Trucker suspected in a string of attacks pleads guilty in Chelmsford assault

By Megan Woolhouse, Globe Staff

LOWELL -- A truck driver suspected in a string of violent assaults against women along the East Coast pleaded guilty today to breaking into a home in Chelmsford and attacking a 15-year-old with a knife as she slept.

Adam Leroy Lane, 42, stood in an orange jumpsuit in Lowell Superior Court and said little as prosecutors described how the North Carolina resident dressed in black clothes, black gloves, and a black mask and broke into the bedroom of Shea McDonough. Lane carried three knives, choke wire, and a throwing star as he attacked the teen on July 30, holding a blade to her throat, prosecutors said.

Jean and Kevin McDonough heard their daughter’s cries and rushed into her bedroom. Kevin McDonough, a man with slight build, told reporters today that he pulled the burly trucker off his daughter and pinned him down with a chokehold.

"I'm a pretty strong guy but I felt like Hercules that night," McDonough said, speaking to reporters outside court.

Lane was sentenced to 25 to 30 years in state prison for a host of charges that included armed home invasion, armed assault, and assault with intent to murder. He has also been charged with murder by New Jersey authorities in the slaying of Monica Massaro, 38.

Massaro was killed 24 hours before the attack in Chelmsford. In both cases, authorities in both states said, Lane drove into a truck stop and then drifted into neighboring towns, searching for victims.

According to authorities in other states and news accounts, Lane is being investigated in the stabbing death of a Pennsylvania woman and a second attack in the state in which the victim, also a woman, survived. He also is reportedly under investigation in North Carolina in the 1996 shooting death of a Jonesville police sergeant, who was killed after he pulled over a red truck being driven by a burly, bearded man, according to news reports.

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