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Hostadi, you are now listening to True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have written about them Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Good evening. This is your host Dan Zupanski for the program True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True crime History and the authors that have written about them. Adam Leroy Lane was a trucker with a passion for morbid side trips at random trucks along the Inner States in America's northeastern States, Lane would leave his truck and, under the cover of darkness, prowl nearby neighborhoods in search of
an unlocked door and a vulnerable woman. His first known victim would be Darlene O Walt, who was murdered on the back deck of her Pennsylvania home as she sat talking on the phone with a friend and her husband and sons sleeping inside. Monica Massero would be next, when living alone in New Jersey duplex. Monica would be the third to die at the hands of this nomadic serial killer. Lane's reign of terror would end when he crossed home
in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. When he entered Shay's room, he wasn't counting on a teenage girl who was a fighter, a broken air conditioner preventing a deep sleep, or nearby parents willing to do anything to protect their daughter. The book This Evening that we are featured is caught in the act a courageous family's fight to save their daughter from a serial killer. With my special guest Jeanie MacDonough with her book while in the act from Genie McDonough with
Paul Leonardo, but speaking with us via telephone. Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Gennie McDonough.
Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.
Dan, thank you very much. I'm very looking forward to this. This is a great book from a totally unique perspective. This is a great book and I'm sure everybody will enjoy this interview, especially from your unique perspective. Now, first off, there's many ways we can go about explaining this incredible story, but let's first for the people there, let's describe the setting in Lexington, Lexington, Massachusetts, your home. What kind of community is this, what kind of size of this community
is this community? And where for those people that don't know where this might be, where does it say in comparison to say Boston or the nearest bigger city that most people would recognize. Tell us a little bit about this community such describe the setting for us. See.
Well, first, let me just say I grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts. That's where I grew up. But when the crime happened on July thirtieth, two thousand and seven, we lived in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. That's okay, which is probably twenty miles from Lexington, max, maybe even just fifteen miles from Lexington. Chelmsford is on the New Hampshire border, very close to Nashua and New Hampshire on Rout three. Chelmsford is it's a working class town. It's a really nice community. You know, not a lot
happens here, I mean as far as crimes go. In fact, that summer we were voted. I think I think I put it in the book. I think it was like the twenty first best place to live in the United States, ironically, but you know what, my perspective towards that has not changed because crimes of this nature can happen anywhere. Sure, it really doesn't matter where you live. It's a great community. However, where we live four five is an interstate and it
runs behind our house. And you know, we never thought about the danger of living near a highway. Just the noise was the factor. We just never thought about safety being a factor.
Right now, now, tell us about your family before we get into this story too much. Again, tell us about your family, your husband, Kevin, and your son and your daughter. Tell us what their their ages were at that time, which is just about four years ago, but it is four years ago. Tell us about their ages. Tell us what kind of I thought it was very interesting. Good aspect of a very interesting book is the You talk very candidly about the relationship that you did have. So
tell us about the relationship you did have. You told us a little bit about the community. Tell us really about what your family was like at that time, the relationship you did have with your husband and your kids. Tell us about your family.
Well, that summer, Ryan had just graduated from high school. He was eighteen at the time. Shae was fifteen and a freshman in high school. Actually, no, sorry, sophomore in high school, going into our junior year. It was a great summer. You know, Ryan had just graduated from high school. We had just come back from vacation down the Cape Cape Cod and had a wonderful time, and we came back and we were just getting back into the swing of going to work. And she was going to start
swim practices Monday, early, Monday morning. It happened. Our home invasion happened Sunday night, July thirtieth, and Shye was going to start her swim practices Monday morning, bright and early at seven am. Our family very tight unit, you know, my husband, my two kids, they're my world. And it had been a great summer up to that point, nothing out of the usual until July thirtieth, Sunday night.
Now, what was your What was your family like in terms of history, in terms of you don't describe your your family so much in terms of what had happened historically to your family. You've been involved in any kind of crimes, There wasn't anybody. Well, you know, I can just say right off the hop you you people were law abiding citizens. But just tell us historically how innocent or how unaccustomed you were to anything of any sort of nature like this to show the juxtaposition about what
what really happens. But tell us about, you know, what kind of history did you your family have in terms of experience, How experienced were you?
No experience whatsoever? Really, you know, everything that you see on TV and on the news happens to other people. It doesn't happen to us. You know, Kevin and I had been together since I was sixteen years old. You know, we certainly when we were young, we you know, I'm you know, we were your typical teenagers. But we never had any you know, run ins with the law, so
to speak. So living in the community that we lived in, we never that nothing happens around here really for the most part, seemed like a lot seemed to happen that particular summer, but you know, we'd never had These type of things always happen to other people. They don't happen to people you know or yourself.
Right now, what type of person was your This is going to be important a little bit later later, and I'm trying to to sort of unfold the story for people to realize the set, to get the setting, because you really do a great job of showing this little, you know, little town and just sweet, great little life that you've got going on here with your young children and your great husband and your great life. Tell us, just briefly, what kind of guy was your husband? How
big is your husband? What kind of guy is he? A jock? He's he a guy that did a little bit of wrestling, some boxing. What kind of guy is your husband?
