Man acquitted after 10 years in prison
Lost glove, ‘unreliable’ witness helps to turn murder conviction
A Connecticut man who has spent the past decade behind bars in connection with a gang-related murder walked freely from a Hartford courthouse on Monday.
The road to freedom has been long for Donald Raynor, who was acquitted and released after a jury returned a not guilty verdict Monday afternoon — more than a decade after he was charged in a 2007 shooting.
“Unfortunately justice was delayed, but justice was done,” his defense attorney Trent Lalima said Tuesday.
Raynor, now 38, was arrested at age 27 and charged with murder in the death of Delano “Dela” Gray, who was gunned down on a Hartford sidewalk 17 years ago.
Raynor, who denies allegations that he ran a violent Hartford street gang, served nearly 4,000 days in prison for Gray’s murder as he maintained his innocence and denied any involvement in the slaying. During that decade, his case went to trial three times.
Raynor’s first trial was held in 2014. It was declared a mistrial after the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.
The following year, Raynor went before a second jury and was found guilty. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison, records show.
The Connecticut Supreme Court overturned that conviction in 2020, but a combination of Covid-19-related court closures and delays due to lab reports and ballistics testing kept him behind bars until this week.
The third jury to hear Raynor’s case found him not guilty on all charges on Monday, prompting an eruption of emotion in the courtroom from Raynor, his parents, his brother and his high school teacher who stood by him every step of the way.
“He broke down crying in my arms when they said ‘not guilty,’ it was just a rush of emotion,” Lalima told the Hartford Courant.
Raynor, speaking from his parents’ home on Tuesday, said he was hopeful as he waited for the jury to deliberate earlier this week. He said he knew in his heart that this would be his chance at justice and that he would not return to prison — and he was right.
His brother, Byron Raynor,
said that Monday evening was a night for celebration, planning and reconnection for the family.
“We kept it close with the family, everyone gathered around. There (were) a million hugs, a million kisses, a million phone calls,” he said. “We just rejoiced and talked about the future.”
He said the last 10 years have taken a toll on his family, but he is grateful that they are all reunited now and “reconnecting the dots.”
“They ripped us apart 11 years ago, so I just want to reconvene with my brother, reconnect and make new memories,” he said.
Raynor’s defense team said that the sheer length of his case made the latest trial a challenge, with a decade’s worth of court proceedings and testimony from two trials to take into account. But throughout each trial, the state’s case against Raynor hinged heavily on two things: one glove and one witness.
While investigating Gray’s death, records show that police found a duffle bag in a garage on Eastford Street in Hartford that was being used as a weapons storage unit for members of Money Green Bedroc and members of a North End gang called West Hell.
In that duffle bag was a rifle, which prosecutors say matched shell casings from the crime scene, and a pair of rubber-coated gloves, according to the arrest warrant affidavit for Raynor.
The gloves were tested for DNA and one came back with a hit: Raynor’s DNA was reportedly on the gloves, records show. But that glove has since been lost.
Lalima said that investigators testified in Raynor’s trial that the glove, the key forensic evidence in the case, could not be found.
In an homage to O.J. Simpson’s defense attorney Johnnie Cochran, Lalima told the jury that without that glove, they could not convict his client.
“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit,” he said, quoting Cochran about a glove in Simpson’s case. “My client could not even try it on because they lost it.”
In previous trials, prosecutors argued that glove linked Raynor to a specific rifle, a .223-caliber Kel-tec firearm that investigators say was used in Gray’s killing. The shell casings from the bullets that struck Gray matched the Kel-tech, police said.
Lalima said that the DNA mixture on the glove was the only physical evidence the state had tying his client to this crime, and that Raynor’s DNA was never found on the suspected murder weapon.
Gray, 22, was found lying in a driveway at 97 Enfield St. in Hartford with multiple gunshot wounds to his chest and head on June 18, 2007. The area was littered with shell casings and multiple nearby vehicles had been peppered with bullets, according to a warrant affidavit for Raynor’s arrest.
Police said Gray was a known member of the “Ave” street gang, which was operating in the area of upper Albany Avenue and Vine Street. The gang was in “direct conflict” with a rival gang, Money Green Bedroc, which investigators said had been pushing their own drug sales into the Ave’s territory.
Raynor, also known as Amen or Don Juan, was the “recognized leader” of Money Green Bedroc, investigators said in the warrant affidavit. Raynor said he was never involved with the gang and had never even heard the name “Money Green Bedroc” until he was arrested.
