48 Hours - Live to Tell: Hunting Humans

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

The McDonough family recounts their harrowing encounter with serial killer, Adam Leroy Lane. On July 29, 2007, Shea McDonough of Chelmsford, Mass., returned home and left the back door open for her brother, not knowing he was spending the night at a friend’s house. Hours later, her parents were startled by a sound coming from her room. When her father went to Shea's room to check on her, he saw a large masked man standing over her with a knife at her throat. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 8/10/2013. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. I try to avoid 495 at all times because it reminds me of a very bad thing that happened to my highway, I never really thought about safety factors. It was Sunday night and we had just returned home from dinner. Jeannie decided to step and watch the Red Sox game. I had just returned home from dinner.

Jeannie decided to stay up and watch the Red Sox game. And I turned in early. The weather was very hot. It was extremely oppressive. Shay came home at her curfew. She has a 12 o'clock curfew. She actually came home probably about 15 minutes beforehand. To me, I was like, oh, I'm doing good.

I'm doing good on time. I came in and I went straight to the back door just to see if it was unlocked and I just left it unlocked. Thinking that my brother was coming home that night, I wanted to make sure that he wasn't going to text me two hours later being like, hey Shay can you come unlock the door, it's locked. Shay was being a good sister and looking out for her big brother. I neglected to tell her that Ryan had called earlier

in the evening and said that he was going to spend the night at his friend Ricky's house. I don't think anyone ever prepares for anything like this to happen to them. I heard a muffled sound, like a little whimper, come from the bedroom right next to us. And I thought that was odd. Shay must be having a bad dream or something. And Kevin got up at the same time.

She said, I'll check on her. And I said, no, I'll check on her, which really isn't the norm. Usually I'm selfish and want to get all the sleep I need. But that morning, something told me to get up. I got up, and my wife Jeannie followed me in there. I opened up the door, and I saw a black silhouette over my daughter. I woke up in the middle of the night to a cold object on my neck.

I thought it was a gun. I didn't know it was a knife. I just saw dark eyes and a mask. The man spoke, and it was a voice that I had never recognized before, and he said, if you make any effing noise, I'm going to kill you. And that's when I just kind of went into panic mode.

I just started kicking. I just pushed my back against the bed, hoping to make as much noise as possible so that my parents could wake up and hear me. And my dad, the first thing I heard him say was, who are you? The man stood up from leaning over me and just went straight for my dad.

And we saw a knife in his hand. It was the scariest thing I've ever seen. I saw a knife, a guy that was probably three times the size of my dad, going after my mommy and my dad. He was dressed all in black. Black pants, black mask, just a terrorizing figure. And he was huge. My dad just jumped on top of him, was trying to grab

the knife. I was just trying to get out of bed. I was saying get the knife, get the knife. The knife was very big. The blade was, I'm gonna say that long. And so I tried to grab the grip of the knife but the man's hand was huge and it was ineffective it wasn't doing anything so I just grabbed the blade of the knife because I didn't know what to do I instinctively told my daughter call 9-1-1 and get my gun I don't have a gun but something inside me told me to say that, which would keep him on his guard. What's going on? A man came in with a gun and put it to my neck

and I was running right there. All right, all right, just relax. Is he still there? I was so confusing with the dispatcher and I was so flustered that I didn't even know what I was saying on the phone. All of a sudden, he got a burst of adrenaline. He erected himself up off the bed with me on his back.

That's when I knew I was in some deep s***. When the man stood up with Kevin on his back, the knife slid through my hands. I thought, oh, this is it, we're all dead. It was so stop and go where one minute my dad had him under control and then he'd freak out again and it was scary. When high school I wrestled, I knew a choke hold was the only thing with a guy of this size that I had a chance on restraining him and taking him down was if I took his wind out. And I choked him on the throat and threw my weight back and pulled him with me and we hit the floor.

and pulled him with me and we hit the floor. And so at that moment, I turned around and I grabbed the knife again, I grabbed the blade of the knife again. I ran back into the back room and saw a lot of blood. And I didn't know what it was coming from. And then I looked down and I saw my mom holding on to the knife for dear life and she wouldn't let go of it.