You know, I think he did a little bit of wrestling in junior high school. He's very physically fit. He's a utility contractor alignment climbs telephone poles and does high voltage,
you know, utility work. He's very physically fit. He's five nine and one hundred and sixty pounds, and he says in great shape, and he's he runs, and he's very agile and very he's very quick with his hands, very quick with his hands, and he's very strong and very sharp and intuitive and thankfully all of those things because if he wasn't. The the way things turned out that night, there's it just it would have been horribly different.
Now, what was the what was your daughter?
Like?
I know everybody says, well, she was a typical teenage daughter. And my daughter is eighteen years old, so you know, and I see other children so or young ladies, and certainly there's I don't know what typical means. So tell us what, you know, what was her state of mind at that at that summer? What was she She was looking forward to some things, but what was she like as an individual compared to say, some of her friends. Was she outgoing? Was she a tough kid? Was she
a tomboy? What was she really like?
Young? Young for her age? She was young for her grade. Most of the other kids in her grade were close almost a year older than she was.
Right, She.
Is very bubbly, great personality. Everyone liked her, and she just she's very warm hearted. She takes after her grandmother in that respect, and are just a sweet, sweet girl. But very young for fifteen, right, And that came into play, honestly, because I don't think that she had any hesitation in her mind that we were going to come in and
help her that night. Thankfully we did, but I know that, you know, being the age that she was, and she's definitely young for her age, I think that she just thought right off the bat at fifteen years old, well it's okay because my parents are going to come in and everything's going to be okay. Thankfully we did, but you know that doesn't that's not always the scenario.
Nice, So you had a very close relationship with your children despite teenage years. We'll say that much, because that's what you get from the from the book. Definitely before I get into that day in question, I wanted to because I wanted to let you know, people know as well, because this wouldn't have happened without a you know, I hate to use this word, but it's not such a derogatory word. That's what I was trying to say that I guess you people were a little bit naive, as
anybody is first time victim. You're never going to be that naive again, you know, unfortunately. And and so what I'm what I'm trying to describe to is that I wanted to go back to the other victims because they do pre date everything. And of course you knew nothing at that time about any other victims, even though they weren't that far away in terms of proximity. I know, I know they're in other states. So let's just for the benefit of our audience not get into the day
in question quite yet. But let's get back to what you did find out, and we'll just have a little different order here about a couple people, Monica Masso and Darlena Walt, and start in the in the order that this, of course everyone knows Adam Lee ory Lane is responsible. But tell us about the murders of these people by Adam Lee roy Lane, and then we'll get to the faithful day in July thirtieth when your whole life changed forever.
Well, we certainly, as you were saying, Dan, we didn't find out about these other murders until after our home invasion, and it was it was three and a half weeks after our encounter that we learned about Monica Massara. And she was not the first victim. She was the second victim. Darlene Ewell was the first victim. But Monica was killed the night before he came to our house, twenty two hours before he came to our house.
Well, tell us about Darlene and Walt first, and then tell us about Monica Masseri. Please.
Darlene Ewalt was killed on July thirteenth. Darlene Ewalt was a mother, beautiful young mother, forty two years old, had two kids. Actually, my children's ages now nineteen and twenty two. She was sitting on her back patio talking on a cordless phone to a very close friend who happened to be a man, the husband of another friend of hers, and they were planning a vacation. It was a cruise that they were going to go on, and this couple they were best friends with Darlene and Todd Ewalt. They
were going on this cruise with their two sons. But their two sons had gotten into trouble and so the parents, Chet and Pat had said, Okay, well you guys are not going to go, and so we're going to take someone else. And they had approached Todd and Darlene about going on this trip with them in their son's places.
Todd Ewalt, Darlene's husband, is a youth football coach and it would have been right in the middle of his coaching season, his football season, so he didn't feel like he could take the time and go, but he told his wife, Darlene, feel free to go and take one of your girlfriends instead. So that was the plan. And she was sitting on her back patio that night talking to chat and working out the logistics of the trip.
And who she was going to take and what they were going to need, and just you know, all the logistics, and it was a long conversation. She was out there from ten until two in the morning, and she was on our back patio. It was a very hot night, and Todd was inside sleeping. His son was inside sleeping in the basement. Todd was in the bedroom upstairs, right over the patio where Darlene was sitting. He had gone out around ten at night, I think he said to
say good night, said good night. She said I'd be up in a little while and he said, yeah, okay. And I believe it was around two o'clock in the morning, Adam Leroy Lane, this long haul trucker stepped out of the woods and sliced her throat and left you're on the back patio to die, which was fairly quickly because I mean he basically sliced her throat. So that was the first victim that we learned about.
And she was still on the line with her friend as well, Yes, wasn't she?
Yes?
And the thing is what so police were immediately came to the scene. And this is a very very interesting aspect of your book. And we'll talk about what happens now, and I'll reserve it later for how interesting it is the later the speech that you have and then it was approved by police. You know the speech I'm talking about.
But anyway, we'll talk about that later. But let's talk about Todd e Walt because he's a very very interesting character in this story for his reaction and for the ordeal that he went through, which was twice as bad as most people will go through. Because so tell us. So there's the phone call and then the police are called. So what happens after police come to the scene, What happens? How does that progress? How do they find? Do they find Adam Leroy Lane? What happened? And what?
