Unseen - Family Takes Down Ninja Serial Killer | The Case of the McDonough Family | UNSEEN

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

"You don’t come into MY house, and attack MY family"-- On July 13th 2007, a woman is found murdered in the middle of the night. Her husband, who was asleep upstairs, immediately becomes the prime suspect, but police have no idea that the true culprit, a masked serial killer, has already struck again, miles away, leaving a trail of crime scenes undetected along the Northeastern US. However, everything changes when he breaks into the bedroom of 15-year-old Shea McDonough, who will team up with her entire family to make sure the killer is brought to justice for all of his crimes. Jeannie McDonough, Shea’s mom, wrote a book detailing her family’s intense ordeal and fight for justice titled “Caught in the Act: A Courageous Family's Fight to Save Their Daughter from a Serial Killer.” It can be purchased here: https://www.amazon.ca/Caught-Act-Cour... - - - Credits: Directing, writing, & editing by Maxime Desrochers Researched by Tianyi Zhang Produced by Alexandra Salois & Salim Sader Voiceover by William Akana - - - Sources: Documentary 48 Hours Mystery Live to Tell Hunting Humans - CBS News I survived a serial killer 2013 - E! Entertainment Television Dateline NBC S17 E66 A stranger in the house - Dateline NBC The Coroner: I Speak for the Dead - airing on Investigation Discovery; Production Company: Finch Productions Murder on Main Street: Nightmare Next Door - Investigation Discovery Hunting Humans 2002 : production company Kangas Kahn Films; distribution company IFM World Releasing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2007, first responders received a chilling call from a 15-year-old girl. Yes. Yes. Okay. He's threatening my parents. Please. He's okay. With her family by her side, they fought back, together, locked in a desperate battle for survival.

But what they didn't realize was that the man they were fighting wasn't just a burglar. A man dressed in a ninja suit, reportedly armed with knives, has been spotted roaming the streets. Authorities are urging residents to lock their doors. A trail of victims was left scattered along the highways. Police thought they were dealing with random attacks as they struggled to connect the dots. Until they discovered a movie and realized the killer had been following a pattern all along,

bringing the movie to life. One victim at a time, but the killer had no idea that choosing this family would ultimately lead to his downfall. He's in my room. He put his hand over my mouth and then help. And I used my throat told me if I screamed, okay. All right.

July 13th, 2007. West Hanover Township, Dauphin County, a quiet suburban city located near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Todd and Darlene lived a quiet life in a suburban neighborhood near the highway, and together they raised two children, Nick and Nicole. Dwayne was my wife and friend, and she's my partner in life. I'd known her since I was 15. At 10 o'clock, I opened the door and told her I was headed the 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. late. Todd and Darlene's marriage had been slowly coming apart. Darlene was very outgoing, she was very friendly, and she'd like to go out to the local watering holes. Her husband, not so much, he was one of those people that liked to go to bed early. As a night went on, around 2 a.m., Darlene was still on the phone with her friend,

but things took a disturbing turn when suddenly, the friend on the other side of the line heard Darlene's scream. Darlene's friend hears the call sort of abruptly end. sort of muffled sound and abrupt end to a call on that in his experience wouldn't normally happen talking to Darlene. Her friend rushed over to Darlene's house, but when he arrived, he found her lying there, brutally murdered, her throat slashed. In shock, he banged on the door, desperately trying to get someone to answer, and with no response, he finally called 911. My bedroom door opened up and guys were screaming at me to get my hands in the air. I thought

it might be a home invasion or something. Then I started seeing flash photography going on. I knew that wasn't a good sign. 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's screaming. He was in the kitchen still handcuffed. He broke the chair. He was sitting in.

Investigators tried to figure out what happened to her, but they were left with more questions than answers. With no signs of an intruder, police began to suspect that the grieving husband might be hiding something. They decided to give Todd a polygraph test, and when the results came back, it confirmed their suspicions. He failed. One of the investigators asked me if I owned any knives. I said, I own a lot of knives. He asked me what I meant by that. I said, my work construction, I have a leather shop.

He said, I guess, all kinds of knives. So he drew me a picture of the murder weapon. Asked me if I owned any knives, it looked like that. I said, no. That was my first moment of thought I was in real trial. There was no signs of a break-in or any intruder. Darlene was targeted by someone she knew. Someone that knew she liked to sit out in the patio late at night.

So this would indicate somebody that she had a relationship with. Human nature is such that emotions are often triggered between people who are close to each other. The police have to probe into a marriage under these circumstances. You had a son and a husband in the house that claims to close. that claimed they did not hear anything, did not hear, oh my God, oh my God. Most spousal murders are passionate were an argument escalated to a physical fight from a physical fight to murder. On top of losing Darlene, the family was left to carry the weight of doubt that now hung over Todd. My mom had no enemies.