I was pissed. And all I could think about was, I need to distract this guy so that he doesn't try to do anything else. So I'm screaming at him. I'm like, what were you thinking? That's when the man spoke and said, I just wanted money.

And I heard the accent, and Kevin and I looked at each other and went, who is this? Who is sitting in front of us? And he said, I'm nobody, let me go. And I said to him, I said, you're not going anywhere, you fat f***. When I saw the police come into the driveway, I was ecstatic. I was so relieved and so happy because I knew that at that point,

everything was gonna be fine. And the second that the first officer got into the house, he just grabbed the guy and got him under control and everything. I didn't cry. I just immediately hugged my dad. He was really choked up. It really hadn't hit him yet.

He just, I don't think it hit any of us what had happened. As I left the room, Shay was with me. We just held onto each other for a little bit. And I wasn't going to let go of her for the life of me. When I first arrived at the scene, I wasn't sure what to expect at that point. It was very serious. The sergeant told me that a man had broke into the house.

He was heavily armed, different types of weapons, weapons that I'd never seen before. Chinese throwing stars, choking wires, along with this horrifying mask. After they left our house with this intruder, Jeannie and Shay went by ambulance to the hospital to tend to Jeannie's wounds. Ryan was in shock when he found out what happened. He felt bad that he wasn't there, that he was spending the night at his friend Ricky's

house. And it's unfortunate because he shouldn't because it's not his fault in the slightest bit. I think he just wishes that he was there to just protect us. Detective Tyros told me that the man that had broken into our house was a long-haul trucker. His name was Adam Leroy Lane. Lived in North Carolina and was running routes up and down from North Carolina up to Nashua, New Hampshire, and various locations throughout the metropolitan Boston area.

He had a wife and he had three daughters. That made me sick to my stomach to know. On August 2nd, a few days later, we conducted a search warrant of Adam Leroy Lane's truck. We found his logbook, receipts, some more knives. We also found a movie inside of a DVD player. That movie's titled Hunting Humans. This movie is about a serial killer that goes around randomly killing people without any motive or reason other than to just kill people. Later I learned that Adam Leroy Lane was on the prowl in our town for

approximately five hours. He tried to get into at least three other houses before eventually getting into the McDonough residence door on locked door. getting into the McDonough residence door on a locked door. He was out in our town hunting humans at night. We started to think, maybe he's done this in other places and just hasn't been caught yet. I'm Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours, and of all the cases I've covered, this is the one that troubles me most. A bizarre and maddening tale involving an eyewitness account that doesn't quite make sense. A sister testifying against a brother. A lack of physical evidence. Crosley Green has lived

more than half his life behind bars for a crime he says he didn't commit. Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove, the trouble case against Crosley Green, early and ad-free with a 48 hours plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story

that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Darlene was my wife and friend. She's my partner in life. I've known her since I was 15. Darlene was sitting outside on our back patio, just enjoying the weather, talking on the phone.

At 10 o'clock, I opened the door and told her I was headed to bed, and she said she'd be up in a little bit. I kind of laughed, because I knew better. Because she just would be out on the phone until late. I just went upstairs, I shut the door, I went to sleep. I was just laying in bed and my bedroom door opened up and guys started screaming and shining flashlights at me. Guys were screaming at me to get my hands in the air. I thought it might be a home invasion

or something. And I started to look past the flashlights and stuff and could see the silhouettes of the men standing there and then I could see guns pointed at me. And then one of the troopers identified himself as a state trooper. So I put my hands in the air. They asked if my son was there. And he walked up on the police and put his hands above his head. Then they handcuffed him. I was able to look around. I see my wife's purse sitting there with her cell phone and keys on one of the chairs at the kitchen table. And I told my son, we got big problems. Your mom wouldn't leave without her phone and her keys. Then I started seeing flash photography going off.