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I believe we're previted by loss he terms and conditions eighteen plus. But I didn't realize, and I know I put it in the book, and but I didn't realize it until later that Chet and Pat, who were speaking to Darling at the time, called nine one one when the line went dead and called nine one one and said, you know something, something's not right. We were just talking to our friend and the line went dead, so they called nine one one. They said, we're headed over to
check on her. And they said, okay, well when you get there, call us back. Okay, so yeah, instead of saying, well then, well you know, we'll check into it right away. But I guess you know this is this is It was a very rural area and I don't know how things are done there. Thankfully they weren't done that way
here in Chelmsbard. So they headed over and they were the first ones to come across Darlene on her patio, and it was a horrifying scene for them, you know, their best friend, and they come upon her body lifeless, and Todd is inside sleeping. He has no idea what's going on. So the police come and I believe Chet and his wife Pat left the premises, probably headed to the police station or home. I'm not exactly sure what
they did. I'm sure they were traumatized beyond belief. And the police barged into Todd's home and routed him from a sound sleep. He was a sound asleep upstairs in his bedroom and they had their guns drawn in the flashlights on him, and he had no idea what he was woken from a sound sleep. I think he thought it was his son playing a prank. But then when he realized it was the police. It was It was just a horrible scenario for him, and he didn't find out about his wife's death for quite some.
Time, and he was what we're talking about to this ordeal that begins for him obviously finds out that he slept through the murder of his wife. But this is just the beginning of the ordeal because as most police will say, that their first suspect becomes the husband if they can't find any evidence otherwise. And in this particular case, they were focusing on Todd Ewalt right.
Because yeah, they were because you know what they found out early on that Darling was on her back patio talking to another man on the phone, and so their minds automatically went to the thought that, oh, okay, you know she's talking to another man on the phone. Todd went into a jealous rage. You know, whatever scenarios they were building in their head. I mean, I understand, I understand statistics, and I understand, but it's just the man's
woken from a sound sleep. He's obviously a sound sleep. There's not you know, there's no evidence to point to him whatsoever. There's no blood anywhere inside it. I don't know.
But at the same time, didn't you say, or least I think you actually stated in the book that what police thought was that the crime was seemed to be motiveless, and so since it didn't have any motive, why anyone would come over a fence and kill someone in the backyard and then run away without robbing the person of anything and had no sexual component?
Right?
No, I know that's not typically the you know, they they tend to law enforcement tends to look at family members and acquaintances. No one in no one would expect that someone would come out of the woods. Yeah, it's just it's I mean, who would expect No one would expect it.
I expect it. So, so Todd e Walt was undergoing his double trauma of a murdered wife and then and then the police and then uh shortly after, not too long after, Monica Massaro is attacked. So tell us about the attack of Monica Masso.
Well, in between Monica Massarro was Patricia Brooks and she survived, And she was July seventeenth, and she survived.
How was she attacked?
She same way. He walked into the into her house. She was on the couch sleeping, and he sliced her throat and actually sliced her throat and her shoul right across her shoulder blade. Somehow she survived, she saw him, she survived. I think she played. I would tend to say that she pretended she was dead.
Yeah, she did.
I don't know, because I couldn't. I couldn't get her to speak to me. She's not spoken to anyone at all. So from new I took what I learned from news accounts, and she survived and was able to identify him. He was not wearing a mask at the time that he attacked her, so she was able to identify him, but it wasn't until later.
Now, the other feature of this, and we'll get to the importance of this, and then i'll ask you why. And on July thirtieth, it was not typical for you to have the same feature. But one of the features, as I mentioned in the opening of the program, is that he was looking for unlocked doors. So so Monica
Missera was another victim because of the unlocked door. Now you're saying Monica, then the then Patricia Brooks was attacked on July seventeenth, and then I guess July twenty ninth, then Monica Massara was attacked.
Tell us about her attack, same same type of scenario. She lived in a small little borough in New Jersey, very quaint, adorable town. But at the end of the town, right at the end, because Kevin, my husband, and I drove through, which I'll get into later on, is a truck stop. It's it's a major truck stop where truckers people on the highway, you know, they stop, and it's right at the end of the main street where Monica lived.
There's there's no barrier there whatsoever. It's it did shock me when I went through the town to see how close it is. Because to rest areas are on highways, they're not like right in a town. Well, this is like right at the end of the town. It's right there, and that's where he parked. And he went through the town. It was two o'clock in the morning, again early in the morning when people are sleeping. His he didn't, he didn't. He looked at for houses where he didn't see people awake.
He wanted to surprise people, and he found a house. He saw the car in the driveway. For whatever reason, he looked in the windows of the car and saw a pocketbook and there. So he went to the house, checked the door. It was unlocked, went into the house, saw the keys on the coffee table, took the keys, went back out to the car, took the pocketbook out of the car, went back into the house, and he came across Monica Massara, who was sound asleep in her bedroom,
and startled her. In the middle of the night. She heard him rummaging around and she used her she's she had a ceiling fan with a light in her bedroom, and so she pressed the button and turned the light on and saw him in there and was startled and screamed, and then he attacked her and and killed her in her bedroom and slid her throat and then sat there and watched her die.
And I awful.
I it's it's just awful because you know, as we'll get into later on, I've become very friendly with the families. So, yeah, the guy's a monster.
He's just I'm absolutely absolutely now this uh. Obviously, the next day he came into your universe and changed your life forever. Tell us about the entire day of July thirtieth, two thousand and seven. How tell us about this typical day in the McDonough family. And you know this didn't happen till, like you say, four am or so. So tell us about the day and what progressed in the night, tell us what where your son Ryan was, and also tell us how it came to be that your door was unlocked.
