesitant on telling him until he got home. John, who was in Colorado at a good friend's wedding, was due back the next day.
00:15:16
I did not want to call John, and I would not want to talk to him at this moment to frighten him when he couldn't be there.
00:15:26
That would just be torture for him. Some people would think that that maybe should have been your first call to your husband.
00:15:32
If he was in the area, absolutely, but he could do nothing from where he was. Doing nothing was not in John Palumba's DNA, especially not where Donna was concerned.
00:15:45
Everyone braced for his return. Coming up, a meeting with an investigator takes an unthinkable turn.
00:15:54
He put me in a small interrogation room. He took out a little white piece of paper and began reading me my rights.
00:16:03
When Dateline continues. John Palumba was due home on Sunday, September 12th. He had no idea a nightmare awaited him.
00:16:23
I knew John would be crushed. Donna had gone to the hospital for a sex crimes examination.
00:16:31
Her rapist's DNA collected. Now she steeled herself to tell John what had happened.
00:16:37
He assumes everything was okay at home. Right. And then he walks through the door, and his life changes in an instant.
00:16:45
Absolutely. John knew something was up when he reached the front door. It had a new deadbolt.
00:16:51
He saw the deadbolts and came flying into the house, and we broke the news to him.
00:16:56
And I remember him flying out of the room and just saying, no, and how could this happen?
00:17:03
And it was his worst nightmare. John Palumba still has trouble talking about that day.
00:17:13
And it just, you know, it hurt me that there was nothing I could do. I was angry. I was very angry.
00:17:25
Did you feel any kind of, any of that guilt that, oh, I shouldn't have gone? Absolutely. I felt that I let him down. I wasn't there.
00:17:32
that's what hurt is that you just felt like you let your family down it hurt even more because john had always been vigilant super protective donna picked up on that
00:17:48
the first time she met john at a party years before they were two college kids both waterbury
00:17:53
born and bred and they just clicked i thought she was very nice donna was very quiet then Donna quiet I don know what happened but we hit it off
00:18:06
They got married a few years later. You know, we don't have a story like we're at the beach and the waves came crashing in.
00:18:13
No romantic, unfortunately. I mean, it was basically just something we grew into.
00:18:18
Not Mr. Romantic, maybe, but loving and deeply family-oriented. That was John Palumba, always on guard for any possible threat.
00:18:28
I used to tell her all the time, make sure the doors are locked. If I'm going out for a walk, make sure the doors are locked.
00:18:35
Remember, John's trip to Colorado was the first time he'd been away from his wife in a dozen years of marriage.
00:18:41
Donna couldn't join him. She was needed at the small marketing firm where she was a partner.
00:18:46
But she encouraged John to go. He loved the mountains, and so I thought, I'll just stay here with the kids.
00:18:53
Did you think in your wildest dreams that something would happen? No. If I thought that, I wouldn't have let.
00:19:02
At first, the police made slow progress. Donna went over her memories of the assault again and again, hoping to retrieve details to help them.
00:19:11
I do remember an odor when he was on me that smelled like grease or oil. Did you think that maybe this is someone who works with cars, a mechanic?
00:19:21
Yeah, I mean, I thought that that was important to relay to the police so that they could pursue that angle, perhaps.
00:19:29
His voice, did you feel like he was using his regular voice? I thought perhaps it was someone that was, like, talking deeper.
00:19:38
It was a very threatening tone that he used. The investigators were stumped by one question in particular.
00:19:46
How did the attacker get into the house? Donna told them the doors were always locked at night.
00:19:51
There was no broken windows. The door wasn't jimmied in any way. So it was troubling.
00:19:57
It was troubling to them, and it was equally troubling to me. Donna believed her attacker was a stranger,
00:20:04
but as the days went by, she and John began to wonder about that. We kind of had a feeling that it was someone that we knew.
00:20:12
Why did you have that feeling? Because I was never away, and so somebody would have had to known.
00:20:20
The Palumbas lived in a tight-knit community. Even so, the couple kept the assault private.
00:20:26
Donna was identified publicly only as Jane Doe. She tried to reassure John, telling him they'd get through it.
00:20:33
But John struggled. His anger had been lit, and it endured. You know, people look at me wrong. I was, you know, I was ready to fight.
00:20:42
I just had that pent-up anger in me, and it was unhealthy. Donna worried that John's anger might propel him into an act he'd regret.
00:20:52
It was one reason she worked so hard to help the police. Which is why, a month after the assault,
00:20:58
she went down to the Waterbury PD to talk to the investigator in charge about a possible lead.
00:21:03
Instead, she got the shock of her life. He was very, like, abrupt. And he put me in a small interrogation room with a desk.
00:21:14
And on the desk, there was a tape recorder. He hit play and record. Are you thinking, what's going on here?
00:21:23
I was confused, but I quickly became aware that something was wrong. He took out a little white piece of paper and unfolded it and began reading me my Miranda rights.
00:21:36
What? He read me. So you have the right to remain silent. Exactly. And I said, what are you doing?
00:21:42
How shocking. I was dumbfounded. And so I asked him, I said, what are you doing?
00:21:46
He said, this is how I'm going to handle this. Handle what? I know. So I said, what are you talking about?
00:21:53
And he looked at me and he said, why don't you tell me what really happened that night?
00:21:57
Donna suddenly realized she was being accused of lying about her rape, the most traumatic experience of her life.
00:22:05
What in the world was going on? Coming up. He said, we have rock solid evidence that you purposefully lied to the police.
00:22:15
Donna comes to a stunning realization. So you've been raped and now you're the one who could potentially be arrested.
00:22:25
Right. I become the suspect. A month after Donna Palumba was raped, lead investigator Lieutenant Douglas Moran
00:22:54
sat across from her in a cramped interview room at the Waterbury Police Department,
00:22:58
read her her rights, and threatened to arrest her if she didn't tell him what really happened that night.
00:23:04
I looked at him and I said, I told you what happened. And he said, we have rock-solid evidence
00:23:12
that you purposefully lied to the police. I sat back. I was like, please, something is terribly wrong.
00:23:20
I have done nothing but tell the truth. Then she says he laid it out. He said, you have everything to lose.
00:23:29
He held up his hand and he said, your children, your husband, your career, your reputation,
00:23:34
unless you tell me right now what happened. I started trembling and shaking and I'm like, please, you're scaring me.
00:23:41
What are you talking about? He said, listen, we have countless interviews and photographs.
00:23:46
Of what? That's what I said. I said, please show me the photographs. Show me the interviews.
00:23:51
He would hear nothing of it. It's like an ambush. I was so blindsided. It was the last thing that I had.
