Courtroom Erupts Into Chaos at Murder Arraignment

"She was a good person."

"She didn't deserve to die."

An emotionally-charged courtroom erupted into chaos after the ex-husband of slain Shirley Donnelly lunged over the railing to attack her accused killer in the Kent County Courthouse today.

Raymond Donnelly, the victim’s former husband, sat in the front row alongside family members and friends at the arraignment of Matthew Komrowski, 34, of Providence, one day after Komrowski and two days after Donnelly's .

Komrowski, who police said bound the 38-year-old mother of three, killed her, and set fire to her apartment Thursday night, did not enter a plea to charges of murder and kidnapping, which is customary for District Court arraignments on felony charges.

As Komrowski was being led away by sheriff’s deputies, Donnelly exploded.  He lunged at Komrowski, who was hurried by sheriffs out of the courtroom through a side door as Donnelly was restrained. The courtroom was cleared.

Afterwards, outside on the steps of the courthouse, family members said they had been provoked by Komrowski, who flashed a middle finger at news cameras yesterday during his special arraignment in Cranston Municipal Court and today responded to District Court Judge Pamela Woodcock Pfeiffer’s question if he could afford a lawyer by saying, “The family’s going to help me with that.”

Donnelly barked back at Komrowski after the comment, which prompted deputies and court officials to gather around the front row of the gallery in anticipation of what would happen next.

Donnelly was released without charges and outside the building, indicated the family is in shock and going through a rough time.

Shirley Donnelly’s sister-in-law, Denise Donnelly, said the family doesn’t understand how Komrowski could have committed such a despicable crime. The courtroom outburst was “just a reaction,” because the family “has been so angry” about losing a sister, a mother and a friend.

Shirley “had made some bad mistakes in her life, but she was a good person,” Denise Donnelly said. “She didn’t realize what a bad guy [Komrowski] really is.”

The two had been in a relationship for about a year, Donnelly said. She had taken him in and they lived together with her three sons, aged 16, 18 and 19.

"He had nothing when she took him in," said the victim's aunt, Sabrina Betroncini. "He was a street person."

Many people have concluded that the relationship was chronically abusive before the murder, but that wasn’t the case, Donnelly said. The sons didn’t observe any domestic abuse when they were around, she said.

“It was like a one night explosion,” Donnelly said. “We just don’t understand it.”

Bertoncini said her niece had plans, wanted to do things, had so much more life to live. She was planning to go to the beach house this summer. She had many friends and called the close ones her "sisters."

“Whatever punishment they can give him is going to be too good for him,” Bertoncini said of Komrowski.

Komrowski will return to Superior Court for a probation hearing before answering to the felony charges in the coming days. He is being held as a probation violator stemming from a 1999 robbery conviction, police said.

He remains held without bail at the Adult Correctional Institutions.

Cranston Police, along with State Police, Providence Police, the Probation and Parole Department and the State Police Fusion Center captured Komrowski 23 hours after the crime was discovered.

Donnelly lived in a second-floor apartment at Riverbend Apartments on Dyer Avenue.

Police were initially called to investigate the report of a fire at the Dyer Avenue apartment complex just before midnight on Thursday. Donnelly was found dead in the bedroom of the second floor apartment and "circumstances surrounding the fire scene were deemed suspicious in nature and the focus of the investigation immediately shifted to that of a homicide," said Cranston Police Major Robert W. Ryan.

Witnesses said they saw Komrowski, who they know as Donnelly's boyfriend, leaving the apartment complex in his 1997 gold Nissan Maxima early Thursday.

He was later found in the third floor of his sister's apartment on Potters Avenue in Providence. Armed with an arrest warrant, police took Komrowski into custody after a brief struggle just before 11 p.m. Friday night.

Although police said additional charges against Komrowski might be levied beyond the initial murder and kidnapping charges, nothing more was filed in District Court today. Police have remained tight-lipped about the nature of the crime, how Donnelly died and other details about the investigation. The only revelations today was that Donnelly’s body was bound and restrained and Komrowski had made “statements implicating himself” in the crime during interrogation, according to special assistant to the Attorney General John Krollman.