The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 33

THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE APRIL 2, 1995 Dorchester man killed by hit-and-run driver Ex-Marine's death remains a mystery By Stephanie McLaughlin CONTRIBUTING REPORTER and Richard Chacon GLOBE STAFF A 23-year-old Dorchester man was killed by a hit-and-run driver as he walked along Huntington Avenue with friends around 2 a.m. yesterday, police said. John M. Donovan was walking on Huntington Avenue near the Christian Science Center when a black two-door hatchback vehicle struck him from behind and sped off, police said. It is unclear whether Donovan was struck while he was on the sidewalk or in the street, police said.

Witnesses, including friends of Donovan, have described the accident to police. Police would not release the names of the witnesses. Donovan was pronounced dead at Boston City Hospital at 2:42 a.m. i Cambridge Friday night. John was supposed to help "his father with some landscaping around his parents' Milton home yesterday, his mother said.

John Donovan was a graduate of Boston College High Schbof and Boston College, and was planning to attend law school in the fall. -His father, Maurice, said he had hoped to become a "triple Eagle" by attending Boston College Law School. His mother said he was arrfionor student at BC High and anexcellent student at BC as well. He already had been accepted to the New England School of Law, but was waiting for the letter from BC before he made any decisions, his parents said. "He had everything going for him," his mother said, brother and a son that anyone would want." abroad again death," he said.

"He was wearing his camouflage jacket and sniper's hood. He didn't normally wear those, so he was probably trying to relate to a Marine buddy he was with." Other investigators, including Rick Nagle of the State Police, think that whoever killed Cox probably knew Medfield well enough to know that the sound of four gunshots would get lost in the activity of the two gun clubs that operate near the site where Cox was found. "That's a very hidden place. I think that only someone who really knows the area could've found it," said Nagle. "We've tried to focus on everything that Cox was doing at the time." And that is quite a bit As a member of an elite group of combat soldiers in Cuba in 1987, Cox was one of 10 charged in the beating death of a fellow soldier.

Seven of the 10 pleaded guilty and accepted a less-than-honorable discharge from the service. Cox and two others went to trial on JOHN M. DONOVAN Boston College graduate Police spokesman Jim Browning said the car was traveling at high speed and may have front end and BCOX Continued from Page 29 been solved by now." If nothing else, his family and friends say, David Cox loved to communicate. In 1986, from he sent a July 4th letter to the Need-ham Times, in which he thanked God and Ronald Reagan that he came from a country that "appreciates freedom." Seven years later, he publicly announced his intention to sue the film makers for infringing on his story. On a more personal level, he called home constantly, said his former girlfriend, Elaine Tinsley, who lived with Cox in an $800-a-month apartment in Natick.

"He had a really great sense of humor," she said yesterday. "We had really regular lives." 1 On the evening of Jan. 5, 1994, when Cox had not called for hours, Tinsley sensed something was wrong and called Natick police to report him missing. "But they did a terrible job," she said. "They treated the whole thing as if David, because he was an adult, had just decided to take off." Natick police did not return phone calls yesterday.

For the first several days, Cox's relatives 'I felt still do, was a derivation death. wearing camouflage and sniper's STEVE Victim's Mass. man injured in attack eager to go By Jon Auerbach GLOBE STAFF then, and that there military to his He was his jacket COX brvther windshield damage. Police yesterday recovered a vehicle matching the description the one involved in the accident. Donovan's mother, Maureen, said she found out about the death when police appeared at her door about 2:30 a.m.

"He was the most wonderful kid a mother could ever have," she said, choking back tears. "His father's best friend, really." Her eldest son, Maurice, 25, had driven to Washington with his cousin to visit his younger brother at college this weekend, she said. "I thought they had gotten in an accident," she said. "I said and they said 'No, John also leaves a sister, Siob-han, 21, and a brother, Matthew, 20. Maureen Donovan said John and some friends had gone out for pizza and were planning to go to a party in Our Regular Loiv Rate if I mind in The US for gunman or McCloy, Lebanon that American need "It can ready," he And home," next posting wife plan find jobs "Of who wish "but they what we've we'll never the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

government has offered a $2 million reward information leading to the arrest of the gunmen. 0 a former Marine who was wounded in in the 1980s, said the attack taught him officials living in places Kke Pakistan to be constantly on guard. happen everywhere, and you have' to be said. though he said he's "very excited to be McCloy is already looking forward, to his overseas. In December, he and his to head to Moscow, where both hope to in the ITS Embassy.

course there are members of my family I wouldn't" move abroad he said, know we're doing the best we' ean with got. We like the idea of going places be able to go to again." tack. "Ever since the day of the shooting, I've wanted to go back as a security officer." In a telephone interview last night, McCloy, who arrived at his mother's Framingham home Friday evening, said his recovery is going well. He said doctors have told him he'll be on cratches for up to 18 months as his ankle heals, but that's not stopping him from thinking about what's next "They say I'll probably be able to ran again," he said. "But my dream will come true when I can use a cane." The attack came early on the morning of March 8 as McCloy and several colleagues were heading to work in an embassy minivan.

