Caught in the Act_A Courageous Family's Fight to Save Their Daughter From a Serial Killer by Jeannie McDonough & Paul Lonardo

Author:Jeannie McDonough & Paul Lonardo [McDonough, Jeannie & Lonardo, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780425235430
Amazon: 0425235432
Goodreads: 9618800
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2011-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

What Monica Massaro’s family had to go through was something I could only imagine, yet despite their being consumed with grief, in the days leading up to Lane’s court appearance, we received an emotional and heartbreaking card from Fay and Frank Massaro, Monica’s parents. I was completely overwhelmed by their words, and I immediately ran out to get them a sympathy card, though picking out the perfect one for this situation proved impossible. I wanted to convey the right sentiment and expression of my empathy to a mother and father whose child had been so tragically and brutally taken away from them. There was no card that could do all this, and although the card I sent to the Massaros was imperfect, with a few of my own words added, I believed it captured my feelings of loss for them, coming from the perspective of a mother who had come close to experiencing the same devastation. This exchange managed to open the lines of communication between us, and ever since then, we have kept in touch, writing and speaking on the phone several times. I determined that I would be there for the Massaro family the day that this monster was transported to New Jersey to answer for what he did to them.

Shea’s birthday was also coming up, the day before Lane’s September 12 court date. This should have been a joyous time in her life, but Shea was not very enthusiastic about celebrating anything, not even her Sweet Sixteen. She had been born exactly ten years before the terrorist attacks in our country, on September 11, 1991. Her birthdays had been overshadowed to some degree ever since that dark day in 2001, but that year especially, it was a much smaller affair than it might otherwise have been. Kevin and I tried to make it a joyful and memorable event, but it was inevitable that the trauma of less than a month and a half earlier would overwhelm all of our efforts.

The Saturday before her birthday, we rented a limousine to take the whole family to Faneuil Hall in Boston for dinner at a popular restaurant. Shea invited Adam, her boyfriend, as well as his sister and her best friend. Shea’s grandfather, Kevin’s dad, also joined us. The evening promptly took a downturn, however, when Shea and Adam began to argue during the ride into the city. The rest of the night was filled with tension, which spread like a contagion between everyone. We were walking on eggshells for days afterward, wondering what the end result of this catastrophe of a night would be between Shea and Adam.

Our daughter and her boyfriend rarely disagreed, and for it to become so volatile was extremely unusual. In retrospect, I believe we were all still in shock. It almost seemed like the entire family was in a fog, just going through the motions of normalcy but all the while being acutely aware of how close we’d come to losing Shea. I know in the back of my mind I was thinking what a miracle it was that she was with us at all.

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