‘The sweetest, nicest . . . ‘

Last Friday, Christopher DiMeo, 23, was taken into custody by police, who believe he robbed and killed the Donnellys after disarming them with small talk of looking for an engagement ring for his girlfriend. He was apprehended two days after the Donnellys’ murder, in Atlantic City.
Days after the tragedy, residents of Fairfield and members of its vibrant Irish-American community were still trying to come to grips with the enormity of the murders and to appreciate the contributions the Donnellys had made to their lives.
The Rev. Lawrence Carroll, who officiated, estimated that a 1,000 mourners gathered for the couple’s funeral at St. Augustine’s Cathedral in Bridgeport. Speakers were set out on the lawn for the overflow crowd. The night before, an estimated 1,200 people paid their respects to the families at Larson’s Funeral Home in Bridgeport, some off whom waited for up to three hours.
“The support was a gift in the face of such tragedy,” said Carroll, who grew up with Tim Donnelly. He added that the two bonded over their large families and shared Irish heritage.

A big small town
Hailed as an unassuming and hardworking pair, the Donnellys had two children, Tara, 23, and Eric, 26, who accepted condolences outside their parents’ store in the days immediately following the murders.
Fairfield, an hour’s drive up the Connecticut coast from New York City, has a population of 50,000 but retains its small-town feel. There hadn’t been a murder there in a decade, and word of the double homicide traveled quickly.
Almost as fast, the tributes poured in. The Donnellys were high school sweethearts who married young, with little money but plenty of hope. Tim was one of 10 children, and his family was well known in the area.
While close friends and family told the story of the Donnellys, who opened their corner jewelry shop in 1990, it became clear how hard it was to put into words their admiration for the couple.
Lena Smith, who owns Bridgeport’s Black Rock Castle pub and restaurant, knew Tim Donnelly and his sister Mary well.
“The sweetest, nicest,” she said, her voice trailing off. “There was nothing, nothing he wouldn’t do for you.”
As the outpouring continues from friends and families in Connecticut, more is coming out about DiMeo’s sordid trail.
It is believed he had robbed at least four jewelry stores and numerous homes in the Tri-state area in recent months.
Police believe the Donnelly murders were the culmination of a crime spree that took the heroin-addicted DiMeo from coast to coast. He was tracked to a $39 dollar-a-night Atlantic City motel. Investigators had been on the lookout in the area, guessing he would be attracted to the city’s numerous casinos and pawnshops.
It was a collision of fate that brought together DiMeo and the Donnellys. The couple made their living designing and making jewelry; their killer thought robbing it would sustain his drug habit.
Tim Donnelly created his own Celtic-inspired pieces that became the store’s centerpieces.
Many of those who spoke of the Donnellys mentioned a special design or piece they had made for them.
Smith recalled a Mullingar Pewter plaque Tim Donnelly had made for her to commemorate a birth, and the special care he took to detail it.
“He was an outstanding person,” she added.
She recalled how Donnelly, who had run numerous marathons, used to jog around St. Mary’s by the Sea in the enclave of Black Rock, where the family lived.
Smith was glad the authorities caught DiMeo, but the numbness still remains.
“I’m delighted he was caught, and it is comforting,” she said, “But nothing you can do will bring them back.”
“They were the nicest people you’ll meet,” said Jessica Walls of Huntington, Conn., “the kind of people who stick in your heart.”
Walls is an employee of Altan jewelry, another husband-and-wife operation near the Donnellys’ store. She recalled how they would send people to the Donnellys if they didn’t have what they needed.
Walls said that before the shootings, she had not heard anything about a gunman targeting jewelry stores in the area.
“People are still calling to see if we’re OK,” she said.
DiMeo’s quick arrest was a relief for the authorities as well. Reports surfaced that Nassau County police brass had withheld the identification and a picture of DiMeo they had from their own investigation into the shooting death of Thomas Renison in early December.
Renison was working at J&J Jewels in Glen Head when a man police believe was DiMeo came in, engaged him in a conversation about engagement rings as he did with the Donnellys, and then shot him.
It wasn’t until the Donnellys were killed that a national alert was put out. The police soon had their man.
Det. Lt. Dennis Farrell of the Nassau County homicide department denied reports of withholding information as “categorically untrue.”
It was discovered, police said, that DiMeo had help from his mother and a girlfriend he had met in California. The women would stake out the stores prior to the robberies, and draw up maps of the store layout so DiMeo would look comfortable when he arrived.
Police arrested Nicole Pearse, 23, along with DiMeo in Atlantic City and later DiMeo’s mother, Maryann Taylor-Casey, 40, at her Long Island home.

Gaelic Americans
Smith spoke of the effect the murder of two well-known Irish-American had on the community.
“Two people so well known and so horribly killed,” she said.
Smith knows the ties that bind well. She said that she came to Fairfield from Woodlawn, the heavily Irish enclave in the Bronx, and after 16 years is still a newcomer compared to most residents.
She recalled how the Donnellys always manned a booth at the annual Fairfield Irish Festival, where Smith said they would offer their usual friendly service.
Tim Donnelly was also an active member of the Gaelic American Club.
“They have over 5,000 members,” Smith said. “It was evident with the numbers that came out to the funeral, they were terribly well known.”
After Monday’s funeral service, the Gaelic American Club’s building was packed with those who remembered the Donnellys.
“Everyone was connected and intertwined,” said Carroll, who was there. “It also brought a lot of people back whom I hadn’t seen in years.
“It was renewal in the face of tragedy,” he said.
Carroll noted the community’s strong Irish heritage should play a large part in the support system available for the Donnellys’ children in the weeks and months to come.
“All of us will continue to be there for them,” he vowed.
“They’re gone,” said Smith. “Gone from the town, from the community, from the store. It’s just numbing.”