"Sir, I am (former Detective Dennis Delano, and I commend you on this website, it is a great read and a wealth of information. I also want to thank you for the positive comments that have been published on my behalf on your site. That being said, I would like to clarify something for you with some "inside" information. When it is stated in the media, by powers that shall remain nameless, that I "handed over evidence from a homicide case, in the form of a "crime scene video tape", I must inform you that most people, such as yourself, are mislead into believing that I actually "gave away evidence" from a Homicide case, "broke the chain of evidence", and "compromised the integrity of the Homicide unit as well a the whole buffalo pd", (I wonder if they will try and pin "McKinley's" murder on me also) The truth of the matter is that I have NEVER even seen the original video tape that would be considered "important evidence", As a rule, when the Cold case unit wants to view the video "walk through" of the crime scene in any homicide (if a tape was actually made for that particular homicide) We call our evidence/photography personnel, and request them to "make us copies of the original," one for the original file, and one for the District attorney's office, as well as one for the defense attorney if the DA wants it. THE ORIGINAL TAPE ALWAYS REMAINS IN THE CONTROL OF OUR EVIDENCE/PHOTOGRAPHY PEOPLE, SO THAT THE "CHAIN OF EVIDENCE IS NOT BROKEN!!!!!!!!!" WE NEVER HANDLED THE ORIGINAL PIECE OF "EVIDENCE" VIDEO TAPE, THAT THESE KNUCKLEHEADS KEEP ACCUSING ME OF "GIVING TO THE MEDIA!!!!!!" The truth is that I made my own copy of the copy, on my own DVD disk, which I often do so that I can take it home and study it when working a case. I went to Washington over a week AFTER I was told in "no uncertain terms" by the DISTRICT ATTORNEY's office AND my deputy commissioner, that "THERE WAS NO LONGER A HOMICIDE CASE TO INVESTIGATE!!!!" and that "CRYSTALYN GIRARD DIED FROM A COCAINE OVERDOSE and NOT HOMICIDE!!!! THEY EVEN CHANGED THE DEATH CERTIFICATE LONG BEFORE I WENT TO WASHINGTON WITH A COPY OF THE COPY!!!!! NOW, HOW CAN I GIVE AWAY SENSITIVE "EVIDENCE" AND "BREAK THE CHAIN" AND COMPROMISE THE INTEGRITY" OF THE POLICE DEPT, BY GIVING A COPY OF A COPY OF A VIDEO, OF A "COCAINE OVERDOSE" SCENE TO THE MEDIA????????? IF THERE "WAS NO HOMICIDE", THAN THERE CAN BE NO CRIME SCENE, IF THERE WAS NO CRIME SCENE, THAN THERE CAN BE NO SENSITIVE EVIDENCE collected , EVEN IF IT WAS THE ORIGINAL TAPE (although it was not)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The ONLY reason that I have not came out with all of this yet, is because I want to see just HOW far this administration was going to go to "shut me up"!!!!!!! I believed that I had an obligation to inform the everyday average taxpayer, just how much "injustice" had occurred involving this little girl's death!!!! So, I think that by doing what I did, I have given the people at least SOMETHING to think about in this case, and hope it will not die with my removal from it, and I got suspended without pay for it, although I truly do not think that I did ANYTHING wrong, I am willing to accept my punishment like a "good little soldier", but I will defend my position that Crystalyn's death was a HOMICIDE, and that THEY are attempting to cover up their "incompetence" in the initial investigation and trial, at the cost of my job if need be!!!!!! Thank you for the opportunity to "correct" the "accepted misinformation" that has been floating around. I felt that YOU deserved the truth, so that you can speak out of knowledge instead of ignorance as so many others have done. Again, I applaud your website and the integrity that it attempts to instill on those of us who read it!!"

                                                                      Det. Den Delano

2008 America's Most Wanted All-Star! Last years winner was Carl Andolina Officer Buffalo Police Department. Buffalo, NY Today on TV I was watching the story about Crystal Lynn Dejac on WIVB.com. The thing that struck me the most is that they said  Detective Dennis Delano is now suspended with pay instead of no pay.( more background on this click here) What this tells me is that in Buffalo at least we have a Mayor and police commissionaire and other people running the Buffalo police department that are reasonable men. To me there is nothing more than the public can ask for than men and woman with integrity in the public sector, also they must also be reasonable men and woman enforcing the laws , making the laws and yes judging us in the courts. I have since seen that  Detective Dennis Delano has been fired. I am assuming it was because of the arbitration, because I just got done reading an article where the police commissionaire said he would not fire him, but punish him if he didn't go to arbitration and left it up to him. I have mixed feelings on this situation. I see the need for discipline in a police department, you can't have everyone going off and doing whatever they want, lose cannons answering to nobody. Me I think Dennis Delano  would have been better served justice if he backed down a little bit, kept his job and position and worked on other cold cases and made it to retirement to have something to show for all those years of service, also provide for him and his family.  I mean there is no way to prosecute the real killer for this crime, so he got fired for beating a dead horse. Also the real alleged killer Dennis Donahue was a just convicted for the murder of another woman on May 12,2008 so the real murderer is going to jail thanks to Detective Dennis Delano   anyways. I learned a long time ago nothing is more frustrating than doing something in vain, but I also have learned that in all reality almost nothing is done in vain you just didn't see the results you expected at the time. I hope Dennis Delano goes on to better things. I mean there's got to be a book in this for him, and I heard he's looking to be a state senator. To tell you the truth I think with his convictions he would make a good law maker.

AS You all Know I Have called this Guy a Hero and I stand by this:

Personally in my Opinion...

