Jane Doe No More

Donna and John won their suit. But the rapist was still at large.  By 2004,  eleven years after Donna reported being attacked, the case was in the deep-freeze. Even so, Neil O’Leary couldn’t let go.

Detective Neil O’Leary: It was disturbing to me that we hadn’t solved it because I thought that it would vindicate the victim. And it would in fact get a very bad individual off the street.

O’Leary had weathered the divisions the case had caused in the Waterbury Police Department and moved up the ranks to Acting Police Chief.  He always kept a line open to Donna and John.   

John Palomba: Neil is the best. He never quit. And he always, always  would just keep us updated once in a while to let us know that “Hey, I’m still thinking of it, I’m still working on it.”

That summer although he couldn’t know it at the time, O’Leary was only weeks away from solving Donna’s case.  It began with an incident report  and a familiar name.  A 21-year-old woman  who worked for a local roofing company alleged that her supervisor had tried to sexually assault her.  As he read on, O’Leary couldn’t believe his eyes.

O’Leary: I immediately recognized the name of the supervisor because I knew him. And his name was John Regan.

O’Leary was shocked: the John Regan he knew came from a respected Waterbury family with deep roots in the city—there was even a school named after his grandfather. O’Leary couldn’t believe this was the same John Regan.

O’Leary: We are about the same age. We didn’t go to the same high schools together but we had the same circle of friends.

He knew that Regan was married and very much a family man.

The family is a very nice family and very prominent family in this city. The incident was still under investigation— no arrests had been made. O’Leary began digging.

O’Leary: I said, “Geez, there’s gotta be something to this. It’s not making any sense.”

The victim told police that she and Regan were out pricing roofing jobs, which was not unusual, when Regan decided to look in on his parents’ house. They were out of town and the house was empty.

O’Leary: Once inside the house, he asked her to sit on the sofa while he checked the house out. When he came back, he lunged at her on the sofa. And he started to make sexual advances towards her. She ran out of the house, losing a sneaker along the way.

Regan denied it. He told police she was making the whole thing up.

O’Leary: He admitted they were in the house together.  But he said, “Look this never happened. She’s mad at me. She doesn’t like me. You know she’s trying to ruin me. This just didn’t happen.”

Investigators didn’t buy that. 

O’Leary: How do you explain her running out of the house? Getting on a cell phone, losing a sneaker, hiding behind a building waiting for her boyfriend to pick her up and the police to arrive. And really after that, the conversation was over.  He wanted a lawyer.

A decision was made to pursue an arrest warrant for John Regan in connection with the incident.  But O’Leary knew the case was no slam dunk—no matter how credible the victim was.

James: The fact of the matter is, you’re still left with “he said, she said.”

O’Leary: Correct.

James: There’s no DNA. There’s no evidence. There’s no fluid.

O’Leary: No.

James: You’re left with a feeling.

O’Leary: And the feeling was from the victim who was again, very credible, very nice young woman who was devastated that a co-worker and someone that she knew would do this to her.

O’Leary couldn’t stop thinking about the case—and its impact on the Regan family. And then one night, as he was driving home, it hit him.

O’Leary: I remembered that the night of the Donna Palomba rape in September 1993, the stag that night.  The bachelor party was held for an individual who’s last name is Tegan.

James: John Regan?

O’Leary: John Regan’s cousin.

Could there possibly be a connection between this victim and a rape that happened 11 years ago, a rape that had confounded investigators? A rape that was flat-out of leads and had been for years? O’Leary’s pulse was pounding. A hunch was born, a classic detective’s hunch.

Murray: To connect these two cases—spanning a decade, that was quite a hunch he had.

It was an enormous leap to think that John Regan, known to his friends as Rocky, could be a suspect in Donna Palomba’s rape.   Even O’Leary couldn’t quite explain his thinking.

O’Leary: It was just the way he was involved in the incident of 2004. The way that happened. He knew the victim. I just had this feeling.

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