Oregon man sentenced to 50 years in prison for 1978 murder of Anchorage teen

An Oregon man was sentenced Friday to spend the rest of his life behind bars for murdering a 16-year-old Anchorage girl and dumping her body along the Seward Highway 46 years ago.

Anchorage Superior Court Judge Andrew Peterson sentenced Donald McQuade, now 67, to serve 50 years in prison for the death of Shelley Connolly. McQuade was convicted in December of first- and second-degree murder in Connolly’s killing.

Prosecutors during Friday’s hearing said the sentence provides some closure for friends and family but comes after so many decades that many, including Connolly’s mother, died before seeing a resolution.

The break in the investigation came about five years ago, in 2019, when a genetic genealogy analysis connected McQuade to DNA evidence found on Connolly’s body. The advances in technology combined with increasingly available genetic DNA have led to breaks in cold cases across the country during recent years. McQuade is the second man to be sentenced in such a case in Alaska.

Two women found Connolly’s body near a pullout along the Seward Highway between Anchorage and Girdwood on Jan. 7, 1978. The State Medical Examiner testified during trial about finding signs of sexual assault along with strangulation and internal bleeding.

Investigators at the time exhausted their leads and the case went cold until 2019, when Alaska State Troopers said DNA evidence showed a match to McQuade and his two brothers. McQuade was the only one living in Alaska at the time of Connolly’s death, and troopers said they later got a direct match between the DNA from Connolly’s body and McQuade.

There is no indication that McQuade knew Connolly before that night, assistant attorney general Erin McCarthy wrote in a sentencing memorandum. She described the murder as a random crime of opportunity.

Connolly’s death left her family with lasting grief that has caused generational trauma, her niece said in a letter McCarthy read aloud Friday. Connolly’s mother never stopped searching for her daughter’s killer, the letter said. Grief led several family members to addiction, her niece said.

“It changed each and every one of us in different ways,” the letter said. “It led some of us to our graves. And our lives were overshadowed by all of the ‘what-ifs’ and ‘will she ever get justice?’”

McQuade had the privilege of getting married, having children and living freely for the last 46 years, Connolly’s niece wrote. Meanwhile, Connolly never went to prom, graduated high school, went to college or had her own family, the letter said.

“She never got to finish growing up. That was taken from her that day, along with her innocence,” Connolly’s niece wrote.

During Friday’s hearing, McQuade told Peterson that he maintains his innocence and did not kill Connolly. He said he plans to appeal the conviction.

A number of McQuade’s family members and friends sent letters of support to the court. Some of them think “it’s unfathomable that Mr. McQuade could be convicted of such a horrific offense,” assistant public defender Benjamin Dresner said during the hearing.

The support presented during the trial cut both ways, Peterson said before handing down the sentence, because the letters highlight that McQuade lived a full life while evading responsibility for Connolly’s death.

In an interview after the hearing, McQuade’s brother Richard McQuade said his brother is innocent. He said he believes some evidence and testimony that could have supported his brother’s case was not presented at trial.

Peterson acknowledged that any sentence would likely be a life sentence for McQuade. He is in remission from advanced liver cancer, Dresner said. He requested that McQuade receive the minimum sentence, or 20 years in prison, for that reason.

McCarthy requested McQuade be sentenced to serve 50 years in prison, but acknowledged that much of that sentence would be symbolic because of his age and ailing health. The sentence will show “Alaskans that violent crimes are not forgotten and that they will be appropriately sentenced by the justice system even if an offender has eluded consequences for much of his life,” she said.

Peterson said McQuade’s 50-year sentence was on the lower end of the scale due to his age and health issues but would probably have been much higher had he gone through the process decades ago when the crime occurred.

The judge described the terror of Connolly’s last moments as he addressed his sentencing decision.

“In a court mindset, the seriousness of this offense is almost aggravated to some extent by the passage of time, just because of what her family lost over all those years,” he said.