The gunfire killed Jackie Van Landingham, 33, who was described as a secretary, and Gary Durell, 45, described as a communications specialist. Though no arrests have been made, officials in Washington believe the attack might have been connected to the February extradition from Pakistan of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the alleged master Less than a month after attackers gunned down two of his colleagues, and shattered his ankle in a spray of bullets, Mark McCloy is still haunted by the ghosts he left behind in Pakistan. The last memory the 31-year-old Framingham native has of the country is watching the two coffins being loaded onto a United States-bound plane. But neither that memory nor the cast that cradles his leg are enough to keep McCloy from dreaming about going back to Karachi, the coastal city famed mostly for its lawlesness. And if he does go back, McCloy says he'll be prepared by having witnessed terrorism firsthand.

"I'd have the edge knowing how important security is," said McCloy, who worked in the postal section of the US consulate at the time of the at t's ABetterHome Equity Line BayBank Home Equity Line 749- I APR said, Natick police officials never interviewed neighbors or searched the area, losing precious time and clues to finding Cox. "They didn't take it seriously until the media got involved," said Christine Cox, David's sister, who said she and her mother conducted their own interviews with neighbors. "But by then, three snowstorms had hit, so the trail was already lost." One discrepancy, noted by Casey Rick Nagle, a State Police investigator, is that Natick police officers fcould not find Cox's gun, a 9mm Clock, behind the seat of his Ford where he usually kept it. But several days later, Steven Cox found the loaded gun behind the seat A week after David Cox vanished, Natick police officials were quoted in local papers as saying they did not suspect foul play. Acquaintances and investigators agree that Cox probably did not leave the dwelling by himself.

But with whom he left is not known. There was no sign of forced entry or a struggle in the apartment, officials said. The door was unlocked and Cox's truck, with keys inside, was left in the driveway. Three months later, Cox's body was found near Causeway Street in Medfield, a bullet hole in the base of the neck and three others in the chest There was $90 in Cox's wallet. His body was lying on its side, covered with snow and pine branches.

With the exception of some slight decomposition, officials said, the snow and ice had preserved much of Cox's body. Steven Cox is convinced that the precision of the bullet wounds and the way Cox's body was covered with snow and branches, with no discern-. ible clues left behind, were the work a well-trained mind, like that of a military officer. "I felt then, and still do, that there was a military derivation to his A Special Fixed Rale assault charges and were acquitted. Cox was given an honorable discharge in 1989.

The episode later became the plot around which the Rob Reiner-directed film, starring Tom Cruise, Demi Moore and Jack Nicholson, was loosely based. In 1993, Cox filed a suit against the film's producers, Castle Rock Entertainment. Although officials and family members admit Cox had a fairly weak case and that a connection seems unlikely, the possibility has not been dismissed. Cox was also a small-time gambler who had accumulated an $1,100 debt when he disappeared, according to Steven Cox and Tinsley. But he was good friends with his bookie, they said, and at the time of his death had almost $3,000 in his checking account and an uncashed check in his wallet for $400 from United Parcel Service in Somerville, where he had been working part time.

"He went to the track every once in a while, but it was nothing big," Tinsley said. "I don't think that was a reason to kill him." The day he disappeared, Cox was awaiting word on a full-time job at UPS. A message from a company official, offering Cox a job, was left on his answering machine that day. But he never got it. Steven Cox said his brother had talked to him about illegal activity he had witnessed at the UPS terminal.

None of the investigators would confirm that any illegal activity had occurred. "So far," Nagle said, "no connection has been made." There is still a chance for new information, officials say. Several months ago, investigators contacted a Texas-based company for satellite photos that may have been taken of the area, Nagle said yesterday. But they are still w-aiting for the results to arrive. That leaves Cox's family and Tinsley, who has since moved out of their apartment, back at Square One, with plenty of memories and a dwindling sense of hope.

"This couldn't have happened in a vacuum," Christine Cox said yesterday. "Someone had to see something. If only they would come forward. We just need some help." cerned when she failed to return home Wednesday night and were searching for her Thursday morning when they learned that a body had been found on the street where they live, according to authorities. Cremin's uncle, Victor Pyke, has said his niece was with her boyfriend Wednesday night and had apparently walked with him most of the way to his home and then was continuing on toward her house on the lower end of Jacques Street Murphy declined to comment on whether police believe Cremin was killed in the same area where she was found.

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To apply for a BayBank Home Equity Line, just call us any time you have time, or stop by the BayBank office nearest you. CaUl-800-B-FAST Investigators were following numerous leads yesterday in the killing last week of a 17-year-old Somerville girl, but they refused to disclose any new developments in the case. Deanna J. Cremin, a junior at Somerville High School was found strangled to death Thursday morning behind a senior citizens' housing complex on Jacques Street about a quarter of a mile from her home. "We have a number of leads and we're tracking all of them down," Middlesex First Assistant District Attorney Martin F.

Murphy said yesterday. "We intend to continue to talk to people until we make an arrest" Somerville police spent all day yesterday sorting through Cremin's belongings and interviewing people, hoping to solve the brutal crime. Cremin's parents became con irana 6 require! OStritailaiie for an BaiRari Hen Ljuirt bat casnwrs rmh Offer opre Jul 51, aid ifi other miurmjD. km prt pius anprasaL i xcesan cmrwi jpticiM ndes recta eness of tim real tsau tju hJ, and (3) fwpa Suhs. tf ittf cirpiTd ww las Biretws 1.

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