True Crime: The Donna Gentile Story

Discover Joyous Love Host Anita DeFrancesco Talks about her True Crime book she authored on a first cousin murdered 1985. Episode #34 When Donna Gentile, escaped from a home for delinquent girls and  made her way to San Diego she had big dreams. She worked in security  for a while and even dreamed of joining the police department. But  things didn’t work out as she planned. Donna, like many other innocent  runaways, became a victim of the street walker life. While in survivor  mode she was groomed, exploited, and coerced into prostitution, a path  that took control of her life and ultimately led to her death at the age  of twenty-two. Donna allowed herself to be befriended by several police  officers thinking that this would afford her some protection in her  dangerous life on the streets. Instead she was harassed and ultimately  victimized by some of the same police to whom she had turned for help.  But Donna was a fighter. Rather than taking the abuse, which included  sexual harassment, she reported it to the San Diego Police Department.  She testified against two officers, one of whom lost his job on account  of her testimony. Her life became further complicated when the Internal  Affairs Division exploited and coerced her into becoming a police  corruption informant . She was murdered with gravel stuffed in her mouth  and her autopsy was the first and only to be sealed in San Diego. Why?  Someone wanted to silence Donna. But who? “By  definition, a fearless woman is strong when it comes to facing hard  situations. They are confident in who they are and what they believe,  and in their example of fearlessness, they encourage others to be  courageous and make a difference. While many think of men first when it  comes to these strong figures, there are also a number of important  women in the Bible who inspire, not only because of how they lived but  also because of their rock-solid faith, even in some of the toughest of  circumstances, because they fought injustice and dared to lead.  We can  learn a great deal from their stories.” – 22 Fearless Daughters of the Bible The Donna Gentile Story is the author’s first publication within the  genre of true crime. It is a true story, a story of tragedy, the story  of a first cousin, a young woman, loving and kind, but silenced,  abandoned when she speaks of her hardships at home, from there to  exploitation, prostitution and death, a murder never resolved.Anita DeFrancesco has also written her own true story. A two-time global  author, public speaker, workshop leader and facilitator. She is the  author of “Live Free — Re-create and Liberate Your Life,” her own  journey, a return from devastation. Anita lives, writes, and speaks as a  woman who has not only survived her own challenges but has also grown  from it and re-created her life journey. She has used her painful and  tragic experience to help other women and girls.Her extensive service includes UCLA/The Rape Foundation, Santa Monica  College, Widener University, WOAR, The Boys and Girls Club, Amity  Foundation, Amistad de Los Angeles, The Clare Foundation, Share, DiDi  Hirsch, and many others including Los Angeles’s “Children of the Night,”  founded by Dr. Lois Lee, an organization that rescues child prostitutes  from pimps and organized child sex traffickers. Early on Anita created a  drug-free group for teenagers called RAP.