On this day, Feb. 13, in 1993, 13-year-old Crystallynn Girard died in her Buffalo, N.Y., bedroom after her mother, Lynn DeJac, goes barhopping. DeJac was wrongfully convicted of strangling her daughter and became the first woman in the United States to have her murder conviction overturned based on DNA evidence. In 2007, questions about DeJac’s guilt emerged after police charged her former companion, Dennis Donahue, in the 1993 murder of another woman. Newly analyzed DNA evidence also placed Donahue in Crystallynn’s bedroom around the time the girl died, and DeJac was released from prison.
On Feb. 13, 2008, the 15-year anniversary of Crystallynn’s death, Erie County forensics announced that Crystallynn actually died of a cocaine overdose.
DeJac filed a $20 million lawsuit against the city and county.
Scott McCabe