She was just great personality. I was just loved by everybody. So it was kind of like, why would someone want to hurt her, let alone kill her, and who would do it? Who could be such a monster? While police were focused on interrogating Todd, they had no idea that miles away, the killer had already begun his next round of brutal attacks. But if only the police had known a single movie

would hold the key to connecting it all. Two weeks later, in a little quiet town called Bloomsbury, in New Jersey, lived 38-year-old Monica Massaro. Monica was well-known around town as a regular at the local bar, always out attending live music shows and chatting with familiar faces, But for a few days now, there had been no signs of her. In a town that small, her absence didn't go unnoticed. Monica ran a small cleaning business, and her clients counted on her regular visits.

But when days passed without any word, concern began to grow. When a local police officer arrived at her home, he found the front door unlocked, and the moment he opened the door, he knew something was terribly wrong. When I checked the door to see if it was locked and wiggled the handle, kind of gave it a slight push, the door opened. Finding no one on the first floor, he made his door. way up to the bedroom. The door to that bedroom was open about 12 inches, and through that I could see a foot hanging

off the side of a bed. When I opened the bedroom door, I saw a body that was completely drenched in blood, but it was evident that her throat had been slit. It was so gory that it almost didn't even look real. It was just the type of crime that someone with an incredible amount of violence and rage would have done. We didn't have anybody that we would call suspects specific. And that proved challenging for us.

Through all our processing, several days, we came up with no DNA that would link the crime to another person. Although residents reported seeing a man. There was someone out at the time when Monica was killed, shaking doors, looking through windows. So it opened up the scope of it's either going to be someone very close to Monica, or as we feared, it could be a random person that was out trying to get into houses. If you're a one-knob door, tape on the front.

It's a lot easier than making a lock. A lot of you wouldn't sleep what was. Less than 24 hours later, around 11 p.m. in a nearby town, another woman had her own terrifying encounter. While out-walking her dog late at night, she spotted a man standing in the street, dressed in black, with a mask over his face, and blade strapped to his waist. As he began walking towards her, she bolted back to her house, locked the doors, and called 911. windows. Okay, what's the address?

Oh, he's trying to break in. My God, somebody's trying to break in. Okay, we have... Okay, he's going to... He's going to... ...right now. Okay, what part of the house is he at? He's at the front door.

He's at the front door? You might be in the house. I can hear something now. The man couldn't break into the house, and by the time police arrived, he had vanished once again. Although he managed to escape, she was the first to get a clear look at the man. For the first time, police saw the man. Police finally had a description. I saw a man all dressed in black walking away,

looked like a ninja with like holsters sticking out of his sides. And then he turned and looked at me and it just wasn't right. So I like ran in the house. We closed all the windows and he'd follow me back. Word spread quickly across state lines. Everyone was on high alert. But the most disturbing part, no one knew when or where he'd strike next.

A man dressed in a ninja suit, reportedly armed with knives, has been spotted roaming the streets. Authorities are urging residents. to lock their doors and remain vigilant. The murders happened too quickly, in too many different towns, for a clear pattern to emerge, but there was one unsettling detail that appeared again and again, a deep slash to the throat. Meanwhile, Todd was still being interrogated by the police.

Despite the killings continuing and his alibis checking out, the police still had their eyes on him. As the killer continued his string of murders, the body count kept rising, and so did the fear in each town he might be passing through. but one family was ready to face him and changed the course of history. July 30th, Chelmsford, Massachusetts. The McDonough family was living a quiet life. Kevin and Jeannie McDonough had known each other since high school, and eventually got married. They were the proud parents of two children, Ryan and Shea. The McDonough's were a church-going family, attending services every Sunday.

They were the kind of family you'd expect to see at community events, always together and always present. On that night, Shea returned home after spending the evening out with her friends. 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. Shea was being a good sister and looking out for a big brother. However, around 4 a.m., things took a disturbing turn. Shea was in her room when she heard a faint noise, like glass breaking somewhere in the distance.

It wasn't long before a dark figure appeared at her door. She froze as she saw a man, standing there with a knife in hand. The man clamped his hand over Shea's mouth, pressing a blade to her neck and whispering. If you make any effing noise, I'm going to kill you. And that's when I just kind of went into panic. 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. I heard a muffled sound, like a little whimper, come from the bedroom right next to us.

And I thought that was odd. must be having a bad dream or something. 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. When he walked into her room, he froze. A large man was there, holding a knife to Shea and covering her mouth as she tried to scream. Her father, in an act of courage, decided to throw himself at the man. My dad just jumped on top of him, was trying to grab the knife.

