The New York woman learns an ex-boyfriend who attacked her a young mother years later

On January 27, 1996, CC Opanowski was at home from College in Hudson Falls, New York, when her ex-boyfriend Shawn Doyle knocked on the door. Opanowski grew up with Doyle and dated him in the high school and in her academic year.

Once inside, says Opanowski, Doyle has become violent. “He pushed me on the couch, pushed me down, held me back, shouted at me. And he picked me up and pushed me against the French doors,” she says. Then, she said, Doyle took scissors and cut off her ponytail. “He picked me up, kept me up and cut my hair cut off, just everything.”

“48 hours,” asks Anne-Marie Green Omanowski: “How was it that your hair will be cut off in this way?” Opanowski replies: “humiliate”. Green continues: “You think, that's why he did it?” Opanowski replies: “Probably. Only to make sure that he could knock me down somewhere.”

Opanowski says Doyle went into violent anger and out of his throat. “I thought he would stab me,” she says to green.

For the first time, Opanowski tells her powerful story with “48 hours” and talks about the attack, her long way to healing and the strength they put in court. Green reports on a case in which almost three decades stretched into “face of a monster” and on Saturday, May 10th, broadcast on CBS at 10/9 ° C and streamed on paramount+.

Opanowski says she didn't think she would exploit it alive until her college with co -residents and close friend Shannon McCauliffe. Doyle allowed Opanowski to answer the phone, but she says he has observed every movement. “And through the grace of God, only in a few words, she finds out (Shannon), based on the tone of my voice and how I answer that he is there,” says Omanowski.

McCauliffe knew that Doyle had a story in which he had bothered Omanowski and feared her friend's security. She hung up and immediately called the police. When the authorities arrived, Opanowski was initially relieved. But she says that Hudson Falls “did not put him (Doyle) in handcuffs … they put us in the same police car.” The police interviewed them together even worse when they arrived at the police station instead of separating them. Opanowski said she felt that the police did not take the matter seriously. “They made it look like it was a fight between two young children who turned a little dark,” she says Green.

When “48 hours” turned to the Hudson police authority, they admitted that the reaction of the law enforcement agencies has developed to domestic violence in recent decades in order to better support the victims with and support. The police arrested Doyle and accused him of threats, harassment and violation. He would finally be guilty of the second degree and sentenced to three years of probation. Opanowski says she was afraid of Doyle. She transferred Colleges and pulled far away from Hudson Falls.

She had brought her to Opanowski until the summer of 2005 nine years after the attack behind when she found out that Doyle had been arrested because he had murdered the 33-year-old Lori Leonard, a young mother of two boys. Opanowski says: “I couldn't believe what I heard … I felt for her whole family and two little children.”

Lori Leonard met Doyle in 2003 on the dating website cupid.com. She lived three hours from Doyle in Chittenango, New York, a small town outside of Syracus. Lori Leonard's older sister Jennifer Leonard says that she only dated a short time because of Doyle's violent temperament. Jennifer Leonard says: “I called her one night, and he was over there, and everything I could hear in the background was that he wrote it down. And that was what was it?”

Although Lori Leonard was separated, he said Jennifer Leonard that they agreed to be friends and that Doyle agreed. Jennifer Leonard says she was skeptical. “And I thought no, it is not. No. No.

On April 29, 2005, just a few days before Lori Leonard disappeared, Shawn Doyle helped her in a new rental apartment. Doyle had offered his truck. Jennifer Leonard says: “She had asked a few people before. So he was a last way out. He was still playing the 'i'm your friend'.” According to Jennifer Leonard, the move went smoothly, except that Doyle decided to hang around. She said that his presence was on her sister's nerves. But five days later, on May 4, Lori Leonard said that her Doyle had finally gone. Lori Leonard had plans to go to Albany that day to pick Yankees tickets from someone she had met at work. Later in the afternoon on May 4th, Jennifer Leonard called her sister and hoped to catch her on the way to Albany. Instead, Lori Leonard's phone always went to VoiceMail. Jennifer Leonard says she found it strange. She says: “Your phone never went directly to VoiceMail. It was never over.”

Twenty of four hours later, when Lori Leonard never called or returned home, Jennifer Leonard called Chittenango Police Department. Detective Wade Irwin searched her rental property. There were no signs of a break -in or that a crime had been committed in the apartment. He said when they interviewed the man, Lori Leonard should meet to look out Yankees tickets from his alibi. When they interviewed Doyle, Irwin said: “He had always said all the time … that he left her and lived in the apartment.”

Irwin says when they checked out his alibi, they couldn't clarify him. Nevertheless, Doyle was cooperative and even allowed the investigators to search his truck and take photos. When they searched the glove compartment from Doyle, they found something curious: a key with a serial number on it. At that time it meant nothing to the investigators. But it would be important in the case later.

On July 24, 2005, three months after Lori Leonard was missing, there was a break in the case. Lori Leonard's body was discovered in a metal tool box that can be found in the Champlain channel. Irwin says: “She was tied up with handcuffs behind her back. There was adhesive tape around the handcuffs. Her feet were tied up and the canal was tied. Her face from head to the chin had adhesive tape. And when the adhesive tape was removed, a banda was bound to her mouth.” According to Irwin, the investigation came together quickly and everything led to Shawn Doyle. The key that you found in Doyle's glove compartment voted the tool box's castle and found it directly to the crime. When the investigators searched through Doyle's residence, Irwin said that they found “similar handcuffs, bandanas, adhesive tape and other means that he used what was used on Lori”. One day after the discovery of Lori Leonard's body, Doyle was arrested and charged with the second degree murder.

On January 23, 2006, Doyle's process began. Kevin Kortright, district prosecutor of Washington County, says that in his case of Omanowski, the central one had made it statements. He says her testimony is important because “it shows what he is capable of … it is his mode Operandi. It is strong evidence.” But Opanowski wasn't the only ex-girlfriend who had attacked Doyle. Five years after Doyle Pancingski had attacked, he supposedly tried to kill another young woman. The judge decided that both women could comment. Kortright says he decided to name Omanowski as his last witness. He says: “You always have the best for the last.”

After so many years, Opanowski stood brave with her attacker and told the jury that the long -lasting spiritual, mental fear caused it. She says she is determined. “I have to make sure that he is eliminated for the murder of Lori,” she says. On January 26, 2006, the jury came back with a judgment: Shawn Doyle was found to be guilty due to murder's second degree.

Opanowski says that after all these years it is still difficult to process the fact that a person who once loved was convicted of murder. She hopes that others can learn from her history. She says: “Be vigilant. Look at what happens in front of you and make sure that someone knows. Don't keep it calm. Pay attention and if you have this feeling that you don't disappear, you know that you try to press what you should hear the most.”