Crime Immemorial

At around midnight, police officers spotted Danyese’s red 1989 Chevy Cavalier in the parking lot of the post office, its headlights and right turn signal on, the windows down, and the doors wide open. There was no sign of Danyese or her purse anywhere in or around the vehicle.

Authorities went to her home to ask her husband Daniel if he knew where she might be. He was very concerned, as it was out of character for his wife to not come right home after work. At two a.m., the car was regarded as abandoned, and a missing persons investigation was launched.

At eleven-thirty a.m. on the 24th, a pile of Danyese’s clothing was found in a field a few yards away from a doctor’s office. The location lay about half a mile from the victim’s car, and as the search fanned out, Danyese’s body was discovered near the tree line in the same field.

Danyese was clad only in a trench coat and her underwear, and she had been shot once in the head at close range. A shell casing from a .9mm Luger was recovered not far from the body. Also discovered nearby was a mysterious gold ring, thought to belong to the killer.

There was no clear indication she’d been raped, and it appeared from the fiber evidence that she had undressed herself. There also didn’t seem to be any signs of a struggle. This could suggest that either Danyese had known her killer and had engaged in sexual activity with him willingly, or that he had forced her to comply at gunpoint.

Very early on, Danyese’s husband Daniel was considered the main suspect, especially after it came to light that Danyese had been having an affair. Daniel submitted to a polygraph test, which he passed, and gave a sample of his DNA, which did not match the unknown male DNA recovered from the scene.

Daniel admitted that being a suspect caused him a great deal of emotional turmoil, and in 2003 he actually kicked Danyese’s tombstone and broke a piece of it, earning him probation, a small fine, and community service. In some people’s eyes, this stunt made him look guilty, but he was eventually cleared by police and has been diligent in aiding the investigation ever since.

Another intriguing person of interest was one of Danyese’s co-workers, an x-ray technician named Ralph Vanucci. He told detectives that he and Danyese had been very flirtatious with one another at work, and that Danyese had told him that her marriage was “tumultuous.” She had also confessed to him about her affair.

Vanucci stated that he had actually tried to kiss Danyese, but she had rebuffed his advances, which he claimed was very embarrassing for him. Though this seemingly gave him a motive for murder, investigators found him very honest and helpful, and as his DNA also did not match that found at the scene, he was likewise dismissed as a suspect. The man with whom Danyese had been having the affair was also tested and cleared.

In 2019, authorities announced that they were retesting the DNA evidence from Danyese’s clothing in the hopes of solving the case. Though the sample they had was not enough to be submitted to CODIS or genealogy databases, it would be sufficient to match to a suspect. The investigation remains open.