JANE DOE NO MORE
ALSO BY M. WILLIAM PHELPS
Perfect Poison
Lethal Guardian
Every Move You Make
Sleep in Heavenly Peace
Murder in the Heartland
Because You Loved Me
If Looks Could Kill
I’ll Be Watching You
Deadly Secrets
Cruel Death
Death Trap
Kill For Me
Failures of the Presidents (coauthor)
Nathan Hale: The Life and Death of America’s First Spy
The Devil’s Rooming House: The True Story of America’s Deadliest Female Serial Killer
The Devil’s Right Hand: The Tragic Story of the Colt Family Curse
Love Her to Death
Too Young to Kill
Never See Them Again
Kiss of the She-Devil
Murder, New England
JANE DOE NO MORE
My 15-Year Fight to Reclaim My Identity—
A True Story of Survival, Hope, and Redemption
M. WILLIAM PHELPS
National Best-selling Author
Star of the Investigation Discovery series Dark Minds
WITH DONNA PALOMBA
Founder, Jane Doe No More, Inc.
LYONS PRESS
Guilford, Connecticut
An imprint of Globe Pequot Press
For those who have been sexually
assaulted but are afraid to come forward—
and for the hope that this book helps,
in some small way, to begin the
process of healing.
Copyright © 2012 by M. William Phelps
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, PO Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.
Lyons Press is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press.
All photos courtesy of Donna Palomba unless otherwise noted.
Project editor: Meredith Dias
Layout: Sue Murray
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN 978-0-7627-7880-5
Printed in the United States of America
E-ISBN 978-0-7627-8839-2
CONTENTS
Authors’ Note
CHAPTER 1 A Stranger in the House
CHAPTER 2 Blindfolded
CHAPTER 3 Jam Sandwich
CHAPTER 4 Turning Tables
CHAPTER 5 Life Goes On . . . But Only for a Moment
CHAPTER 6 Remain Silent
CHAPTER 7 Your Lies Won’t Leave Me Alone
CHAPTER 8 Something’s Missing
CHAPTER 9 Jane Doe
CHAPTER 10 Rumor Has It
CHAPTER 11 No Two Victims Are Alike
CHAPTER 12 Hope
CHAPTER 13 An Internal Affair
CHAPTER 14 Guilt by Omission
CHAPTER 15 Speaking of Hunches
CHAPTER 16 The Bad News
CHAPTER 17 All Apologies
CHAPTER 18 The King Can Do No Wrong
CHAPTER 19 A New Lease
CHAPTER 20 The Evil Mayor
CHAPTER 21 A Breakdown
CHAPTER 22 A Battle Begins
CHAPTER 23 Oddities
CHAPTER 24 Still Jane after All These Years
CHAPTER 25 If the Shoe Fits
CHAPTER 26 Reality Check
CHAPTER 27 Betrayal
CHAPTER 28 Face-to-face
CHAPTER 29 A Picture’s Worth
CHAPTER 30 Fright Night
CHAPTER 31 Festering Anger
CHAPTER 32 Caught in the Act
CHAPTER 33 No Escape
CHAPTER 34 Suicide Is Painless
CHAPTER 35 Pleading
CHAPTER 36 The Narrow Gate
CHAPTER 37 Showtime
CHAPTER 38 Change
Epilogue by Donna Palomba
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
AUTHORS’ NOTE
The book in your hands conveys a true story. It is a research-backed, collaborative memoir, mostly supported by the documentation and recollections of one woman, Donna Palomba, and suffused with her very own words. A working mother of two, Donna was living her version of the American dream—family, husband, kids, a good job—when the unthinkable happened: Her home was invaded by a masked intruder.
What took place in Donna’s bedroom next was horrifying, tragic. Yet what she endured after she had been sexually assaulted is where the tragedy turned to heroism. I do not want to delve too deeply into Donna’s incredible tale of determination, survival, and triumph here; I simply want to say a few things about how and why I decided to get involved in this story and tell it in this manner.
Over the course of twelve months, Donna dictated her story to me, and I put that story into a narrative with the added help of the documentation available—thousands of pages of police reports, trial transcripts, depositions, personal notes (throughout my career I’ve never seen more comprehensive, detailed entries from a victim of a crime, including conversations, thoughts, and quotes, recorded on the day of each incident), and many other forms of research. In some cases there is documentation to back up Donna’s story directly; in others, the story relies solely on Donna’s memory of the event(s). I conducted several interviews for this book, but did not set out to speak to all the people involved. My aim with Donna was to tell this story through her eyes and her memory. She lived it. This book is not one of my usual pieces of investigative journalism. It is Donna’s version of the events of her life, told by me.
