This is a straightforward story of betrayal and murder, albeit a little known one. Retired US Air Force veteran Dennis Dawley was to all outward appearances the perfect family man. That was the belief of his daughter Debi who appears here including in archive footage from England where she was born.
When Joan Dawley was brutally murdered in her home, it appeared she had disturbed a burglar, but the fatal blow had actually been delivered by Dennis aided by his secret mistress, the much younger and quite disreputable Brandita Taliano. The case was solved by Paul Tippin, a detective who also appears herein. Although it had been around since the 1987 arrest of Colin Pitchfork, in 1991, DNA profiling was still a painfully slow process, but Tippin ordered scrapings be taken from underneath the victim's fingernails.
Due to probably nothing more tangible than the proverbial policeman's hunch, Taliano came under suspicion, and her imprisonment on unrelated charges led to a DNA match. When the truth came out it was shocking indeed, Dawley's motive had been primarily financial, and he had attempted in the first instance to recruit a criminal associate of Taliano to carry out the murder disguised as a home invasion robbery. Whether or not this individual would have done so, he had the perfect alibi, being in prison at the time of the murder.
A tale sad and shocking in equal measure.
When Joan Dawley was brutally murdered in her home, it appeared she had disturbed a burglar, but the fatal blow had actually been delivered by Dennis aided by his secret mistress, the much younger and quite disreputable Brandita Taliano. The case was solved by Paul Tippin, a detective who also appears herein. Although it had been around since the 1987 arrest of Colin Pitchfork, in 1991, DNA profiling was still a painfully slow process, but Tippin ordered scrapings be taken from underneath the victim's fingernails.
Due to probably nothing more tangible than the proverbial policeman's hunch, Taliano came under suspicion, and her imprisonment on unrelated charges led to a DNA match. When the truth came out it was shocking indeed, Dawley's motive had been primarily financial, and he had attempted in the first instance to recruit a criminal associate of Taliano to carry out the murder disguised as a home invasion robbery. Whether or not this individual would have done so, he had the perfect alibi, being in prison at the time of the murder.
A tale sad and shocking in equal measure.