00:24:00
expected. Remember, this was one month after the crime, and he's questioning me in the most
00:24:05
relentless, horrific way. And there was no reasoning with the man. So you've been raped,
00:24:12
and now you're the one who could potentially be arrested. Right. I become the suspect.
00:24:19
But the worst part is, he didn't tell me what he had. He just kept at me saying,
00:24:24
we know you're lying. We have rock solid evidence. But not willing to share it. Not willing to share anything, but he made it clear.
00:24:32
He said, if you do not tell me what happened, you will be arrested. I started crying, and I looked at him, and I said,
00:24:41
what could you be thinking of doing this to me? And he looked at his watch and said,
00:24:46
I'm thinking of what I'm going to have for lunch. It was devastating. But yet you didn't just get up and leave.
00:24:58
I didn't because he was going to arrest me. I tried everything I could to set the record straight,
00:25:03
to let him know he's on the wrong path. Whatever he has can be explained. Finally, she fell silent, and the lieutenant issued an ultimatum.
00:25:14
He said, I'll tell you what. I am going to let you go under the condition that you come back here this afternoon.
00:25:22
You tell me what really happened, and this tape goes in the drawer. I'm going to close the case, but if you don't come back this afternoon, I will find you and arrest you, and your picture will be in tomorrow's paper.
00:25:36
I see. So he's saying if you confess and tell the truth, this will all go away. Exactly. And he also said, I have 27 cases on my desk. One way or another, this case is getting closed today.
00:25:49
Donna was reeling. She stumbled out of the police department and told her family what had happened.
00:25:54
You went down to the station to confront the officer. What happened when you went down there?
00:26:00
He didn't even take me in the room. He met me in the hallway. And I started yelling and screaming at him.
00:26:04
And he didn't even have the courtesy to sit me down and tell me what he had. He goes, I got irrefutable evidence that your wife is lying.
00:26:14
And he said her story's full of holes, and yes, there is the threat of her arrest.
00:26:18
But he didn't say why. After that angry exchange at the Waterbury Police Department,
00:26:24
John suddenly realized what the police were thinking, that Donna had had an affair and had invented the rape as a cover-up in case she was discovered.
00:26:33
John knew he had to ask his wife if that was true. It was very hard for me to even have to even ask that question.
00:26:41
I mean, but I just figured, all right, they say they got irreputable evidence and this and that.
00:26:47
So I got to ask her. John Palumba says his trust in his wife never wavered. After all, he knew Donna.
00:26:56
I mean, if anybody had a clean reputation, it was her. A real lady is how John describes his wife, a throwback to yesteryear.
00:27:07
Donna wasn't the kind that went to happy hour with the girls, or she wasn't the kind that would be out, you know, by herself or, you know, with a girlfriend.
00:27:18
She was, you know, a person who was home. All the same, John knew he'd have to ask his wife that painful question.
00:27:28
I just looked at Donna and I said, is there anything I should know about? Coming up, a new encounter with police enrages John all over again.
00:27:42
I was livid. I was livid. I wanted to hear one of them from limb to limb. When Dateline continues.
00:27:52
After a Waterbury police officer accused Donna Palumba of lying about her assault
00:28:03
and implied she was having an affair, Donna's husband asked her the hardest question he'd ever put to her.
00:28:10
Was there anything he should know? And she said, absolutely not. I said, okay, I'm with you.
00:28:18
You know your wife, that was all you needed? Yeah. And I would imagine that you're going to trust the word of Donna over a lieutenant?
00:28:26
I knew her well enough. I knew her character. I knew who she was. And after she said, absolutely not, it never came up again.
00:28:34
Donna and John hugged after that exchange, Donna in tears. The meeting with the lieutenant had set her back.
00:28:42
I really felt like I was getting stronger. I was back to work. We were trying to keep things as normal as possible for the children.
00:28:50
It wasn't until this lieutenant did this that it really, really stopped my healing.
00:28:57
Was it like these officers, instead of protecting you, were more like the enemy?
00:29:02
Oh, for sure. I mean, I feared law enforcement. You know, I mean, the attack happened at my home, which you think is a safe place when you're sleeping in your bed.
00:29:13
and then to be attacked again by people in power that have taken an oath to protect and serve,
00:29:21
your whole world is shattered. The Palambas demanded to meet with Lieutenant Moran Superior to complain about what had happened.
00:29:34
Did you think that you were going to meet with this supervisor and you'd get answers and everything would be cleared up?
00:29:40
We thought. It was so blatant what this lieutenant did to me, and I knew it had been recorded, so
00:29:46
I, you know, first thing we did is ask, did you listen to the tape? And he said, no, it's
00:29:50
an ongoing investigation. And I said, well, can we listen to it together? And he said,
00:29:54
no And then I said well you going to have to hear what he said to me And his demeanor was instead of concern it was very nonchalant It more like I going to solve this case one way or the other
00:30:07
This meeting with the police was also recorded, though John and Donna didn't know it at the time.
00:30:13
I'm telling you to discuss what the way it was here. Captain, let me just tell you something.
00:30:17
After this incident, I went to the hospital for three hours. They punched me with drugs.
00:30:23
My mother held my head over the top, and I vomited for five hours. I went through all that, and he's trying to make up like I had some dinky lover.
00:30:33
I mean, it just closed my mind. Let me explain, in certain cases, it is a legitimate line of questioning.
00:30:43
He also told them the investigation was, in his words, kind of stymied. But he said the police did want to question the children.
00:30:51
The Palumbas certainly weren't going to let the police talk to their kids now. I was livid. I was livid. I was livid. I wanted to hear one of them from limb to limb.
00:31:27
Donna and John didn't know it at the time, but there was a reason the police thought Donna had invented the rape.
00:31:33
An informant had gone to them to pass on rumors. What the police told the Palumbas was irrefutable evidence turned out to be town gossip.
00:31:42
And this informant said, there's a rumor going around that Donna is having an affair.
00:31:47
and that the night of the crime, she was with her lover and the eldest child woke up and saw something
00:31:57
and she put her back to sleep and concocted the rape to cover up an affair. This is a vicious rumor.
00:32:06
It is completely untrue. And Donna couldn't understand why the police hadn't just asked her
00:32:15
about the rumor in the first place. It would have been so easy for him to talk to anyone that knew me.
00:32:24
If there was this person that I was having an affair with, he would have learned that that was not the case.
00:32:29
He just ran with it? He ran with it. The Palumbas later learned the captain they'd complained to was the lieutenant's brother.
00:32:38
By now, Donna and John were convinced they'd never get a fair shake from these investigators.
00:32:43
As they agonized about what to do, the only thing they knew for certain was that Donna's attacker was still out there.
