Jane Doe No More (40 page)

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.

Neil was personally keeping an eye on things. He called the lab and told them to put a rush on the DNA sample from Rocky. Donna had waited long enough. There was no sense, if it was negative, that she should be put through any additional agony.

“It was odd for me to be involved in this case,” Neil later said, “so inherently, yes, because I was chief of police; but, on the other hand, no, it was not so surprising because this had been my case since 1994.”

In early October 2004, a few months after Regan’s DNA sample had been submitted, Neil took a call from the lab.

CHAPTER
TWENTY
-
SIX

Reality Check

Neil contacted Donna at her office on October 20, 2004, a Wednesday.

Donna was busy. She had a lot on her mind. After being on the board of the Business Women’s Forum for a few years, Donna had taken on the position of chairwoman. When Neil called, Donna was rereading a speech she had written for a conference the following day. It was slated to be a large-scale event, with famed money woman Suzy Orman scheduled to give the keynote address. Donna explained to Neil that now was probably not the best time to talk.

Neil sounded passive on the phone. It was a surreal feeling for the seasoned investigator: here he was delivering good news and bad news at the same time.

“I have some news I need to share with you and John.”

Donna’s “head started to spin,” she later recalled.

“Neil, could it wait another day? Like can we meet on Friday?”

Neil hesitated. He thought about it.

“Sure, Donna.”

I couldn’t go there, not then. We made arrangements for John and me to meet Neil in his office on Friday morning. I got through the conference. It was a busy, exciting day, and I had a lot to do. Still, I had flashes of what was ahead. It was as if my two worlds were colliding. Chairing this annual conference with hundreds of attendees was now competing with the news I had been waiting for all these years. The business executive in me had to hold it together for one more day. I knew that Neil wouldn’t be calling me into his office, telling me to bring John, if he did not have new information. Those DNA results, we both knew without saying, had come in.