I knew that wasn't a good sign. After about three hours, one of the detectives came in, sat me down. That's when they told me that Darlene was dead and she was killed at the hands of another person. That's when things started to fall apart for me. I remember hearing my son scream. He was in the kitchen still handcuffed. He broke the chair he was sitting in.

He had butter in the refrigerator. There's still two big dents in it. And... When I arrived, crime scene investigators were already working in the backyard of what I'd describe as a typical suburban neighborhood. This woman had been on her back patio talking to a male friend on the phone. This woman had been on her back patio talking to a male friend on the phone. Darlene's friend hears the call sort of abruptly end, a sort of muffled sound, an abrupt end to a call that, in his experience, wouldn't normally happen, talking to Darlene.

He tells his wife they hop in their car and drive to Darlene's home, where he discovered the body on that back patio. home where he discovered the body on that back patio. She suffered a fatal stab wound in the neck area, ultimately causing her death. I woke up about 6.45 on the 13th from a phone call from my brother. I answered it. He's like, Nicole, Mom's dead. I'm like, what? You're kidding me. Tell me you're lying. He's like, no, she was murdered last night.

And then I just felt my whole life just completely fall apart. As experience has often taught the police and prosecutors, people who are killed at home are most likely to be killed by someone close to them. That this was not a random act, that it was committed by someone who knew her and someone who had the opportunity to kill her, most likely her husband. They accused me of killing my wife. They just wanted me to break down and say I did it or paid somebody to do it. I knew I didn't do it.

or paid somebody to do it. I knew I didn't do it. Cops took me down to the Pennsylvania State Police barracks where they had my brother and my father. I just remember her coming around the corner from the door and just running to me and just grabbing her and holding her and giving her a hug because I just, there was nothing I could do for her. Nothing I could do to make it better.

I just held on to her. We both kind of just wanted to rewind time. I never asked myself once if my dad killed my mom because I just knew. My mom had no enemies. She was just a great personality and was just loved by everybody. So it was kind of like, why would someone wanna hurt her, let alone kill her, and who would do it? Who could be such a monster? Shortly after the attack, we had to go to court

and see our attacker. He was kept in a plexiglass, bulletproof partition on the other side of the court from us. He just looked like a caged animal. He was disgusting. He wouldn't stop staring at me, and that was the worst feeling in the entire world. I wanted to leap over the railing, actually, because I was so angry at that point. I mean, I really wanted to get a punch in or something. There was no way that we could allow this guy to hit the streets. The judge held Lane without bail, finding that he was a danger to the community as well as to the McDonough family.

We didn't know a lot about him at the outset. He had no prior record in the state of Massachusetts, no prior criminal record, but just from what we had at that point, we knew he was one dangerous individual. We put out an all-point bulletin to see if any of the other police departments along the East Coast had had any type of similar incidents in their communities. And one of the first people to respond was a state police trooper out of New Jersey. His name was Jeff Noble. And he had inquired whether or not Adam Lane might have been responsible for a murder that he was investigating down in New Jersey.

On the morning of Monday, July 30, 2007, New Jersey troopers responded to the home of Monica Massaro. Ms. Massaro had been stabbed multiple times in the sanctity of her own home. It was just the type of crime that someone with an incredible amount of violence and rage would have done. Monica Massaro was a single 37-year-old female. She lived by herself. She was very active socially. She had a lot of friends, really lived life to the fullest.

We didn't have anybody that we would call suspects specifically, and that proved challenging for us. We knew that our victim lived in proximity to a truck stop. We of course felt that we should call the Chelmsford, Massachusetts Police Department and just kind of compare notes on the case. Basically we wanted to know if Adam Leroy Lane was in New Jersey at or near the time Monica Massaro died. So we asked Detective Tyros if he had any evidence, paperwork, logs, receipts, toll records, anything that would indicate to us Adam Leroy Lane's route of travel. And all of a sudden Detective Tyros kind of stops and he goes, Hey, I have a receipt here.

