neil o'leary hadn't forgotten about her case, but he hadn't solved it either. case basically went cold, except for the fact that i would check in with them periodically and let them know that we were still looking at anything even remotely close, you know, any sexual assault, any burglaries that might be similar. so did you think that this would ever get solved? johnny palomba: no. it might have been solved, but i just think the window closed. the only thing that i had hope for was they had dna. so if the person did it again and they got dna, then they could tie it in. that gave me hope. i didn't honestly think about it every day that they're going to catch this guy, but i did know that there was dna evidence. and i did understand at that point, the power of dna. andrea canning: meanwhile, everyone had moved on. donna's marketing business was thriving. sarah was attending college. johnny was in high school. and neil o'leary had weathered the divisions in the waterbury police department to become acting chief. then one day, he was going through case reports when

neil o'leary was then, one of waterbury's crack detectives.y, o'leary took over donna's case. neil was a good cop. he was a good cop. he knew right away that this case was mishandled. and he wasn't afraid to tell us that. and he was afraid to say it either. andrea canning: o'leary knew it would be a huge challenge to find donna's attacker because so much time had passed. witnesses disappear. memories disappear. evidence disappears. but, you know, we started as if it happened the night before, and we canvassed the neighborhood, and we interviewed witnesses. andrea canning: o'leary listened to donna's 911 call again and again. did this sound sincere to you? at that time, i was a police officer for 13 years, and i was-- 10 of those years, i did nothing but major crimes. and i heard a lot of and listened to a lot of 911 tapes. i thought it was agonizing, terrifying. i could feel her fear through the phone. and it still bothers me terribly that she, first of all, went through that ordeal, but that the officers didn't understand and didn't feel the