Pvt Nye Convicted
Pf Slaying German
Girl in Frankfurt

   Pvt Donald J. Nye, 19, of Syracuse has been sentenced to life imprisonment and dishonorably discharged from the U.S. army by a court martial which convicted him of murdering a German girl.

Report From Frankfurt

   The report came from U.S. army headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany
   The German girl, Maria Scherer, was found strangled to death last Aug. 9 on a rubbish pile near Frankfurt's main railroad station.
   During the trial of the Syracuse paratrooper, army headquarters announced that Nye was admitted to a hospital for mental examination upon request of his counsel.
   The son of Mr.. and Mrs. Carl S. Nye, 328 W. Ostrander ave, Nye entered service in May, 1945, and was home for Christmas holidays last year after completing basic training at Camp Livingston, La. and Camp Hood, Tex.
   He enlisted in the regular army for a year and reported in January to Fort Hancock, N., J. for overseas service.

[The Post-Standard, Syracuse, NY, Saturday, November 2, 1946, page 6]

Young Yank Guilty
   FRANKFURT, Germany, Nov. 2 ---UP---  Pvt Donald J. Nye, a 19-year-ild member of the 508th parachute regiment---"palace guard" of Gen. Joseph T. McNarney's headquarters --- has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the premeditated murder of a German prostitute, the army announced today.

[The Waco Tribune-Herald, Waco, Texas, Sunday, November 3, 1946, Page 25]

MOTHER'S PLEA IS
ON WAY TO REICH

   Syracuse, (UP) --- A mother's plea for nullification of her 19-year-old son's life imprisonment sentence for allegedly murdering a German girl today was on its way to Germany.
   After studying a 100-page transcript of the military trial of her son, Pvt Donald J. Nye, Mrs. Carl S. Nye, Syracuse, cabled Gen. E. C. Ryan, who is reviewing the case, urging him to delay his decision until her "rebuttal" could reach him in Europe.
   Young Nye was convicted of the murder of a German girl in Frankfurt, and is now being held in Wurzburg.
   "Evidence given by the German witnesses was obviously biased and full of not only inconsistencies but downright lies," Mrs. Nye charged.  Her attorney, Morris Berman, formerly associated with the adjutant general's office upholds her contention.

[Dunkirk Evening Observer, Dunkirk, NY, Thursday, January 2, 1947, Page 13]

2 Dangerous GIs
Flee Hospital
(by United Press)

CAMP KILMER, N. J, June 19 --- Two men, described as "very dangerous" escaped today from the Camp Kilmer Hospital and a general alarm was sent to all police in the vicinity.
   The men were Donald J. Nye, 19, of Syracuse, NY, a prisoner serving a 10-year sentence for manslaughter and Walter J. Rought, 23, of Nickelton, R. D. 2, Pa., who was described as a psychoneurotic case.
   Army officials said Rought previously had escaped from the Letterman General Hospital in California and was recaptured and was taken to Camp Kilmer.
   They said it was believed the men escaped in a sedan.  It was not known whether they were armed.
   Nye recently was returned from Europe where he was court-martialed and sentenced for manslaughter.
   Rought, who was arrested in Washington, NJ last Tuesday after his escape from Letterman, faced a general court-martial for manslaughter.

[The Evening News, Harrisburg, PA, Thursday, June 19, 1947, Page 1]

Pvt Nye Escapes
at Camp Kilmer

   Pvt Donald J. Nye, 20, Syracuse soldier convicted of manslaughter in Germany, and a companion who escaped from Camp Kilmer station hospital early yesterday were still at large this morning, object of an eight-state search, according to police.
   Nye was returned to the States from Germany last week when he and six other Americans were threatened with blindness as a result of drinking a poison  liquor in a U.S. military prison in March.  He was to have been transferred from Valley Forge general hospital yesterday, it was said.
   In announcing the escape of Nye and his companion, identified as Walter Rough, 23, of Nickelton, Pa. army officials said the two fled from a ward between midnight and 6 a.m. yesterday and that :there was no violence reported, and no details were available on how the escapes were offered."
   A general message to police departments described Rought as a psychopathic case and revealed that he had previously escaped from Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco.
   The Syracusan's mother, Mrs. Carl S. Nye of 328 W. Ostrander ave., said she learned in a phone conversation with attendants at the Kilmer hospital that "Don had told others in the ward that he was going blind in a few days and wanted freedom before he couldn't see."   The mother said that she talked with her son personally at Kilmer Monday and that then he could see only about eight feet."

