The Man Behind the Mask

Sara James Correspondent • Profile

Waterbury, Conn. - Overlook is a lovely old neighborhood in Waterbury, a small town in Connecticut. It’s the kind of place where family ties run deep and friendships run long. Where the kids you play with in kindergarten are buddies for life.  A place where you sleep safe at night. Or so Donna Palomba thought—until one terrifying night in 1993.

911: “We have an assault, a sexual assault.”

Donna Palomba: I felt him cut my clothing with a knife. And then he flipped me over. 

Donna has been tormented by the memory of that violent attack ever since.  But what happened after the attack rocked her to her foundations.

Sara James, Dateline correspondent: Suddenly you were the one on trial?

Donna Palomba: Exactly.

When the police, the very people Donna turned to for help, suddenly turned on her—she was shattered. She fought back anonymously, as Jane Doe. Two years ago, she decided to go public — and tell her story to Dateline — using her real name. Donna Palomba was Jane Doe No More.

Donna Palomba:   I’m coming forward now because it’s time.

It took her almost fourteen years.  For most of those years, she was haunted by one question: who was the rapist—the man behind the mask?  To her, he was a monster. To some, a phantom. The answer, when it finally came, was almost too much to bear.

John Palomba: It was like ripping another piece of your heart away.

James:  You couldn’t believe it?

John Palomba: I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to.

Donna and John Palomba were caught up in a horror story they couldn’t have imagined when they met as college students in 1976.

Donna Palomba: At the University of Connecticut.  I was actually going to another college and I was up to visit a friend, a girlfriend. and we went to a party, and I met John.

Hometown girl meets hometown boy. They had a lot in common: both born and bred in Waterbury and both from large close-knit families: church-going and law-abiding. Donna and John went on to live out a love story: marriage in 1981. Two children. A home in Overlook, where John grew up, surrounded by family and friends.   He worked in the insurance business, she in marketing. By 1993, when Donna was 36, life was full.

Donna Palomba:   John and I were incredibly blessed. The children were young. And we were both busy with our careers as well.  But truly life centered around the children.

In September that year they planned a family vacation in Colorado—they’d go to the wedding of one of John’s close friends and take in the mountains. Then Donna decided she couldn’t leave the office.  

Donna Palomba: My partner was expecting his first baby on the day of the wedding.  Iwas needed at the agency but  I encouraged john to go. I sent him off with well wishes.

John Palomba:  She said “I know you’ve always wanted to go there  and they’re good friends of yours.” So I  flew out. 

He went reluctantly. Remarkably, in a dozen years of marriage, he and Donna had scarcely spent a night apart. And they’d certainly never taken separate vacations. But this was different.

John Palomba: I left Donna on a Wednesday morning and I was gonna come back on a Sunday afternoon, just kind of a long weekend. And that’s when everything happened.

But when Donna told the story of what happened—little did she know it would be challenged for years to come.  It was Friday September 10^th 1993 -- a long day. Donna went to work, then to the hospital to visit her partner’s new baby.  She couldn’t know then she would be admitted to the same hospital herself that night.

Donna Palomba:   Totally different circumstances. It was bizarre. 

After seeing the baby, Donna took her young son and daughter out for a concert and pizza   By the time they got home, she says, all three were beat. She put the kids to sleep and by 10:00pm she got into bed herself and fell sound asleep.

James: What’s the next thing you remember, Donna?

Donna Palomba: I remember hearing some footsteps. I was still not quite awake but thinking that doesn’t sound like little children’s bare feet.

She was lying on her stomach. She turned her head and looked up.

Donna Palomba:  There was a shadowy figure in my bedroom.

James: Did it occur to you at one moment, maybe John came home early?

Donna Palomba: No as soon as I was coming out of sleep, I realized that

NBC video 'Jane Doe' no more Donna Palomba talks about why she decided to come forward about her fight for justice against a rape committed against her years ago. Dateline NBC

something was terribly wrong.

But she says she had no time to react. The intruder, who was wearing a mask, was on her in an instant. She tried to fight him off. Clawing. Biting on a gloved hand.

James: You must have been terrified.

Donna Palomba:   I was absolutely terrified. It was surreal. I couldn’t believe I was in the middle of this.

Donna says he quickly overpowered her. Covered her head with a pillowcase, blindfolded her and tied her hands behind her back with pantyhose.  She says he told her to co-operate or she’d get hurt. She thought he was disguising his voice.

James: What happened then?

Donna Palomba:   He cut my clothing and he raped me.

Afterwards he asked for cash. She directed him to her pocketbook and she could hear him rummaging around.

