Donohue sentencing leaves unresolved his link to two other deaths
Two huge question marks still hung over Dennis P. Donohue on Monday as he was escorted out of Erie County Court after receiving the maximum sentence in the strangulation of Joan Giambra in her home 15 years ago.
Will he ever be brought to trial for a remarkably similar strangling, the 1975 killing of Carol Reed in her own home? Authorities have called him a “person of interest” in that case.
And will Donohue, perhaps by his own admission, ever reveal any involvement in the 1993 death of Crystallynn Girard? Donohue’s DNA was found at the scene, long after he was granted immunity in that case.
But Monday, the criminal justice system finally secured a lengthy sentence for Donohue, who had been convicted May 12 of second-degree murder in the September 1993 slaying of Giambra.
During sentencing, Erie County Judge Sheila A. DiTullio denounced Donohue as a “smart, cold-blooded murderer.”
With Donohue, 55, still proclaiming his innocence, the judge said she “did not agonize for a second” in imposing the maximum term of 25 years to life in prison.
That virtually is a life sentence for a man who has been mentioned prominently in three of the area’s most gruesome deaths.
Since finding the DNA link between Donohue and Giambra’s killing, investigators have talked about their frustrations in failing to prosecute the 1975 strangling of Reed.
“There are remarkable similarities between the Joan Giambra homicide and the Carol Reed homicide,” Deputy District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III said.
He and others have noted the “remarkably eerie” similarity of crime-scene photos in the two cases. Law enforcement officials have said Donohue was having an affair with Reed and lived in the same Delaware Avenue apartment building when she was strangled. And at a 1994 court hearing in another case, a defense attorney claimed investigators believed Donohue was the prime suspect in Reed’s murder.
But no eyewitnesses ever materialized, and authorities have said that police destroyed the physical and forensic evidence in the 1990s, as routinely was done in many other cases.
“Without an eyewitness, an admission or any forensic evidence, there’s not even enough evidence to get an indictment [against anyone in the Reed killing],” Sedita said.
Legal action in the Crystallynn Girard case is even less likely. Not only was Donohue given immunity, but autopsy reports also conflicted on the cause of the 13-year-old girl’s death: strangulation or a cocaine overdose.
Authorities apparently will have to be satisfied in the lengthy sentence against Donohue in the Giambra case.
Donohue has been in custody since his arrest last Sept. 17, after a Buffalo Police Cold Case investigation prompted by a request from Giambra’s now-adult daughter Kathleen.
At Monday’s sentencing, he calmly told the judge: “I did not kill this woman. I haven’t killed anybody.”
He also denied any “romance” with the victim, who was estranged from her second husband when she was killed in her Hillside Avenue home.
On Sept. 9, 1993 — Donohue’s 41st birthday— co-workers went to the home after the normally prompt 42-year-old woman failed to show up for duty at a food pantry.
They found 11-year-old Kathleen incoherent atop her mother’s naked body.
In court Monday, Donohue labeled television reports that aired even during jury selection in his trial as “so biased” as to be “borderline criminal.”
“I’m here because I got a back scratch” from Giambra at a bar 15 years ago, Donohue, who did not testify during his jury trial, calmly told the judge.
But Sedita and co-prosecutor Kristen A. St. Mary said DNA found under the victim’s fingernails proved Donohue had killed her.
During the sentencing, Don Cormier, the victim’s only son, spoke about how his “loving, caring” mother never got to see any of her five grandchildren. Turning in the courtroom to Donohue, Cormier added, “I don’t know how you can live with yourself. You deserve to be put to death.”
Joseph A. Agro, Donohue’s attorney, said the pending appeal will include the “media frenzy” that denied Donohue a fair trial.
Still contending that the real killer was Sam Giambra, the victim’s estranged second husband who had moved out of the Hillside Avenue house only two weeks before her murder, Agro told the judge “there’s a ways to go still” in this case before the higher courts.
Sam Giambra, an initial suspect who later was cleared, committed suicide eight years ago.
After Monday’s sentencing, Cormier stood with his sisters Kathleen and Jackie Giambra, both wearing T-shirts with their mother’s photo and her favorite saying, “Love you more.”
Speaking of Donohue, Cormier said, “no matter what they do to him” in prison, “it’s never going to bring my mother back.”
Kathleen Giambra, now the mother of two, said she was glad Donohue “can never hurt another person.”
mgryta@buffnews.com and gwarner@buffnews.com