I think that Detective Delano is being offered up as a Sacrificial lamb and I can see why he is upset.

 I think that the former DA that prosecuted the case made a mistake and screwed up but hind site is 20/20. I think they should reinstate Detective Delano, that he has a different opinion than the DA's office is a good thing. Trying to get him to tow the official line by suspending him without pay is ridiculous. It's a Good thing to have cops in General and especially  the cold case squad members questioning the norm, a cop with integrity should not follow any command he believes is illegal( Soldiers are also prohibited from following illegal commands' the Geneva Convention) he believes is a cover up, he believes is immoral and is ultimately against his religious believes.( Lets face it, Honor ,and  Integrity and having a Good moral compass is a direct result of our religious beliefs'). In the USA we are all guaranteed the right to religious freedom and expression and the Buffalo police departments disciplinary board has no right suspending him without pay for practicing his religious beliefs' or airing his religious opinion about the current administration for trying to silence him.

55 year old Dennis Donohue of Kenmore is arrested for Murder and it turns out  that someone else may be in Jail for a murder he committed. (WIVB TV) and he might have committed other murders each one on his birthday.   The other case was Anthony Capozzi being locked up in jail for 22 yrs for 3 Rapes he didn't commit because the victims identified him as the one that attacked them until cleared by Sanchez's DNA. I am going to add that I think it takes a lot of guts by the Buffalo NY Police to go back and examine cold cases and look for justice.

 Let me Clarify my take on this case. In my Opinion, I think the DA made a nice move in trying to make this go away, before it poisons his administration. He has an old friend that prosecuted this case and got a conviction that refuses to let the overturned conviction bee and wants to retry Dejac because he made part of his reputation on this. They had a mother that was a drug user and even named her Kid Crystal, in my experience if you name you Kid JD you drink a lot of Jack Daniels, If you Name your Dog Molson, you like Molson Beer and if you Name your Kid Crystal you like Crystal meth, if your kids named Marry Jane, you like to smoke pot,. its like funny at the time for Bikers and partiers and drug abusers to do this.

I think Lyn Dejac contributed to her kids death by environment, drug use and poor parenting and negligence and the only reason I'm not calling for her retrial is she served 13 yrs which is about 5 yrs more than she will get for negligence contributing to her daughters death. The only reason I would go after her is if she was to sue for some kind of compensation which I think she is not entitled too.

This is also why I think we should never give the death penalty unless there is concussive DNA evidence,/ and or audio and video, evidence, or at least 2 eye witnesses to go with the DNA evidence. With out the DNA and one of the other forms of evidence. I really believe you can make a scenario with circumstantial evidence, that supports you conjecture and can lead to a conviction weather right , true or not.

If the police are allowed to lie, intimidate, and deprive suspects of sleep to get the suspect to say what they want to hear without regards to the truth because they want conviction rates high and don't have the integrity  and self control to look for the truth, and this is what happened in a lot of cases in the past when DNA wasn't available. Now with the DNA your pretty much insured that if you get them to confess you got the right person, but even that can be wrong if the odds are 1 in 1 billion and there are 6 billion people on the earth, there could be 6 people with the same DNA markers living in the same city in the same country, in fact, it is likely that the other 5 people are somehow related to you, and live close by. The actual odds are something like 1 in every 235 million people, so there might be 30 people in the whole world that could have done the crime.

I never believed that Detective Dennis Delano did anything wrong I still don't and when they are talking about giving news stations evidence. I was assuming he sent them a copy of a Video tape taken at the time of the crime, at the crime scene, not necessary even showing any indications of Murder, but showing the living environment was being so, that it would live police to consider a murder had occurred, or an accidental over dose had occurred.

I think that the medical examiner would have checked for a overdose originally, and while she might have had enough cocaine in her blood stream to kill a person, he saw evidence that there was also foul play and from what we know now about Dennis Donahue the only conclusion we can come to is he killed her. Either by supplying her the Cocaine and doing it with her and killing her, or she expired by over dose before being successful.

If Crystal did die of an overdose, the Cocaine would have left an aortic dissection, or bleeding in the brain or stroke before she died and those indicators would have to be there in addition to the high dosage in the blood stream, because if your a first time user or anytime user of Cocaine or meth the only way your going to die from using is the blood pressure get so high it strokes you out or burst your arteries, or veins.

I know there's people that can do a 8 ball of cocaine in a couple of minutes and do 4 or five more and they lived to party another day. Just tune into the Howard Stern show and listen to Artie Lang talk about his old escapades and he's still around.

Look, I can see why the DA wants to get rid of this Hot potato. I think its a no win situation for him.

I think the Buffalo Police department's Police commissionaire should just hold a press conference with Detective Delano and say:

 Look, there are a couple possible scenarios here. Crystal Lynn Dejac died of a Drug overdose like the new medical report states and the DA Clark and certain members of the Buffalo Police department now believe, or she was murdered by Dennis Donahue. If it was an accidental drug overdose, it is our opinion that Lynn Dejac may have contributed to the death of her daughter, by providing a environment where drug use was the norm. Another possibility is Crystal Lynn was murdered in the opinion of detective Delano and maybe some members other of the cold case squad.

 Either way since convicted murderer Dennis Donahue was granted immunity from prosecution for murder by a former assistant DA 14 yrs ago for testimony against Lynn Dejac that may have been false, or partially true, it may not be possible for total justice here but we are turning over all evidence in the case to the justice department and asking them to investigate wither federal charges of violating the civil rights of Crystal Lynn Dejac can be pursued against Dennis Donohue for supplying her the drugs that overdosed her and lead to her death or incapacitated her and lead to her being deprived of her civil right to live.