00:00:07
[music playing] Losing your daughter,
you're going to be devastated. Add to that, there
is somebody out
00:00:19
there who's still doing this. We had concern right
away after Monica's death that this was a spree killer.
00:00:28
This terrifies this community. There's another killing. What? I'll say, that's my brother.
00:00:39
For 51 days,
not knowing what's going on with these
murders taking place. You're putting
together a puzzle
00:00:47
and they have no idea what
the pieces even look like. There were really no
red flags in his family.
00:00:53
He grew up in church. He shouldn't be a serial killer. Had a successful life. He had something going on.
00:01:02
I mean, come on. What really happened? [theme music] Seminole Heights is a
beautiful, historic neighborhood
00:01:49
in Central Tampa. And over the past decade
or so, it's really thrived. It's a lovely place to live.
00:02:00
It's a pretty low crime rate. It's a pretty diverse community. If you was born and raised
here, we always travel by feet.
00:02:10
It was like a very
unique upper class, you know, place,
Seminole Heights. The weather's nice.
00:02:17
The people are great. Tampa's a great place to live. It seemed like, to
me, a place that I
00:02:24
would like to move to one day. This Florida
neighborhood is also home to Howell Donaldson III.
00:02:33
Born in 1993, he moves
here from North Carolina as a young boy with
his mom, dad, older
00:02:40
sister, and younger brother. They have a happy life. Donaldson grew up in Tampa.
00:02:46
He had a relatively
normal upbringing. He was born into a very loving
family, a very devout family.
00:02:54
Religion was very
important to them. They were active participants. And he really had so many
advantages growing up.
00:03:01
As a criminologist,
we look to environment. He is raised in a
devout Christian home,
00:03:08
attended church, and seen as
doing all the right things as a child growing up. He attended and graduated
high school here in Tampa.
00:03:17
He was, by all
accounts, a popular kid. He played basketball. His parents were loving.
00:03:22
His parents owned
their own business. He lived in a middle
class community. And there were really no
red flags in his family.
00:03:29
[ominous music] NARRATOR: Seminole Heights is
also home to popular student Benjamin Mitchell.
00:03:36
Benjamin and Donaldson
don't know each other and have never met. Benjamin Mitchell,
22-year-old African-American.
00:03:47
On October the 9th, 2017,
Ben Mitchell is waiting for a bus in Seminole Heights.
00:03:56
He's all excited. He's going to see
his girlfriend. He was a full-time college
student who had played sports
00:04:02
and done theater in
high school, and he was taking the bus and just
caught in the wrong
00:04:09
place at the wrong time. And all of a sudden,
he's shot and killed. [ominous music]
00:04:19
There seems to be no motive,
nobody knows who did it. And if you're living
in this community,
00:04:24
it's got to be
terrifying because this could happen to anybody. Mitchell's death was a
shock to the community.
00:04:33
Most of the homicides we see in
Tampa as an extremely safe city are between people who know
each other or people who are,
00:04:40
you know, fighting
for the reasons we commonly see those
fights over drugs or other illegal activity.
00:04:46
But to have a young man like
Mitchell, who was just going about his day, killed
for no apparent reason,
00:04:54
caused some immediate
concern with the law enforcement community. NARRATOR: With no
leads, Tampa PD
00:05:01
released this video of
a person of interest in Benjamin's murder. A $3,000 reward is
offered for information
00:05:08
leading to the killer's arrest. We often find that
once that killer gets past the first victim,
an ease comes about.
00:05:19
Two things that stop a serial
killer: being caught or dying. For most part, we don't
believe that they simply stop.
00:05:29
[ominous music] [music playing] I'm Kenny Hoffa. I'm Monica Hoffa's father. You know, we had a close
father-daughter relationship.
00:05:52
When we were together, it's
like we never missed a beat. She grew up in Tampa. She lived with her
grandmother and grandfather.
00:06:01
Great people. They did the majority
of her being raised. Her mother was
deaf, and Monica was
00:06:09
kind of her link
between, you know, the hearing world
and the deaf world. She had told me quite often
that she would like to have
00:06:20
been a deaf interpreter. Her and her mother
were very, very close. She was really a different
kind of light, you know.
