Jane Doe No More (23 page)

“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 opened 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 milling 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.