They cited multiple documented police reports, conversations with various state, local and federal law enforcement sources, and communications between gang members, including intercepted jail letters from known members and phone calls and internet postings, that allegedly confirmed Raynor’s leadership. Raynor maintains to this day that he was not involved with gang activity.
Outside of the missing glove, Lalima said the state’s case relied on the testimony of a witness who, he told the jury, had a lot to gain from his agreement to testify against Raynor.
Gray’s case was featured in the state’s cold case playing card project, in which decks of cards are sold to prison inmates with information about unsolved homicides and missing persons cases printed on each card. Raynor’s arrest came after an inmate gave police information about Gray’s killing.
According to Raynor’s warrant affidavit, they received a confession from a cooperating co-conspirator, who told police he was driving when Raynor allegedly shot and killed Gray. He said they had gone out that night looking for someone to shoot, the affidavit alleged.
“We decided to go look for someone that we might have had beef with in the past,” he told police in a series of statements.
He also recounted the shooting to police, saying it was about 2 a.m. and Raynor was “in the backseat with a high-power rifle,” according to the warrant affidavit.
Lalima said the cooperating co-conspirator, Jose Rivera, was the state’s key witness. Rivera, Lalima said, is currently serving 42 years behind bars after being convicted in another murder and multiple other shootings, including one in which a toddler was shot.
“I think we successfully poked holes in his credibility. We really kept the focus on him throughout the trial,” Lalima said.
In his closing argument, Lalima said he asked the jury to consider three things: “Who’s the most important witness? Who’s the most unreliable witness? And who’s the witness with who had the most to gain?”
He said Rivera pinned the blame on Raynor to negotiate less prison time for himself in connection with other crimes.
In his closing arguments, he called Rivera’s sentence a “buy one get nine shootings free deal” and said it was “almost like (Rivera) had gotten a ‘Comcast bundle’ of sentences all together with no extra time.”
Prosecutors and Lalima delivered closing arguments on March 5. The jury began deliberating mid-day Tuesday, then lost a juror and had to bring in an alternate. That alternate juror came in Monday, and they deliberated briefly before reaching their not guilty verdict, Lalima said.
Defense co-counsel Virginia Gillette said tears filled her eyes when she heard the verdict.
“Mr. Raynor has had to be so patient and put all his faith in us, and the justice system, for a long time. And that patience finally paid off,” she said. “He can go outside and see the sunshine. I was tearing up just knowing that he was able to see the light of day and in just a few short hours he was out of court and able to experience life again,
“He can get his favorite meal from his favorite restaurant,” she added. “He can sleep in a comfortable bed, all the things that you and I may take for granted he’s now just getting to do for the first time in a decade.”
“The Division of Criminal Justice respects the jury’s decision and thanks them for their service,” the agency said in a statement to the Courant on Tuesday.
In a letter to the Courant sent from jail just before the start of the new year, Raynor said he was hopeful for what 2024 had in store. He said he hoped the next jury he faced would not find him guilty. On Tuesday, he told the Courant that he turned to his faith in God to hold onto hope and again to celebrate what he said was a victory.
He said he felt that the not guilty verdict was the greatest blessing. He said he served the time he was meant to in jail, learned from the experience and was looking forward to using what he learned to help others.
“I received it, I was receptive to it and it was time to move on,” he said. In prison, Raynor said he became a paralegal, studied law extensively and learned to read and write in Arabic. He hopes to apply what he learned to his next endeavors.
“I’m hoping to become what they call a student of knowledge, to study Islam under qualified scholars,” he said.
“I want to be an advocate for the people who are behind that wall who are falsely accused,” Raynor added.
Raynor said he wants to zero in on issues involving prosecutorial overreach and concerns about manipulated ballistic evidence, but first he hopes to focus his attention on making sure other defendants face a jury of their peers at trial and understand their duty “to protect citizens from the arbitrary power of prosecutors and judges.”
“I’m going to try to get people together and talk to people who sit on juries,” he said. “I’m going to try to start with talking to the communities about the importance of having people who look like you in the jury people … or not even people who look like you, people come from the same walks of life.”
He said that having jurors pulled from the county where an alleged crime is committed does not necessarily equate to a fair and impartial jury.
“Somebody from Avon cannot understand the dynamics of the streets of Hartford. That’s not a jury of my peers, he said. “If you’re someone in Avon … you don’t know what it’s like to walk down the streets of Hartford at night.
“I’m going to start to advocate for people who from our walks of life wanting to serve on a jury,” he added.
Byron Raynor hopes his brother serves as an example to others and hopes the Gray family finds peace and accountability in their loss.
“My brother isn’t the person that they’re looking for, I’m just hoping they can find peace and find what they’re looking for,” he said Tuesday.