MONTGOMERY – While the family of Danny Meyer, the 12-year-old Maybrook Little Leaguer who was murdered in 1996, awaits word on if his killer is granted parole, another family that went through the same trauma feels their pain.
In 1973, Joan D’Alessandro of Hilldale, New Jersey, went to a neighbor’s house to sell Girl Scout cookies and the high school chemistry teacher who lived there brutally murdered the child and dumped her body near Harriman State Park in Stony Point.
Her mother, Rosemarie, told Mid-Hudson News that it is pure torture for the mother to relive the horror of the event when a parole hearing comes up every two years.
“She is not free for two years. If she is free for six months – it depends upon the person – then she has six months. Then she goes though it again. It is almost like what you are doing is psychological torture,” she said.
For the D’Alessandro family, that part of their journey is over. Joan’s killer, Joseph McGowan, died in prison this past June.
She plans to convey her thoughts to the New York State Parole Board in hopes of convincing its members not to grant parole to Juan Peinado, Danny Meyer’s killer.