Oh sure, well there's just some it's a crazy scenario. But Sunday, Saturday night, the twenty ninth, we had gone out with my father in law and a bunch of friends, and he had rented a limousine and we went into Boston to have a great time. So we went into Boston and had dinner and drinks and you know how to fabulous time limousine driving us. So of course, you know, we aren't thinking about, you know, whether we should not have that last drink whatever, had a great night and
came home. That was Saturday night. So the next morning we wake up and I say this just because if Saturday had been Sunday, everything would have been different. Sure, but I wasn't. Thankfully it wasn't. So Sunday we wake up and I think my husband went to play golf, which he's an avid golfer, and I just hung out by the pool. I have a pool in my backyard and I just hung out by the pool. Shay I think Shaye has spent the night at a friend's house.
The night before, Ry was at his best friend's house. They were out, they were just doing their thing. So Sunday it was quiet, the kids weren't around, and Kevin and I said, let's go get an early dinner. So there's a little bestro in the town, a couple couple towns away from us, and we drove out and had dinner at this little beestro. It's great little place, and it was Sunday, so when we got there, I think we got there at like six o'clock. And there's a
package store liquor store right next to this place. It's a byob place, but it was closed at the time that we got there. So we're like, oh, you know, bomber, I guess we'll just have lemonade or whatever with dinner. Key. That was absolutely key that we didn't have anything to drink that night. We were on our brights, so we had a nice dinner. We came home. It was early. I stayed up to watch the Red Sox game. Kevin went to bed early because he gets up at five
o'clock every morning to go to work. So he went to bed early. And I'm a huge Red Sox fan. He is too, but he can't stay up late. It was the Red Sox were playing the Tampa Bay was the Tampa Bay Rays at the time, but it's the Rays now, so I stayed up to watch the game. It got over. It was a late night game too, and it got over late. Jay had called me and said, Mom, can I spend the night at her friend's house? And I said, Shay, you have swim practice for the next morning.
I don't think that's a good idea. It's going to be a hassle. Just plan on coming home. So she did. She didn't give me an argument or anything. She said, okay, all right, fine. Then she said, well, it would it be all right if my friend Ashley spent the night. And I said, well, you know, if Ashley really wants to spend the night, but it's still going to be tough. What's Ashally going to do when you get up to go to swim practice at seven o'clock in the morning. You know what's she going to do?
Right?
She's like, yeah, okay, that's probably not a good idea. So she came home. Her curfew was twelve o'clock. She came home. She was home like a quarter or twelve. And it'll start to echo.
Is that okay?
All right?
Can you hear me echoing?
I just heard a little breakup there in the last sentence, So if you could repeat what you just said there, can you hear me? Yes?
Okay, So sorry, I'll sudden it's echoing on my line.
Okay, sounding fine on this.
End, It is okay. So anyway, Shay came home and I neglected to tell her that Ryan was spending the night at his best friend's house. So she thought, I'll leave the back door unlocked for Ryan, because he's who knows if he has his key, And so she left the back door unlocked. She curled up on the sectional, which is right by our back door, and fell asleep there until about two o'clock in the morning, and then she got up and went into the spare bedroom, which
was right next to our bedroom. It's like kitty corner to our bedroom. And because we had the air conditioning on in that room. We live in a small cape and it was extremely hot that July. It was ninety five ninety seven degrees and the kid's bedrooms upstairs arepressive. You can't sleep up there, so typically they will sleep on the sectional by the back door. A lot of times they'll just crash on that sectional because there's windows
all around the perimeter of the room. There's ten windows, so we have them all open, and then there's a ceiling fan, so the breeze is beautiful. But even I mean this particular night, it was like ninety seven degrees. It was terrible. So we left the AC unit on in the spare bedroom ready for her to sleep in there. She woke up about two o'clock in the morning and went into the spare bedroom and curled up to go to sleep. And at three, I'm going to say three
thirty three fifteen, I woke up. I wasn't sleeping very well because it was really hot that night. Our air conditioning unit was not working, okay, which was a blessing because if our air conditioning unit was working, our door would have been closed all the way never would have heard anything. So our door was open three quarters of the way and we had the ceiling fan going, and I wasn't sleeping well, so I got up to use the bathroom get a drink of water, went back to bed,
got into bed. I wasn't fully asleep, and I heard this weird little whimper come from the bedroom next to us where shee was sleeping nice and I must have, you know, disrupted Kevin when I got up because he wasn't asleep either, and I said, I'll go check on Shay. We said no, no, I'll go. I said, no, Hi, I'll go. He said no, I'll go, and and we looked at each other. We started laughing. I'm like, okay, you know she's fifteen, she's in the room next door. Okay, well we'll both go.
What do you think? What do you think was happening?
Like?
Did you do normally? Was it typically for you to go? I know that both that you're saying, both of you wouldn't have gone, But no, what was it that you thought you heard whimpering?
So?
Was she a person that was prone to nightmares?
No?