00:06:29
[music playing] She did not show up for
her grandmother's birthday. And, you know, it's 24
hours before they could
00:06:48
think that someone was missing. But it was not like her not
to be around her grandmother,
00:06:55
especially on her birthday. [ominous music] NARRATOR: A journalist
is one of the first
00:07:03
to learn of Monica's fate. Sick with fear, Kenny
receives a devastating call. I was actually
driving to Tampa
00:07:11
and got the phone
call from my wife and she said, baby, pull over. And I said, why?
What's wrong?
00:07:20
What's wrong? And a reporter had called her. And she called me. And then the reporter wanted
to get on the call with us
00:07:33
and he told me what happened. And it was a very bad
moment in my life. It was a--
00:07:40
I hope that you never
experience anything like it. She was shot three times,
left in a overgrown lot,
00:07:57
and they didn't find
her body for two days. [ominous music] And as she was walking
to meet a friend
00:08:05
and she must have recognized
that someone was following her because in this case, there
were five shots that were fired,
00:08:16
two were misses, and the
other three killed her. It was especially
heartbreaking
00:08:28
that her body had been laying
in this tall grass for two days. And so for that two days,
her family had to wonder
00:08:35
and worry about where she was. And then they had to worry
about how long was she alive.
00:08:41
You know, was she
alive for hours? Was she alive for a day? If somebody had found her,
could they have saved her?
00:08:46
I mean, these are all
the kinds of things that would haunt any family member. They tell me that she
died almost immediately,
00:08:55
which is, you know,
some comfort to know that she didn't lay in that
field for two days and suffer.
00:09:08
But still, there's really
no comfort in it whatsoever. NARRATOR: Monica's body
is found less than a mile
00:09:20
from where Benjamin was shot. So our second
victim, Monica Hoffa, 32 years of age, white woman,
different age, different race,
00:09:33
different gender. There's no pattern here. Police and
investigation is looking for clues that link people
together, time, space, location.
00:09:45
These don't have that. They're people getting
off of public buses. They're people walking
down the street.
00:09:52
This terrifies this community. So you can imagine
that the police department is
perplexed with ideas
00:09:59
of what's going to happen next. Losing your daughter,
no matter what, you're going to be devastated.
00:10:07
Add to that, you know,
there's somebody out there who's still doing this. This type of crime, just
from those two murders,
00:10:17
had the appearance that it
could impact anyone at any time. So immediately, law
enforcement got into action,
00:10:24
working with the community,
working with prosecutors, not just to follow the leads
and try to find the suspect,
00:10:30
but also to take prophylactic
measures to make sure that this vibrant
city could continue
00:10:36
without a lot of disruption,
without a lot of fear. NARRATOR: Like the
rest of the community,
00:10:43
James Felton and his brothers,
twins Ronald and Reggie, were deeply troubled
by the murders.
00:10:49
They helped run a local
church and food bank. We never think that it will
happen like that in that area,
00:10:56
especially with the busy street. We were saying, OK, we need
to light up the bus stops.
00:11:03
We need to be alert. It was kind of dark
going down these streets. Sometimes you have to
get your flashlights,
00:11:09
hey, this way I'm at stop
bus, you know, like that. If you see anything look
suspicious, if you got a dog
00:11:15
that bark, make sure you check. You know, that's after
more of the second. That's when he started
getting serious about it.
00:11:21
And so when we had
the food ministry, you know, we get--
they get like 4:00 or 5 o'clock in the morning.
00:11:26
Hey, don't come this early. Come when it's daylight. [ominous music] With your typical homicide,
you have a relatively
00:11:35
small universe of suspects. Most murders, the victim and
the murderer know each other.
00:11:41
Here, we have a situation where
you have two victims not doing anything wrong in their lives.
00:11:47
It's a little bit like searching
for a needle in a haystack. Law enforcement doesn't
know exactly where
00:11:52
to start because they're
putting together a puzzle and they have no idea what
the pieces even look like.
00:11:59
We have immediate concerns
because you never know what's going to be the next murder.
00:12:06
But never knew that it was
going to happen again and again and again. And that's when
we started getting
00:12:12
worried after the second one. [ominous music] [music playing] NARRATOR: The apparently random
shootings of Benjamin Mitchell
00:12:27
and Monica Hoffa have sent
shockwaves through this usually safe Florida neighborhood.