I go, Okay. And he goes, It's from Bloomsbury, New Jersey. And we all looked at each other like, Did he just say Bloomsbury, New Jersey? When, George? When? And then he gave us the second piece, which was July 29, 2007, right at the time we believed Monica died. A short time later, I heard Detective Noble say, George, we're coming to Chelmsford.

When we arrived in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, we immediately started, you know, the questions, where's the evidence? You know, we want everything that Adam Lane could have had in his possession at the time of the murder. We wanted to know where was the truck, and we learned that the truck had already been released. We had Adam Leroy Lane's tractor trailer for approximately three weeks. Legally, we were only able to obtain evidence

that pertained to our case. At that point in time, we didn't have any other cases. So unfortunately, after several weeks, the owner of the tractor trailer was looking for his truck back. Without any other cases, we had to eventually give him his truck back. Without any other cases, we had to eventually give him his truck back. Everything in there that belonged to Adam Lane, the owner of the company threw into a dumpster,

which was located in the impound yard in Massachusetts where the truck had been. The trash hauling company was scheduled to pick up and empty that dumpster on that very day. We got very lucky. We basically beat the trash hauler to the dumpster, and the dumpster was packed. It was full.

We suited up, took an entire afternoon. We took every piece of debris and trash out of that dumpster. And in that bottom of the dumpster, we found basically all of Adam Lane's personal property. Clothing, shoes, socks. Without a doubt, every detective there suspected that we were coming across

key potential DNA evidence in this case. We couldn't wait to get back to New Jersey, submit this stuff to the forensic laboratory, and let the evidence basically show us, you know, what happened. Before Jeff went back, he wanted to interview Adam Leroy Lane. At that point, we told him, don't get your hopes up, but it's worth a shot.

Going into the interview with Adam Lane, we had basically very low expectations. Because he didn't speak to the other detectives in Massachusetts, we felt he wasn't going to speak to us. Hello, sir. Mine's Jeffrey, Jeffrey Noble. Nice to meet you. After Detective Noble went in to interview Adam Lane, my sergeant and I waited for him.

We were thinking we were going to be eating dinner shortly. It's probably not going to go very long. After about a half hour, 45 minutes, we realized he's talking. After an hour, we decided, you know what? We better go eat without him. And as we started talking to him it became evident that Adam Lane actually much to our surprise wanted to speak with us. How long have you been down in Texas? On and off 20 years. For the first hour, hour and a half of the interview he never once asked us what crime we were investigating and my

impression of that is he didn't need to ask because he knew I was there. He knew it, and we knew it. They took movies that I had in the trip and made it seem like I was the worst mass murderer you'd ever seen in your life. Just because of how I like horror movies. We did not have the benefit of the forensic results.

So this whole interview was done basically with my partner and I just feeling out Adam Lane as we went. Did you go anywhere else? No. We told him, we're not here because we think you did something in New Jersey. We told him we're here because we know you did something in New Jersey. And you could see Adam Lane's demeanor start to change. And my impression of it was he was starting to come to the realization that he was caught. And after several seconds, he said the words, I'm done.

I packed up our stuff. We turned off the tape recorder. My partner and I got up to leave. We walked out of that room and after several minutes, Adam Lane made a motion through the window of the door, made a nod for us to come back in. And at that point, we knew exactly where we were. We knew that Adam Lane wanted to confess. This is going to kill my family.

That he wanted to tell us what happened that night. She sit straight up and got out of bed when she seen me and started screaming. And I tried to get her to be quiet all over. He described how he stabbed Monica. Right here. How far across? About a mile. Right here? He described where he stabbed her.

Between the legs, on the stomach. Did you have any sexual attraction during any of this? No. Did you, uh... Look, I love my wife very much. I ain't out for sexual choice. What happened next, then? She pled to death. I couldn't confess about it.