No, I just I just no. I thought she's just having a bad dream. I'll just check on her because I don't I it's divine intervention. I believe me. I believe it's divine intervention. So thankfully Kevin went before me, because if I had gone first, things would have turned out completely differently. There's just no way it would have entered the way it did. So Kevin went first, opened the bedroom door because the bedroom door was closed. Now, as we were getting up, he doesn't recall hearing this,
but I recall hearing this. As we were getting up to go check on Shay, I heard like a bump against the wall. And what it was was Shae was kicking her legs out and her head hit the headboard, which in turn hit the wall in between our bedrooms. Okay, And so Kevin opened the bedroom door and saw this hulking figure stanning over our daughter. Was the light on light pitch black, pitch black, but the light from the
hallway was shining in pitch black. And this hulking figure standing over our daughter, all dressed in black with a black mask on.
Wow.
And Kevin said who are you? And he didn't say anything. And as Kevin said that, he had been leaning over our daughter. He had his left hand on our daughter's mouth and nose and was pressing her face into the pillow, and his right hand he had a hunting knife to
her throat. And when Kevin said who are you? He stood up and erected himself, and we saw the knife in his hand, and Kevin said, knife grabbed the intruder by his wrists and yanked him off our daughter towards Kevin, and then spun him and threw him on the adjacent bed. It's an extremely small room. There were two beds and they were across from each other, and so Kevin had the strength to pull this guy off of Shae and spun him around and threw him on the other bed and was on his back.
How big is this guy? For those for the audience, how big is he comparison to your husband's five nine and one hundred and sixty How big is this guy?
Probably six feet and two thirty two forty Okay, yeah, uh So he's on his back holding him, and he said, Genie grabbed the knife. So I went to grab the handle of the knife, but then it was it was a hunting knife, and the blade was fifteen inches long. It was a story blade. It was it was long. So I'm trying to grab, you know, the grip of the knife, but the guy's hand was huge and it
wasn't doing anything. So I just said, all right, and I just grabbed the blade of the knife, and I held on to it because I was afraid that it was going to come around and get Kevin or hurt someone, so I just held onto it. So Kevin had him on the bed for probably about thirty seconds or so. We had him there, and then the intruder got a burst of adrenaline and stood up. My husband's on his back.
At that moment, I just it was. It was dark in the room, there wasn't much light, and I probably know I think I might have closed my eyes and just went, oh, that's it, We're all screwed. But Kevin was able to throw his weight back. He threw his arm around the intruder's throat and put him in a chokehold and threw all his weight backwards, and they landed on the floor in between the bed and the closet.
It was probably a two and a half foot space. Now, how there was a air at the air conditioning unit was in the window right behind him. How Kevin didn't hit his head on the air conditioning unit when they went backwards, I don't know, because if he did again, it would have been a whole different scenario.
But sorry, sorry, So what were you doing that you had you had grabbed a knife, and what was she doing at this time?
At this time, Shaye was calling nine one one. She had called nine one one. She was watching this whole thing unfold and called nine one one on her cell phone. And when you call on your cell phone, which we didn't know, it automatically goes to the State Police, and so she was connected with the State Police. The state Police. She told them what was happening. The State Police said hold on because they were going to transfer her to
the Chelmsford dispatch. But she thought they were like putting her on hold, and not like transferring her, but putting her on hold. So she hung up and then thankfully a few minutes later they called back. But Kevin in the meantime had the intriguder on the floor and he had him in a choke hold. I came over after they landed on the floor, and I was like, oh my god, all right, we're going to be okay.
Here.
I think I grabbed the knife again because it was out in front of them, so I grabbed and I held on to the knife, and Kevin said to Shay, not knowing that she'd already called nine one one, he said Shay, call nine one one and get my gun. And Shaye didn't say oh, She didn't say, Dad, what gun? Because we don't have a gun. She didn't say, you know, thankfully, she said okay, dad, And I'm not really in that tone. She said okay, and let.
Why why did he Why did Kevin say that?
Just great thought process going on there, because this guy here doesn't know that we don't have a gun. For all, he knows we do have a gun. So, I mean, I think it was just a defense tactic and it was really smart because Shaye didn't say anything. She just left the room. So this guy has no idea that we don't have a gun. For all, he knows she's going.
To get that gun, and he's hoping that maybe he just runs off because he doesn't know what the police are going to get.
There is no he wasn't. No, he wasn't. He wasn't going to let this guy go. There's no way he's going to let.
This guy go.
He had him. The guy was on top of Kevin's lap. They were on the floor. Kevin was on the floor, he was on his lap. Kevin had him in a choke hold, was holding the hand that had the knife, and then I came over and I grabbed the knife, and then I started screaming all kinds of questions at him because I was pissed off, and I also wanted to distract him because I had no idea what he was capable of at that point. You know, I didn't know how firmly Kevin had him. I you know, I
just and I was beside myself. So I started screaming all kinds of questions at him, like who are you? And he said, I'm nobody, Just let me go. And Kevin and I just looked at each other like yeah, right, and I said, what were you thinking? Because our initial thought, or at least my initial thought, was that he was a high school kid that had was obsessed with our daughter for whatever reason and had just taken it one step too far and was, you know, essentially playing a prank.
But you know, let let me see if I can terrorize this girl. That was That was the only logical explanation I could come up with in my mind, was that it was some kid that was just you know, pulling a prank. And so when I said to him, what were you thinking? I was seriously thinking that he was a high school kid and he just ruined his life and he said nothing, I just wanted money. And that's when my husband said, well you should have come seen me. You fat?
