A look back at the killings that shook Fairfield A look back at the killings that shook Fairfield

Kim and Tim Donnelly were murdered at their jewelery store in Fairfield, Conn. Wednesday Feb. 2, 2005. Kim and Tim Donnelly were murdered at their jewelery store in Fairfield, Conn. Wednesday Feb. 2, 2005. Photo: Contributed Photo Photo: Contributed Photo Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close A look back at the killings that shook Fairfield 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

The following narrative is culled from interviews, police reports, court documents, court testimony and prior media reports.

BRIDGEPORT -- Kim and Tim Donnelly, Christopher DiMeo and Nicole Pearce. Two very diverse couples on a collision course.

One couple, DiMeo and Pearce, were on the hunt to support their $300-a-day drug habit. The Donnellys, of Fairfield, were devoted to family, friends and community. On the evening of Feb. 2, 2005, their worlds collided and ended in bullets and death in the Donnellys' Post Road jewelry store.

DiMeo, accused of coldly gunning down the Donnellys, is facing a trial this week that could lead to him getting the death penalty. Pearce now faces a lengthy prison term.

These two couples could not have been more opposite.

Kim and Tim Donnelly, both 52, were popular in the Fairfield community for their warmth, generosity and even naïvete. They were high school sweethearts, married at 21, taking over the longtime jewelry business started by Kim Donnelly's father, Donald Wickert. They treated their steady customers like family and created individualized Celtic-style jewelry for fellow members of the local Gaelic-American Club.

After their two children, Tara and Eric, were born, Kim Donnelly went to work in the finance department at Fairfield University to earn more money for the family while her husband continued to run the jewelry store. When their children graduated from Fairfield University, Kim Donnelly returned to work full time with her husband in the store.

Steeped in community and family in the quiet, affluent town of Fairfield, it was almost like the couple couldn't even envision that someone like DiMeo could exist, never protecting themselves or their jewelry store on the Post Road with a good security system.

A TROUBLED LIFE

DiMeo, according to the arguments of his lawyers, was living a much different life. He appeared doomed from the beginning.

More Information The following narrative is culled from interviews, police reports, court documents, court testimony and prior media reports.

He was born in 1981 on the North Shore of Long Island to drug-addicted parents who fought constantly. His father, who walked out when DiMeo was a toddler, was later arrested for armed robbery in Florida and ended up dying in Iowa in 2002, a penniless drifter. His mother, Maryann Taylor-Casey, was often strung out on drugs. She lived off a number of boyfriends and government assistance, leaving a young DiMeo with a number of different relatives.

DiMeo developed a drug habit of his own in high school, which he supported with petty thefts. In 2002 he was sentenced to three years in prison for burglarizing a home and a store. After his release, he went to live with his grandparents in the San Diego area.

It was in San Diego that DiMeo met Pearce, a drug addict who was on parole herself for a burglary conviction.

In October 2004, two weeks after DiMeo and Pearce met, DiMeo stole his grandmother's Honda Passport sport utility vehicle and the couple headed east.

DiMeo and Pearce initially lived with DiMeo's mother in Hicksville, N.Y., where the three of them spent much of the day high on heroin. DiMeo attempted to support their drug habit by selling heroin. As their addictions increased -- mainly because Pearce said the heroin they obtained in New York was not as powerful as the heroin they got in California -- DiMeo looked to other means of support.

A VIOLENT PATH

On Nov. 30, 2004, police said DiMeo broke into a home on Havemeyer Lane in Greenwich while Pearce waited in an SUV. Among the items he took from the home was a .40-caliber Heckler & Koch pistol.

A week later, armed with the stolen pistol, DiMeo walked into Robert's Jewelers in Westbury, N.Y., to attempt his first jewelry store robbery. But he hadn't planned it out.

After getting the proprietor to turn over jewelry to him at gunpoint, DiMeo tried to leave, only to find he had been locked inside by the store's security system. He threatened to kill the proprietor unless he let him out. DiMeo was also captured on the store's security camera.

