Jane Doe No More

by M. William Phelps

  “Thanks, Neil.”

  John told Donna about the call when she returned home from going out. Donna called Maureen right away and relayed the conversation.

  Maureen told them not to meet with the mayor, and if they ever wished to, she needed to be present. The mayor’s office was on damage control detail now, Maureen explained. They were going to try to pacify Donna, with the hope of sweeping it all under a rug.

  Donna was torn. On the one hand, she did want it all to go away. Maybe a sit-down with the mayor was the best resolution. It appeared that Pudgie and Neil were actively and aggressively investigating the case, and Jeff was a good candidate for being her perpetrator. It would all be over soon, and she could move on and wait for the justice end of the case, preparing to face her attacker in court.

  If Jeff wasn’t her attacker, there was now some new information that might lead to an arrest. As Pudgie and Neil continued sifting through the case, they revisited an event that had taken place in town on the evening of Donna’s assault. A stag party. Perhaps someone at the stag party found out John was away and Donna was home alone. John Palomba had known about the party, and it bothered him. He had told the WPD about his feelings long ago, but his theory had not been looked into thoroughly. John wondered why every male at the stag was not being asked to submit a blood sample. John’s feeling was that because he had not gone to the stag and his brothers were there (undoubtedly mentioning that John had gone away for the weekend and Donna was alone), someone knew he was out of town and decided it was an opportune time to attack Donna. John had a gut feeling that the perpetrator had attended the stag, overheard someone talking about him being away, and made plans to rape his wife—maybe someone, in fact, who had developed a secret obsession with Donna long ago.

  “John had talked about that stag party right from the beginning,” Maureen Norris later said, “and that stayed with me. The stag and the missing key from the Palomba family home. John was saying that he did not believe it was a freak coincidence that he had gone away for the first time in his marriage, there was a stag that night with everyone from town, that a key was missing, and Donna was raped.”

  Maureen and John felt strongly that somehow all those factors fit together.

  Meanwhile, Maureen was in the process of filing a Notice of Claim, a prelude, effectively, to a lawsuit. (In most municipalities, you cannot file a lawsuit without first filing a Notice of Claim.) Although they had not decided on filing a lawsuit yet, Maureen was not one to proceed unprepared.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  An Internal Affair

  If there was ever a doubt that Neil and Pudgie were assiduously working Donna’s case from many different angles, it was washed away by a call Donna received on Thursday, March 31, 1994. She was at the office, trying to go about her day. Life went on, with or without a resolution. It was near five o’clock. A source (neither Neil nor Pudgie) from within the WPD called Donna and mentioned “some information,” but that Donna was to “keep [it] in the strictest of confidence.”

  Donna dropped what she was doing, sat down, promised, “Yes, yes. Of course. What is it?”

  “Doug Moran has gone out ‘on illness’ . . . Also, there is some sort of high-tech surveillance equipment missing, and the department’s new surveillance vehicle, a black Toyota Camry, is also missing. Nobody is talking about why the stuff is missing or who has it. Doug has been knocked off of Vice . . .”

  “My goodness,” Donna said. She had no idea what it all meant, but the fact that Moran was not officially part of the investigation any longer had to be a good sign.

  “This whole thing about you and your case has the department rattled.” Then a warning: “Listen, since Moran believes that you had an affair, he may be tailing you.”

  Was that why the equipment was missing? Moran had taken it?

  Donna was perplexed. Would Moran go to such lengths?

  “Be aware, Donna. Doug would be wearing black sunglasses.”

  It seemed to Donna as if she were involved in some sort of Hollywood thriller, not her life. What was she to make of it all?

  The thought of Lieutenant Moran actually using surveillance equipment to monitor my whereabouts was unnerving. It made me feel vulnerable and scared. It also angered me. What length was this guy willing to go to see his theories proven? Why did he still not believe me? Why was he hell-bent on “catching” me in some sort of nonexistent affair? Did he know the perpetrator? Was there some connection to the department or personally to Moran?

  Then part of me thought, Wow, is he ever going to be bored following me going to work, the grocery store, the children’s school, and over to my mom and dad’s house.

  So now there were two enemies I had to look out for: the perp and the lieutenant. I never felt comfortable or at ease. Just stepping into the outdoors opened up all kinds of unsettling feelings—a heightened form of anxiety on top of what I was already experiencing. But it wasn’t going to deter me from doing everything I normally did. I was just more cautious.

  On April 14, 1994, Donna stopped at an intersection in town, looked across the street and spotted Jeff Martinez in a car driving toward her. Jeff seemed to be everywhere Donna went these days.

  This time Donna stared Jeff down, but he looked away and never made direct eye contact with her.

  A deep breath and Donna was back on her way to a meeting with Pudgie.

  John met Donna at the restaurant where Pudgie was already sitting, drinking a cup of coffee. The purpose of the meeting was to catch up on her case’s developments. Donna wanted to give Pudgie a copy of notes her sister had made of the ordeal she’d had with Jeff. Maria had written out the entire episode so Pudgie and Neil could get a clearer picture of what had actually happened. There was probably a charge or two in there somewhere, but apparently Maria wasn’t interested in prosecuting.