Yeah I laughed at that. That's crazy. Yeah, well I guess it's because it makes no It makes no sense, so you're you're just grasping for some kind of logic. And it must have been even more horrifying when you realized who he was a few days or a few
weeks later. Yeah, was there something too that that your your husband You put in a book too, that despite your husband being in shape, he you both were, or at least he was kind of surprised that he could subdue this guy, or at least he was at least relieved that he could subdue this guy because the guy was a big fat guy, right.
Yeah, yeah he was, but he wasn't you know. He was a big fat guy, big big fat, out of shape guy who'd been walking around all night long, like he had covered a lot of miles the night that he was out, and he'd just come on. I mean, I know, as adrenaline was high after just coming off killing Monica Massaro twenty two hours before, but still he'd been out and it was ninety seven degrees. He's in long pants, long shirt, and he's extremely overweight and not
in good shape. So he'd been out for a while. And you know, Kev's in great shape. He's got his adrenaline going, and he just the strength he had. He said, for sure, I could have choked this guy and killed him in the room. But again, he wasn't going to traumatize our daughter, he said, there, you know, and if he had, then would we have every even found out about everything that he had done previously?
Right now, the thing is, I you talk about it earlier, and you really don't answer it through the whole book, but you do talk and we'll just briefly touch on this, but you do talk about this incredible order from this person that's not just it's just not body order. It's not just ninety seven degrees. There's just some kind of
foul order from this this almost human being here. But what I wanted to say, I'll ask you too, is because it's a short period of time, how many minutes, even though it seems like a lifetime or a very very long time, how many minutes does it take for the police to get to your home.
Oh, it was four minutes. It was four minutes because they were out in They were canvassing the area because he had been spotted at other residences in our area, and the police have been called twice that night about him, about an intruder, about a peeping tom, or someone trying to get into someone's residence, so they were on high alert. They knew he was in the area, so the cruiser was relatively nearby, so it only took them four minutes to get here when they got the call.
Right now, you don't What I thought was interesting is that I think his mask does come off, but neither you or your husband, Kevin really get to see what he looks like. What happens after this? Tell us about the arrest. Tell us about the arrest of Adam Lee roy Lane and the unmasking of Adam Lee roy Lane.
Well, the police got here and the first responding officer was Officer Murphy, and he came into the room and said, if you move, I'll blow your head off, which was like really a great thing to hear because I was like, oh my god, I can't even believe this. And then the next responding officer was Officer for good, and they both they had, you know, the calls had been coming in that night about this guy, so it didn't take long for them to realize that this was the guy
that they were looking for. Sure, they didn't take the mask off of him until I believe, you know, because I wasn't in the room at the time. I don't think they took his mask off inside the house. I think they took it off outside. But I never saw it,
and Kevin never saw it, never saw his face. My hands were cut pretty badly, and so I needed to leave the room, and also I was in underwear and a T shirt, so I needed to get dressed, and I needed Shay to come in and help me get some clothes on so that I could be around all these police officers and everyone. Sure, so we never saw his face at that that night, and Kevin I believe, never saw it either. We didn't see his face until we got into court.
Right now, we'll go just back just a little bit, because we talked about Patricia Books Brooks her being attacked, We talked about Darlene E. Walt, of course her being murdered. While we'll be on the telephone, and then Monica Masero being attacked in her home because of even though it's
close proximity. And this is what part of the story is too, that this guy's a trucker and it's I won't give it away, but we'll talk about that near the end of the interview about how you know the one good part of this story is, or one of the better parts of the story is that people were looking at how much some of these people could travel and then connecting the dots now in terms of these other victims, despite being in close proximity it will say,
or in the general area, even though it's in other states, none of these murders were connected at all till a prosecutor named j. Patrick Barnes looked at these So I'm getting ahead of a little bit. But when he was initially charged with this home invasion and the attempted murder, how long does it take and who are the people responsible for putting all the clues together and making the connection between these other murders and Adam Leroy Lane.
Well, it wasn't until three and a half weeks after our home invasion that we were called down to the Chelmser Police station by the Chelmsford Police Chief James Murphy, who actually happened to be a good friend of ours. He called me on my cell phone that day and said, Genie, when you have a minute, if you and Kevin could come down to the police station, we need to talk to you. And I thought, okay, this is odd. He's calling me on my cell phone, but I said, okay, Jim,
we'll be down there as quickly as we can. We came down there and he came into the room, and then the the DA and the assistant DA came into the room. The chief, the deputy chief was there, and then George Tyros, the detective. Everyone came in and we thought, all right, what's going on here? And that's when they told us, well, we have some news. We have some bad news to give you. You know, Adam Leroy Lane killed a woman the night before he came to your house.
And we just looked at each other and thought, okay, all right. So this whole time we were wondering what Lane's intent was. Was he going to take our daughter out of our house? Was he going to you know, what was his intent? Was he going to rape her? Was he going to take her?
What was this?
We and then that moment we realized, Okay, he was going to actually kill our daughter right in our house, yes, which was horrible, and we and then we also realized, okay, now this guy he's never I mean, he's never going to go anywhere. Now, this is it. He's going to be in prison. We're not going to have to worry about him. But it also comes at the expense of
someone else. And it was just a really horrible moment. Sure, yeah, that that that that day was a real tough one, And that was the day that I that night actually that I started writing. And then it wasn't until a few weeks later that we learned about actually, I think it was probably two weeks later that we learned about Darlene Ewald, and then we started learning all these other pieces of information about him.