The robbery provided a valuable lesson for DiMeo. Before his second robbery on Dec. 21, 2004, at J&J Jewelers in Glen Head, N.Y., he had his mother and Pearce case the store for him first to ensure it didn't have the same type of security system as Robert's in Westbury.

The store, owned by Thomas Renison, a 48-year-old father of two, had no surveillance cameras and limited security.

DiMeo made his move.

After waiting outside a small convenience store so he could make sure there were no customers in the jewelry store, DiMeo walked in and began chatting with Renison.

DiMeo said he was thinking of getting an engagement ring for his girlfriend and Renison was only too happy to show him what he had in the display case.

Then, police said, DiMeo pulled out the gun.

Renison would end up dead on the floor of the store, shot several times in the chest.

DiMeo would later tell police that Renison made a grab for DiMeo's gun, at which time DiMeo claims he blacked out. It is the same defense he would later use in the Donnelly killings. However, as in the Donnelly case, Long Island police said DiMeo's claim of Renison making a grab for DiMeo's gun is not supported by the physical evidence at the scene.

After the murder, DiMeo fled in the stolen SUV with Pearce and his mother.

A month later, on Jan. 26, 2005, the money gone from the Renison murder-robbery, DiMeo decided to hit another jewelry store. This time his target was the Rockland Jewelry Center in Nanuet, N.Y.

He walked into the store and began his usual exchange with a female employee. He was dismayed to see that there were no stones in any of the engagement rings in the display case. He then produced his gun and fled with about $100,000 worth of jewelry.

Asked later by police why he hadn't killed the female clerk, DiMeo calmly stated that she hadn't given him a reason.

With New York police on a manhunt for him, DiMeo decided to extend his crime area to Connecticut.

On Feb. 1, 2005, DiMeo and Pearce drove around looking for their next target. Pearce had a copy of the Fairfield County Yellow Pages opened to jewelry stores on her lap.

SCOPING OUT THE TARGET

After checking out several stores in the area the couple narrowed their possible targets to three on the Post Road in Fairfield.

Pearce went into the stores checking to see how many employees worked in each and whether the stores had surveillance cameras and other security. Each time she would come back to the SUV and sketch out the interior of the store on a small piece of paper from memory. Only the Donnelly store, at 1438 Post Road, met DiMeo's criteria.

There wasn't a lot of foot traffic by the store, customers did not have to be buzzed inside and there were no surveillance cameras. The husband and wife were the only ones inside.

The morning of the planned robbery, DiMeo seemed nervous. He shot up 10 bags of heroin to calm his nerves and Pearce did about half that.

That afternoon, DiMeo and Pearce drove to Fairfield from their apartment in the Richmond Hill section of Queens, N.Y. A short distance from the Donnelly store, Pearce begged DiMeo to pull over. The day before, while casing the store, Pearce briefly chatted with the Donnellys, and they seemed like a nice couple. She was now afraid DiMeo would end up killing one or both of them, and she didn't want any part of it. So she convinced him to drop her off at the train station. She would wait for him back at their Queens apartment.

It was about 5 p.m. when DiMeo, now alone, pulled up near the Donnellys' store. He feigned interest in the windows of the adjoining stores while keeping an eye on the Donnellys, who were preparing to close up for the evening.

When DiMeo walked into the store Tim Donnelly had the safe open, preparing to put away items from the display cases.

DiMeo told him he wanted to see some engagement rings and that he was thinking of getting one for his girlfriend. Tim Donnelly began showing him some rings. But DiMeo changed his mind. Maybe he wasn't ready for an engagement ring, how about a nice bracelet? Kim Donnelly offered to show him some really nice ones and DiMeo asked her to try one on so he could see how it looked on a woman's wrist.

As the couple moved up toward the counter DiMeo pulled the gun out of the gray plastic bag he was holding.

