Adam Leroy Lane

Case record: Adam Leroy Lane

Other details

Adam Leroy Lane was a former trucker who committed knife attacks on women in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts during July 2007. He was dubbed the “Highway Killer” because his crimes took place near highways that he frequently traveled as a trucker.

Lane had a book (DVD) in his truck about stalking and killing humans entitled “Hunting Humans.” He also carried two knives and choke wire.

The offence

Murder of Darlene Ewalt

Lane’s first known victim was Darlene Ewalt, who lived near Harrisburg.

Ewalt was stabbed and killed on 13 July 2007. At the time, she was talking on the telephone in the backyard while her family was inside the house. Lane stabbed her to death.

Attempted murder of Patricia Brooks

Lane’s second victim was a woman named Patricia Brooks, whom he stabbed on 17 July 2007 in York County, Pennsylvania.

Brooks survived the stabbing. She was attacked while she was asleep on a couch in her home.

A separate account described that four days after Ewalt was killed, Brooks told police she was sleeping on a couch when she awoke at 2 a.m. to a black-clad man driving a knife blade into her shoulder. The account said Lane slashed her neck and fled when Brooks screamed and sat up.

Murder of Monica Massaro

Lane’s third victim was a woman in New Jersey by the name of Monica Massaro.

Lane stabbed and killed Massaro a day before he committed his final crime.

One account described that Lane left his truck intent on taking a life and that detectives questioned him after he stopped at a rest stop off Route 78. The account said Lane jiggled a number of doorknobs until he found one unlocked, entered it, and murdered Massaro in her bed.

A separate account described the same killing as taking place on the night when he was in New Jersey and stopped at the rest stop off Route 78, with Lane’s confession describing events as occurring on July 29, 2007.

Attack on the 16-year-old girl in Massachusetts

Lane’s final crime transpired when he made a stop on I-495 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, broke into a house on 30 July 2007, and attacked a 16-year-old girl with a knife.

The girl’s parents awoke to the sounds of her struggling. The girl’s 135-pound mother and 160-pound father were able to subdue Lane and wrestle the knife he was carrying away from him, even though the mother suffered knife cuts.

Investigation

Lane was linked to Ewalt by DNA on his knife.

Lane was linked to Brooks similarly. The investigation also said Lane dropped some gloves with his DNA and one of his victim’s blood.

Detectives linked Lane to Massaro’s murder after Hunterdon County Prosecutor J. Patrick Barnes learned that the circumstances surrounding Lane’s arrest for attacking a 15-year-old Massachusetts girl were similar to the Massaro attack.

The detectives had learned that, like the teenager, Massaro lived near an interstate—about a mile away from the truck stop in Bloomsbury. The account said Lane was dressed in dark clothes, was armed with a knife, and came at the girl while she was in bed. The account also described that the girl’s father stopped Lane before she was harmed and held him until police arrived.

The account described that Barnes sent detectives north to question Lane about Massaro, 38, who ran a home-cleaning business. The confession video was described as showing detectives asking Lane about his life and his time in New Jersey that weekend, but not about Massaro or a murder during the early part of questioning.

The account said that police departments across the country and the FBI tried to match Lane to other unsolved homicides as his routes over the last two decades had taken him “as far north as Massachusetts, as far west as California and as far south as Florida,” and that, so far, no new DNA matches had turned up.

Arrest and imprisonment

Lane was arrested after a teenage girl’s father held him until police arrived when Lane was captured by the father in the Massachusetts attack.

Lane was serving a 25- to 30-year prison term for the Massachusetts attack when he was later sentenced in Pennsylvania.

Trial and sentencing

Massachusetts sentencing for the knife-point attack on a teenage girl

Lane received a 25-30 year sentence in Massachusetts for the attack on the teenage girl.

New Jersey sentencing for the murder of Monica Massaro

New Jersey sentenced Lane to 50 years for the murder of Monica Massaro.

Pennsylvania sentencing after a plea to avoid the death penalty

In Pennsylvania Lane made a deal to plead guilty in order to avoid the death penalty.

Lane was sentenced to 10-20 years for the attempted murder of the woman in York County, and 48-life for the murder of Darlene Ewalt.

A separate account described the Pennsylvania case as involving Dauphin County Court Judge Todd Hoover sentencing Lane to life imprisonment for Ewalt’s death and a consecutive term of 10 to 20 years for the other case, under a deal that spared him from Pennsylvania’s death penalty. In that account, Hoover told Lane he “will be fed, clothed and housed by the Department of Corrections” for the rest of his life.

A further account said Lane pleaded guilty to murder and other charges for the July 13, 2007, stabbing murder of Darlene Ewalt outside her Harrisburg-area home and attempted murder for the slashing of another woman while she slept in her home north of York.

That account also stated that Lane had previously pleaded guilty in the murder of a New Jersey woman and an attack on a 15-year-old Massachusetts girl, and that the Massachusetts attack was interrupted by the father’s headlock until police arrived and arrested Lane on July 30.

Pennsylvania sentencing details and speaker statements

Members of Ewalt’s family addressed the judge prior to sentencing with sadness and anger.

Todd Ewalt, whom state police initially questioned as a suspect in his wife’s death, said it was the result of “an unnecessary, senseless act committed by a coward.”

District Attorney Edward Marsico said one reason prosecutors agreed to the plea and did not seek the death penalty in Lane’s case was that “executions rarely occur in Pennsylvania.”

A separate statement was attributed to Lane in which he waived his right to speak and said: “I haven’t got anything to say.”

Ewalt’s 25-year-old son, Nick, asked the judge to review the investigation and to sentence his mother’s killer to death. The account included Nick saying: “I just want him dead.”

Appeals

No appeal information was provided in the case record.

Outcome

Lane was sentenced to 50 years in New Jersey and to 48 years to life in prison in Pennsylvania on June 28, 2010.