00:32:51
Maybe even preparing to strike again. Coming up, a damning report of the Waterbury police response the night of Donna's assault from one of their own.
00:33:07
So these officers came to this crime scene. Did they cord it off? No. Did they canvass the neighborhood? Did they talk to people?
00:33:16
No. Did they call in the forensic team? They did not. John and Donna Palumba had lost faith in the investigation after the lead investigator accused Donna of lying.
00:33:38
So the Poulombas reached out to the state's attorney and asked his office to investigate.
00:33:44
As they waited, rumors whirled around Donna. Are you worried that the neighbors, it's going to start getting around town,
00:33:50
that people are going to start whispering, wondering? This rumor was so contrary to the way I had lived my life and what I do every day.
00:34:00
And so I became sensitive to the looks I would get and the little whispers. So even though you were known as Jane Doe, people were starting to realize this is Donna.
00:34:11
Some people. And it really hurt me that this vicious lie that I was having an affair
00:34:16
and could somehow concoct this horrific crime was out there. In the spring of 1994, more than six months after Donna was raped, everything changed.
00:34:27
Myself and some others felt really horrible about the way Donna Palumba's case was handled.
00:34:34
Neil O'Leary was then one of Waterbury's crack detectives. On the order of the state's attorney, O'Leary took over Donna's case.
00:34:42
Neil was a good cop. He was a good cop. He knew right away that this case was mishandled.
00:34:48
And he wasn't afraid to tell us that. He wasn't afraid to say it either. O'Leary knew it would be a huge challenge to find Donna's attacker because so much time had passed.
00:34:57
Witnesses disappear, memories disappear, evidence disappears. but, you know, we started as if it happened the night before.
00:35:04
He told me if I called the police that he would be back to kill me. O'Leary listened to Donna's 911 call again and again.
00:35:14
Did this sound sincere to you? I thought it was agonizing, terrifying. I could feel her fear through the phone.
00:35:26
Oh, dear God. But the first investigators had issues with that call. I don't know what to do with the gentleman that did this.
00:35:34
Do you know him? What? Do you know the guy? No, I don't know him at all. One of the words she used to describe her attacker was gentleman.
00:35:41
Correct. They didn't like that. They didn't like that, and I didn't understand that,
00:35:45
because if you know Donna Palumba, that's how Donna Palumba speaks. The more O'Leary learned about the police response the night of the attack,
00:35:54
the more disillusioned he became He called it a perfect storm of mistakes So these officers came to this crime scene Did they coordinate off
00:36:06
No. Did they canvas the neighborhood? Did they talk to people? No. Did they call in the forensic team?
00:36:11
They did not. Did they take photos of the crime scene? No, they did not. And so with all of these things that weren't done, how would you grade this response to a major crime?
00:36:22
I would give them a D- at best. And the only reason it's not an F is that the responding patrolman, the youngest person on the scene,
00:36:32
had the wherewithal to resort to his training and collect the bedding and the clothing at the hospital
00:36:39
when Donna went for the rape kit at Waterbury Hospital. Instead of focusing on the medical and forensic reports that supported Donna's story,
00:36:49
O'Leary says the initial investigators zeroed in on Donna's actions that night. They didn't like that she didn't want to call her husband right away.
00:36:58
That was an issue. They didn't like that she had left the children sleeping. Yes, her husband is out in Colorado.
00:37:06
He's coming home just in a few hours. What is that going to do by arousing him at 2 o'clock in the morning
00:37:12
and then having him fly home with that going on? And with the children, why wake them up?
00:37:17
because then you're going to traumatize them as well. O'Leary started talking to everybody he could,
00:37:22
beginning with Donna, then John. Family, friends, neighbors. I felt from the very, very beginning
00:37:29
that this was someone that Donna knew. It was too much of a coincidence for me because of the fact that it was the first time ever
00:37:37
that John Palumba was away from the home. There was no forced entry, which led me to believe that
00:37:44
whomever was responsible for this attack somehow had access to the key somewhere.
00:37:52
As he investigated, O'Leary learned there'd been a stag on the night of Donna's assault,
00:37:57
a bachelor party in a Waterbury restaurant. O'Leary says about 50 men attended. John Palumba, a popular guy, would have been there too.
00:38:06
Anyone at that party would know that he was missing. They're a very tight-knit neighborhood.
00:38:14
back then in 1993. O'Leary realized Donna had been attacked not long after the party ended.
00:38:20
He got a partial guest list, collected some 40 DNA samples, hoping to get a match to the DNA collected from Donna.
00:38:27
We drove the Connecticut State Police Lab crazy with all of our DNA samples, but nonetheless, we struck out on each and every one.
00:38:35
Months passed as the first anniversary of the assault came and went. O'Leary says he wasn't the most popular guy on the force.
00:38:42
After all, he'd been highly critical of the first team of investigators. And yet he'd come up empty himself.
00:38:49
Were some of the officers kind of giving you the cold shoulder? Yes, definitely.
00:38:55
Knowing that Donna's attacker was still out there, the Palumbas learned to live with constant suspicions.
00:39:01
The worst part is you started to think, well, maybe it was this person, maybe it was that person.
00:39:07
Kind of like everyone's a possible suspect. Right. But then the last straw, an internal police report assessing how the initial investigators had handled the case.
00:39:17
The headline, no impropriety on the part of Captain Robert Moran or his brother, the lieutenant who'd accused Donna of lying.
00:39:26
Donna was incensed. I felt as I was reading that like I was being punched in the gut.
00:39:32
This is not only being tolerated, but it's being condoned. That would be a tipping point for sure.
00:39:40
And that is when we decided to sue the police. I just could not imagine this happening to another family.
00:39:48
The Palumbas say neither of them wanted to sue and neither cared about winning money.
00:39:52
I've never sued anybody in my life, but the only way we could get results was to do this.
00:39:59
But if the Palumbas felt betrayed by a few officers in the Waterbury Police Department,
00:40:04
Another betrayal, this one profound and personal, lay ahead. And it would change everything the Palumbas and the Waterbury community thought they knew about the case.
00:40:16
Coming up, Donna makes a decision that will test her all over again. She was very nervous, very fragile.
00:40:25
Will it pay off when Dateline continues? The Palombas lawsuit accusing the Moran brothers and the city of Waterbury of negligence
00:40:44
finally made it to court in early 2001, almost eight years after Donna was raped.
00:40:50
Donna was identified only as Jane Doe in court, and her kids, both teens by then, still knew nothing about what happened that night.
00:40:59
You slept through the entire attack? Yes. Mm-hmm. Johnny Palumba was five at the time.