And Patricia Brooks, as you had mentioned before, the would be victim was able to identify a little bit later on any what was positive identification of Adam Lee roy Lane as her attacker as well. So you inadvertently uncover a serial killer, and now you're inextricably involved with this case forever. As we can see from this book and
from the entire ordeal that it's created for your family. Now, we can't go into the whole book, and I don't want to give away a lot of this book, but what I wanted to talk about too is that at least touch on it. It was very interesting the relationship that you had with the police. They were very, very congratulatory towards your family. You later were honored by articles
in People magazine and dateline interviews. So that is just a gem for people to be able to read how both sides of the coin, the trauma that you endured, the survival guilt that you had for the other families, and then your relationship that you wanted and felt necessary
with those victims families. But I found it interesting that you had this much recognition and you had this many opportunities for the media to do reasonable articles and stories about what your family injured, you and your family injured. So I found that quite interesting and unusual for what usually happens. You know, usually it's just not good, it's not good experiences with the media, let's put it that way.
And usually the police are not congratulating anybody because it's just there's nothing much to congratulate usually, So right, right, Well, it was.
A good story for us, because you're right, Dan, it doesn't. It doesn't usually turn out this way. It really doesn't. The fact that we survived and that we were able to hold this guy because a lot of times I think about it. I mean, it's hard for me not to think about every night I go to sleep, because it happened in the room right next to where I sleep. Yes, I do say my prayers every night because I do think if we had hesitated just one second, everything would have been different.
Absolutely. Now, what we normally do is talk about the killer a little bit, and I know that you did go into his life as much as you possibly could. And just for people that always want to have a correlation between some horrendous upbringing and what happens later, just tell us a little bit briefly about Adam Leroy Lane. As far as what you wrote about is that he
didn't have any real connection with the police. But tell us a little bit about Adam Leroy Lane, what people who were close to him plot of him, and what basically what was his character like before this reign of horror that he.
You know, he wasn't He was definitely not a likable guy. He was difficult to work with. He did not like women. He was very degrading to women from the you know, from what I read in the newspaper accounts of people that knew him. I wish I knew more about him. I had read out to his ex wife, and I reached out to his wife and his mother to see if they would maybe respond to me, because I felt like there's always another side to everything. Sure, and you know,
I tried to give them that opportunity. They weren't interested. I you know, he wasn't. He just he wasn't a likable guy. And you know, I know that his ex wife had said that he was abusive to her, and she had stated that he was abusive to his mother. Now you know, whether he was or he wasn't, this is what she had said. Honestly. I mean, I can't see that someone that goes out murdering innocent women in the middle of the night and slicing their throats is
anything but has a horrible character. I don't know what happened to him growing up. I suspect that there was there's a lot more to him. I can't imagine that he had a good upbringing for him to all of a sudden turn into this statistic killer.
But at the same time, what I wanted to point out was that very much like a lot of these killers, and I mean, just the last bunch of stories that I've done, it seems that these these very heinous or you know, monstrous killers at the same time have a wife and a few kids, a couple of kids. So that's what Adam Leroy Laney had. He had, he had a child from a previous or she had two children from a previous relationship, and then he had a daughter.
So for all intentsive purposes, he was living the lie because he was living a seemingly normal life, I mean, even if it was a bit odd, had children and part of and you know, and and the thing is that was interesting, and we'll tell the audience about the trials that one of the things that he was most not one to be associated with for a couple of reasons, was he did not what he had no problem being known as a killer, but he just didn't want to be known as a child rapist, right that's for his
own safety, but also something to do with his wife as well.
So yeah, yeah, I don't know. And honestly, to this day, I can't help but think about his wife and his daughters, and you know, he's destroyed so many lives, not just the victims, but his family. They're victims now too.
And tell us about the story of Nicole and the contact you had, because that's an interesting story of someone carrying on in light of this tragic event. So tell us about Nicole and who she was related to, and tell us a little bit about her story and your contact with her.
Right, Nicole is Darlene Ewald's daughter, and Nicole was nineteen at the time that her mother was murdered and not living at home, and it was just it was I can't even imagine getting that phone call and being told that your mother's been murdered. And then the media, I mean the media, law enforcement, everybody's looking at her father or possibly her brother as potential killers. And she just a really sweet girl, really sweet girl who didn't deserve
to go through what she did. And I just had this strong connection to her and felt like I needed to connect with her. And thankfully Todd had agreed to do the dateline piece, and in agreeing to do the dateline piece, Nicole and I had an opportunity to talk and we spoke once, and then we continued to connect and we kept calling each other, and she, ironically, her job at the time was working as a truck driver.
She was delivering medical supplies to area clinics and hospitals and doctors' offices along the Eastern Seaboard, and she was doing this with her her fiance who's now her husband. And she called me one day and said, Genie, I'm actually in Nashaua, and I'd really like to stop by and meet you in person. And I was thrilled, and she came by and it was it was a really heart wrenching meeting meeting her, and we spoke at length.
We went to dinner and with her fiance, my husband and I and Nicole had dinner, and then they ended up spending the night here and ended up going back down to Rhode Island where their next doc was. But it was it was a really it was a wonderful experience for all of us.
It was.
