The Wrongful Conviction of Lynn DeJac

Start The case of Lynn DeJac stands as one of the most disturbing examples of wrongful conviction in modern American criminal justice—and also one of the most powerful demonstrations of how DNA profiling can uncover the truth years after a verdict has been sealed.Lynn DeJac was an American woman living in **Buffalo**, where she was raising her teenage daughter, **Crystallynn Girard**. By 1993, Lynn was in a troubled relationship with her boyfriend, **Dennis Donohue**. Their relationship would become central to a case that would eventually expose serious failures in police investigation and courtroom standards.

On the evening of February 13, 1993, Lynn and Donohue had a heated argument in a local bar. The confrontation erupted after Lynn discovered that Donohue had secretly hired a private investigator to monitor her. The fight was intense, public, and emotionally charged. It marked the last confirmed sighting of Lynn before a tragedy that would change her life forever.

The following day, Lynn returned home and encountered a horrifying scene. Her 13-year-old daughter was lying naked and lifeless on her bed. The discovery was immediate and devastating. An autopsy later determined that Crystallynn had been strangled. Investigators also reported that there was some level of cocaine present in the child’s system, a detail that added complexity and emotional weight to the case, but would later play no meaningful role in identifying the real perpetrator.

Despite the shocking nature of the crime, investigators found no physical or forensic evidence linking Lynn DeJac to the murder. There were no fingerprints, no DNA, and no material traces connecting her to her daughter’s death. Nevertheless, Lynn was quickly taken into custody and charged with second-degree murder.

The prosecution’s case relied almost entirely on testimony rather than science. Two witnesses formed the backbone of the case against her.

The first was her boyfriend, Dennis Donohue. He testified that Lynn was responsible for the killing. In exchange for his cooperation, Donohue was promised immunity from prosecution. His testimony painted Lynn as emotionally unstable and capable of violence. However, his close personal involvement, his incentive to avoid charges himself, and his position as the only adult closely connected to both Lynn and the victim were not enough to disqualify him as a credible witness in court.

The second witness was **Wayne Hudson**, an ex-convict who claimed that Lynn had confessed to him. There was no recording, no written confession, and no independent corroboration of this claim. It was simply Hudson’s word against Lynn’s.

With no physical evidence and no forensic link to the crime scene, the jury nevertheless convicted Lynn DeJac. She was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

For more than a decade, Lynn remained incarcerated for a crime she consistently denied committing. Her conviction stood largely unchallenged, and her case slowly faded from public attention. It would take thirteen years—and an entirely separate investigation—for the truth to begin to surface.

While examining three other unsolved murders involving women in the same region, detectives noticed a disturbing pattern. Each victim had previously had some form of contact with Dennis Donohue. In each case, the women were found naked in their beds. The similarities were striking, and they prompted investigators to take a closer look at Donohue’s past.

As the four cases were compared side by side, the pattern became impossible to ignore. The circumstances of the crimes, the positioning of the bodies, and Donohue’s connections to the victims all pointed in the same direction. The investigation that had once treated him as a helpful witness now began to treat him as a potential serial offender.

Modern forensic testing was finally requested on evidence from the crime scenes. When DNA testing was completed, it revealed that Donohue’s DNA was present at the scene of the murders. This scientific evidence directly contradicted the narrative that had sent Lynn DeJac to prison.

The discovery dismantled the original prosecution’s theory. The man whose testimony had helped secure Lynn’s conviction was now linked through forensic science to the killings themselves.

As a result, Lynn DeJac’s conviction was overturned. After thirteen years behind bars, she was finally exonerated.

Her case became historic. Lynn DeJac is recognized as the first woman in the United States to be exonerated of a murder conviction on the basis of DNA profiling. The significance of this milestone extends beyond her personal ordeal. It exposed how easily a case built on incentivized testimony and jailhouse informants can overshadow the absence of real evidence—and how devastating the consequences of that imbalance can be.Lynn lost more than a decade of her life, her reputation, and the chance to properly grieve her daughter outside the walls of a prison. Her story remains a sobering reminder that justice does not always arrive with a verdict, and that sometimes, only science can undo what the courtroom got tragically wrong.