Tim Donnelly was shot first. Five .40-caliber bullets entered his body, including one dead center to his chest.

His wife screamed and reached for the telephone. She was shot five times, including once in the back.

William "Liam" Burke, the Donnellys' landlord and friend, had been working that evening sorting through files in his father's law office above the Donnellys' store when he heard the gunshots and Kim Donnelly's screams.

He ran down the stairs to the street and walked back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the building looking for the source of the screams. But he saw no activity in the street. Then his attention focused on the Donnellys' store.

A man, who he didn't recognize, appeared to be putting items from the display counter into a gray or silver shopping bag. As Burke stared into the store through the window the man glanced up. Seeing Burke standing there, DiMeo waved to him. Burke assumed the man was a relative of the Donnellys. His assumption appeared to be corroborated a few minutes later as the man walked out of the store.

"I'm da uncle," DiMeo responded in a New York accent to Burke's unasked question.

But Burke became suspicious when the man didn't lock the door behind him. He went into the store and found Tim Donnelly's body. He ran back to his office and called police.

When Fairfield Police Sgt. Thomas Mrozek arrived on the scene, he found Tim Donnelly lying on his back on the floor behind the counter. There was a large pool of coagulated blood along the left side of his body. Mrozek checked Donnelly's neck but could not detect a pulse. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Nearby, Officer James Chueka discovered Kim Donnelly. She was lying in a fetal position, unconscious but still breathing. She had a weak pulse.

EMTs dragged her into the center of the room and began performing CPR. She was taken to Bridgeport Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 6:34 p.m.

When DiMeo returned to the apartment in New York, Pearce said he appeared agitated.

"It didn't go good," she would later recall him saying. They both injected heroin and went to sleep.

DiMeo would later tell police that Tim Donnelly had made a grab for his gun and then he blacked out. He claimed he didn't know he killed the couple until he saw a report about the murders on the TV news.

ON THE RUN

Police from both New York and Connecticut now hot on his trail, DiMeo suggested to Pearce that they go on a little vacation to Atlantic City. He left the SUV on a street in Brooklyn where police would later find the gun used in both the Donnelly and Renison killings. They sold the jewelry to a fence for $7,000, then used the money to buy heroin.

In New Jersey, they checked into the Ascot Motel, a budget motel about one block from the Atlantic City Police Department.

On the evening of Feb. 3, 2005, as police began to close in on their search, DiMeo and Pearce shot up some heroin, then went to gamble at one of the casinos. When they returned to their motel room several hours later, they injected heroin again and went to sleep.

The next morning, Pearce woke up first. She got up quietly to avoid waking DiMeo, dressed and left the room, heading for the lobby to pay their bill. But a cadre of police, wearing bullet-proof vests and carrying assault rifles, were waiting for her and quickly took her into custody.

They held her across the street, peppering her with questions about DiMeo and whether or not he had a gun. Police lined the hall leading to DiMeo's room, demanding he come out. After a standoff that lasted hours, he finally agreed to surrender.

Later, DiMeo chomped on a McDonald's Happy Meal hamburger -- standard fare for all prisoners at the Atlantic City Police Department --while police from the different departments lined up for their chance to talk to him.

DiMeo agreed to be taken back to New York-- which has no death penalty-- to be tried for the crimes there, but he fought extradition to Connecticut, which does have the death penalty.

In July 2005, DiMeo pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and robbery charges for the death of Renison. He also pleaded guilty to robbery charges for the other two N.Y. jewelry store thefts. He was sentenced to a life term.

Pearce pleaded guilty to participating in the Renison robbery and was sentenced to 20 years. DiMeo's mother received a 15-year prison term for being the getaway driver.

Pearce agreed immediately to be brought to Connecticut for prosecution, but DiMeo continued to fight extradition all the way up the line of New York courts.

In March 2007, the New York State Court of Appeals denied DiMeo's final appeal to stay in that state and he was immediately whisked to Connecticut.