00:41:05
I vaguely remember getting walked to my grandmother's house in the middle of the night
00:41:09
and being told that it was a problem with a gas leak, I believe, in the house is what I was told.
00:41:16
A short time before the trial started, the Palumbas told Johnny and his older sister Sarah
00:41:20
an abridged version of what happened, with no mention of Donna's rape. They basically just said, you know, that night, we told you there was a gas leak,
00:41:28
there was actually a home invasion, I don't think they use those words, but somebody had broken into the home.
00:41:33
And it wasn't handled properly by the police, and that's why they were going to court.
00:41:39
The trial lasted a month. Donna was on the stand for two days, testifying as Jane Doe.
00:41:45
You had this torturous experience on the stand, and then you kind of had your knight in shining armor take the stand.
00:41:51
Neil O who was finally someone who was willing to back you up Yes and that meant so much I mean that was not easy for him I mean as you can imagine there is a blue wall where they protect each other But yet Neil knew that I was telling the truth
00:42:07
And he knew the case had been botched. And he wasn't afraid to say that, to say the truth.
00:42:14
The city's lawyer countered, calling the rape a hoax, arguing the first investigator's actions were justified.
00:42:20
But the jury found the Moran brothers negligent, awarding Donna and John $190,000 to be paid by the city of Waterbury.
00:42:29
I saw it in my wife's face. It was vindication for her. It was basically you tried to destroy my reputation and you lost.
00:42:37
Donna didn't spend time savoring the victory. She had urgent business. In the midst of trial preparations, she'd received awful news,
00:42:45
a diagnosis of stage 1 breast cancer. It was kind of like you're in a prize fight and you keep getting hit.
00:42:53
I was just wondering when the round was going to end so you can get back on your feet and get out there again.
00:42:59
It was tough. Treatment started immediately after the verdict and was successful.
00:43:06
But Donna Palumba, one part Fragile Beauty, three parts Tireless Street Fighter, had another round to go.
00:43:12
She was profoundly upset by the trial coverage in the local newspaper, The Republican American.
00:43:17
If I was just reading the paper, I would think, how could this woman have won? How could these officers be found negligent when she sounds like she concocted this whole thing?
00:43:29
There was so much doubt. Donna may have won her case in court, but in the court of public opinion, she believed she was losing.
00:43:37
Looked like Jane Doe was really a suspicious character. John Murray followed the coverage in the Republican American.
00:43:45
It was the competition. Murray is the publisher and editor of the Waterbury Observer,
00:43:50
an independent monthly newspaper he founded. They're chopping out her credibility with every single story.
00:43:57
And the rumor mill? Murray says it was still working overtime, even after the trial.
00:44:02
So just because she won didn't mean all the rumors just instantly stopped? Absolutely not. They actually intensified.
00:44:09
They intensified because who didn't know about the rumors, now everybody knew about them.
00:44:14
So it spread everywhere. One day, Murray got a phone call out of the blue. Her sister reached out and said that Jane Doe wanted to talk.
00:44:26
Murray agreed to meet Jane Doe. What followed was intense. He says he found Donna extraordinarily credible and vulnerable.
00:44:34
She was very nervous, very fragile, and she remained Jane Doe through this whole process.
00:44:41
She didn't tell me who she was. And so I respected that. And we had an interview that went on probably for four or five hours as she was telling me this story.
00:44:52
I'm listening. I'm empathizing with her. She was crying. I cried. I mean, it was a terrible story.
00:44:58
Why did she finally want to at least get her story out there, even if she wasn't going to use her real name?
00:45:04
She wanted the truth out there. She wanted an apology from the Waterbury Police Department.
00:45:09
Never got that. She wanted the Morans to just say, like, we screwed up. That never happened.
00:45:16
Douglas Moran continued to work at the Waterbury Police Department. His older brother had retired before the trial.
00:45:23
But John Murray was moved by Donna's story. He wanted to tell it. So he went to work.
00:45:29
He conducted more interviews with Donna, made calls, dug into court transcripts,
00:45:33
and published a blockbuster report still protecting Donna's identity. Some of the testimony is in print.
00:45:40
So we transcribed that and shared that. We printed the 911 call. It's very compelling.
00:45:46
So it made it out into the public, and I think that that gave her a great sense of relief
00:45:51
that someone had believed her and acknowledged the story that she was telling. That must have felt good getting that story out there.
00:45:59
It did. I was still Jane Doe, but at least it was documented, the truth of what happened that night and afterward.
00:46:07
The story shut down some lingering gossip. Donna was finally starting to feel vindicated,
00:46:12
but it didn't ease the anguish of not knowing who her assailant was or where he was.
00:46:18
And this was a man, remember, your attacker, who said he would kill you if you talked to the police.
00:46:23
That's right. He made that very clear. Were you always looking over your shoulder even years later?
00:46:28
Did it stick with you? It did. It's something that is lifelong. That type of trauma and that type of threat stays with you.
00:46:37
Little did she know the case was about to crack wide open. Coming up, a name in a police report draws the detective's attention.
00:46:49
What caught my eye was the alleged perpetrator. Was there a connection to Donna's case?
00:46:56
So it just hit you? Like a bolt of lightning. By the summer of 2004, it had been almost 11 years since Donna Palumba was raped.
00:47:17
Neil O'Leary hadn't forgotten about her case, but he hadn't solved it either. The case basically went cold, except for the fact that I would check in with them periodically
00:47:27
and let them know that we were still looking at anything even remotely close, you know, any sexual assault, any burglaries that might be similar.
00:47:36
so did you think that this would ever get solved no it might have been solved but I just think
00:47:44
the window um closed the only thing I had hope for was it had DNA so if the person did it again
00:47:52
and they got DNA then they could tie it in that gave me hope I didn't honestly think
00:48:00
about it every day that they're going to catch this guy, but I did know that there was DNA evidence,
00:48:06
and I did understand at that point the power of DNA. Meanwhile, everyone had moved on.
00:48:11
Donna's marketing business was thriving. Sarah was attending college. Johnny was in high school.
00:48:18
And Neil O'Leary had weathered the divisions in the Waterbury Police Department to become acting chief.
00:48:23
Then, one day, he was going through case reports when something caught his eye. I came across this attempted sexual assault case on Fleming Street.
00:48:32
And what caught my eye on the case was the alleged perpetrator was John Regan. Did that name ring a bell for you?
00:48:41
Well, I knew John Regan and the Regan family, a prominent family in Waterbury. And I was astonished.
00:48:50
He was accused of sexually assaulting his co-worker, who was a 21-year-old girl.
00:48:57
John Regan was a middle-aged father of three, respectable guy known to everyone in town by his nickname Rocky.