[The Post-Standard, Syracuse, NY, Friday June 20, 1947, Page 13]

Donald Nye recaptured,
Mother's Appeal Denied

   Donald J. Nye of 325 W. Ostrander Ave, who escaped with three others from a Valley Forge general hospital ward Wednesday morning, was recaptured in Pottstown, Pa., and turned over to military police yesterday morning.
   It was reported that Nye was picked up with another fugitive, identified as Max C. Green, no address.  Their escape was Nye's second since being returned to the United States from Germany for medical attention.  He received a 10-year sentence from a military court in Germany in the death of a German girl.
   An appeal to have the charge reduced from manslaughter to involuntary manslaughter has been denied, Mrs. Carl S. Nye, the youth's mother, said last night.  altho [sic] she said that she had received no official word of the decision of a Washington board, she understood the appeal had been denied.
   She stated an appeal for clemency is still pending in Washington.
   Mrs. Nye said she had planned to go to Washington next week, but that her son's most recent escapade may change her pans.  She will probably visit him at Valley Forge hospital, she declared.
   Mrs. Nye sated last night that altho she felt that "Donald had made a serious mistake" in escaping, she will do all she possibly can to help him.

[The Post-Standard, Syracuse, NY, Saturday July 9, 1947, Page 2]

Two Army Prisoners Who Fled
Meade Cellblock Nabbed by MPs

   FORT MEADE, MD., Feb 17 (UP) --- Military police patrols ran out a systematic search today and pounced on two armed and dangerous prisoners who escaped last night from an army cellblock.
   With the firing of one warning shot, the MPs caught Pvt Donald J. Nye, 21, Syracuse NY and Robert Nelson, 22, Rome, Ga., on the rifle range about three miles south of the main post.
   Both are dishonorably discharged soldiers still serving prison terms for military violations in Europe.  Each had a record of three previous escapes.  They were brought here from The federal prison at Lewisburg, Pa. to testify in a court-martial case.
   Bloodhounds had been ordered here foir the search.  Two small lanes cruised over the wooded parts of the reservation at treetop height.
  Meantime, almost 150 MPs, split up in small searching squads, plotted a methodical search of the area offering concealment.
   A detail commanded by First Lt. Giuffrida, Middletown Conn., veteran of the Pacific fighting, was assigned to the rifle range sector. They found some cane marks on a pathway near the target shack.
   Nelson is crippled and uses a cane.  It was the weapon with which two guards at the cellblock were subdued.
   Lt. Giuffrida spotted the tip of a cane in a clump of bushes near the target shack.  His 15 MPs deployed in a circle in back of him, rifles ready.  He fired one shot in the air, and charged the bushes.
   Nye and Nelson were behind the bushes, sitting on the ground.  Giuffrida had taken them by surprise.  He ordered Nye to stand up and there was a .45 automatic under him, with two unfired bullets.
   The two prisoners were loaded into a truck and returned to the detention cell.  Both were sullen and refused to talk.
[The Cumberland News, Cumberland, MD, Friday, February 18, 1949, Page 1]

Grave marker for Donald J. Nye in Hillsboro Memorial Cemetery, Brandon (Hillsborough county), Florida.

Donald enlisted in the Army at Camp Hood, Killeen, TX.  His early service career is largely unknown but in 1946 he was sent to the ETO as part of the occupation forces.

He attended the 508th PIR's parachute training school in Frankfurt, Germany.

His conviction for the murder of a German prostitute made headlines across the U.S.

Initially sentenced to life imprisonment, his conviction was overturned and reduced to 10 years for manslaughter.  He was transferred from German custody and returned to the U.S.

He escaped on at least four occasions but those offenses seem to not have added extra time to his sentence.  In fact, approximately 5 years after his initial conviction he was a free man.

In 1951 he married Rose M Giammarco, a marriage that lasted 13 years until their divorce in Seminole county, FL in December 1964.

He married a second time on 22 September 1978 to a woman named Dollie Smith in Marion county, FL but they divorced almost exactly three years later.  Don apparently had been seeing another woman as only two days later he married his third wife, Evelyn Julia Batchelder in Hillsborough county, FL.

That marriage lasted about 3 1/2 years as he and Evelyn parted ways in Pinellas county, FL on 15 February 1985.

Donald took his vows for a fourth time on 15 May 1988 as he was wed to Mary Louise Reed in Hillsborough county, FL.  It is her name that appears on the joint grave marker (see photo above).