Survivor's testimony key to helping convict violent ex-boyfriend charged with murder

CBS News

11-05-2025

C.C. Opanowski was just 18 years old when she was brutally attacked by someone she once loved -- her ex-boyfriend Shawn Doyle. C.C. tried to put the traumatic incident behind her until she learned years later that Doyle murdered a mother of two young boys. For the first time, C.C. is speaking out publicly to" 48 Hours" and correspondent Anne-Marie Green about her story and how she was able to find the strength to testify against her attacker in court.
It was Jan. 27, 1996 and C.C. Opanowski has just finished her first semester of college in upstate New York. She and her ex-boyfriend, Shawn Doyle had been broken up for about four months.
C.C. Opanowski: My mother was going away for the weekend. … so I had this whole big house to myself. …And my friend Shannon and I … we were very close … I said, "well, let's stay at my house 'cause there's no one around."
Shannon McCauliffe: it was just a girls' night. We just wanted to chill out.
C.C. Opanowski
Shannon McCauliffe
C.C. and McCauliffe were roommates at Sage Junior College of Albany.
Shannon McCauliffe: I'm really introverted (laughs) and she was very bubbly and happy and chipper … And she just -- she brought me outta my shell.
Anne-Marie Green: When you were first meeting her, was Shawn Doyle around at the time?
Shannon McCauliffe: Yes. He was obnoxious. … she would argue with him a lot on the phone.
Anne-Marie Green: And then … in January is when this incident happens at her house?
Shannon McCauliffe: Mm-hmm. … we were having a good time. It was just the two of us.
Anne-Marie Green: But he keeps calling.
Shannon McCauliffe: Mm-hmm. … Wanting to know what we're doing, wanting to know if he can come over. … She had a cellphone and I was like," just turn it off." Like she's like, no, 'cause if I turn it off, he's gonna come here.
Shannon McCauliffe: We finally wake up and all we wanted was coffee. … I had the -- of the mindset of I'm like, "oh, I can't go out in public looking like I'm a mess. Let me go home and get dressed."
After McCauliffe left to go home, C.C. says there was a knock at her door.
C.C. Opanowski: And I open it. And it's him.
C.C. Opanowski: And he said … I just wanna talk to you. … And once he was inside, things got much different. … He pushed me onto the couch … started, you know, holding me down and restraining me. You know, yelling at me … And he picked me up and pushed me against the French doors and kept banging me against the French doors.
McCauliffe called C.C., but there was no answer
C.C. Opanowski: My hair was in a ponytail … And … he picked me up, held me up and cut my hair off … it was gone, just all of it. … he had already been choking me and … I thought he was gonna stab me.
Shannon McCauliffe: I called her back a half an hour later, she still didn't answer. … and that's when my eyebrows kind of went up.
C.C. Opanowski: I'm in complete shock. I can't believe it's happening and I have to figure out how to get out of it. …But during this time, the phone continues to ring.
Shannon McCauliffe: I waited a couple minutes and I called her back.
C.C. Opanowski: I explained to him … if I don't answer this phone, my mother will call the police. … So I do pick up the phone and it's Shannon.
Shannon McCauliffe: I said, "hey, are you OK?"
C.C. Opanowski: And I don't know why I did this, but I started unloading the dishwasher. …And I'm saying to her, no, no, yeah, everything's fine. No, no. And no kept coming out of my mouth. And he didn't pick up on it, but she sure did. And that's when she said," is he there?" And I said, "yes."
A SURVIVOR SHARES HER STORY
It has taken almost 30 years for C.C. to talk publicly about the day her former high school boyfriend, Shawn Doyle, attacked her in her family's home in Hudson Falls, New York, and then used scissors to cut off her ponytail.
"I can tell you that … I knew nothing was ever going to be the same. … and it was going to change the way I looked at everything," C.C. Opanowski tells "48 Hours."
Shannon McCauliffe
Anne-Marie Green: What was it like to have your hair cut off in this way?
C.C. Opanowski: Demeaning.
Anne-Marie Green: Demeaning. You think that's why he did it?
C.C. Opanowski: Probably. Just to make sure he could knock me down somewhere.
On that day, as Doyle went in and out of violent rages — at one point holding the scissors to her throat — C.C. says she wasn't sure she would make it out alive. Until, she says, McCauliffe called.
Anne-Marie Green: When she finally picks up the phone … what did you hear in her voice?
Shannon McCauliffe: Fear.
McCauliffe says she knew that Doyle had been harassing C.C., so when C.C. told her Doyle was there, Shannon notified police and then rushed over to C.C.'s house.
Shannon McCauliffe: I pulled onto her street and I parked and then I saw the – the — the police officers and everything. … so I kinda went in after the fact. … She looked terrified and angry and sad.
C.C. says she thought when police arrived, they would make her feel safe. But that's not exactly what happened.
C.C. Opanowski: They do not put him in handcuffs. … And they put us in the back of the same police car.
C.C. Opanowski: Mind you, all of this time … I clearly look like I've been assaulted. My hair is completely cut off.