00:12:33
Police believe the murders are
linked and have CCTV footage of a potential suspect,
but know nothing
00:12:39
about the man in the video. Local man, Howell Donaldson III. [music playing] Howell Donaldson III was
very interested in athletics,
00:12:58
particularly basketball. He had his heart set on
being a basketball star, and he practiced a lot.
00:13:05
So from this basketball
ability that he has, he's searching to be that star. And he goes from high
school to high school
00:13:15
looking for that opportunity
to be the starting guard. But you get this feeling as
you're looking at his life,
00:13:22
he's searching for something. He's searching
for the greatness. Donaldson absolutely was
shooting for the stars.
00:13:29
I mean, he was willing to give
up a lot by changing schools. It is very clear that his number
one priority in high school
00:13:37
was basketball. And he was willing to
do whatever it takes to try to be that basketball
star that he not only I think
00:13:45
wanted to be, but really
saw himself as being. [ominous music] Donaldson went up to New York
City, to St. John's University,
00:13:56
to attend college. He walked on to the
basketball team there. He played for one year.
00:14:01
He doesn't get a scholarship. He's not recruited. And so he ends up walking on. That's a pretty bold move.
00:14:10
The odds are stacked against you
when you walk on at a university and want to be a
basketball player.
00:14:16
But he certainly was
motivated to do that. Does that mean that Donaldson
was unrealistic in terms
00:14:23
of his skills? Possibly. And for somebody, I think, who
was invested from a very young
00:14:28
age and being this
basketball star, that would have been a
really disappointing to him.
00:14:34
It took him six years
to get a degree. So, you know, we don't
know how motivated he
00:14:39
was to get through
school, but we do know that he had
the self-discipline and the perseverance to
eventually get a degree.
00:14:48
[ominous music] NARRATOR: Donaldson
is back in Seminole Heights with a major
in sports management
00:14:59
and a minor in business. He's working at a medical
education company, but is aiming higher.
00:15:04
He was looking for work
in the sports industry, potentially as an agent. The problem with
that is that that takes
00:15:13
years to become a sports agent. And it doesn't
seem like Donaldson really understood that.
00:15:19
And within three
months, he's fired. And he's fired from absenteeism. He's basically not
showing up at work.
00:15:26
It appears that Donaldson may
have had some troubles with how difficult life proved to be.
00:15:32
Again, a young man who had
his future in front of him and who thought
that success maybe
00:15:37
would have come a little
bit more easily than it had, and he didn't quite
achieve what he had hoped
00:15:42
on the basketball court or
in his professional life at such a young age. Now, he has housing problems,
where he's moving from house
00:15:54
to house, sleeping over
at mom's house some days, girlfriend's house at another.
00:16:00
So what we're seeing, I think,
is just a slow downward spiral. And along this
period of time, we
00:16:07
start seeing some other things
happening that I think are adding to this downward spiral.
00:16:13
The question is, how do you
respond to those low points? What is going to
be the action when
00:16:20
these tough situations of life
continuously come your way? What's going to happen next?
00:16:28
[music playing] 20-year-old Anthony Naiboa,
who was autistic, happens to get on the wrong bus.
00:16:40
He's on his way home. He was working,
packaging supplies to be sent to Puerto Rico to
help with Hurricane relief.
00:16:48
He was an aspiring
musician and a rapper. He was one of
several children who had a close relationship
with his siblings
00:16:56
and with his parents. And he was someone who was
stolen from our community, like Monica, like
Benjamin, far too young.
00:17:04
His murder occurs. Why? Because he gets
on the wrong bus. Wrong place at the wrong time.
00:17:16
NARRATOR: Anthony is
killed barely 200 yards from Benjamin Mitchell
and less than half a mile
00:17:21
from Monica Hoffa. I'm sure that when they
examined the shell casings, they realized that, you know,
this is the same shooter.
00:17:33
And then when
Anthony was killed, they knew they had a serial
killer on their hands, someone
00:17:39
who was, you know,
committing all these murders in Seminole Heights. I think that the
entire area was just
00:17:48
under the stranglehold of
these murders, these killings. After Monica's memorial, that's
when the rumors were like,
00:18:02
oh we think there might
be a serial killer. And I think there
might have even been
00:18:05
some press coverage about that. [ominous music] It was really intense
in that neighborhood.
