On the evening of October 19, 1974, Anne Isabel Kahrn Dowling, 58, and her husband Thomas were customers at the Donna Lee Bakery in New Britain, Connecticut, when a robbery unfolded into a mass killing. Along with four other people, including the bakery owner and another customer, the Dowlings were forced into a back room, made to lie face down, and each was shot in the back of the head.

Investigators initially treated the crime as a robbery; about $300 was taken from the register along with victims’ wallets. They later theorized the violence escalated after one perpetrator, Gary B. Schrager, was recognized by a victim, his uncle by marriage, Michael P. Kron, and that all six were killed to eliminate witnesses.

Two local men were arrested: Ronald F. Tiny Piskorski, convicted in December 1975 and sentenced to 150 years to life, and Gary B. Schrager, who pleaded guilty to four of the six murders, said he did not fire the shots and refused to name the killer, and was sentenced to 20 years to life as an accessory. Both men later died in prison.

Did anyone in New Britain at the time recall unusual activity around the bakery on October 19, 1974?