The commotion in the house signaled to Jeannie that something was wrong. She raised to Shay's room, only to find her husband locked in a struggle with the stranger besides Shea. He was dressed all in black. Black pants, black mask, just a terrorizing figure, and he was huge. Without a second thought, she lunged forward, reaching for the knife. I was saying, get the knife, get the knife. The knife was very big. The blade was, I'm going to say that long. And so I tried to grab the grip of the knife, but the man's hand.

The 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. 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. I instinctively told my daughter, call 911 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.

After the family struggled with the intruder for five intense minutes, Shea sprinted down the hall. grabbed the phone and dialed 911, her hands shaking as she spoke to the dispatcher. I said it to my mouth and the mother. The married couple held on to the stranger with every ounce of strength they had, but then Kevin's grip faltered for just a moment as he caught sight of blood streaming down his wife's hands. Sensing the distraction, the intruder seized his chance. 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 . . . . . . . . . When the man stood up with Kevin on his back, the knife slid the knife slid the knife slid, I slid through my hands. I thought, oh, this is it, we're all dead. He scrambled towards the door. But before he could break free, Kevin and Jeannie grabbed him again, determined to hold him down until help arrived. 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. With his years of experience in wrestling, Kevin locked his arms around the man's neck. When high school I wrestled, I knew a chokehold was the only thing, a guy of this size I said 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. She was still on the phone, urgently relaying every detail to the police, unaware if her father was still trying to win against the stranger. What does he look like?

I have no idea. He has a mask. I need you to stay on the line with me. He has a mask on, all black masks. He's like a big guy. Is he still in the house? Yeah, my dad's holding him down. Okay, the father has the guy held down right now. For ten minutes, she waited anxiously outside, but then everything in the house went quiet. She didn't know if her parents had overpowered the intruder or if something far worse had happened.

Suddenly, She spotted a police car approaching in the distance. As the police arrived at the house, she quickly explained the situation. Without hesitation, the officers rushed inside, heading straight for her bedroom. She followed closely behind, her heart pounding, unsure if her parents had made it out. alive. As she entered the bedroom, she saw her father pinning the man to the ground, and her mother standing over them, gripping the knife in her hand. Police then proceeded to handcuff him, and for the first time that night, the family could finally breathe. 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, Shea was with me. We just held on to each other for a little bit. and I wasn't going to let go of her for the life of me. The man they had fought so hard against was finally brought to the station where police removed his mask. His name is Adam Leroy Lane. He was in his early 40s. He was a white male and he had no significant criminal history.

We found that Adam lived in a house with his wife and kids and Jonesville. And Jonesville's a very quiet town in North Carolina. Although Adam was initially arrested for home invasion. The police soon discovered he was a truck driver, moving from states to states. His truck had been parked near the McDonough's home. As they began to inspect the vehicle more closely, they realized there could be something much darker, lurking behind the man's past. There was a couple of knives, large hunting knives, and there was also fanny pack belt that had the knife shees hanging from it. There was choking wire, Chinese throwing star,

There was a leather mask, but the eyes cut out and the mouth cut out. That's when they realized he wasn't just a simple burglar. As detectives dug deeper, they found something unsettling among his belongings. We found his logbook, receipts, some more knives. We also found a movie inside of a DVD player. That movie's titled Hunting Humans. In it, the killer kills with no motive at all, only for the thrill of killing. Never have a motive.

The easiest way for the cops to catch you is if you have a reason for killing the victim. It's why I've been able to kill 107 people so far. Police officers began reaching out to departments in other states, looking for any recent murders that matched the movie's methods. One detail kept coming up. Each victim's throat had been slashed. It wasn't long before investigators noticed that these killings mirrored scenes from the movie. In Lane's mind, the film wasn't just something to watch.

It was a guide. Each murder was planned like a scene. Each victim had a role he'd chosen for them. Lane wasn't just imitating. He was reenacting bringing the movie to life, one victim at a time. Back in New Jersey, Officer Jeff Noble, who was leading the investigation into Monica Massaro's murder, picked up on the pattern, seeing a potential link. He contacted the authorities, who had Adam Lane in custody, confident that they were onto

something. But with no DNA completed yet to confirm a connection to Monica's murder, he wasn't able to get an interrogation. However, against all odds, the officer. The officer got a call from the investigators down in Massachusetts that would change everything in the case. Basically, we wanted to know if Adam LeRoy Lane was in New Jersey at or near the time Monica Massaro died. 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. And he goes, it's from Bloomsbury, New Jersey. He gave us the second piece, which was July 29, 2007, right at the time we believe Monica died. A short time later, I heard Detective Noble say, George, we're coming to Chelmsford. Jeff headed to Chelmsford to begin his interrogation with Adam Lane. The interrogation began with simple, light questions. How long have you been done in terms? My initial impression of Adam Lane was that he was a very polite, respectful gentleman.

