Jane Doe No More (11 page)

As they approached the door leading to what was one of the WPD’s interrogation rooms, Moran hesitated. They stopped. Moran turned to Donna and said, “When I investigate something, I just want you to know, I stop at
nothing
.”

“That’s great! I’m really glad,” Donna replied. “I really want you to get to the bottom of this.”

Moran had Donna sit directly opposite and in front of him, like a suspect. He folded his arms over his chest. Moran had what Donna viewed as a look of complete arrogance. He definitely had something to share, but was withholding it for some reason—the cat with the canary in its mouth.

There was a tape recorder sitting between them on the small desk. Moran leaned over and pressed P
LAY
and R
ECORD
. He did not ask Donna if he could record the conversation.

This action confused Donna. She wondered why Moran would need to record a conversation with her. Maybe it was standard procedure?

If that wasn’t enough, what Moran did next threw Donna into utter disbelief.

The lieutenant pulled out a folded piece of white paper. Clearing his voice first, he began: “You have the right to remain silent . . .” and concluded by reading Donna the Miranda rights warning.

“What are you doing?” Donna asked. “Detective Cote never did anything like this.”

“This is the way
I
am handling the case,” Moran said.

Donna ignored the comment and began her story about Jeff. As she talked through what had happened to Maria, detail by detail, Moran looked around the room as if he could not have cared one bit about what she was telling him.

“He rolled his eyes at me,” Donna said later, “and at what I was telling him.”

Donna quickly decided that Moran was “disinterested” in her story about Jeff, and that Moran had his own agenda for what was—Donna would realize in the coming days—a well-planned interrogation.

After finishing her story about Jeff, Donna took a breath and sat back, hoping to get some sort of response from Moran. Maybe the whole Miranda rights reading was a test to see if she would just drop the whole case and all the associated police work.

“A lot more information is now known about your case,” Moran said. He stared at Donna. “The suspect you have talked about here is, in fact,
not
a suspect, Mrs. Palomba. I
have
a suspect!”

“Great,” she said with sense of relief. “You have a suspect?”

“Yes, I do.”

Donna nearly cried. This was it. They had found someone. Finally.

“Can you tell me who it is?” she asked.

“No.”

“Is it a family member?” Donna thought it might be someone close to her if Moran felt he couldn’t tell her.

Moran didn’t answer.

“Am I in danger . . . is it someone I come in contact with that I should be aware of?” Donna was growing increasingly concerned. She couldn’t walk out of there not knowing if her attacker was someone in her life. It seemed incredible that Moran would hold back such a potentially lifesaving piece of information.

The lieutenant looked at Donna with skepticism; she felt the disdain he had for her, a complete lack of empathy for her situation. It was surreal. She was a rape victim, and yet the police officer designated to arrest her assailant was turning the tables—and for what reason?

After a period of silence, Moran said, “Oh, I don’t think so.”

“Can you
please,
Lieutenant Moran, give me some more information about what was found out?” Donna was desperate, pleading.

“Why don’t
you
tell
me
!” Moran snapped angrily.

“What?” Donna had no idea what he was talking about.

Before she could respond further, Moran broke into a story. “Today is a sad day, Mrs. Palomba. You know why? I have to go to court this afternoon . . . and there’s this woman who did nothing wrong in her past but just happened to tell a white lie, and consequently she is losing her kids to the Department of Child and Youth Services and she is going to be convicted and go to jail.”

Donna didn’t pick up immediately on Moran’s incredibly arrogant way of sending her a message. He was intimidating her, trying to scare her into telling what he presumed to be the truth of what had happened.

“That’s too bad,” Donna said. “And really sad. But it is unfortunate she lied in the first place.”

“Is there anything you’d like to tell me, Mrs. Palomba?” Moran asked. He stared at her again.

“Like what?”

“Like what
really
happened that night.”

“I’ve told you everything I can remember.”

“I have proof that you purposely lied to us—countless interviews and photographs.”

Donna, growing increasingly distressed by Moran’s constant badgering, raised her right hand, as if testifying: “I swear to God the statement I gave was how I remembered it happening. If there were certain details that got mixed up it was because it was a traumatic situation and
I
may have gotten mixed up.” She was asking for a little slack here. A man had broken into her home and raped her. Where was the sympathy?

“Oh, it’s not the details that I am talking about here. Mrs. Palomba, you are a prominent person. You have a husband, two beautiful children, a business . . . please don’t throw all that away.”

“You’re scaring me,” Donna said, now in tears. “What are you talking about, Lieutenant?”