00:49:03
I called down the head of the detective bureau, gave him the case and asked him to look into it,
00:49:10
get a hold of the victim and follow up with her. The victim told detectives that John Regan took her to his parents' house,
00:49:17
which was empty at the time. Once there, she said Regan pulled her onto his lap and assaulted her.
00:49:23
She said she fought him off and managed to get away. I talked to the detective that took the statement from her, and she, the female detective, said that she absolutely believed her.
00:49:33
As the Waterbury PD worked the case, O'Leary couldn't get the incident out of his mind.
00:49:38
And the way he tells the story, what happened next was pure serendipity. Remember that party the night of Donna's rape? The stag?
00:49:46
It was a big affair, the kind of bash that Waterbury was known for. Stag parties are popular in the city of Waterbury because family, friends, and neighbors get together and celebrate an up-and-coming wedding.
00:49:58
We're one of the only communities that still has these enormous stags. And who was the stag for? A man named Regan, a cousin of John Regan's.
00:50:07
So I'm driving home from work that day, and it's when I remembered about the stag that we spent so much time on.
00:50:17
So it just hit you in the car? Like a bolt of lightning. It hit me and I'm like, is it possible that John Regan would have known that John Palumba was out of town?
00:50:29
Did John Regan go to that stag? I had seen a list of the people that had gone to the stag and I didn't remember seeing that name.
00:50:37
O'Leary had always suspected the stag party was key to the assault. And he knew that when John Palumba didn't show, word got out that he was out of town.
00:50:45
So he made a call and discovered that Rocky had indeed attended that stag. Although his name wasn't on the guest list, O'Leary quickly called a meeting with Donna and John.
00:50:55
That's when he asked if we knew John Regan. And my husband was like, of course, yeah, he's a good friend.
00:51:04
And he's like, why? And John immediately dismissed him, like, there's no way he could be connected.
00:51:09
You know what you think? Then maybe, nah, I said, I couldn't be him. No way. Couldn't be him.
00:51:14
No way. Even though John Palumbo was adamant. O'Leary asked for a DNA sample on the outside
00:51:21
chance he'd get a match to the evidence collected from Donna after the assault. Rocky gave a sample. And I thought, it can't be him. Yeah, I mean, if you give a sample,
00:51:32
yeah, yeah, that would implicate you if you were right Donna's attacker. Right. Exactly.
00:51:38
John Regan was charged with unlawful restraint in the incident involving his co-worker and was out
00:51:43
on bail. Those who knew him couldn't believe he'd do such a thing. And nowhere was that feeling
00:51:48
stronger than in Overlook, the neighborhood where John Regan grew up, just streets away from John
00:51:53
Palumba, where friends were like family and boyhood friends were practically brothers.
00:52:00
Coming up, if there's one person John Palumba is sure isn't Donna's attacker, it's his friend John.
00:52:09
John Regan was at my sixth birthday party. I've known him since kindergarten. If I were to name like ten friends that were closest to me, he probably would have made that list.
00:52:21
When Dateline continues. In October 2004, acting police chief Neil O'Leary summoned Donna and John Palumba to his office.
00:52:40
It had been 11 years since Donna was raped. As they stepped into the elevator in the Waterbury PD, Donna and John were consumed by one question.
00:52:49
was O'Leary about to tell them there was a DNA match with their old family friend, John Rocky Regan.
00:52:56
John had known him forever. John Regan was at my sixth birthday party. I've known him since kindergarten.
00:53:05
Our families were friends. I knew his whole family well. John and Rocky grew up just blocks from one another in Overlook,
00:53:12
which was then a comfortable, prosperous neighborhood in Waterbury, where neighbors were like family and crime was almost unheard of.
00:53:19
John Murray knows Overlook well. Sounds like a very idyllic neighborhood that they grew up in.
00:53:25
It was a beautiful neighborhood, and people would just walk to school. They'd walk a mile downtown to go to the schools, and nobody does that anymore.
00:53:33
It was a pretty peaceful place back then. The kids here grew up playing together on Saturdays and praying together on Sundays.
00:53:41
John's younger brother, Bill Palumba. It's a type of neighborhood where you could leave the house right after breakfast.
00:53:49
and not be back until sundown. And parents didn't have to worry about you because you were with a whole bunch of kids You just got 20 guys and you had to pick up a baseball game or a football game That the way the whole neighborhood was Everyone looking out for each other Pretty much yeah Pretty much
00:54:05
Do you have fond memories of John Regan from those days? Playing sports and hanging out in the park?
00:54:11
Oh yeah, we all had a good time. We all enjoyed each other's company. We had a lot of fun.
00:54:14
We had one game of football up there where this one group challenged us and said they were going to kick our butts.
00:54:23
and I think we beat him 86 to 6. It wasn't even close. You remember John Regan in those days as a friend.
00:54:32
Yeah, yeah. We kind of were a group of friends that did a lot of stuff together.
00:54:37
John and Rocky were members of prominent local families. An elementary school in Waterbury is even named after a Regan family member.
00:54:46
John's father was a popular mayor, Rocky's dad a well-liked dentist. We used to go with our fathers. They would do the country club at Waterbury. They'd get
00:54:56
football tickets for a Giants game. We'd go down on a bus trip and we'd watch the game
00:55:02
and then take the bus back. John went on some of these? Yeah, him and I would go because his father would go, my father would go.
00:55:10
Both boys were all about sports. We played football together in high school. I kind of helped him with some of his skills
00:55:19
on the team. I mean, his parents were very nice people. He has two sisters who I liked,
00:55:24
and his older brother was a friend of mine, too. What started as kids playing football turned into teenagers dating girls.
00:55:31
How was he out on a date? Was he a respectful guy to his date? Yeah. He was always respectful that I saw.
00:55:40
Did you like hanging out with him? Yeah. He was fun. The guys grew up, graduated, got married. He was at your wedding?
00:55:48
Yeah, as it is, too. I knew his wife and her family since her brother and I were friends in kindergarten.
00:55:55
I knew him for so long. I mean, it was like, you know, if he would have been, like, if I were to name, like, ten friends that were closest to me, he probably would have made that list.
00:56:08
That's how well we knew each other. Donna grew up in Waterbury, too. She and John bought a house in Overlook to raise their family.
00:56:16
Rocky and his wife lived nearby, and the two couples swapped favors. Did you trust him? Was he the kind of guy that would help you out, would have your back?
00:56:25
My garage roof was in a little rough shape, so he helped me put a new roof on. And then in turn, I helped him with his roof.
00:56:33
And then because he helped me with the roof, we had him and his wife and his kids over for dinner.
00:56:39
And how was that, Donna? Fine. It was the neighborly thing to do to thank him for his help.