00:18:18
You could feel just the tension. Nobody was on the street. We went to visit these
memorials that they had put
00:18:26
on the side of this building. People would have
all their lights on. The city would make sure that
all the street lights were up.
00:18:35
I mean, it was very tense. There was a palpable sense
of fear in the community. And our mayor at
the time famously
00:18:45
said, you know, bring me
his head on a platter. This guy is not going to win. He's not taken over
this neighborhood.
00:18:52
He's not taken
over these streets. You guys go hunt him down. And bring his-- bring his
head to me, all right?
00:19:00
Let's go get it done. That's not the most diplomatic
thing a mayor could say, but it captured the frustration
and anger of the community.
00:19:08
[music playing] NARRATOR: The reward for
information on the killer is increased to $25,000.
00:19:17
Police released new CCTV
clips of a man walking away from the scene of Benjamin's
murder, hoping someone
00:19:24
recognizes the way
the suspect appears to flip a phone in their hand. Without any promising
leads, without any evidence
00:19:32
to help us find that one person
who's committing these crimes, there's a real concern that
this is going to continue.
00:19:40
If you're in
that community, you are doing whatever
you can to try to see any pattern,
anything that's
00:19:46
going to help you feel safer. So for example,
you have people who kind of go, OK, the first
victim was at a bus stop.
00:19:52
The second victim was
maybe missed the bus. So I'm not going
to take the bus. Or I'm not going to walk
down this particular street.
00:19:59
People were just frantically
trying to figure out, how can I be safer? Have your lights
on because this guy
00:20:07
had on a black hoodie, he had
on, you know, black clothes. No one would catch
the bus, especially
00:20:13
when the third got hit. [music playing] At this time,
Donaldson was working at a McDonald's, like a
lot of young people do,
00:20:23
to try to make ends meet. But for someone who had told
his friends that he was going
00:20:28
to be a basketball
star in college, for someone who had ambitions
of being a sports agent,
00:20:33
he must have felt like he had
hit rock bottom with his career and his path in life.
00:20:40
It's almost like a
narcissistic injury that these bad
things have happened. And I think that at this
point that Donaldson
00:20:46
is really angry
about all the things that have happened to him. I do think there was a part of
him that said, I am special.
00:20:54
I am going to be
special in some way. You are going to
pay attention to me. You are going to notice.
00:21:00
Look what I'm doing. I can go out and I can give
somebody the gift of life or the gift of
death at any moment.
00:21:07
And I'm controlling
an entire community. It's pretty clear
that Howell Donaldson
00:21:16
had absolutely no compassion
for the people he was killing. As a matter of fact,
it almost appears
00:21:22
like he's out hunting for prey. And that is really
the ultimate, I think, in dehumanizing somebody,
to go out and just kill
00:21:31
a random person
who you don't know, who's never done anything to
you, who you have no attraction
00:21:36
to, you have no anger toward. It really is the
ultimate dehumanization. [music playing]
00:21:45
With three murders in
10 days, law enforcement had some information
to work with
00:21:51
and are doing their best
to develop suspects, doing their best to
work with the community.
00:21:55
But then there are no real
leads going on for a while. Donaldson did a really good job
of hiding after Anthony's murder
00:22:03
and not putting
himself in a position where he could get caught. And the media moves on
like they do because there's
00:22:11
always things to talk about. And so at this point,
things are slowly starting to creep back to normal.
00:22:19
And then on November the
14th, another murder happens. [ominous music] [music playing]
00:22:42
So it's been five weeks since
Benjamin Mitchell was killed. One morning, I got up and
I heard it happened again.
00:22:52
[ominous music] NARRATOR: This time, the victim
is Ronald Felton, James's older brother and twin to Reggie.
00:23:01
One thing about Ronald, where
they always say that when we was born, that we all look alike.
00:23:05
We was like triplets. We went to high school
together, elementary school, junior high school together,
and we was always together.
00:23:13
And Reggie was always, always
the one that was so stubborn. So me and Ronald was more
closer than his twin brother.
00:23:23
We never was apart, but he
always looked out for the others than himself. Ronald was a
construction worker,
00:23:35
had spent 25 years
on the job, and this was someone who was giving
back to the community
00:23:40
by working at a food bank. He was by himself at a time when
there weren't a lot of people
00:23:45
out. He was crossing a relatively
busy street early in the morning at about 5:00 AM when there
weren't a lot of people around,
00:23:53
and that's when he was killed. [music playing] Why is the bus so
full and everybody
00:24:08
talking about the same thing? And I just looked around,
I said, what's going on?