And when they arrived at the police station —
C.C. Opanowski: I was like, why — why are we here? Why is he not — why are we in the same room?
C.C. says instead of separating them, police questioned them together.
C.C. Opanowski: And they made it seem like it was some fight between two young kids, that turned, you know, slightly dark.
When "48 Hours" reached out to the Hudson Falls Police Department, they acknowledged that law enforcement's response to domestic violence has evolved over the past several decades to better work with and support victims. Police arrested Doyle and charged him with menacing, harassment and trespassing.
C.C. Opanowski: Looking at it … And you're saying, "did this really happen to me?" You know, "how could this happen to me?"
JEALOUSY, A TATTOO AND OTHER RED FLAGS
C.C. Opanowski and Shawn Doyle grew up in the small town of Hudson Falls located in upstate New York.
C.C. Opanowski: He was nice to me. He was really nice.
Shawn Doyle and C.C. Opanowski grew up together. They dated in high school and into C.C.'s freshman year of college.
C.C. Opanowski
When C.C. started dating Shawn Doyle, she was just 15 years old — a sophomore in high school. Doyle was one year older.
C.C. Opanowski: You know, we would go out and do lots of things together. We just hung out all the time.
C.C. says Doyle had troubles at home. During his junior year, Doyle told her his parents kicked him out. So, C.C. begged her parents to let him move in with them.
Anne Marie Green: Did you feel sorry for him?
C.C. Opanowski: Def — oh definitely.
Soon after he moved into C.C.'s family home, she says she saw a change in Doyle's behavior. C.C. says he became jealous and would secretly follow her around — something she says she didn't think at the time was a big deal.
C.C. Opanowski: When you're a 16-, 17-year-old girl and you know you're looking at, oh, jealousy, you know, he must love me so much and that's why he's doing this. Or he followed me home, he's so worried about me, but is that really what the case is? When you look back as an adult, someone with experience, you know, you think. That's probably not — not OK.
And Doyle showed even more possessive behavior that C.C. found troubling.
C.C. Opanowski: He at one point did get a tattoo. … It was a heart on his arm. … And it had my name in the middle.
Anne-Marie Green: What did you say?
C.C. Opanowski: Why would you do that?
Anne-Marie Green: And his response?
C.C. Opanowski: I love you.
Anne-Marie Green: Was it a red flag?
C.C. Opanowski: Definitely.
During his senior year, C.C. says Doyle dropped out of high school and was working odd jobs that he couldn't keep.
C.C. Opanowski: And this is where things start to get … darker. You know, he — he doesn't have any prospects. He knows that I'm getting ready to go away to school. And to him, his whole life is — is about to completely change.
But C.C. says she stuck by him, writing in her senior yearbook, "I love you Shawn!" And in the summer of 1995, when she left to attend what is now Russell Sage College in Albany, they agreed to stay together and see each other on weekends.
But at the end of September, things took a scary turn when C.C. told Doyle she would not be coming home every weekend to see him. Doyle showed up at her dorm.
C.C. Opanowski: He stood outside, basically threatening that he was going to kill me.
Anne-Marie Green: And now he's threatening not just you, but anyone around you.
C.C. Opanowski: Basically anyone around me … so he was arrested.
Doyle was charged with harassment and trespassing. It was the final straw for C.C., who says she broke it off with Doyle for good and he moved out of her parent's house. Later that winter, that's when Doyle showed up and viciously attacked her at her home.
Anne Marie Green: I know he threatened a lot, but did you ever believe that Shawn Doyle would have physically hurt you?
C.C. Opanowski: Not until that day, not in that way.
"I'm really introverted (laughs) and she was very bubbly and happy and chipper," Shannon McCauliffe, left, says of her friend C.C. Opanowski. But McCauliffe says her friend changed after the attack.
Shannon McCauliffe
After the attack, C.C. returned to college and finished up her freshman year. But McCauliffe says her friend had changed.
Shannon McCauliffe: I think it had a profound impact on her life.
C.C. Opanowski: You know, I was always looking over my shoulder … I bought myself a Swiss Army knife. … I'm having night terrors. … You know, waking up crying, waking up screaming, not being able to sleep. … awful, awful.
So eight months after the attack, when it was time to take the case to trial, C.C. — who was still just a teenager at 19 years old — told prosecutors she couldn't go through with it. She says she was too traumatized and scared.
C.C. Opanowski: I didn't wanna have to face him in court. I didn't wanna be going over this over and over and over again. I really wanted it to go away.
Doyle was offered a deal. He pleaded guilty to menacing in the second degree and was sentenced to just three years' probation. C.C. transferred colleges and moved hours away from Hudson Falls.
C.C. Opanowski: I needed peace and I didn't know how to get it.
C.C. tried to forget her past, but she says she was haunted by a conversation she had with the prosecutor.
C.C. Opanowski: She said, you know … based on what I see here, he is going to do this again to another person. And that has for the past 28 years stuck in my head.
LORI LEONARD DISAPPEARS
Nine years after C.C. Opanowski left upstate New York for a new life far away from Shawn Doyle, 33-year-old Lori Leonard disappeared.