00:56:44
John obviously knew him better than you did, but... Well, she knew him well, though.
00:56:49
Well, was there anything about him that kind of rubbed you the wrong way, or that you thought, I don't love this guy, but he's friends with John?
00:56:56
When I was in his company, he never did anything that I thought was inappropriate.
00:57:01
He acted normal, just like all John's other friends. Years passed. Life got busy.
00:57:07
John was involved with his job in insurance and with his family. Rocky, too, was a family man.
00:57:13
He was a branch manager at a local roofing and siding company. Rocky and John saw less of each other.
00:57:19
And now, on the elevator to Neil's office, Donna and John were asking themselves,
00:57:24
would there be a DNA match? And could it be Rocky? Could it possibly be Rocky? This is a big moment for you getting on this elevator,
00:57:33
because this could unlock the mystery of who did this to you. Yes. All those years of agonizing over her attacker's identity might come to an end in minutes.
00:57:45
But a DNA match could mean the beginning of a new kind of torment. Coming up, a call from a drugstore triggers alarm bells.
00:57:55
The girl that was developing the film was disturbed by the photos. What the photo showed.
00:58:01
Creepy. Very. On an October day in 2004, Neil O'Leary ushered Donna and John Palumba into his private office.
00:58:23
I could tell when she came through the door into my chief's office, she was nervous.
00:58:30
Nervous about how John Palumba would react. He goes, we got a hit on the DNA. And he goes, but you have to promise me, and I want you to swear to me right now, that you're not going to go after the person.
00:58:45
John Palumba gave his word. Only then did Neil O'Leary tell John and Donna the answer they'd been longing for since 1993.
00:58:54
The DNA was a match to John Regan. It was a match. It was a match. What's that like in that moment where you go from the shadowy figure to a real person who you know?
00:59:06
It was unbelievable. It was unbelievable to think that this person that we had known could do such a thing.
00:59:16
And I was more worried for John, knowing who it was, for my husband John. I was worried about what would happen next.
00:59:25
He was devastated. Really visibly devastated. I said, no, no, I can't be him. He goes, John, it was a perfect match with the DNA.
00:59:39
And then I saw the color just drain from his face. And he just was in disbelief, in complete disbelief.
00:59:47
Did you want to go after John Regan? Oh, yeah. Do you think you would have if Neil hadn't have said?
00:59:53
If I saw him. That a lot of bottled rage over the years that have probably built up But John knew if he followed his anger he hurt the people he loved the most
01:00:06
I'm a Catholic. You know, murder is not something that is acceptable. Plus, you have to think about what's best for your family.
01:00:16
That would be a very selfish thing to do. I'd get rid of my rage, but then I'd put my family in a position where they could get sued by his family.
01:00:25
The kids lose their father. But if I saw him and he came near me, I would have. I would have.
01:00:36
But he didn't. Instead, he took that anger to his garage, put it toward destroying a few punching bags.
01:00:43
You punched it so hard that you had to get a new one? Shreds them. Um, no. Oh, come on.
01:00:51
John called Sarah, who was away at college, to break the news. I remember where I was sitting in my dorm room, and I just remember being shocked to my core.
01:01:04
And I remember going to the dining hall later that day, and I could not get his image out of my head for a long time after that.
01:01:14
It deeply shook me. The fact that it was somebody that close to the family, that almost rocked me more than anything,
01:01:24
just because I was convinced that this person was long gone, and it wasn't somebody that was long gone.
01:01:29
It was somebody that was still in the community. Right under your nose. Yeah, it's disgusting. I mean, it's the definition of leading a double life.
01:01:37
I remember him in our backyard. He was a close family friend. He was somebody that I would have never in a million years suspected to be capable of something like this.
01:01:49
The memory of a day at the beach with John Regan haunts the Palumbas. So we went for a swim, stayed for some food.
01:01:57
Yeah, I had lunch and a couple beers, sat on the beach, and we were there with our kids and good friends of ours and their kids.
01:02:04
It was all family. And this was a few years after the attack. After? After. And, of course, we didn't know anything.
01:02:13
Oh, my gosh. It's horrible to think about. That is astonishing that that could happen.
01:02:19
I mean, also the boldness of that. It speaks to the fact that we did not know this man, even though John had grown up with him.
01:02:28
And nobody did. In October 2004, John Regan was charged with kidnapping in Donna's case because the statute of limitations for rape had run out.
01:02:39
Disappointing. Oh, very disappointing for all of us. Regan pleaded not guilty to the charge of kidnapping Donna.
01:02:46
He posted bail, his family and friends standing by him. But if Donna thought this would restore her reputation, she was wrong.
01:02:55
The old rumors were back. I'd go work out at the YMCA, and there's guys who were friends with him,
01:03:01
and they'd come up to me and say, you know, do you really believe it? So we had an affair with her.
01:03:06
Not once, I heard this over and over again for the next year, as people did not believe her.
01:03:14
Nearly a year after Regan was charged in Donna's case, the Waterbury Police Department got a call from a local drugstore.
01:03:20
John Regan was dropping off rolls of film, getting them developed, and the girl that was developing the film was disturbed by the photos.
01:03:29
What was on the photos? Pictures of women. And it was obvious to the girl who was developing the film that these women didn't know they were being photographed.
01:03:40
And it was also obvious that the photographs were being taken from inside of a vehicle.
01:03:46
Creepy. Very. Waterbury police planned to charge Regan with another crime, stalking.
01:03:54
But before they could do that, a terrifying incident on Halloween night in Saratoga Springs, New York, interrupted that plan.
01:04:00
And on Halloween, ironically Halloween, while most of us are putting on masks, his mask was ripped off.
01:04:10
Coming up, a startling attack. All of a sudden I had a very forceful arm wrapped around my chest and then over my mouth.
01:04:20
And an eerie discovery. There were two slip knots ready to go. There was a tarp that you could cover somebody with.
01:04:27
When Dateline continues. It was 5.30, dusk. Families in Saratoga Springs, New York, were getting ready for Halloween trick-or-treating.
01:04:49
School sports practices were wrapping up. Members of the Saratoga Springs High School cross-country team were heading home.
01:04:55
I was walking out with my two girlfriends at the time, And we were kind of like planning, like, what are we going to do? It's Halloween.
01:05:04
Cross-country star Lindsay Ferguson said goodbye to her friends and walked to her car.
01:05:08
I saw a van that was parked pretty close to mine. And as I tried to get to my car because it was so close, I kind of had to go sideways.
01:05:18
And so I like very carefully opened the back, threw my bag in, and then opened the front door.
01:05:24
And at that point, I heard the like sliding van door behind me open. Did it give you chills or anything?