00:24:12
There's another killing. What? So I went up to the
bus driver and he knew, and he was saying that
it was Ronald Felton.
00:24:20
I said, that's my brother. He said, what? He just took me down to
Hillsborough, and there it was.
00:24:27
I don't know if he stopped,
but he got me there safe. And that's where they had
everything was blocked.
00:24:32
So when I went across the
street, some of my family was there. All of a sudden, we
just braced each other.
00:24:38
They say, it's him. I say, are you serious? Another murder happened
in Seminole Heights,
00:24:44
and it was Ronald Felton. When he was walking, that's
when he heard someone behind.
00:24:52
That's when he got shot. And he fell backwards. And when he fell backwards,
he went up to him,
00:24:59
over him to shoot him again. Who would do this to a person? The tragic irony
of Ronald's death
00:25:09
was that the morning
that he was killed, he was actually
going to a food bank to volunteer like
he did regularly.
00:25:15
So you have someone who,
as a construction worker, has dedicated part of his life
to giving back to the community.
00:25:22
At the moment, when
someone who has decided to rob this community
of four innocent lives
00:25:28
kills him in cold blood. They couldn't
come to us to come and see the body because the way
they say where he got shot at.
00:25:35
They say, now we
think we've been out-- don't see him. And they have him
all covered up.
00:25:41
I felt like this is the
end of it after they did. That's the way I felt. [music playing]
00:25:56
This had become a story
nationally and internationally because we had a serial
or a spree killer
00:26:03
in our midst in Tampa. NARRATOR: SWAT teams
start patrolling the area. The community feels
terrorized again.
00:26:11
When you look at the type
of killing that occurred with this case, it is random.
00:26:15
But then we have to
look at what is random. Random could be
easily accessible. Someone walking down
the street, someone
00:26:24
getting off a public bus. If I have an anger about me, if
I have a weapon available to me,
00:26:31
I'm looking for easy targets. Seems random, but perhaps
the key issue is access.
00:26:39
NARRATOR: This time,
there's a witness. The police announced
they are looking for a thin black male dressed in
all black with a black baseball
00:26:46
cap. Imagine being the police
of Seminole Heights, Florida. What appears to be random
killings are taking
00:26:54
place in your jurisdiction. People are fearful. There seems to be no pattern. NARRATOR: The reward for
the capture of the killer
00:27:04
is raised to $110,000. But in the days following
Ronald's murder, the police make no arrests.
00:27:11
The killer is
evading them again. Even after four murders
and all the diligent work that law
enforcement was doing
00:27:19
and all the help we
had from the community, it was really hard to develop
a solid lead into the suspect.
00:27:25
But just like Donaldson had this
misperception of where he was in life that may have caused
him to commit these crimes,
00:27:32
he probably felt like things
were closing in on him and he panicked a little bit.
00:27:39
He's 24 years old. And one of the things we
know is that, you know, our brains continue to develop
until we're at least 25.
00:27:46
And so I think there's an
immaturity there as well. It's difficult when you're in
your early 20s or early to mid
00:27:52
20s to think about the fact
that a year from now, things could be completely different.
00:27:58
Two years from now,
things could be different. It's much more likely to think
how things are right now is how
00:28:05
they are always going to be. And I think for Donaldson,
that was intolerable. Donaldson had
told people that he
00:28:12
was looking to leave the state,
that he was looking to flee. In our perception, he probably
felt like the walls were closing
00:28:21
in on him and he
was going to get caught so he was
trying to escape from Tampa before it happened.
00:28:25
You know, he was trying to get
a ticket to go back to New York. He was trying to leave Tampa.
00:28:39
He's working at McDonald's. He tells his manager
that he's going to quit. He turns in his uniform.
00:28:45
He says he needs to run to
go buy a ticket to leave town and he's going to come back.
00:28:50
Shockingly, he handed
the manager a bag and said, hold on to this for
me and don't look into it.
00:28:58
I would imagine most people,
if somebody gave them a bag with something in
it, a plastic bag,
00:29:04
you would be concerned
about what this is. Their relationship
was not that close.
