Donna Hylton

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Donna Patricia Walden, AKA Donna Hylton, (born 29 October 1964) is a Jamaican-American author and activist. In 1986 she was sentenced to 25 years in prison for her participation in the 1985 kidnapping, torture, rape and murder of Thomas Vigliarolo.

Biography

In the summer of 1981, Hylton claimed she was abducted by an older man whose previous advances she had rebuffed. She claimed he locked her inside a bedroom closet, after which he was joined by another man. When they pulled her out of the closet, Hylton recognized the second man as a minister at a nearby church. The two men allegedly took turns raping her, then shoved her back in the closet, where she remained for three days. Once released, Hylton reported the crime to the police. She claims one of the responding detectives drove her to an unfamiliar location and raped her.

In 1982, at age 18, Hylton married a 19-year-old rapper. When she learned that she was pregnant again, the rapper and his mother talked her into terminating the pregnancy. Following her abortion, he asked for a divorce.

In 1984, Hylton went to work at a hotel gift shop in Times Square. In January 1985, a recently hired coworker introduced Hylton to the coworker's godfather, a man named Louis Miranda. In March 1985, Miranda enlisted Hylton in a scheme to recover money he believed had been swindled from him by a business partner.

On 20 March, 1985, Hylton and three other women abducted 62-year-old Thomas Vigliarolo at the behest of their acquaintance Louis Miranda, who believed Vigliarolo had cheated him out of $139,000. The group held him hostage for 15-20 days, during which time he was beaten, burned, had his genitals crushed with pliers and was sodomized with a metal rod, the last part having allegedly been done by Hylton personally. Vigliarolo eventually died of asphyxiation.

Hylton was ordered to deliver a ransom note to Vigliarolo's friend. As Hylton drove away the friend was able to record the car's licence plate, leading to the police capturing Hylton and ultimately the rest of the gang. At her trial Hylton argued that she had participated under coercion, claiming that Louis Miranda had threatened to kill her daughter if she didn't follow his orders. She was convicted of second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping and received a sentence of 25 years to life. She was paroled in 2012 after serving 26 years.

She has since become an advocate for prison reform and humanitarian release for aging prisoners, and has apologized to the Vigliarolo family for her part in the murder.

In her memoir, A Little Piece of Light: A Memoir of Hope, Prison, and a Life Unbound, published in June 2018, Hylton expressed sympathy for her victim, a husband and father. "Even now," she writes, "half a decade after leaving prison, not a day goes by that I don't think about Mr. Vigliarolo. Not a day goes by that I don't think of his family, the fear they must have felt as they imagined him in fear, wondering where he was for eleven nights and worried for what he might have been experiencing.”

On August 20, 2020, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) included Hylton in a list of 22 of "America's most impactful community leaders" who participated in a video reading of the Preamble to the Constitution during a televised portion of the convention."