01:05:31
No, my only thought was like, oh, he must be trying to get out to go get his kid.
01:05:37
He wasn't. Lindsay learned that fast. All of a sudden I had a very forceful arm wrapped around my chest and then over my mouth or trying to cover my mouth.
01:05:47
Oh my gosh, so this just happened in an instant. In an instant. Lindsay fought back, screamed and kicked her attacker.
01:05:54
That got the attention of her coach Ray Harrington who was across the parking lot What did you see What was happening to Lindsay What was most dramatic were her eyes the surprise the terror in her face which really grabbed my attention
01:06:12
Ray ran toward them. The man let Lindsay go. He got back into his van. We were just close to the eye right now.
01:06:18
What did he say to you? I yelled at him as I ran toward Lindsay's vehicle. I was like, who are you? And he says, it doesn't matter.
01:06:23
And I said, the hell it doesn't matter. Ray called 911, described the assailant to the dispatcher as the man started to drive off.
01:06:44
The guy in the van was gone. Ray yelled out to Art Kranick, another one of Lindsey's coaches, who was driving by in his flashy sports car.
01:06:55
told him to follow the van. An extraordinary car chase got underway in the genteel streets of Saratoga Springs.
01:07:04
Somehow you ended up here. Right. He pulled in, came in the other entrance, pulled over here, and for some reason stopped.
01:07:12
Did you say anything to him? Did he say anything to you here? I was screaming at him,
01:07:16
probably things that I shouldn't be saying on TV, and trying to get him to come out of the van.
01:07:23
That sounds dangerous. Trying to get him to come out. Yeah, I didn't want to get out of the car first and have him pull away and then lose him.
01:07:31
I wanted to stay right behind him the whole time. Sure enough, the man took off again with art on his tail.
01:07:39
But just a few blocks later, police pulled the van over. Did they draw guns on him?
01:07:46
No, they didn't. He got out and he was very casual. You know, what did I do wrong?
01:07:52
Really played it down. Officers smelled alcohol on the man's breath and arrested him on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.
01:08:01
They searched the van and made a chilling discovery. Former chief of the Saratoga Springs Police Department, Ed Moore.
01:08:08
There were two slipknotes ready to go. There was a tarp laid out in that van that you could cover somebody with once you got them under your control.
01:08:18
There was also some antihistamines that could cause drowsiness that were found. A syringe?
01:08:25
And a syringe. Did you believe that that syringe, he was going to use that on Lindsay to sedate her?
01:08:31
We certainly had to take that into account as a possibility. I think had her coaches not been in the lot and he got her into his van, she'd still be a missing person today.
01:08:43
Lindsay Ferguson knows just how lucky she was that evening. At what point did you realize how serious this actually could have been?
01:08:50
I think maybe going to the police station. I knew it was serious, like he was trying to abduct me, but I didn't think about all of the, like, well, what could have happened?
01:09:01
Investigators in Saratoga Springs worked the phones, reached out to police departments in the surrounding area, looking for more information on Lindsay's attacker.
01:09:09
How did you hear that he had been involved in other incidents with women? Ultimately, when we reached out to Waterbury police, it was like we hit the jackpot.
01:09:18
That's because the man they'd picked up was well known to Waterbury police. The man who tried to abduct Lindsey Ferguson was none other than John Regan.
01:09:27
Waterbury police told Saratoga Springs investigators that Regan was out on bond awaiting trial in the two cases involving Donna and his co-worker.
01:09:35
They actually sent a couple investigators up to our department to start sharing information with us
01:09:41
because they were working on the Donna Palumba case at the time, and they had another active case that they were working on.
01:09:49
Wow. The effort that went into stopping him was really incredible. By the coaches on the phone, Lindsay herself.
01:09:56
I mean, just bringing this guy down was no easy task. No. They stopped that guy from kidnapping her by themselves single-handedly.
01:10:07
Saratoga Springs police learned Regan was in town to work on a house owned by a relative.
01:10:13
The house appeared to be empty. We found that house buttoned up nice and tight. All the shades were drawn.
01:10:20
You could easily pull in off of the street and go right to the back entrance, out of sight of people around you.
01:10:28
And had he kidnapped Lindsay and was successful, we surmised that that was one of the spots that he may have taken her to.
01:10:36
This is a true Halloween horror story. Yeah, this particular night, I think evil paid a visit to Saratoga in the name of John Regan.
01:10:48
The news of Regan's new arrest hit his hometown like a bomb. John Murray says a lot more people in Waterbury were finally ready to accept the facts about John Regan and the truth of Donna's account.
01:11:00
Now those same people that were for the last year saying that they just had an affair, now the pendulum swung the other way.
01:11:08
In May 2006 in a Saratoga Springs courthouse, John Regan pleaded guilty to the attempted kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment of Lindsay Ferguson.
01:11:19
He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Later that year, he appeared in a Waterbury courtroom to face the charges in Connecticut.
01:11:26
He did not admit guilt, but conceded prosecutors had enough evidence for conviction on three charges,
01:11:33
the kidnapping of Donna and the unlawful restraint and stalking of his co-worker.
01:11:38
We were told that because of the complications in the case, that the best we could hope for was 15 years.
01:11:45
And I wasn't happy with that. At sentencing, Donna came face to face with John Regan.
01:11:52
In her statement before the court, she called him calculating, dangerous, and said she prayed
01:11:57
he would never have the opportunity to harm him. Another person. Her husband wasn't as composed.
01:12:03
John Palumba got up and he walked to the edge of the thing and he said, Look at me!
01:12:12
He just roared. Like a lion, he just roared. And he just filled the whole courtroom up.
01:12:20
And so now he's talking to his friend. Look at me! And he wouldn't look. And he started yelling at him and calling him names.
01:12:28
You're a coward! And it was like, wow, it was like one of the most intense things I've ever seen.
01:12:34
Did the judge say everyone? I didn't say anything. Nothing. They let him, just let him go?
01:12:37
Let him roar. And he roared. And it was so intense as the way you just jumped is the way everyone in the courtroom jumped.
01:12:45
Regan was sentenced to 15 years in the Connecticut cases to be served concurrently with the Saratoga Springs term.
01:12:51
Donna Palumba's story seemed to be over. So why was she back in the courtroom years later, facing John Regan once again?
01:13:00
Coming up, a sickening surprise. Infuriating. It was unbelievable. I had never heard of this before.
01:13:09
And a moment nearly 30 years in the making. Did it give you chills? I was trembling.
01:13:15
It was really intense. By 2007, Donna Palumba's ordeal seemed to be over. The whispers about her had died down.