Throughout the book (beginning below my author’s note) the reader will find sections—the more personal aspects of the narrative—told in Donna’s first-person voice and set in italics. This dual storytelling is not a new literary device; but it is rather uncommon. Donna and I wanted to give the reader that all-important personal connection, beyond simply the quoting or paraphrasing of a source, that a story such as hers demands. To convey exactly how emotionally trying and altogether frightening Donna’s life became took courage on her part, and I wanted Donna to have a distinct voice, especially as she related her battle against the system and her discovery of the shocking identity of her attacker.
This story is about Donna Palomba’s life. My role was to frame her narrative and point out various aspects of the case the reader needs to understand.
I pored through literally thousands of pages of documents, interviewed Donna at length, studied her notes and diaries, exchanged hundreds of e-mails, got to know her on a personal level, and spoke to several of the people deeply involved in this case. Whenever someone is quoted, that dialogue was taken from those documents, trial transcripts, interviews I conducted, and Donna’s recollections.
Even without all the research, anyone would know that Donna Palomba is a fighter, an unbelievable woman, and a survivor. She is not a victim.
When tragedy strikes, some of us—perhaps myself included—might cower into a fetal ball. We might allow the enduring trauma to envelop every sense of our being. Very few would stand up to that misery and look it in the eye. Fewer still would continue to fight when victory did not seem possible. Donna is one of the brave few. Faced with defeat time and again, with nearly an entire city against her, Donna persevered. When the identity of her attacker was exposed, Donna did not lose her strength; she held her ground in defense of truth and justice, and continued her fight. Donna did not want to see another
human being have to go through what she did.
What follows is her incredible journey. Donna lived as a “Jane Doe” for nearly fifteen years. Her identity was stolen from her. If you are a rape survivor (or know someone who is), or if you have been sexually assaulted and have not reported it (or know somebody who was), please read Donna’s story and visit the Jane Doe No More website. The information there can help you recover your identity and take back your life.
—M. William Phelps
June 2012
Rape is the most misunderstood and underreported crime. The first step to healing is talking about the assault. Yet hundreds of thousands suffer in silence.
Every Jane Doe is a person with hopes and dreams and talents. I want to let everyone know that he or she is not alone and invite them to become part of what is a vocal, vibrant, and visible survivors’ community.
No more blame. No more shame. No more fear.
This mission found me; I did not seek it. In a million years I would not have dreamt that I would be doing what I am doing today. And yet, I would not change a thing. This challenging journey has brought countless blessings and surprises and dared me to reach farther into my soul than I ever thought possible. I have found a greater purpose. Each day brings affirmation that something very special is in play—and I truly believe it is all part of God’s greater plan.
—Donna Palomba
June 2012
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
—MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
CHAPTER ONE
A Stranger in the House
The darkness enveloped her that night, and it may have been the absence of light that saved her life.
The first sound thirty-six-year-old Donna Palomba could recall later was muffled, a squirrel-in-the-attic rustling. Nothing obvious or particularly loud. Still, it was enough to startle her awake. Initially she thought the sound may have come from a closet down the hall. We’ve all been there: jolted from a deep sleep by a sudden noise in the dead of night, no idea what the sound is or where it’s coming from. Donna couldn’t establish what time it was with any accuracy, only that it had to be after midnight and into the very early morning of September 11, 1993.
After collecting her thoughts and listening closer, Donna was certain she heard footsteps: the creak of her wooden stairs that led to the second floor, where she and her children slept in separate rooms.
Those are not the tiny footsteps of children, she thought. The noise, now distinct and frightening, was definitely not the pitter-patter of a child rushing into her mother’s room to snuggle after a bad dream. Quite the opposite, actually, this was positively an intruder’s stride: heavy and obtrusive, yet stealthy.
The house was pitch dark, and since everything seems different late at night, Donna’s fear was magnified. Every sound was augmented and sustained. That internal filter between fear and reality, generally always there and functioning, was still sleeping. Alone in the house with her children, the comforting sound of crickets, and the late summer breeze outside the window, the last thing Donna wanted to hear were footsteps coming up the stairs toward her bedroom—and now it was too late to do anything about it.
Acclimating herself to her surroundings, Donna realized that someone was now quickly moving around the front of her bed.
Donna hadn’t been sleeping well earlier. Her husband, John, was away for the weekend at a friend’s wedding in Colorado. She would have gone with him had it not been for a business partner’s wife who gave birth that week. Donna had spent some time on September 10 at the hospital, smiling, laughing, and holding the ten-pound newborn in her arms. What a wonderful moment and testimony to God’s grace. Everyone was so happy. The talcum-fresh, clean smell and swollen redness of a newborn, gurgling and twisting her small balled-up fist in her mouth—it reminded everyone how such natural, everyday miracles can bring so much joy to life.
