“We might elect crooked people,” Sarlo told the New York Times in half-jest. “But one thing we do in Waterbury is find the guilty people and we convict them.”
Indeed, Giordano was convicted in 2003 of sexually abusing those two young girls provided to him by the prostitute he knew. He was sentenced to thirty-seven years in prison. There were hours of tape-recorded calls made between the ex-mayor and the prostitute, many of which contained conversations of Giordano setting up the assaults on the girls. When the prostitute (who received a ten-year sentence for providing the girls) testified about her bringing the girls to the mayor, Giordano screamed from his table in front of the witness bench, “Fucking liar!”
But the Giordano scandal was a disruption, essentially, for Donna, and especially for WPD Chief Neil O’Leary. For years Donna’s case had more or less sat idle while Donna spent her time putting her life back together and thinking where she could make the most difference and effect the most change. Neil was always cognizant of the fact that to make progress there would have to be a major break in the case. These types of cold cases were generally solved by a tip or a DNA hit. Technology sometimes caught up with cold rape cases and brought a suspect to the surface without anybody trying and when nobody was expecting it.
As the summer of 2004 came in with a bout of hot and hazy weather, Neil and Donna had no idea just how much their lives were about to change—and it all began with a morning habit Neil had developed as chief.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
If the Shoe Fits
It was Monday, August 2, 2004. WPD Chief Neil O’Leary was in his office after a relaxing weekend, doing what he did every morning: going through the reports of major cases that occurred the previous night/weekend to see if anything jumped out and needed his direct attention. First and foremost, Neil was a cop’s cop; he took his job as administrator seriously, but he was nothing if not a police officer, the same as the men and women he supervised. Of course, Neil had no idea yet that on this day, the seeds of solving Donna’s case were germinating within those reports sitting on his desk.
Scanning through various breaking-and-enterings, fights, domestic violence charges, drug arrests, DUIs, and other crimes, Neil came across an alleged sexual assault reported by a woman that past Saturday, two days ago. The report mentioned a twenty-one-year-old woman who had claimed a man she knew and worked with had been sexually aggressive and ultimately attacked her that afternoon.
The report piqued Neil’s interest. Not with regard to Donna’s case (which was not even on his mind), but the accusation itself and the man against whom the woman had made the accusation.
Neil knew the guy—John “Rocky” Regan.
I cannot believe this, Neil thought to himself. John Regan?
“I knew the family,” Neil said later. “They owned and operated a [roofing] company in town, and everybody knew them. Everybody liked them.”
Indeed, the Regans were a “prominent” family in Waterbury. Rocky Regan’s wife was a schoolteacher, his father was a dentist, his grandfather had a local school named after him.
Neil dialed the Detective Bureau. A female detective who knew the case answered. “I took the statement from the woman,” she explained.
“Really.” Neil was still blown away by the idea that Rocky Regan, a happily married, churchgoing, hardworking father of three boys, well-known and especially well-liked in the community, could have done such a thing.
“Chief, I have to be honest with you,” the detective said. “She’s very credible. I believe everything that she’s saying. I believe that she was victimized here.”
Neil was stunned. “Thanks,” he said and hung up.
As he sat at his desk, Neil stared at the report then read it more closely.
John Regan was about to turn forty-eight that November. He lived in a rather exclusive section of Waterbury with his wife and kids. Regan’s parents owned a nice home on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Regan’s parents liked to spend their summers on the Cape, and their children looked after their house while they were gone. So Regan told the woman he worked with, “Listen, I need to go check on my parents’ home . . . we can look at a couple of jobs we’re working on along the way and stop in at the house and have a quick look around.” Regan wanted to be sure the house was secure.
The woman had no reason not to trust him. She had been with the company for a few years and knew his family. She’d spent plenty of time with Rocky alone. He’d never been anything other than a gentleman.
Once inside his parents’ house, Rocky took a quick look around the home to make sure the windows and doors were still locked up. Nothing seemed to have been tampered with.
“Why don’t you sit down,” Rocky told the woman. They were in the rear sunporch area of the house. He pointed to the couch.
Then, out of the blue: “I want to make love to you.”
This statement startled the woman. “No, Rocky,” she said, thinking maybe he was joking around.
So Rocky lunged at the woman, according to the incident report, and “pulled her onto his lap, pushing her down, forcing himself on her.” He tried to kiss her, groping at her breasts and vaginal area, saying that he wanted her.
“Come on,” Rocky said. “I want to lick you.”
The woman fought with him, screaming, “No . . . no . . . stop it. No! What’re you doing?”
She tried to get away from his grip, but he “would not allow her,” added the report.
Rocky continued the attack, aggressively and violently trying to “put his hands down her pants.” Now she was on her back, Rocky on top of her.
“Let me go . . . I want to leave.”
Rocky was growing increasingly forceful and impatient as she fought him off, but within a few moments, the woman was able to break free. She ran out of the house and down the street.