Donna Palomba:   I was fortunate enough that I could speak and I said “I will never tell a soul. Please don’t hurt me.” So I begged for my life. 

Suddenly the rapist had a gun by her mouth.

Donna Palomba:   He moved the gun from my mouth and put it to my temple and I felt like my head was on fire. And I said out loud to God, “Dear god please absolve me of my sins.”

James: You thought you were gonna die.

Donna Palomba:   Yeah.

She says she imagined her children finding her body in the morning.

Donna Palomba:   And then he said, if you call the police, I’m gonna come back and kill you. And it was the first time that I thought I might live.

Again and again, Donna says, she told him she wouldn’t tell a soul. That she couldn’t identify him anyway. That this was just between them.

James: Did he leave then?

Donna Palomba: He said multiple times—he threatened that if I told the police, that he would kill me.  

And then  -- miraculously—he was gone. She says she heard him go down the stairs. Close the front door behind him.

James: It must have felt such a relief.

Donna Palomba: Oh my gosh, I was so incredibly grateful. When you come that close to death and you’re able to survive, I was just so incredibly grateful.

Donna managed to untie herself and pull the nylons off her eyes. And then she ran to the children’s bedrooms. 

Donna Palomba: I couldn’t get to them quick enough. I ran to my son’s room  and he was sleeping. Then I ran to my daughter’s room and she was sleeping. It was like there were angels watching over them.

She knew she had to get help. Back in her bedroom she grabbed a portable phone.  It was dead. She picked up the other phone.  It was dead too. It only took her an instant to realize the phone lines must have been cut.  Like most people in 1993, Donna didn’t have a cell-phone. How could she get help?

Donna Palomba: Do I wake the children? I couldn’t physically carry them. I didn’t want to certainly expose them to any danger, any more danger.

Donna checked the house, upstairs and down, to make sure the assailant was gone. Then, leaving the children in their rooms, she decided to run to a neighbor’s house.

Donna Palomba: I grabbed a single key from the kitchen and I put on a bathrobe and slippers and ran for help.

She says she went to the first house she saw with a light where she knew people.  John’s cousin Cliff Warner was home alone watching a movie. Cliff was stunned when he opened the door.

Cliff Warner, John Palomba's cousin: I saw the face of pure terror on that woman and it scared me. I knew there was trouble—there was something horribly wrong.

Donna Palomba: And he said “Donna, what happened?” and I was obviously in a state of shock at that point. I said, “I’ve been attacked. The guy left but he threatened to kill me if I called the police.  I don’t know what to do.” And he picked up the phone and called 911.

Cliff handed the phone to Donna and ran to get an ax—he was going to stand guard at Donna’s house to protect the sleeping children in case the attacker returned.

Warner:  I can remember running up the hill barefoot carrying an ax and saying to myself “this can’t be happening. Not to these people. Not in this neighborhood. Not now.”

Donna relived her nightmare on the phone for police.

911 call: I’m the victim.  He told me that if I called the police that he would be back to kill me.

She was terrified.

Donna Palomba: The gentleman that did this said...

Police: Do you know him?

Donna Palomba: What?

Police: Do you know the guy?

Donna Palomba: No. I don’t know him at all.

All she could think of were her children and his threats.

Donna Palomba: Listen, he told me that if I called the cops he would kill me. (crying) I don’t know what...

Police: He can’t kill you, you’re not there are you.

Donna Palomba: No...I begged him to keep me alive.  I felt something in my head.  It was a gun for sure.

Police: Do you think he had a gun?

Donna Palomba: Yes, I heard the metal clanging and he put it in my throat and then he put it in my head and then he put it ...(crying)

Police: The assailant may have a gun. She can’t give a description of him

Donna Palomba: Oh dear god in...

Police: OK, try to stay calm.

The police then gave Donna instructions that would prove to be crucial.

Police: Don’t change your clothes or anything.

Donna Palomba: I didn’t touch. I’m all ripped.

NBC video 'A big step' Donna Palomba, who was raped years ago, talks about discussing the decision to come forward with her family. Dateline NBC

Police: Don’t wash.

Donna Palomba: I didn’t.

But she was desperate to get back to her children.

Donna Palomba: Oh, my god. Oh my kids. I can’t believe it.

Police: OK, you’re doing good. just hang in there.

She stayed on the line until the police arrived, then handed the phone to one of the officers.  Something—the brutality of the attack or the raw fear in her voice—struck the cops that night.

But that sober judgment is about to be turned upside down.

John Palomba: I was standing in the school yard and her father shows up and says “John, you’re not going to believe this but the police say they’re going to arrest Donna.”

James:  Arrest your wife?

John Palomba: Yeah.

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