A Stranger in the House

Hoda Kotb Correspondent • Profile

They are marvels of engineering.  Vast webs of highways and roadways, spun from human ingenuity and grit.  Connecting distant points, and strangers in the night. Only no one was thinking much about exit and entrance ramps when they found her.

Pat Gerhart: Her eyes were wide open , and she was kinda slumped in the chair.

A beautiful woman attacked in the night - viciously.  It looked ghastly and personal.

Ed Marsico: A lot of stabbing-type crimes or more personal crimes with a knife-- often in-- involve some heat of passion, some type of personal animosity toward another. 

But then another woman was attacked, and then another.

Lauren Berger: Nobody in their right mind would do that to somebody.

People started to wonder: Was a serial killer on the loose?

Diane: It changed the whole chemistry of that town, without a doubt.

Video   Hear from victims’ parents A letter prepared by Faye & Frank Massaro, parents of Monica Massaro, as read by their nephew, Scott Grant. Dateline NBC

And if so, would police catch him before he killed again?

911 call:

A man came in with a gun and put it to my neck...

Kevin McDonough: And the mask is what scared me the most, so I just grabbed both wrists and said “knife.”

A horn.  Not from a car or a truck, but a cruise ship.  That's where this story really begins.  Darlene Ewalt was hearing that horn blaring in her head as she sat on her back patio one night in July 2007.  She was dreaming of an upcoming trip to paradise.

Hoda Kotb, Dateline NBC correspondent: Now, she was pumped, wasn't she, to go on this cruise?

Todd Ewalt: Oh, absolutely.

And why not?  Darlene loved adventure, but never really traveled to exotic locales.  She had been a very young bride who had raised two children in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, with her husband Todd, a carpenter.  Life had been good, but tough.

Todd Ewalt: Some of it was difficult, you know.  There never was enough money, when you're young and you're startin' a family, especially that young.

Hoda Kotb: Yeah.  Did you have to work long hours?

Todd Ewalt: I worked a lotta hours.

Back then, with little money for lavish vacations, Darlene had to find fun mostly in her own Pennsylvania backyard. It sat just down the road from interstate 81.  Friends and strangers alike, always welcome, says her daughter.

Nicole Ewalt: She would try and just make everybody happy.  She didn't want somebody in a corner by themselves alone, not havin' a good time. 

Hoda Kotb: So, if you were sort of-- not in the mood, she would-- she would try to pick you up and boost you up?

Nicole Ewalt: She would do something that would make you laugh.

Patty and Chet Gerhart will tell you that, too. They became fast friends with the Ewalts when Todd coached their boys in junior football, and Darlene entertained them afterwards in her

Video   ‘All I could see was his eyes’ Shea McDonough describes the night Adam Leroy Lane broke into her bedroom, and her parents, Kevin and Jeannie, talk about saving their daughter and catching a criminal in the act. Dateline NBC

yard.

Pat Gerhart: She liked to be outdoors.  I remember the kids telling me that when they stayed for the week-- they spent the night in a tent down in the yard with Darlene.  It was cold.  It was wet.  And she didn't give up.  You know, it was just-- you know, they had a blast with her.

How do you repay a couple like that for all their kindness, for the coaching, the babysitting?  The answer came to Patty and Chet one summer night.  They were planning a family cruise to the Caribbean when their now teenage boys got into trouble – and were punished.

Pat Gerhart: And we had to make a hard decision and decided to leave them at home. And we decided to offer to Todd and Darlene the two tickets that we would've lost. 

It was July 11, 2007.  The Gerharts and the Ewalts were out for dinner when Chet popped the question: Would Darlene and Todd like to join them on a Caribbean cruise?  The fun would set sail in October, the busiest time of year for Todd, the dedicated football coach.  Darlene didn't care.

Hoda Kotb: Was she over the moon?  She--

Todd Ewalt: Oh, yeah.  She wanted to go.

Hoda Kotb: And how about you?

Todd Ewalt: It was during football season.  I couldn't.

Todd explained his hectic football schedule demanded he be on a sports field, not a ship deck.  He politely turned down the offer.

Pat Gerhart: She wasn't expecting that to come out of his mouth.  She knew that-- you know, it was football season, okay.  But you can miss it just this time, can you miss it?  You know, it's a week.

If Darlene was hurt, she didn't show it.  She made up her mind to go on the cruise without Todd.  She was still thinking about it the next night as she sat on her back patio.  At around 10 o'clock, Todd came out to say goodnight.

Todd Ewalt: I just opened the door and said to her, "Hey, I'm goin' to bed."  And she said, "Oh, I'll be up in a few minutes."  I said, "Yeah, right," (laughs) 'cause I-- she always told me that, and I knew better.

As Todd went upstairs to the couple's bedroom, Darlene was on the phone with Chet Gerhart making arrangements for that trip.  Four hours later, she was still on the patio, still on the line with Chet.  She probably never heard the rustling from behind her chair.  Or saw the flash of the blade.  But Chet heard something.  A startled change in Darlene's voice.

Chet Gerhart: She just said, "Oh, my God," four times, and the phone went dead.

Yet Chet could see the line to Darlene's phone was still active.  He kept trying to get a response.

Chet Gerhart: kept screaming in the phone.  I just kept calling her name.

Just like that, Darlene Ewalt's Caribbean dreams of white beaches and turquoise waters had dipped forever to black.

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