Husband Released, Rapist Implicated in Slaying In Maryland
Escaped Patient
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 22, 2000
When Prince George's County police arrested the husband of Donna Zinetti in her
slaying last October, it may have left her real killer on the streets,
testimony in D.C. Superior Court revealed yesterday, as a serial rapist was
named as a suspect in the Laurel woman's death.
As Keith A. Longtin sat in jail, charged with stabbing his wife to death, the
man Prince George's police now want to arrest in her death stalked and sexually
assaulted at least six other women over several weeks, prosecutors in the
District said.
In the weeks after Zinetti's body was found on Oct. 4, prosecutors in the
District said, Antonio Donnell Oesby, a convicted rapist on parole from armed
robbery and attempted kidnapping convictions, sexually assaulted women on Oct.
17, 27, 28 and 31 and Nov. 3 and 4.
He was arrested Nov. 16, his first day working in the London Fog store in Union
Station, when his Capitol Hill victim walked into the shop and, astonished,
recognized Oesby's face--and the distinctive pinkie ring he had worn while
raping her just five blocks away.
Oesby, 23, of the 600 block of L Street NE, was sentenced yesterday to 25 years
to life in prison by Superior Court Judge Russell F. Canan for the Capitol Hill
assault. He now faces extradition to Prince George's County, where DNA evidence
links him to Zinetti's killing. He will face charges in the attacks in
Maryland.
"We have a warrant for Mr. Oesby, but he has not yet been formally charged,"
said Cpl. Tammy Sparkman, a county police spokeswoman. Sparkman said it was
customary for police to wait until a suspect is in their jurisdiction before
filing charges. If those charges are filed, it should spell the end of murder
charges against Longtin, who still faces a Sept. 18 trial date.
"That's excellent news. I'm delighted," said Samuel Serio, Longtin's attorney,
when informed of Oesby's impending extradition. "But no one has told me
anything other than they're prosecuting my client. Until they do, I'm preparing
for trial."
Longtin, a 44-year-old welder, was accused of arguing with his estranged wife,
then stabbing her after she fled into a wooded area near her home on Larchdale
Road.
Longtin has staunchly maintained his innocence since his Oct. 5 arrest. He was
released on his own recognizance June 12, after detectives learned that the
manner of the attack on Zinetti was similar to other assaults in Maryland and
in the District. Those attacks, some of which implicate Oesby, led detectives
to get a DNA sample from him.
It matched DNA taken from Zinetti's body.
Prince George's State's Attorney Jack B. Johnson then asked Circuit Court Judge
Larnzell Martin Jr. to release Longtin, although charges were not dismissed.
"My sense . . . was that there is not a case against Longtin," Martin said in
an interview. "The prosecutor had information suggesting that [Longtin] was not
the right person charged with this crime."
Oesby's alleged connection to the Zinetti killing emerged yesterday when
Assistant U.S. Attorney Elisa Poteat mentioned the murder warrant during the
sentencing hearing. She recited a threat Oesby allegedly had made to a victim,
that he would "kill you like I did that other woman."
Oesby was convicted by a D.C. Superior Court jury on April 11 of sex assault
charges in the attack on the Capitol Hill woman in the stairwell of her
apartment building in the 600 block of Third Street NE.
The 29-year-old woman was returning home from work, carrying groceries, when
Oesby fell into step beside her. He politely asked if she knew someone named
Kevin, followed her into the complex and checked the mailboxes, as if looking
for a familiar name. When she entered the stairwell, he attacked her with a
knife. He fled when another resident approached.
The attack was so startlingly similar to a series of other rapes in Maryland in
the preceding weeks that Canan allowed those women to testify at the trial.
Each time, a man matching Oesby's description approached a woman alone in an
apartment complex, asked for help locating someone, then attacked her in an
isolated spot, usually a stairwell, according to testimony.
Oesby pleaded for mercy in a five-minute address to Canan, maintained his
innocence, recited a poem he had written titled "You Don't Know My Pain" and
said he had suffered greatly as a child.
Two of his alleged victims listened impassively. Canan was unmoved.
"Your actions were cruel, sadistic and without mercy to your many victims,"
Canan said, in imposing the maximum sentence allowed for the three charges for
which he was convicted. "You are a serious predator who will repeat your
crimes" if released.
The woman attacked on Capitol Hill was relieved after the sentencing.
"It brings some closure, I guess, but I've got to support these other women and
testify in their cases," she said. "This chapter of my life is closed, but this
case isn't finished. He's got to take responsibility for what he did."
© 2000 The Washington Post Company