  “How are you, Donna?” Pudgie asked in his comforting voice.

  “I’m okay.”

  She then relayed the encounter she’d just had with Jeff.

  Pudgie shook his head. “I’ll pass these notes on to Kathy Wilson,” he said after Donna handed him the narrative Maria had written. “Listen, I wanted to tell you that Moran is back to work.”

  “What?”

  “But he’s in uniform now and working behind a desk.”

  A small sense of relief. At least the WPD was reacting, taking her somewhat seriously.

  It’s amazing what a meeting with the SAO could do, Donna thought.

  Pudgie had more.

  “I called Dr. Henry Lee. Lee told me he had spoken to a guy by the name of Larry Presley who works out of the FBI’s Washington lab. So I called the lab in Washington and Larry confirmed he had spoken to Lee and his lab is pushing your DNA comparison.”

  This was very promising news; the DNA was moving as fast as it could and the FBI was on it. Donna felt more and more comfortable talking to Neil and Pudgie each time they spoke. Part of this was building a relationship, Neil, Pudgie, and Donna knew, and perhaps even repairing one that had been shattered. There was still a barrier between Donna and anyone involved with the WPD—how could there not be? But slowly, as the days went on and more was done to find her attacker, Donna was willing to pull back on her cynicism about the system.

  After a call from Neil, Maria Cappella went down to the WPD on May 3, 1994, to speak about her incident with Jeff. Kathy Wilson had read Maria’s narrative. Wilson wanted to meet with Maria downstairs in the lobby. Maria was apprehensive when she arrived and heard that Wilson wanted her to meet with Captain Robert Moran and another investigator, Inspector Jake Griffin, who worked for the WPD’s Detective Bureau. Maria told Wilson that she’d feel uncomfortable in their company. But Wilson promised it would be okay; she would be in the room too.

  Maria reluctantly agreed.

  Inspector Griffin opene
d the conversation by asking Maria why she never called the police if she felt that Jeff had assaulted her in her home.

  Maria had no answer for that. She thought she had given a statement to Detective Lou Cote about the incident, which should have been in Donna’s case file. On top of that, she and Donna had gone to the WPD with the information, only to be chased out of there by Moran’s accusations of Donna lying about everything. Why would Maria want to come forward after what her sister had gone through?

  “Lou Cote,” Wilson piped in, explaining to Griffin and Moran, “took Maria’s statement back in October. Then he handed it to Lieutenant Moran—who handed it back to him.”

  Robert Moran, who was supposedly there on the day Cote handed that report to the lieutenant, looked on without saying anything.

  With each new revelation, it seemed that Douglas Moran was prepared to stop at nothing to see his vision of what had happened in this case come to fruition. Cote had taken Maria’s statement, but it ultimately wound up in a desk somewhere, collecting dust, and not in Donna’s file. According to Cote, he had handed Maria’s statement to Lieutenant Moran, but Moran had handed it back to him, making some snide remark about the case and not needing the statement.

  “We need to get Jeff back in here,” Inspector Griffin said. “Would you like us to arrest him?”

  If Maria filed a complaint right there, they could haul Jeff in and charge him.

  Maria thought about it. “At this time,” she said, “I don’t want Jeff arrested.”

  Nagging at John and Donna was the idea that the perpetrator likely knew John had gone away for the weekend. On May 4, 1994, at 10:30 a.m., John, Donna, and Maureen Norris went to the Detective Bureau to meet with Kathy Wilson. Donna and John had discussed things and believed they had an explanation as to how Jeff could have known about John’s absence that weekend.

  After sitting down and getting comfortable, Donna told a detailed, shocking story. It was back on May 29, 1993, just a year ago, according to Donna’s records, that she had called the company Jeff worked for and spoken to his boss about a problem they were having with a glass-covered oak table. The glass had cracked, and they needed a template made and the glass replaced.

  Jeff’s boss said he would send someone right out.

  It was 6:30 p.m. on June 1, 1993, when Jeff showed up to make the template for the Palomba’s table. Donna and John recognized Jeff with a friendly hello, and John and Jeff started talking.

  “I’m stressed out, John . . . I got into a fight with my brother-in-law. I really need to get away on a vacation.”

  “That’s too bad,” John said. “I’m heading out to Colorado in September for a wedding. Family can be tough, Jeff. Maybe a vacation is exactly what you need.”

  Donna was walking by as the two men chatted, and casually joined the conversation. “I’m probably not going with John, because my business partner is expecting a child right around that same time. I also have a new account at work that is keeping me busy.”

  After assessing the crack in the glass, Jeff said he’d be back in a few days with the new glass top.

  “Can you call first?” Donna said.

  “Yes. Sure.”

  Jeff showed up soon after, but not on the day he said he would. Nor had he called first. Instead, Jeff knocked on the door on Saturday morning, June 5, at 9:30 a.m.

  Donna was upset. She was home alone with her two children. She had papers all over the table, which she had been using as a desk.