It didn't take very long. About how long? Less than 60 seconds. Adam Lane, no doubt about it, is perhaps the most dangerous man that I've seen personally. And the reason is because there's no explanation my opinion, for the sport of it. I received a phone call on my cell phone from the chief of police. They told us that Adam Leroy Lane had murdered a woman the night before he came to our house. When we heard that, we were just floored.

We knew at that moment that we came seconds, milliseconds, from losing our daughter in the most horrific way possible. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. The scary cult classic was set in the Chicago housing project. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror.

Candyman, Candyman, Candyman. Now we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear, but did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. We're going to talk to the people who were there,

and we're also going to uncover the larger story. My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created. Literally shocked. And we'll look at what the story tells us about injustice in America. If you really believed in tough on crime, then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her

specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop.

Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informance Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. My biggest fear after I lost my mom was that I was going to lose my dad. I didn't want him to end up in prison for something that he didn't do. Emotionally, I couldn't bear to lose another parent. I had been subpoenaed to appear in front of a grand jury

the early part of September of 2007. And it was too close and more worried I was getting. Several weeks after we submitted Adam Wayne's knives to our laboratory for analysis, we received word of what the results were. The results showed that not only was Monica Massaro's DNA on his knives, but also Darlene Ewald's from Pennsylvania. Her DNA was also on Adam Lane's knives. I found out that my mom's DNA was on a knife from the newspaper. I think I called my dad.

I'm like, so you're clear? And then it just kind of becomes a blur after that, just knowing that finally they have the evidence to clear my father. that finally they have the evidence to clear my father. After we discovered that Darlene's blood was on the knife taken from Adam Lane, I did meet with Todd Ewalt and explained to him that we had found the perpetrator and apologized that he had been a suspect, treated as he believed somewhat unfairly during the investigative process, and wanted him to know that we would do whatever we could to bring Adam Lane to justice. I can't even begin to think how bad it would have been if Lane was never caught.

I think I would have been on trial for the murder of my wife. The DNA match of Darlene Ewald's blood on Adam Leroy Lane's knife was a complete game-changer. We knew that he was incarcerated, that he faced charges in Massachusetts, and he faced charges in New Jersey. Since he was locked up and we knew he wasn't going anywhere, we decided we would defer to Massachusetts and New Jersey

before commencing our prosecution here in Pennsylvania. Even though he terrified me, I wanted to face this guy down. I'm sorry, but if you don't come into my house and attack my family. I'm going to be there. I'm going to watch you every step of the way. We knew pretty much from the outset that this case was not going to go to trial. There was really no defense that he had to offer. He was caught red-handed in the McDonough's house

by the Chelmsford police. So at some level, we knew it was going to be a plea, and what it came down to was how long of a sentence were we gonna get on this guy? The one sticking point for Adam Lane seems to be the sexual assault charge. He was adamant that he wasn't going to sexually assault Shea McDonough.

This wasn't about sex. So I went to the McDonough's and we discussed it. If that was the one sticking point, did they feel comfortable with dismissing that charge? If it meant that the plea would go forward on all the other counts and he would receive 25 to 30 years in state prison. That meant that Shea would not have to get up on the witness stand and recount everything that she went through that night and just traumatize her all over again. We said, okay, let's just accept the plea bargain and go forward with it. I would have liked to see a longer sentence, and that's what we were advocating for.

But we also knew that Adam was going to face murder charges in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania. So at the end of the day, we knew that Adam was going to face murder charges in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania. So at the end of the day, we knew he was never going to get out. I felt compelled that okay, even though the legal battles for us were over, I was going to see this thing through and I was going to make sure that I was at every hearing that he was at, that I was with the families of the other victims. We went down to the sentencing for Monica Massaro. This defendant showed absolutely no mercy toward Monica Massaro. This defendant showed absolutely no mercy

toward Monica Massaro. We don't know why a person who is a husband and a father suddenly commits these kind of acts. I just was heartbroken for Thay and Frank Massaro. Monica was their only child and only daughter, and their whole lives revolved around her. I remember giving Monica's mom a hug and just saying how sorry I was and just really feeling her pain and it was hard it was really hard.

