Mom shares story of capturing serial killer poised to slay her daughter
Armed with his murder kit and a DVD called "Hunting Humans," long-haul trucker Adam Leroy Lane prowled the northeastern United States looking for women to slash and kill during the summer of 2007.
The serial killer murdered Darlene Ewalt of Dauphin County and Monica Massaro of New Jersey. He tried to kill York County resident Patricia Brooks, but she survived the vicious attack.
Lane slashed the throats of Ewalt and Brooks and stabbed Massaro, police said.
Then Lane -- called "every person's worst nightmare" by one prosecutor -- headed to New England, where he targeted 15-year-old Shea McDonough as she slept in her Chelmsford, Mass., home.
Lane didn't know it as he crept through the back door and made his way
to Shea's bedroom, but his days of hunting humans had ended. Shea's parents, Jeannie and Kevin McDonough, saw to that.In "Caught in the Act," Jeannie McDonough shares the story of how she and her husband stopped serial killer Adam Leroy Lane. (AMAZON.COM)Investigating a noise in Shea's bedroom, the McDonoughs found Lane wearing a mask as he held a knife to Shea's throat. They overpowered him, took the hunting knife and held him there until police arrived.
New book: Now, Jeannie McDonough is telling her story to the world in her new book, "Caught in the Act," scheduled for release March 1. Co-written by Rhode Island-based author Paul Lonardo, the paperback is available for pre-order at Amazon.com.
"It was therapeutic for me," Jeannie McDonough told The York Dispatch. "I was overwhelmed by what went on."
It was about three weeks after Lane's arrest
when she learned he'd killed Massaro.
"I started to write (that) night," she said. "It started pouring out of me."
Life has been hectic for McDonough recently. In addition to the release of her first book, she and her family will be featured on the CBS show "48 Hours Mystery" at 10 p.m. Saturday, as part of the show's "Live to Tell" series.
And Reader's Digest magazine will run an excerpt from the book next month, according to Lonardo.
"The damage (Lane) did in that week and a half was just amazing," Lonardo said, as are the details of Lane's arrest.
"Has anyone ever captured a serial killer in their home? Has it happened? I don't think it has," Lonardo said. "It's too astounding to even believe."
'Survival mode': McDonough said she and her husband were "dumbfounded" at the enormity of what they accomplished.
"The two of us, we've been through a lot together," she said. "But to think that it was us? Our family and friends were like, 'Are you kidding me?'
"We just were in survival mode in that room," McDonough said. "We were protecting our daughter and ourselves. We had no idea what we'd just caught."
Lonardo said he thinks McDonough suffered from survivor's guilt that spurred her to reach out to the victims' families and to write "Caught in the Act."
Families close: McDonough said she's now close with the families of Ewalt and Massaro. She and Massaro's family attended Lane's sentencing last summer in Dauphin County Court for Ewalt's murder and the attack on Brooks.
McDonough said she so far hasn't succeeded in contacting Brooks, but hopes to in the future.
"I wanted to just give her a hug. She lives with the scars every day," McDonough said. "Thankfully, my daughter doesn't have those physical scars, so she doesn't have to be reminded every day when she looks in the mirror."
Shea is now 19 years old and doing well, her mother said.
"She really hasn't let the negative events affect her attitude toward life at all," McDonough said. "She still believes in the goodness of people. ... This one violent act really just brought out the kindness in people."
What ifs: McDonough knows things could have ended much differently the night of July 30, 2007.
Had Shea been sleeping on the family couch, her parents would certainly not have been alerted, McDonough said. And if the air conditioner had been working that night, it's also likely Jeannie and Kevin McDonough would have slept through the attack, she said.
"If the dog would've barked, I would have gone outside (to investigate), and my fate would have been the same as Darlene's," McDonough said. "Everything just went our way."
Locked up: Lane, 46, is serving his time at the state prison in Fayette County. He pleaded guilty to murdering Ewalt outside her home on July 13, 2007, and was sentenced to life in prison.
He also pleaded guilty to attempting to murder Brooks four days later, for which he received a consecutive 10 to 20 years in state prison.
A New Jersey judge sentenced Lane to 50 years in prison for murdering Massaro on July 29, 2007.
And for his attack on Shea, Lane was sentenced to 25 to 30 years in prison.
-- Reach Elizabeth Evans at levans@yorkdispatch.com, 505-5429 or twitter.com/ydcrimetime.
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