Near the end of the block, shielded from view of the street (the woman was hiding now), she called her boyfriend and told him what had just happened.
“Stay there,” he said. “Hide.”
He then called the police.
Shortly after, the boyfriend picked her up a few blocks away from the Regan family home. She was cowering behind a house. Her boyfriend brought her directly to the police department.
Incredible, Neil said to himself as he finished reading the report.
The woman was able to tell police the man’s name, of course. She also said she had proof that she had been inside the house and ran out. One of her shoes had fallen off as she struggled to break free. She was certain Rocky didn’t see it. The shoe should still be inside the home.
Throughout that day—Saturday—the WPD tried to locate Rocky Regan.
He was nowhere to be found.
On Monday morning, after Neil finished reading the reports of the incident and talking to those officers involved in the case, he notified the state’s attorney and then told his detectives to keep working on it. Track the suspect down and interview him.
“See what he has to say.”
Still, none of this had Neil thinking about Donna—that is, until he started driving away from the WPD for an appointment. Neil later remembered the exact cross section of streets (West Main and Thomaston Avenue) where he was sitting when the epiphany relating to Donna’s eleven-year-old sexual assault case hit him like a sucker punch. He had been driving and saying to himself over and over, Regan, Regan, Regan . . . how do I know that name? There was more to it than just knowing the Regan name from being a Waterbury native. Something else spoke to Neil.
Oh my goodness . . . the connection flashed through Neil’s memory. The stag party! That night Donna was assaulted there was a stag party for a guy named Regan! Darn it all. There it is.
Neil turned his car around and drove back to the WPD. The first thing he did was examine Donna’s case file and the
reports from all the DNA samples (by then there were close to fifty) taken over the years. He searched through the names once.
No John Regan.
Then again—just in case.
Nothing.
John Regan had to be at that stag party, Neil thought. The groom-to-be shared his last name.
Back in his office, Neil called a friend who knew John Regan’s cousin to get the cousin’s phone number. This was the same Regan whose stag party had been at the forefront of Neil’s thoughts so early on in Donna’s investigation when he and Pudgie had taken over.
“Hey,” Neil said over the phone, finally getting Rocky Regan’s cousin on the line. “Like to ask you a few questions about something.” It was casual, as if Neil was calling a buddy about something. “This is Neil O’Leary.”
“Hi, Neil,” Rocky Regan’s cousin said. “What can I do for you?”
The chief of police calls, you want to help him out as best you can.
“Let me ask you a question. Are you related to John Regan?” Neil wanted to be sure this was not some sort of coincidence that would wind up a dead end, sucking the air out of any excitement momentarily pumped back into the investigation.
“Sure, Neil . . . John’s my first cousin.”
“Really . . .?” Neil said.
“Yeah.”
“Well, listen . . . I’m going to test your memory here. Going back to September 10, 1993”—it had been almost eleven years—“I was wondering if you recall if John Regan was at your stag party?”
“Yes.”
“How are you so sure?”
“Because Rocky worked the door collecting money.”
Neil was overwhelmed—yet guardedly optimistic that he had found the man who had attacked Donna—after more than a decade of searching.
“Donna, I’d like to meet with you and John this afternoon,” Neil said on the phone with the Palombas. It was the same day of his conversation with Regan’s cousin.
Donna could feel the urgency and excitement in Neil’s voice. She’d never heard him sound like this before. She sensed he wasn’t calling to catch up.
“Neil, what is it?”
“Let’s talk about it at the restaurant.”
They met in the town where John and Donna had moved after selling their house in Waterbury, at an upscale restaurant downtown, private and quiet. It would not have been smart to meet in Waterbury.
After they sat down and ordered, Neil wasted little time. “Look, I’m just going to come out with it . . . Do either of you know John Regan?”
“Of course we do,” Donna said. She looked at Neil, then at John. “Rocky’s one of John’s best friends from the old neighborhood.”
Overlook. So many years ago. The old gang.
“I’ve known Rocky since kindergarten,” John Palomba said. “We went to high school . . . we played football together.”
The fact that John and Rocky were friends clinched it for Neil, but he maintained his composure. Not only was his gut telling him that Rocky Regan had attacked Donna, but the entire scenario now fit together so perfectly.
“Has John Regan ever been over to your house?” Neil asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Donna said. “Of course. Neil, what’s going on?”
“Are you kidding me?” John said. “Rocky put a roof on our garage.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, I don’t know . . . maybe right before I was attacked,” Donna said.
“Really?” Neil responded.
John seemed a little taken aback by all the questions. Finally, he said, “Look, Neil. I know you’re doing your job. I understand. But listen, John Regan would never do this to us! It’s impossible.” John looked Neil directly in his eyes. He was more serious than Neil had ever seen or heard him in quite some time. The tone in his voice clearly evoked a core, inherent belief that Neil was going after the wrong guy here.