It was really heart wrenching though. Sure, but ever since we've been very close, you know, we call each other all the time, and it's just it's been quite a connection. I truly feel like her her mother is guiding me to be there for her daughter.
And you also had a good relationship and you talk about in the book about with the Masero family as well. Yeah, and that was you know, you you used the strength of both of yourself and the other couple as well to help each other through the truck itself. Which it's because I won't get we won't go into the trial so much. But again, and when people think if this is just a slam dunk, well, it's not so much
a slam dunk. When when a family like yourself doesn't quite understand the procedure, and when a delay of six months seems not that out of the ordinary for the judiciary, and it seems like a real long time for people when they're looking somehow forward to the to the sort of it's not really closure but to the court case itself and whatever can result as in the conclusion of that, and then it's delayed and delayed and more delays. And that I mentioned delay.
You know, So our our case went through the court system very quickly. I was very surprised because I didn't realize how quickly our case went through, right, because it took two years for Monica's case to go through, and then it took three years for Darlene's case to come
to a fruition. So you know, I was we were I'm thankful that ours was so quickly resolved, but at the same time, I felt like, because he was here in Massachusetts, that it was holding up, you know, the charges and eventual sentence in the other states, and so I felt extremely guilty about.
That, right I See. The thing is is that obviously there's a he gets his jump Leroy Lane, so we can just tell people that so that much. But what I found quite interesting too is that there is a little twist to believe for a moment that maybe Adam Leroy Lane has escaped his fate, where someone reports to
you or through or through the friend. I think it's through Patricia Brooks actually, or through Nicole, I'm not sure, but anyway, in the book they talk about how for a second everyone believes, or for a short period of time they believe that maybe Adam Leroy Lane is now brain dead side and then we find out no, no, that's not the case, and it was someone else exactly.
Yeah. Nicole called me distraught. She had learned through a family acquaintance that she thought what was Adam Lee Rolaine had come into the hospital nearby and was in a medically induced coma because he had tried to hang himself.
But it was actually another inmate. So I made a lot of phone calls that night to see if I could get to the bottom of it, and found out that it actually wasn't wasn't true, and it wasn't him, because I, you know, for her, she felt cheated that Okay, this fob took his own life and we didn't get the opportunity to see him stand trial for the murder of our mother, you know.
Yes, So in the end, everyone did get their day in court, and a Leroy Lane did get his and obviously he has been recognized as a serial killer and your family, like I say, what, people will buy the
book and read the book. They will hear about the touching moments where the police reached out to your family, congratulated for you, and then all the ensuing not so much publicity, but recognition for what your family actually did again instinctively, intuitively and like you say, from the intervention from the guy in the sky there, that's by the grace of God himself that your family's here to tell this story and help these other people, and you felt
it was your responsibility. And I know it's an amazing story where you do unite with the victims and it would be victims and successful trial. And there really is no happy endings in these stories, but if there ever is one, this is about as close to that happy ending as you can get.
Oh Dan, Definitely, for us, it's a really you know this guy And I was just responding to someone that had sent me a message on Facebook the other night. I said, this, this guy came into our house to terrorize us, and really what he ended up doing was making us stronger, and we're closer as a family and who you know, he certainly wouldn't have expected that, We wouldn't have expected that, but but it happened. You know, we believe me. My whole perspective towards life is completely different.
And you know, yes, very naive not to lock your doors. And if I could say anything to anyone is make sure you lock your doors at night because strangers come in off the street. Don't think that they're out there, but they are, and they do come in off the street. So lock your doors, double lock your doors, check and be vigilant, you know, in protecting yourself. You know, that's the security system. If you can get motion detector lights,
you know, just protect yourself. Because everyone thinks that their community is safe and that nobody would ever do this. Well, there are people that come into the community from outside and they will wreak havoc. And yes, we were very naive, but we are so much stronger today because of this guy. I mean, no one would want to go through what we went through, obviously, but you know, we survived. It's a good story for us, it's not a good story for the other people, for the other victims.
Yeah, it's interesting that all this had to happen to just capture the person. So it's like, it's interesting where you have a victim's family is congratulating you. It is such an unusual situation to be find your family in. And like you say, his reign of destruction ended that night because your family, despite being traumatized, it wasn't that easy for your family to recover from this because it's
so unusual. That's still your family is stronger, closer, and you've gone through this period and successfully put this guy away and also didn't destroy your family in the process, so quite an interesting thing. But I want to thank you very much, Genie for a fantastic read, a fantastic interview. And I also wanted to thank Paul Leonardo as well for his contribution with this book as well. He's a veteran true crime co writer and he's the guy that
helped you write this book, and he is great. Yeah, yeah, And I thank him for connecting with connecting us for this interview as well, because he was instrumental in doing that as well. So I want people to know they've been listening to Genie McDonough, author of Caught in the Act, a courageous family's fight to save their daughter from a serial killer, and that's Caught in the Act. And thank you very much, Geenie for a great interview.
Thanks. I'm glad it worked out tonight.
Yeah. We got past the technical errors and gave the audience what they were looking for. So thank you very much, and you have a very good evening, Jeannie.
Thank you you too, Dean. I appreciate it.
Take care. We'll talk soon, okay, I hope, So bye bye, thank you, bye bye. You've been listening to the to the program True Murder the most shocking killers in true crime history, and the authors that have written about them, With your host Dan Zupanski, join me next time. Good Night,