He came across just like a regular guy. For the first hour, hour and a half of the interview, he never, once asked us what crime we were investigating. My impression of that is he didn't need to ask because he knew why we were there. He knew it, and we knew it. But as soon as Jeff Noble mentioned the movie, Hunting Humans, Adam's demeanor completely shifted.

The 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. Without hesitation, Jeff looked him in the eye and said he knew what he'd done to Monica. and Bloomsbury. Adam looked away, shook his head, simply replying, 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. As the officers turned to leave, Lane gave a slight nod, signaling them back without saying a word. He motioned for them to return. Once they sat down again, Lane finally broke his silence, confessing to the murder of Monica Mazzaro. Had the knife he was on the bed, she rolled against the tub right here. Best I can tell, and I'm going to make this jugger thing right here. What happened next to him? She pled to death. I didn't know the body.

It didn't take very long. About how long? But Adam's final words sent a chill down Jeff's spine. He casually mentioned cleaning his knife every week, hinting at something darker. There could be countless other murders across the state tied to him. But after that day, Adam refused to admit to anything more. No one truly knows how many lives he took. I think we caught a serial killer possibly early in his killing career.

Absolutely, because he wasn't going to stop, but we can't be fooled. If the McDonough didn't catch Adam Lane, I can't tell you that we would have. With Adam's confession to Monica's murder, it seemed justice was finally within reach. Investigators are following leads into unsolved crimes along Lane's truck route in North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Not long after, investigators sent Adam's knives to the lab, hoping they'd reveal the full extent of his crimes. And so, a series of trials awaited Adam, starting first with the McDonald's family's case.

Police say the man behind a violent home invasion in Chelmsford may also be a serial killer, and for the first time since being charged with a murder in New Jersey, Adam Lane appeared in court. Shea and her parents had to face their attacker again, but this time, without a mask on his face. 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.

As the trial unfolded, the McDonnell family took the stand, recounting every detail up that night. 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...

get a punch him or something. With the overwhelming evidence against him, Adam Lane was sentenced to 25 to 30 years in prison for what he did to the McDonough's. Justice was getting served, but this conviction was only the beginning. Even though he terrified me, I wanted to face this guy down.

I'm sorry, but 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. 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 I was with the families of the other victims. A month later, the McDonos made their way to support the Masaro family during their own trial.

When they saw Monica's elderly parents, they offered words of comfort. 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. I was relieved that they were able to be there and see him sentenced. Absolutely no mercy toward Monica Massaro would be poorly cut the throat, watched her die, and then desecrated her dead body. We don't know why a person who is a husband and a father suddenly commits these kind of acts. You are sentenced to serve 50 years in the New Jersey State Prison. Adam was then sentenced to 50 more years in prison, and that didn't even include the charges from the McDonough case,

Even though the Massaro and McDonough family saw justice with Adam Lane's sentencing, Todd Ewalt was still carrying the weight of his own accusations. Despite the charges, he had no way to prove his innocence. But everything was about to change. The DNA results from Lane's knife had just come back from the lab. When the DNA laboratory analyzed Lane's knife, they found profiles from five different victims, including Darlene EWolt. With all the evidence in hand, investigators were finally able to piece together the murder.

He may have tested more than one door. But then he saw the light on in the patio, and that's what sealed Darling's fate, the most unlikely place, the most unlikely person, no attachment other than the fact that she was easy prey that evening. He was hunting humans, but a whole team was hunting him. Darlene was hunting him by giving us the information we needed, down to her very blood. Todd was ready to seek justice for his wife and make sure the truth came to light. The McDonough stayed true to their promise to support the other victims' families, heard the news about Todd Ewalt, and made their way as well. 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 Ewalt, the husband of Darlene Ewald. The McDonnas were there, and the Masarras 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. The Ewolts were devastated, but with the other families standing by their side, they were ready to confront what had happened. 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.

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they were becoming concerned about an actual trial, you know, 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. Todd closely followed the previous trials, knowing Adam Lane was already set to serve 80 years in prison. So, in the end, he accepted a plea deal that would add only 10 to 20 more years to Lane's sentence. In doing so, he spared him from the death penalty. It was not hard to accept a plea deal for life in prison for Adam Lane.

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. Justice at last was served for all families. As the trial ended, the Ewaltz and the McDonos met in the hallway, no longer strangers. I gave him a big hug, and I just felt like awful. Why am I here and his wife isn't here? I can't even begin to think how bad it would have been if Lane was never caught. 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. If there's anything I can do for Nicole to make the road ahead easier for her, I owe it to her. A bond formed that day, one that would keep Jeannie and Nicole in touch, united by both loss and strength. The McDonnell family didn't just survive that night. They stood their ground against a threat no one saw coming. Their courage brought justice and healing to more than just their own family. They showed that no matter the odds, the power of family and support can carry us through

even the most unthinkable trials. The McDonaghs 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. 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. I think about Moniker and a family in the Ewaltz, 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.