  “You were supposed to call first,” Donna told Jeff, clearly irritated that he had not listened to her direction.

  “Ah, that’s okay,” Jeff said, walking in. “I have all day. No need to worry.”

  As Jeff waited, Donna bent over and cleaned the papers off the table so Jeff could get to work. As she did, Jeff “came up behind her, put his hand on her back, and started to rub her back.”

  Jeff’s touch startled Donna. She turned around quickly and “glared at him,” Donna explained. It was not long after the touching incident that Jeff went “out to his truck,” Donna further explained, “where he stayed for fifteen to twenty minutes.” Donna said she had no idea why or what he was doing.

  After he came back in, Donna kept her distance for the remainder of the time Jeff was at her house, never taking her eyes off him and always sitting with “her back against the chair” and her children close.

  “I’m so stressed out I could explode,” Jeff said at one point.

  He eventually left.

  That complaint, accompanied by an affidavit outlining Donna’s case, written and filed by Maureen Norris, led to an Internal Affairs investigation, which was now well under way. IA investigators had been sniffing around for a few weeks, calling some of the people connected to the case. Within that IA investigation, Donna received bits and pieces of information from various sources. This led to a meeting with Inspector Griffin, Robert Moran, Neil, Maureen, Donna, and John. Donna and Maureen wanted to know exactly where the investigation stood from the WPD’s viewpoint, and more pointedly, what was in, or not in, her file. Every time they turned around, something from that file seemed to be missing.

  Donna had learned that there was no sign of the WPD talking to three other people whom she was told had been interviewed (and tape-recorded) by Lieutenant Douglas Moran. Donna had also heard that someone had reported a suspicious vehicle in the neighborhood on the night of her attack; the tipster had given four digits of the license plate and was told the WPD was running a make on the vehicle and looking into it.

  “There is nothing in the file about that vehicle,” one of the investigators explained to Donna, John, and Maureen.

  There was also a question as to where the audiotapes of the transmissions from the night of September 11, 1993, were. The WPD, like many police departments, recorded radio transmissions of police calls coming in and going out. Perhaps an important clue in those tapes that could somehow help Neil and Pudgie had been overlooked.

  “That is not available—apparently, that night has been recorded over.”

  And where were the telephone wires taken from Donna’s house—specifically the line that had been cut. Where was that piece of evidence?

  “The wires are there in evidence, but the actual telephone line that was cut by your perpetrator is not there.”

  Donna wanted to scream.

  “Donna,” Neil said, trying to change the tone of the conversation and focus on moving forward. “We’d like to have a list of all of the males and females you and John know personally, who might have known John was going out of town that weekend.”

  This was a good sign to Donna; the WPD was looking at her case from a different angle.

  “The Morans,” Donna added, “said they had ruled out that the locks on the house could have been picked.”

  Maybe someone had a key?

  “We’d like to get Jeff back in here and take a sample of his hair,” Inspector Griffin suggested, seemingly ignoring Donna.

  The entire discussion seemed rather surreal for Donna. Now they wanted to drag Jeff back in and obtain a hair sample. Why? Didn’t they have his blood?

  I believe this was the first time I entered the police station since October 1993—that day when Lieutenant Moran interrogated me—and then when John and I went back to sit down with Captain Moran and Phil Post. As you enter the station there is a large glass partition separating guests from the front desk officers. As I walked in and saw the officers, I felt all eyes were on me, that they all knew exactly who I was, and it made me self-conscious and uncomfortable. I looked at them and wished somehow I could send a telepathic message relaying who I truly was, erasing all the negative information that they may have heard about me. I had the same feeling as I passed other officers in the hall and as I walked through a busy open area where officers were working at their desks and milli
ng around. It appeared they were trying to be discreet, but I saw them looking up as we marched through to Inspector Griffin’s office, where the meeting was held. It was the first time I had met Griffin, and John and I wanted to be sure he knew the kind of people we were. The question of obtaining a sample of Jeff’s hair was odd. There would be no need to get Jeff back in for a hair sample since we already had his blood. It led me to believe, after I thought about it, that Inspector Griffin may have said that to let us know they wanted to actively pursue anything they could. They were trying to make us feel comfortable and prove that the investigation was now on the right track.

  John, Donna, and Maureen discussed Martinez among themselves for a moment.

  “We’d like you to hold off on bringing Jeff back in,” Donna said, “until the DNA results come back from Washington.”

  Leaving, Neil said he and Kathy Wilson wanted to meet John and Donna at John’s mother’s house so they could interview her (John’s father had passed away in 1989). For the first time in the investigation, eight months (to the day) after the attack, Neil brought up the missing key John’s mother had talked about just days after the attack. Neil was particularly interested in this key. If Mrs. Palomba’s story of the key was true and that key went missing before Donna’s attack, it meant there had been a way into Donna’s house floating around in the world on the night of her attack. This could be significant. It could potentially fit into the theme Neil seemed to be focusing on: people close to Donna and John who knew their schedules, knew a bit about their lives, or had access to their home.

  Before they left the WPD, Neil asked Donna about a particular relative. “Does [this person] have a grudge against you?”