Adam Leroy Lane Case Update

September 10, 2008

Last month, 43-year-old trucker Adam Leroy Lane had another murder charge added to his list of crimes as he made his way through the northeast during the summer of 2007.  This time Lane faces a murder charge in Pennsylvania for the death of Darlene Ewalt, who authorities say he stabbed to death as she was talking on the telephone on the patio in the back yard of her Harrisburg home at 2:00 a.m. on July 13, 2007.  While languishing in a Massachusetts prison on a 30-year sentence for the Chelmsford home invasion involving an attack on a 15-year-old girl who he attempted to rape and kidnap, Lane had also been charged with murdering 38-year-old Monica Massaro in her Bloomsbury, New Jersey home on July 30, 2007.  He has since been transferred to a jail in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, where he awaits trial for Massaro's murder, to which he has pleaded not guilty.  It seems that the adding of charges against Lane is not yet finished as additional allegations continue to mount.

Just last month Lane was charged with attempted homicide, along with several other related charges, in an attack on a Pennsylvania woman, Patricia Brooks, who was awakened inside her rural home at 2:00 a.m. on July 17, 2007 by a man dressed in black who had plunged a knife into her shoulder as she slept on her couch.  Brooks was also slashed across the neck by the man, who fled when Brooks began screaming.  Police have alleged that the attacker was Adam Leroy Lane, and have linked him to the vicinity of Brooks' home through DNA analysis.

"When something like this happens in a rural community, I think people are (going to be) upset," said Chief Carl Segatti, Northern York County Regional Police Department.  "Ordinary Pennsylvanians who never expect a criminal act of this magnitude go to bed worried."

As Lane allegedly fled Brooks' home, he discarded a pair of black gloves along his escape route about a half-mile from the victim's home.  Testing later showed that Lane's DNA was present on the gloves, as well as Monica Massaro's blood.

Investigators in Jonesville, North Carolina, Lane's hometown, are still investigating him in the unsolved killing of police officer Sgt. Gregory Martin.  Readers of earlier Lane articles will likely recall that Martin was shot to death in October 1996 and found lying next to his cruiser after stopping a pickup truck that had been reported stolen.  Although the killer's modus operandi in that case differs substantially from the others that Lane has been charged with, a police sketch of the suspect created with the help of a witness resembles Lane.  Jonesville police investigators want to eventually interview Lane in that case.

In addition to leaving behind a string of dead bodies and victims who have survived his acts of violence, Adam Leroy Lane has also left in his wake an aura of fear in the communities that he has passed through, where residents who previously had left their doors unlocked now keep them secured, sometimes with newly-installed security systems and double deadbolt locks.  As this fascinating and bizarre case continues to unfold, Investigation Discovery will keep you updated.

Comments

[Rick Hepp]

The Star-Ledger has obtained the videotaped confession of Adam Leroy Lane in the 2007 murder of Monica Massaro of Blomsbury, N.J. Lane, a suspected serial killer from North Carolina, admitted on Monday that he intended to kill Massaro, but in this chilling recording he paints the crime as a burglary gone bad. Here is a link to the story by The Star-Ledger, as well as part of his confession and a complete synopsis of what Lane said happened. http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/trucker_tells_how_he_killed_wo.html