00:29:10
He's given this to
his manager, who, of course, looks in the bag. And that was
the stroke of luck
00:29:18
that we needed,
combined with law enforcement's diligence
efforts to make the huge break in the case.
00:29:24
The bag contains
a weapon, a gun. Well, the McDonald's
manager immediately knew that there was a problem.
00:29:33
She found a police officer in
the parking lot at McDonald's. And by the time Donaldson
returned to the McDonald's, you
00:29:39
had a whole group of law
enforcement officers waiting to arrest him immediately.
00:29:44
[ominous music] Shortly after
Mr. Felton's death, my brother said there's a
report on TV that they might
00:30:23
have the guy at a McDonald's. So I started watching
everything I could watch online
00:30:31
and watching the news. I think all the press was
there and they came out and they said they've
arrested someone they believe
00:30:39
in connection of the murders. That's kind of when I saw,
you know, the face of evil.
00:30:46
[ominous music] When Donaldson was arrested,
when Donaldson was charged by my office, you could
feel the sense of relief
00:30:59
in the community. Today is a good day. Today, the good guys won. Today, Seminole
Heights can sleep.
00:31:14
[music playing] The mayor, he talked to
me and we heard him said, at night, while y'all
were asleep, I was
00:31:24
with them trying to catch him. I mean, who walks around with
the murder weapon in a sandwich
00:31:37
bag in McDonald's
and then ask his boss to hold this while I go
try to get money to get
00:31:45
a ticket to get out of town? I mean, for all of
his opportunities, he was just a dumb kid.
00:32:00
It's hard to explain how
someone who had been relatively careful for a month in
murdering four people
00:32:06
hands the murder
weapon to his manager at McDonald's and
then walks away. I have often said that
99.99% of serial killers
00:32:18
do not want to get caught. And if they make
stupid mistakes, it's because they're so
narcissistic or so grandiose
00:32:27
that they've
convinced themselves that I can't get caught. I'm the smartest
person around here.
00:32:34
Is it possible that that
is completely 100% what happened with Howell Donaldson?
00:32:41
Yes, it is. I have to say, this is one of
those few situations when I have to wonder if on
some level, Howell
00:32:51
Donaldson, at the very
least, was wanting to stop doing what he was doing. It's so hard for me
to believe it was just
00:32:58
stupidity that led to that. NARRATOR: With Howell
Donaldson arrested, the residents of
Seminole Heights
00:33:05
feel safe for the
first time in 51 days. Investigators quickly link
him to the murder spree.
00:33:12
He then is questioned. His car is searched, and they
find bloodstained clothing.
00:33:19
So the bloodstained clothing
matches surveillance footage of the killer. The gun that he handed
to his McDonald's manager
00:33:30
was the gun that was
involved in all four murders. That was ultimately
the strongest
00:33:37
piece of evidence in tying
Donaldson to these crimes. I got to talk to Chief Duggan.
00:33:44
I met Mayor Buckhorn. He's the one that said,
bring me his head. There was t-shirts made,
"bring me his head."
00:33:52
Once I had learned all
the different things and I had read all the things
that they were possibly using
00:33:58
to track and to find this
guy, I was relieved knowing now that he was behind bars.
00:34:07
[music playing] So as case moves forward, he
enters a plea of not guilty. I think one of the
really problematic
00:34:29
things about Donaldson was
how he coped with things. And one of the things that
you see or we see emerging
00:34:34
is this lack of responsibility. It's not my fault.
It's other people's fault. It's
circumstance's fault.
00:34:41
It's anybody but my own fault. [music playing] There was a meeting
with the state's attorney.
00:34:56
We all made the
decision that we wanted him to have the death penalty. We wanted death.
00:35:11
[music playing] NARRATOR: Investigators
are preparing for the August 2020 murder
trial of Howell Donaldson III.
00:35:22
The victims' families are
hoping he's found guilty and sentenced to death. We were able to build a
strong case against Donaldson
00:35:29
really on three
different pillars. One was on his
general description. One was on his
whereabouts and location.
00:35:37
And the third was on the gun
and the ballistic evidence. But, you know, when
you walk into court,
00:35:42
you still have to persuade
a jury unanimously beyond and to the exclusion
of any reasonable doubt
00:35:48
that he's the one who
committed these crimes. [music playing] So we find after each and
every one of these activities
00:35:59
that he goes home, plays video
games, and watch his porn. That's a pattern you see
in spree and serial killers,
00:36:09
where they're able to commit
these heinous, horrific, barbaric acts, and then go back
to their normal life every day.