01:13:36
Her rapist was behind bars. And Donna was ready to take a momentous step. So I'm coming forward now because it's time.
01:13:46
She appeared on Dateline NBC that year and revealed her identity in public for the first time.
01:13:52
It's freeing, truthfully, and I hope that it gives courage to other women. She came forward years before the Me Too movement, determined to work with other survivors, men and women, and create awareness about sexual crimes.
01:14:09
She named her nonprofit Jane Doe No More. We're all working together so that we can shorten the timeline from the horror of the crime of rape to healing for the best possible chance for a victim's full and healthy recovery.
01:14:23
Fast forward to 2017 That August Donna discovered news that horrified her Remember John Regan sentences in New York and Connecticut were to be served concurrently He served almost a dozen years by then
01:14:38
Just as he was due to transfer to Connecticut to finish the remaining three years,
01:14:43
he qualified for statutory good time. That meant he'd be a free man in months, without serving a day in the state where he'd attacked her.
01:14:51
Infuriating. It was unbelievable. I had never heard of this before, and I could not believe that he was going to finish his Connecticut attendance without ever having served a minute of time in Connecticut.
01:15:06
Donna was convinced John Regan would re-offend if he was released, and she wasn't about to let him go free without a fight.
01:15:13
John Murray understood that. When you have your foundation rocked the way that it was rocked, and not just with the sexual assault,
01:15:20
It was the confrontation with the police, the confrontation in the courtroom. I mean, this is just bizarre amount of abuse that she took to her psyche.
01:15:30
Donna began working with the authorities in New York. They came up with a novel idea to employ a rarely used statute called the Civil Management Law,
01:15:39
which only applies to sexual offenders. Under the law, Regan would stand trial. A jury would decide if he was fit to fully reenter society.
01:15:48
So the jury had to decide that the perpetrator, John Regan, had a mental abnormality
01:15:54
and that he would likely re-offend and commit a sexual offense in the future. If the jury decided Regan was likely to re-offend, he would not live his life as a free man.
01:16:07
Donna was elated by the decision to hold a civil trial, even though she knew she'd be called to testify with Regan in the courtroom.
01:16:14
There were a lot of sleepless nights, and I just was trying to prepare myself for the fact that not only did I have to see him, but I had to describe what he did to me in detail.
01:16:32
The trial opened in Plattsburgh, New York, in November 2021. The proceedings were closed to protect the identity of Regan's victims, like Donna, who were testifying.
01:16:42
As you're walking through those courtroom doors. What is going through your mind?
01:16:46
God, just please help me get through this. Donna was on the stand for most of a day.
01:16:52
Did he make eye contact with you? We never made eye contact, and I'm grateful for that, actually.
01:16:57
Did it give you chills just being near him Yeah I was trembling It was really intense Were you able to hold it together I was more um I have a job to do I going to get through this and I not going to break down in front of him Her husband John never doubted that she would
01:17:14
be thorough and composed. She's very determined and she knew she had to do something to keep this
01:17:21
creep off the streets and this is her way of getting him where he belongs. Regan's other
01:17:27
victims took the stand too. Medical experts on both sides testified. The jury deliberated for
01:17:34
less than a day. Donna got the verdict in a phone call from an attorney for the state of New York.
01:17:39
And she said, well, we have good news. The jury had decided that Regan did have a mental
01:17:44
abnormality and because of that would likely re-offend if released. Under New York's law,
01:17:49
Regan would remain confined in a secure treatment facility or live in approved housing under strict
01:17:55
supervision with periodic evaluation either way until a judge orders otherwise. Because the case
01:18:00
involves mental health, Regan's court records are sealed. I was elated, truly. I was just so
01:18:07
grateful that the jury had come to this decision and that we could now rest easier, all of us.
01:18:15
It was kind of like you're closing an ugly chapter of your life and it was time to start
01:18:24
to enjoy all the things that you were kind of missing because of your preoccupation with the situation.
01:18:35
Finally, almost three decades after she was raped, Donna Palumba's journey was over.
01:18:41
Donna, did you ever imagine the journey that you would go on? No. And where this would lead you?
01:18:45
No, I honestly could never have imagined the twists and the turns, But I just kept focused on the next right thing to do.
01:18:56
Many things have changed since that night in September 1993. Robert Moran, the Waterbury Police Department captain, has died.
01:19:04
His younger brother Douglas, the lieutenant who read Donna her rights, retired from the police department years ago and could not be reached for comment.
01:19:14
Despite ruffling feathers in the Waterbury PD, Neil O'Leary served in the department for almost three decades.
01:19:20
And then he changed jobs. In 2011, he was elected mayor of the city, a job he held until 2023.
01:19:28
The Waterbury Police Department has radically changed the way it treats sexual assault victims thanks in part to the efforts of Jane Doe No More We want other victims to know that they are not alone Donna nonprofit continues to empower survivors
01:19:44
and educate public school students and law enforcement about sexual crimes. The kids have grown into adults deeply proud of their mom and her accomplishments.
01:19:54
She's really trying to make a huge difference in the lives of victims, really help them holistically throughout the whole process.
01:20:01
Have you ever been around your mom when someone has come up to her and thanked her?
01:20:05
Yes. What do people say? Honestly, it's, you know, a lot of people call her Jane Doe.
01:20:10
So they'll come up and say, you know, hi, Jane Doe. Sarah is a wife and mom herself.
01:20:16
Is your mom a hero? Absolutely. And, you know, I think that she did something that was a very, very hard thing to do.
01:20:26
And she had many, many opportunities to give up. And she refused to. Does your mom's strength give you strength?
01:20:34
Absolutely. And I think that the belief that you can get to the other side and the hope that it will get better
01:20:42
is something that she's absolutely instilled in me and is what has allowed me to maintain that optimism
01:20:50
even in my dark times. As for John, he's still at Donna's side every step of the way
01:20:57
and still working out his anger at the old friend who betrayed him. How many punching bags have he been through since we last talked?
01:21:04
That's funny that you say that, Andrea, because he has. How many have you gone through?
01:21:09
I don't know. I don't know. I really don't. I guess it's still your choice for getting through the aggression?
01:21:16
Well, yeah, it helps. It helps. And for Donna, one journey ends, the other continues.
01:21:25
You're bringing hope to sexual assault survivors. That's it, and that's the mission, is to bring hope.
01:21:30
hope that no one else will go through what she did hope that she can change just one woman's experience
01:21:36
hope that a long journey through horror and anguish can finally be put behind her
01:21:42
because in the end, Donna Palumba knows it's hope that heals that's all for this edition of Dateline
01:21:54
we'll see you again Friday at 9, 8 central and of course, I'll see you each weeknight
01:21:59
for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.