Moran shifted a bit in his seat. He settled, then replied: “Look, Mrs. Palomba, if you tell me what really happened, it will stay here right in this room confidentially”—he pointed down with an index finger on the table—“and I will keep this tape in a drawer . . .”

Donna’s jaw dropped. She could not believe what she was hearing.

“If not,” Moran said after a long pause, “I’ll have to arrest you.”

“At this point,” Donna said later, “I became . . . weak, dizzy, nervous, disoriented.”

And this was only the beginning. What Moran was about to say next would shatter Donna.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

Your Lies Won’t Leave Me Alone

The accusation that Lieutenant Douglas Moran made against Donna—that she had yet to tell the real story of her alleged rape—combined with his threat of arrest completely blindsided her. What had she done wrong? What did they know that she didn’t? Moran was calling Donna a liar. That was clear enough. He had made up his mind about her. What worried Donna more than anything was that if Moran was accusing her of being a liar, it meant her case was not being investigated. Her attacker was free to go about his business. The police were not searching for him. Crucial time was being lost.

Donna sat, stunned, thoughts racing through her mind. If she had been lying about that night, how could Moran account for the semen and pet hair and saliva, not to mention her scratched cornea? What was her motive for telling such an incredible untruth as a home invasion and rape? Had she scratched her own eye? Had she left her kids alone in the house and run to a neighbor’s to begin constructing an elaborate fabrication?

Moran was about to address Donna’s questions as the interrogation continued.

I felt like my heart was beating outside of my chest. I just could not believe this police officer was sitting across from me, turning the tables, and not willing to listen to one bit of information I was giving him about Jeff Martinez. Moran had totally disregarded my sister’s account of what Jeff had done to her. As Moran continued, I became nauseous, the room started to spin . . .
There’s no way this can be happening. Blame the victim?
I could not get over how this was becoming my reality, and had no idea how much worse it would get. I kept thinking about what Moran was sitting there saying: What photographs? What interviews? What is this guy talking about? I am being blamed for falsely reporting a rape, and I have no idea where it’s coming from.

“You will not only be arrested,” Moran said as Donna continued to cry, “but you will go to jail and your children will be taken away from you and dragged through the courts.”

“What?” Donna felt like fainting, but was able to regain a small bit of her composure. “Look, Lieutenant, there is something very wrong in the information you have . . .” Donna pleaded with Moran to believe her. There must be some mistake, she kept saying.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Moran continued, not letting up. “I have one hundred percent positive proof or I could not sit here and do this to you. I have spent many hours, as well as other officers . . . there are countless interviews—and I have rock solid evidence. Me, my team, and my captain are all in agreement on this.”

On what?
Donna wondered.

At some point the tape ran out, and Moran told Donna to hold on so he could flip the tape over and begin recording again. She watched him do this.

Donna felt so weak at this point, her body so incredibly numb and gummy, as if at any moment she would fall over, or collapse and melt off the chair.

Had someone planted something? Was someone setting me up? Why would someone frame me?

“You’re going to be arrested, Mrs. Palomba,” Moran said.

With that threat looming, Donna asked, “What should I do?”

“Tell me the truth!” Moran said, his voice growing loud and more intimidating. “Tell me what happened.”

“I told you exactly what happened. This is what I recall happening.”

“Fine,” Moran snapped. “Then there is nothing left to talk about. You are going to be arrested, and you are going to jail.”

Waterbury, the “Brass City,” was my home. Waking every morning, I didn’t have to go far to look out and see the immense white cross standing tall over the city from its place perched high atop a cliff just off the busy interstate. Holy Land, USA. Years ago it was a tourist trap and, although closed, is still a focal point today. People would flock to the cross located amidst two scaled-down replica cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. It was that fifty-foot-tall cross that I took with me every morning. There it stood, obvious and marvelous, towering over my shoulder as a comforting and divine shadow. At any time of the day, I could look up and get lost in this enormous symbol of suffering. It reminded me of who we were and why we were here; and became a reflection, honestly, of our lives, what we believed, how grateful for life I was, and how personal the Catholic sacraments I took so much pride in living were to my way of life. At one time fifty thousand people a year came from all over the world to stand at the cross and visit these “holy” cities; but we had it right here, overseeing our lives like a halo, staring down into our close-knit, seemingly trouble-free world. It prompted us to consider that the only expectation of a Christian was to follow the moral compass you absorbed growing up as a child of God; it would guide you through life. And if I allowed that to happen, I was certain, happily-ever-after would be the postscript to my life with John and the kids.