As we were walking into the courtroom, we noticed this gentleman sitting against a railing outside of the courthouse. And he just looked lost. We learned that it was Todd Ewald, the husband of Darlene Ewald. I gave him a big hug, and I just felt, like, awful. Why am I here and his wife isn't here? I was just really thankful to meet him the first time, to be able to shake their hand and tell him thank you. For them to finally have their daughter's killer

face the consequences for what he had done, I was relieved that they were able to be there and see him sentenced. You are sentenced to serve 50 years in the New Jersey State Prison. in the New Jersey State Prison. I wanted to know why Lane would go off and start killing people. I started digging, looking for answers. It just snowballed, and it ended up turning into a book. It seemed like he had a normal childhood,

and as far as we could see, that there was no criminal background. The police told me that it was very difficult on his family. We'll never probably ever know why he did what he did. There was more to write about, because Lane still had to face the charges against Darlene Ewald and I was determined that I was gonna be in that courtroom when he was sentenced. I could be there as a reminder to him that you know what you killed those other women but I'm still here and I'm gonna make sure you get what you deserve.

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You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. It's just the best idea yet. June 28, 2010 was the day that Lane was sentenced for the murder of my mother. The McDonough's were there, and the Massaro's were there. It showed a lot of solidarity between the families, the connection that we all feel as a result of being tormented by this guy. There was some tension in the courtroom, but there was also a lot of tears and pain. And then there was just

nothing from Lane. He was a blank slate. It's like he didn't even care. We initially sought the death penalty against Mr. Lane. As we continued to talk with the Ewald family,

they were becoming concerned about an actual trial, going through the emotional aspects of hearing about Darlene's death in a trial, the fact that a defense tactic might be to try and blame Todd as the killer. Serial killer who police say went after random women

along his truck route will spend the rest of his life behind bars. Lane pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal. Some of the Walts family were in the courtroom today and they supported the agreement. It was not hard to accept a plea deal for life in prison for Adam Lane. Because whether he's on death row or not, it's not going to change my circumstances at all. Because nothing can make up for all of the pain that he's caused. There's just no way. I feel like if there's anything I can do for Nicole to make the road ahead easier for her, I owe it to her.

I can call Jeannie any time. She's programmed in my speed dial. And usually at the end of every phone call, it ends with, I love you. It's great because it's almost like a second mother. McDonough's are sort of like heroes in my book. They stopped an innocent man from going to jail. They put a guilty man away. And they saved countless women.

It's hard looking at the other families and seeing that the hard times that they've been through and how traumatizing everything has been for them. And I do feel guilty that I'm still here and that others aren't because it sucks. She just was traumatized. She didn't want to get up out of bed. She didn't want to leave her room. When she was in the basement, she was terrified of people looking in. She had gone off to school, and she had some anxiety. She thought she was ready to go on to college, and she had to come home.

She couldn't be away from us initially. Therapy made a huge difference. I was able to just get a lot of emotions and feelings out that I didn't even know I had built up. And it was just a great feeling because now I feel like I'm able to let go and able to move on without holding a grudge and being angry. Every time I leave the house or every time I go anywhere, we never forget to say I love you because you never know what can happen. When I go to bed at night and I look at my husband, I think, you know, you are just my

hero, really. I mean, he saved my daughter's life, he saved my life, he saved his own. We're here because of him, so he really is the hero. He's a hero. I think about Monica and her family in the Ewalds and their loved ones that they've lost, and I say to myself, you know, why were we so lucky? But I feel that he was sent there to be stopped to our house.

I feel there was a reason or a greater power that enabled us to stop on that night. And I feel he was sent there to be stopped. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.