In a home across the street from Bryan Adams High School, a man stabbed his estranged wife and her parents to death this morning. It didn’t happen in Lake Highlands, but it hit me pretty hard. I knew this woman. We were friends in high school.
It’s a sad, but not uncommon, story. A woman moves in with her parents in order to separate from her husband, only to be hunted down and murdered by him. If I can’t have you, no one will.
I hadn’t seen Donya Palmer since the days at Lakeview Centennial High School when she was Donya Davis. She was in the choir back then, and she wrote for the school newspaper. She was a year behind me, but she was pretty – more likely to get the attention of boys my age than I was. She was kind and funny, with the wispy Farrah Fawcett haircut of the day.
Police say William Palmer showed up at Donya’s parents’ house about 6am today, and Donya never had a chance. Her 67-year-old mother, Mary Jane, and her 69-year-old father, Raymond, were also stabbed and died at the scene. Donya’s sister was also staying there, but was saved by running upstairs and barricading herself and her 6-year-old daughter in a bedroom.
Palmer drove home to Sachse where he was captured by police while ordering food in the Taco Bueno drive-thru. He’ll be charged with capital murder.
