Cold Case Reopened: Dylan McDermott’s Mom Was Slain By Connecticut Gangster

Police in Waterbury, Connecticut, claim that they have solved the case what really happened to the mother of actor Dylan McDermott, whose 1967 death was originally ruled an accident

According to AP, Mrs. McDermott was murdered by mobster John Sponza, who himself was shot to death in 1972.

Police told the [Waterbury Republican-American] newspaper that the evidence they found would be enough to file murder charges against John Sponza, who lived with McDermott at the time. He had told authorities that McDermott accidently shot herself after picking up a gun he had been cleaning…

H. Wayne Carver, the state’s medical examiner, reviewed McDermott’s autopsy and determined that the gun found near the body was too small a caliber to have been the weapon used to kill her. The wound also showed that the murder weapon had been pressed to the back of her head, according to his report.

McDermott, who was five years old when he lost his mother, asked Waterbury authorities to reopen the investigation last year.

Police Superintendent Michael Gugliotti added said he was “troubled…that there was very little follow up other than the statement Sponza had given to police” especially since the couple apparently had a history of “very violent, vicious arguments.”

Dylan McDermott won a Golden Globe award for his role as Bobby Donnell in The Practice for which he was also nominated for an Emmy. He also recently appeared in American Horror Story on the FX network as Dr. Ben Harmon. He has yet to release a statement or make a public comment about the findings of the reopened police investigation.