00:36:19
And it turns out that's exactly
what Donaldson was doing. But think about
the type of person,
00:36:24
think about the type of
mentality you have to have. It's really hard to
wrap your head around.
00:36:31
[music playing] There's no such thing as a
sure thing when you're talking about taking a case to trial.
00:36:48
And the defense was doing as
best they could to poke holes in our theory of the case,
poke holes in the description
00:36:54
of this young man who was
seen on video, poke holes in the location we had for him
as he was going from where he
00:37:02
was staying and living
to the murder scenes, poke holes in the ballistic
and forensic evidence
00:37:08
we had connecting him and
the gun to these murders. [music playing] NARRATOR: Donaldson's
defense team
00:37:21
are successful in their
request for each murder to be tried separately. This ends up prolonging the
difficulty for the victims'
00:37:29
families and makes the case
take years and years before they can get a sense of justice.
00:37:35
And it really ends
up hurting them twice because they have to
relive these tragedies
00:37:40
throughout the court case
as it continues for years. When it comes to red tape
and prolonging the inevitable,
00:37:50
we should look for
mercy for the victims. There needs to be some kind of
preponderance of the evidence
00:38:00
that says, listen,
no matter what, you are tied to all of these
murders with this evidence
00:38:07
and we cannot have
all of these families suffer because you have the
right to a not so speedy trial.
00:38:20
I think what happened
to me, the Feltons, the Naiboas, Benjamin's family
was nothing short of torture.
00:38:28
Then the second year went by. Then the third year,
then the fourth year, then the fifth year.
00:38:35
And we're almost
into the sixth year. And just thank God that he
decided he had had enough.
00:38:41
[music playing] NARRATOR: Donaldson changes
his plea to guilty on all counts in a deal that will see
him avoid the death penalty.
00:38:52
Sitting in jail
for almost six years, I think he just wanted
to do enough to get
00:38:59
out of being executed so
that he could just move on. And by doing that, I think he
got some kind of gratification
00:39:09
also. He knew he wasn't going to die. [music playing] It was a total release. All the anger, all the
pent-up frustrations
00:39:36
I had with the court
system, it was a release. It was a dedication
to my daughter.
00:39:47
[music playing] He is sentenced to four
consecutive life sentences without the
possibility of parole.
00:40:02
[music playing] I struggled with
forgiveness, I really did. And I know now, forgiveness
for me is kind of letting go
00:40:16
and letting God shepherd
me through the things that I can't shepherd
myself through.
00:40:22
I say this guy
really had a good life. But what triggered him to
do something like that?
00:40:28
He went to college, basketball,
he wants to better himself. And I just, at that
moment, just looked at him
00:40:36
and I couldn't shed
a tear for him. I just couldn't do it. I just like-- I couldn't do that.
00:40:44
He had a successful life. He had something
going on for himself, for him to really do that.
00:40:50
I mean, come on. This case really is about a
young man who did not live up to his perhaps unrealistic
expectations for himself
00:41:00
and his accomplishments. And instead of finding a way
to deal with that directly,
00:41:04
took it out on the
world around him. He grew up in church. He's got a tattoo of
Christ on his arm.
00:41:12
He shouldn't be a serial killer. I'm at peace knowing now that
when he went into prison,
00:41:21
he thought he was somebody. But there's a lot of people
there that think he's a nobody.
00:41:26
I'm sure he is suffering now
like we have been suffering. We have four victims. Benjamin, Anthony, Monica,
Ronald, who, you know,
00:41:37
we can talk about
as a college student and as a construction
worker, but that will never
00:41:42
capture who these people are. You know, I sat with their
families and heard the stories
00:41:48
and saw the pictures and laughed
and cried with them as we remembered the loved ones lost.
00:41:54
Nothing will ever
justify, nothing will ever explain these four
innocent lives that
00:42:00
were ripped from our community. I'll never stop
loving my daughter. She was just a great child
who had a great sense of humor
00:42:18
and a whole future ahead of her. She was really-- she was
a light in the darkness.
00:42:28
[music playing]