On a tragic evening in New Britain, Connecticut, the life of Thomas John Dowling, a 58-year-old Caucasian male, was brutally cut short. On October 19, 1974, he and his wife, Anne, were among six people murdered at the Donna Lee Bakery. What began as a stop at a local bakery ended in a horrific act of violence that would become known as the worst mass murder in the state's history at the time.
The couple, along with the bakery's owner and three other customers, were herded into a back room by two men. There, they were all forced to lie face down on the floor before being fatally shot.
The initial belief was that the killings were the result of a robbery gone wrong. However, as investigators delved deeper into the case, a more chilling motive emerged. It is believed that one of the victims recognized one of the assailants, leading the perpetrators to eliminate all witnesses to their crime. The connection that likely sealed their fate was a familial one; one of the victims, Michael P. Kron, was the uncle-by-marriage of one of the killers, Gary B. Schrager. It is thought that Kron recognized his nephew, prompting the cold-blooded decision to leave no one alive.
The investigation led to the arrests of two local men, Ronald F. "Tiny" Piskorski, a 25-year-old former bouncer, and the 31-year-old drifter, Gary B. Schrager. In December 1975, Piskorski was tried and found guilty of the murders, receiving a sentence of 150 years to life in prison. The following year, during his own trial, Schrager pleaded guilty to four of the six slayings and was sentenced to 20 years to life for his role as an accessory to the murders.
