Boy recounts day mom killed dad

PALMER — The days leading up to his father’s death were rough.

The friction seemed to start, the 15-year-old boy testified Friday, with some text messages between his mother and a co-worker.

“My mom was texting this girl some not-very-appropriate things and my dad got really upset,” the teen said.

He was testifying from a nearly empty courtroom via closed circuit television with the feed displayed for jurors. The idea was to create a less intimidating setting for his testimony than a room full of jurors and lawyers staring at him. The testimony he offered was part of his mother’s murder trial.

Lisa Donlon shot husband multiple times as he slept in the family’s one-room cabin in October 2010. She also shot and killed one of the family’s dogs.

Her attorneys argue that Donlon acted in self-defense, that her husband had tortured her for days and threatened to kill her, something Donlon said on 911 tapes played earlier in the trial. The Palmer Grand Jury initially believed that self-defense claim but, after new evidence regarding the veracity of Donlon’s claims came to light, decided to charge her with murder.

The teen said that in the middle of the night following the texting incident, Jason Donlon woke up his kids, told them to get dressed and loaded them in the car.

“Dad was really, really mad. My mom was scared and sad,” the boy said.

They drove to the home of the recipient of the texts, left Lisa Donlon there, and drove back to Palmer.

“When we woke up we drove to Eagle River,” the teen said.

They met up with his mom and his dad talked to some folks where she worked. Then they headed back to Palmer.

“My dad was raising his voice and my mom was just acting terrified,” he said.

Somewhere along the way dad pulled over and his parents walked off into the woods.

“They walked through the woods by themselves to talk so we couldn’t hear them,” he said.

He’d go to school during these few days and come back home to a strained household. His parents would talk by themselves whenever the kids were out of earshot.

“They would kind of act strange like something wasn’t right, like they were keeping something from us,” the boy testified.

The night before the shooting they went to Evangelo’s for dinner. His mom pulled him aside, handed him a gun and told him to hold onto it. It was his mom’s gun. She’d taken him to the shooting range to use it before. He said his dad always carried a revolver on him, unless he was going into a place that didn’t allow them.

He said the day of the shooting he went to school just like any other day. His mom got him up. He ate breakfast at his grandmother’s house, which occupied the same lot as their cabin, then walked to the bus.

When he got home, the boy said, there were numerous cars out front of the house. He saw his grandmother, brothers and the family dog, Bandit, walking toward him. They said his dad had been shot.

“I was really shocked and I just dropped my stuff and started running toward the house,” he said.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.