“Well, John, I’m just trying to cover all the bases.”
“Not him, Neil,” John said. “No way. Not Rocky.”
“Donna,” Neil said, “has John Regan ever made any untoward advances toward you or anything like that—ever?” Neil then explained about the accusations Rocky’s coworker had made, first asking them both for their confidentiality about the case.
“No, no . . .” Donna said.
For me, this idea that Rocky was my attacker came completely out of the blue. Rocky wasn’t someone I interacted with regularly, and he had never crossed my mind. Neil certainly got my attention, and I was troubled by what he was telling us. For one, why would Rocky attack his coworker? I knew there were two sides to every story, and I wondered what had happened. I tried to recall any past encounters with Rocky through the years that would raise concern, but there was nothing I could think of while sitting there talking with Neil. John was adamant that there was no way it could be Rocky. I wasn’t so sure, and it continued to nag at me. The more I thought about it, the more I began to think about Rocky differently. No one could be ruled out completely, and we told Neil to do whatever he had to do to find out if there was a connection.
There was a lull in the conversation. John got up and excused himself to use the restroom.
As Donna and Neil sat waiting for John to return, Donna said something to Neil that the WPD chief later said he’d never forget.
“You know, Neil, I don’t really want to say this in front of my husband,” Donna looked toward the bathroom to make sure John wasn’t coming back, “but sometimes, when Rocky looked at me, the way he did it, he gave me the creeps.”
Donna said she’d never told anyone about her feelings, especially John.
“I understand, Donna.”
When John sat back down, Neil explained that his officers were in the process of bringing Rocky in to question him about the incident with his coworker. And they were going to ask Rocky to consent to a DNA sample. That would prove or disprove his involvement in Donna’s case.
“I’ll call you guys as soon as I know anything.”
Neil left and radioed in to his people to serve the arrest warrant on John Regan.
After the meeting with Neil, John and Donna discussed what the chief had said. Neil wasn’t certain about Regan yet because they had not checked the DNA. As the Palombas waited to hear from Neil, John Palomba grew considerably agitated and impatient. He was certain that Neil, as much as John liked him and respected his law enforcement experience, was wrong.
“There was no way,” John said, “that Rocky could have done this to us.”
Rocky was a likable, social, “working man’s” man, friends said. He worked for a roofing company. He traveled a lot for work, which made Neil think that perhaps there were additional victims in other cities across New England, but anybody who knew the guy claimed he was a family man and “hands-on, dedicated” father, who took his role as a parent seriously. Is that the same type of person who could be a serial sexual offender?
That new roof Rocky had put on the Palombas’ old garage in their former neighborhood not long before Donna was raped had been more or less a friendly favor. John helped Rocky with the work. Soon after, John went down to Rocky’s house and helped him with the roof on his house. When they were finished, Donna and John had Rocky, his wife, and their kids over to the house for dinner to thank him.
After her attack, and especially after Donna and John had moved out of the neighborhood, Rocky and John didn’t see each other as often or talk on the phone as they used to. But John didn’t walk away without making attempts to carry on the friendship.
“I called him many times and wanted to go out for a walk one night or something. And I’d leave a message with his wife and he’d never call me back. I’d ask around, ‘What’s going on with Rocky?’”
For some reason, Rocky had stopped connecting with
John, severing the friendship.
Donna thought about it. Her mind was telling her not to rule Rocky out. She also recalled one time, long after the rape, when Rocky had visited at her parents’ cottage along the Connecticut shoreline. When he arrived, Donna walked out to greet him, giving Rocky one of her customary hugs she gave all her close friends. Rocky had lunch with them, enjoyed a few beers, and took a swim in Long Island Sound. John asked him where he had been lately and why he was being such a snob about returning phone calls, but he never really responded.
Can you imagine, Donna now considered, if this is the same man who attacked me?
She felt sick.
The days went by slowly for Donna. Rocky was brought in, charged with attempted assault on his female coworker, and bonded out. The community rallied around him, saying there was no way this family man, a hardworking husband and local son of a prominent dentist, could be responsible for what this woman had accused him of. Almost everyone in town believed she was making it up, probably hoping to file a lawsuit against the company and walk away with a payday.
The woman was then fired from the company for which she and Rocky worked.
When Neil’s officers had processed Rocky on the charges made by his coworker, they asked him if he’d be willing to hand over a voluntary DNA sample.
Rocky never flinched. He gave it up unconditionally.
This was not a good sign. If Rocky was Donna’s rapist, there was no doubt he would have paid attention to the newspapers and Donna’s story and would know that there was DNA available. If he was guilty, why give up the sample without a fight? Furthermore, with the money his family had, Rocky had hired one of the most expensive lawyers in the state. Why volunteer a sample if you had committed the crime?
It was the only time since that August day when Rocky allegedly attacked his female coworker that Neil O’Leary began to think Rocky Regan might not be his man.
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