Jane Doe No More (30 page)

The deposition process was long, frustrating, and labor intensive. Most of the depositions were done at Maureen’s office, and most of the time John would accompany me. Maureen’s partner Bob would join us for some of them. My stomach would do flips when officers would lie and I had to sit there without being able to speak. Eventually, I resolved myself to the process and would try my best to focus on what was being said and take notes to review with Maureen afterward. I knew that if we were to build a strong case that this was a necessary evil, and it gave us invaluable insight as to where they were coming from. It truly split the lines and showed for the first time exactly where everyone involved stood.

The biggest shock to Donna and John during the deposition process came when Detective Lou Cote stepped into Maureen’s office, sat down, took his oath, and then began talking about his role in the investigation and his thoughts about how the case had been handled. John remembered his earlier conversation with Lou and how Lou had expressed his disappointment with the Morans and how things had been handled.

Would Cote stand behind those words?

It was now September 29, 1995, just over two years since Donna’s assault. Cote began by telling the lawyers exactly what Donna had relayed to him about her attack. Cote’s version was pretty much on par with what Donna had said in her first interview. It was obvious Cote had gone through the report (or some sort of notes) to prepare for the deposition.

The first surprise for Donna came when Maureen asked Cote, “After you reviewed the initial report and spoke with [Donna] and got her statement, and did whatever else that you did   . . . was it your belief that [she] had been sexually assaulted on September 11, 1993?”

Cote seemed stunned by the question, asking, “After I did that?”

“Yes.”

“At that time, I had no opinion.”

When asked if Cote thought the information provided by Maria Cappella (at the time) was relevant to Donna’s case, Cote answered, “Yes.”

Then Maureen raised the question of whether Cote had placed Maria Cappella’s statement into Donna’s file. This had been a point of contention. The “talk” Cote had with Maria—he would not call it a statement—had been missing. No one seemed to know where it went.

“Did you place that statement into [Donna’s] file?” Maureen asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I did the report, and I laid it on Lieutenant Moran’s desk, which is what, you know, is normal procedures, because he reviews the report. And then it is placed in the file.
I
don’t place it in the file.”

Cote admitted he “had no knowledge” of Moran placing that specific report into Donna’s file.

The detective went on to say that there came a time when he disbelieved Donna had been sexually assaulted. It began, Cote testified, when he reread Donna’s statement. Her story began to fall apart for Cote there. From the way Donna reacted to an intruder coming down the hallway toward her bedroom, to how she had claimed that, with a pillowcase covering her head, she was still able to discern that the attacker had gone through her drawers, tossing clothes on the floor, looking for money and jewelry and even a set of panty hose to tie her up. This didn’t add up for the detective after he thought about it; he couldn’t fathom how someone could see well enough through a pillowcase to come to those determinations.

Certainly it would have been easy to figure all this out after going back into the house and seeing the clothing all over the floor. And Donna had gone back up to the bedroom after her attack.

Then, Cote said, it was the gun being placed on the floor. This particular statement by Donna made Cote think that perhaps she had been making up the story as she went along.

“If it was a gun,” Cote said, “by laying it on the floor, you are
not
going to know if it is metal. That gun is solid. It is not going to ring. It is not going to make a metal sound if it’s a solid item.”

Cote never said whether the WPD conducted its own test, placing a gun on Donna’s floor to see if it was the least bit possible to recognize, with your eyes closed, as a gun. The WPD, in fact, never reenacted Donna’s attack; they merely assumed the metal gun would not “ring” against the wood floor.

Maureen never pressed Cote on the issue, but any seasoned investigator would have done a simple reenactment to see if it was possible.

What truly got Cote to think that Donna was lying turned out to be Donna’s behavior.

“And another thing,” he said, not making eye contact with Donna or John. “When a victim goes through a very serious trauma, as this would be called, it is known that the brain has a mechanism that shuts down.” Donna sat, listening in total disbelief to what this man was saying. She had always considered Cote an ally, someone who believed in her. Cote had even walked up to John at that stag party last year and told him he would testify against the Morans; he said he was backing Donna all the way and didn’t agree with the way she had been treated. Now this?

“It is called a release valve,” Cote added, describing the part of the brain that shuts down during a traumatic situation. “And it blocks out certain episodes of the crime. You don’t remember. You may never remember them. A year later you may. A month later. You don’t know. It may never come back.”

He was suggesting that Donna had given the WPD
too
many details about her attack; she had recalled
too
much! Donna was being judged on her memory now.

Donna had a hard time controlling her emotions while listening.


Here’s the thing about Lou Cote: He [nor Doug Moran] ever bothered to even step foot inside my home. The most Moran did was take photos of the outside of our home. Yes, I did think that if they had had so many questions, why didn’t they bother to explore each of them further? During Cote’s deposition I felt incredibly betrayed that this detective who looked John and me in the eyes and shook our hands and appeared sincere had suddenly turned on us. What kind of person does that? I felt sorry for him. It was pathetic.

For perhaps the first time, the following idea was considered: If Donna had been lying, making up this elaborate story to cover for herself and her lover, why wouldn’t she smash a window, cut a screen, or somehow make it look like her intruder had forced his way into the house? Why, if she had given the WPD so many details, so many specifics of that night that they thought it odd, would she not cover up her crime in some staged way? Most falsified claims of break-ins, sexual assaults, and other crimes include some tangible, hard evidence of falsification: a story that just doesn’t line up, a window broken from the inside out, maybe a timeline discrepancy. There was none of that in Donna’s case.

“No,” Cote said, he did not find anything Donna did in the beginning unusual.

“Are you aware that [the victim] suffered a scratched cornea as a result,” Maureen said rather bluntly, maintaining her argument that had Donna made all this up, she would have had to scratch her own eye—a very serious, potentially blinding injury.

“Yes,” Cote said. “I believe that was in her statement.”

“How do you think that was inflicted?”

“I would have to see the medical [reports] and talk to her doctor on that, because I don’t know what kind of an injury that was inflicted.”

“Don’t you think before you made a determination such as this, you should have talked to the doctor?”

“This case was taken away from me. I am telling you . . . You asked my opinion. And I am giving you my
opinion.
”

Donna looked at John.

Unbelievable
.

The Moran brothers had gotten to Cote, they believed. He was playing it safe. Protecting his job, perhaps.

Further along into Cote’s deposition, during what became almost an hour of a back-and-forth between Cote and Donna’s attorney, she asked, “Did you ever hear that Lieutenant Moran taped the conversation . . .?”

“I don’t know nothing about no tapes,” Cote said.

Maureen pressed.

Cote stood his ground, and it was clear where his loyalty remained: “I don’t know anything about the tapes. The tapes have never been discussed with me. I have never heard it. I have no knowledge of the tapes. I don’t know about tapes . . .”

After several more questions regarding whether Cote had an opinion as to why he was taken off the case, Maureen concluded her questioning.

As he left the room, Donna sat hurt and confused by what she had heard.