On the evening of Saturday, October 19, 1974, Helen Giansanti, a 59-year-old Caucasian female, was working at the Donna Lee Bakery in New Britain, Connecticut. What began as a typical night at the bakery, located at 1015 East Street, would soon turn into a scene of unimaginable horror, marking it as the worst mass murder in the state's history at the time.
Giansanti, along with the bakery's owner, John Salerni, and four customers, became the victims of a brutal robbery that ended in their deaths. The customers were Thomas and Anne Dowling, both 58, William J. Donahue, Jr., 27, and Michael Kron, 49.
The perpetrators, later identified as Ronald F. "Tiny" Piskorski, a 25-year-old former bar bouncer, and Gary B. Schrager, a 31-year-old drifter, entered the bakery with the intent to rob it. Investigators believe that during the course of the robbery, one of the victims, Michael Kron, recognized Schrager, to whom he was related by marriage. This recognition is thought to have prompted the assailants to eliminate all witnesses. Giansanti and the other five victims were forced into a back room, made to lie face down on the floor, and were then shot in the back of the head. Salerni was killed by a shotgun blast, while the other victims, including Giansanti, were fatally wounded by bullets.
The shocking crime triggered a massive investigation that led to the arrests of Piskorski and Schrager. In December 1975, Ronald Piskorski was found guilty of the six murders and was sentenced to 150 years to life in prison. Gary Schrager's trial began in late 1976, during which he pleaded guilty to four of the six slayings as an accessory to murder. He received a sentence of 20 years to life. Schrager later confessed that he and Piskorski had gone to the bakery to commit a robbery, but he denied being the one who fired the shots. Both men remained imprisoned for the remainder of their lives, with Schrager dying in October 2024 and Piskorski in November 2024, nearly 50 years after the massacre at the Donna Lee Bakery.
