A Pennsylvania man is behind bars after brutally killing his girlfriend and then trying and failing at an elaborate attempt to kill himself while lying next to her corpse late last month, authorities say.
Donnell Brunson, 55, stands accused of one count each of criminal homicide and risking a catastrophe over the gruesome turn of events, according to the Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office.
On the evening of Nov. 29, Danielle Barbuti, 49, was found dead by her sister at an apartment on Luke Avenue in Scranton. The woman’s face and head were severely injured and she had been violently assaulted.
Three days later, Brunson was charged with aggravated assault. That initial charge was upgraded to murder on Monday after a chilling admission in the intervening days, according to law enforcement.
According to court documents obtained by The Times-Tribune, Brunson and Barbuti went to sleep together the night before. He, however, had suspicions that the victim was cheating on him, he allegedly told detectives. When he woke up at 7 a.m., he began to brutalize her. First, with five or six punches to her head using his right fist, then once or twice with his left, he allegedly admitted. After that, Brunson hit Barbuti with a ceramic ashtray, covered her face with his hands, and finally switched to a pillow to silence her screams.
That’s when Brunson allegedly decided he wanted to die.
“Brunson stated that he knew that he only had two choices at that point: leave and commit suicide or go to jail for the rest of his life,” detectives wrote in a document obtained by the paper.
To try and kill himself, he swallowed a large number of sleeping pills, slashed one of his wrists with an X-Acto knife, and then turned on the gas stove inside Barbuti’s apartment — that last action in order to cause an explosion, the defendant allegedly confessed.
Left: Donnell Brunson; Right: the house where his girlfriend was murdered. (Lackawanna County; Google Maps)
According to detectives, Brunson woke up at around 4 p.m. to the sound of Barbuti’s sister calling the dead woman’s cellphone. The alleged killer told police he was surprised he was still alive because his dying that day was “how it was supposed to end.”
In an interview with law enforcement, he “recounted that her leg felt cold” when he awoke late that afternoon.
Then, detectives wrote, Brunson “knew he had to leave the scene as soon as possible” and covered Barbuti’s face with a blanket. After that, he washed away some of the blood on his body and left.
Barbuti’s sister eventually stopped calling and went directly to the apartment. She was supposed to babysit that day and never showed — she never canceled either. Detectives wrote that the victim’s sister found the door of the apartment open and went inside, making the worst discovery of her life before calling police.
Blood was all over the apartment when the police arrived. Responding officers also found the bloodied X-Acto knife, another knife, an open pill bottle with Brunson’s name on it, a bloody handprint on a wall near the bed, a blood-covered bag, and diluted blood in the sink.
The Lackawanna County Coroner Tim determined that Barbuti’s formal cause of death was asphyxia.
Brunson’s alleged desire for his own death didn’t end when he left Barbuti’s apartment, police wrote in the charging documents.
He stopped at a store where he bought two bottles of sleeping pills, a bottle of ibuprofen, and a bottle of water, police say. The alleged killer continued to consume pills as he drove — finally settling on the idea of breaking into a mobile home he had previously worked on to wait for police and try again.
“Brunson stated that if he were able to move, he would have jumped to initiate contact, resulting in police shooting him,” detectives wrote in the court document obtained by the Times-Tribune.
He was later traced to the mobile home using his cellphone records, police said. Law enforcement found him there under a blanket. Police described a bloody scene: his hands were red, the mobile home was covered in blood, and there was a crimson stain on his vehicle’s steering wheel.
“Thank you for your trust,” Brunson allegedly texted Barbuti the night before she died. “It’s nice to know that you see I’m in love with you so much that I would never do anything to hurt you.”
He is being detained in the Lackawanna County Prison without bail. He is slated to appear in court on Dec. 27.
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