Now, merely hours later: an unfolding nightmare. It was the first time in twelve years of marriage that John and Donna had been apart. She was alone in a small community—the Overlook section of Waterbury, Connecticut—inside a big house. Her five- and seven-year-olds were sound asleep in their rooms down the same second-floor hallway. Donna had no weapon. No way to protect herself. No idea what to do.
It took a moment for Donna to register what now happened so suddenly. She had been sleeping on her stomach and did not have the opportunity to turn over before he was on her back, violently holding her down, the two of them struggling for position, man against woman—not a fair fight.
The random thoughts that popped into her head when she found herself fighting to survive baffle her to this day: Blue jean material . . . During the struggle she felt the scratchy crisscross-patterned fabric of denim. She kept thinking: He’s wearing blue jeans. If you live through this, remember that.
She glimpsed some sort of mask concealing his identity, although she would not have been able to see him clearly in the dark anyway.
Instinct and reaction took over. Donna screamed as loud as she could. Her window was open. Maybe a neighbor would hear and come running to her rescue.
But her attacker buried his knee deeper into her back, then reached around and put his gloved hand over her mouth. Donna could smell the fabric: greasy, synthetic, musty.
She bit down on his hand.
That set him off. He took one of her arms and cranked it around her back, wrenching it up toward her long, full, curly mane of auburn hair, holding her down even tighter. Then he leaned over Donna’s back and approached her ear. It would be the first of several times he threatened her life.
“If you don’t cooperate, you are going to get hurt.”
His voice was raspy. She first thought he had a Jamaican accent. Regardless, she believed him and knew then what he wanted.
If I scream again, my kids will wake up and find us . . . Then what?
Obedience. Obey and live. Fight and die.
Donna’s senses ratcheted up. She couldn’t see, but she could certainly hear, smell. This is how she would later recall the sexual assault—through a series of sounds and scents. Like a blind person, Donna began to see with her ears and nose.
She heard him reach into the dresser drawer beside her bed (as if he knew where to look?) and pull something out. Next he placed a pillowcase over her head and secured it by tying nylons over her eyes like a blindfold. He bound her hands behind her back with the same material. She figured the nylons were the reason for his reaching into the dresser drawer.
After he finished tying Donna’s hands behind her back, he jammed his knee into her spine again to hold her down. Donna could smell mechanic’s grease and oil on him. Maybe it was tar, she considered, the same stuff they use on the roads. These simple, everyday smells were overpowering, stagnant in the balminess of her bedroom. Later those same odors would send Donna into traumatic spells of depression and anxiety whenever she encountered them in the world.
As he held her down, she felt a forceful tug on her nightshirt and panties, and then heard the fabric tearing as he cut her panties with a knife. The ripping of the fabric seemed amplified.
Then she heard a heavy clank: metal against wood.
In her mind, Donna Palomba saw her attacker placing a gun on the floor.
My husband, John, and I were married on October 10, 1981. It was one of those large Italian-Catholic weddings with bridesmaids, ushers, tuxedoes, limos, a simple, elegant gown made of satin in an off-white candlelight shade, along with all the other amenities little girls dream about all their lives. I was a twenty-four-year-old college graduate from Southern Connecticut State University looking to start a family and a career in marketing. We lived in an apartment that first year. Then John found a house he’d had his eye on for a long time a mere block from where he had grown up in Overlook, a section of Waterbury named for its co
mmanding view over the city. John’s parents still lived there, as did his friends, cousins, several of his siblings. There was a pond a few blocks away where kids played hockey during the winter months and fished during summer. Overlook was one of those Norman Rockwell–type of blue- and white-collar neighborhoods centered on family, community, and God—a melting pot of many different nationalities, most with large families. John knew and loved everyone. His mom used to say John was the only kid she knew with three hundred close personal friends.
The neighborhood was so tight-knit that even as John and his buddies matured and went out into the world as adults, they kept their ties and got together any chance they could. The words family and friend meant something to these guys. They depended on one another. Everyone in Overlook seemed to carry on the traditions of the family business, be it insurance, roofing, financial, construction, electrical, whatever. Your grandfather started the business, passed it down to your father, and you carried the torch until your son or daughter took over.
The fact that we had kids within the first few years of the marriage kindled our spirits; we enjoyed and adored being parents, same as our fathers and mothers had before us. Our kids would go to Catholic school, same as we had, and grow up being coddled, loved, cared for. Having kids was a gift I had waited for all my life, yet I never realized or considered how much that experience was going to change me and teach me about love and the will to survive.
Believing her attacker had a gun, which he had just placed on the floor beside the bed so he could free himself up to rape her, sent Donna to an emotional place she had never been: a cage of survival and mortality. She was now only mother, protecting her kids, telling herself not to scream or make any noise whatsoever.
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