Lori was a single mom who lived with her two sons, Austin, who was 9 at the time, and Zackary 5, in Chittenango, a small town outside Syracuse, New York.
Lori Leonard with sons Zackary Wicklund, left, and Austin Feltrinelli.
Jennifer Leonard
Austin Feltrinelli: She was a — a very caring mother. The memories of her — just us always being happy together, spending time … kind of always … the three of us.
Zackary Wicklund: It was just a lot of love and affection.
Jennifer Leonard: Her dream was to have a home, a father figure for her kids, and for them to be happy. … She wanted the white picket fence.
Jennifer Leonard was Lori's older sister.
Jennifer Leonard: We were good friends. But I was a little bit of a bossy mother to her. … I had been through a lot of things already in my life and my relationships, and I was very, I would say, overprotective.
In 2003, Lori met a man on the dating website Cupid.com. His name? Shawn Doyle. Online dating was new back then, so Jennifer was skeptical about him.
Jennifer Leonard: He was not charismatic. He was not social. … He was like a piece of furniture that you just walked around.
But she says Lori didn't agree; she only saw the good in people.
Jennifer Leonard: She would say, you know, he's misunderstood or he's shy.
Shawn Doyle
Det. Wade Irvin
Jennifer says Lori told her very little about Doyle, except that he lived three hours away in Hudson Falls and worked at an ice cream factory. She also mentioned that Doyle was on probation.
Jennifer Leonard: She told me that he was a boxer, that he was protecting a woman at a bar and was arrested because he used some of his professional boxing moves.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you ever see any sort of evidence of his professional boxing?
Jennifer Leonard: No.
Anne-Marie Green: I mean, did he — do you think he was even a boxer, ever?
Jennifer Leonard: No. … I didn't buy the stories that he was selling her. … It sounded like he was trying to be something that he was not.
Jennifer says after her sister met Doyle, Lori became distant.
Jennifer Leonard: I would talk to Lori three times a day.
Anne-Marie Green: And then when Shawn came into the picture?
Jennifer Leonard: It was — it was a little quiet.
And things only got worse.
Jennifer Leonard: I had called her one night and he was over there and all I could hear in the background was him yelling at her. And that — that was like, "what is this?" And she's like, you know I'll call you back. It's not a big deal.
Jennifer Leonard: But I think what scared me more than anything was when he was caught yelling at her … it stopped. Like the kind of guys that you know don't want anyone else to see what happens behind closed doors. … He was sneaky.
Lori Leonard
Jennifer Leonard
Soon after this incident, Lori ended her romantic relationship with Doyle. Lori told Jennifer they agreed to be just friends and that he was fine with it.
Jennifer Leonard: And I was like, no, he's not. Nope. People like that aren't just OK with being friends.
Despite the breakup, Doyle would still drive three hours from Hudson Falls to visit Lori. Oftentimes hanging out at the bar where she waitressed late at night.
Dorothy Tucker: Shawn, always called me and he — he'd call me to get advice.
Dorothy Tucker lived down the street from Doyle in Hudson Falls and considered him a close friend.
Dorothy Tucker: I saw a sweet guy who would bend over backwards if I asked him to.
However, after the relationship with Lori ended, she says Doyle told her he had followed Lori and watched her as she went out on a date.
Dorothy Tucker: I was like, "Shawn, you can't do that. … She does not wanna be with you."
Anne-Marie Green: Were you starting to get concerned about him and his behavior at that point?
Dorothy Tucker: No. No. Because he agreed with me. … I didn't see the monster that he really was … He hid it quite well.
On Friday, April 29, 2005, Lori, who was living with Jennifer, moved to a new rental apartment.
Dustin Delatore: Usually people are miserable when they're moving. She was just happy.
Lori's nephew Dustin Delatore, who was 15 at the time, helped with the move.
Dustin Delatore: She wanted her own place. … She saw her future in that day.
Also helping with the move was Shawn Doyle, who offered up use of his truck.
Jennifer Leonard: She had asked a couple people before that. So he was a last resort. … He was still playing the "I'm your friend."
Anne Marie Green: What was Shawn like that day?
Dustin Delatore: Standoffish. Just, I mean, quiet.
Jennifer says the move went smoothly until Doyle decided to hang around— and stayed with Lori in her new place for days.
Jennifer Leonard: It was starting to get on her nerves now.
Five days after the move, Jennifer says Lori told her Doyle was finally leaving because Lori had plans to go to Albany for the afternoon.
Jennifer Leonard: She was supposed to go pick up the tickets.
Tickets to a Yankees game — a gift from someone she had met at work.
Anne-Marie Green: Were you concerned at all about her going to pick up tickets from a stranger?
Jennifer Leonard: Yes, yes. But that was how she was. … She was very trusting.
On Wednesday, May 4, Jennifer called Lori in the afternoon, hoping to catch her while she was heading to Albany.
Jennifer Leonard: And it kept going straight to voicemail.
Anne-Marie Green: Was that weird?
Jennifer Leonard: Oh … Her phone never went straight to voicemail. It was never off.
At first Jennifer thought she may have gotten lost on the drive or that her phone battery had died.
Jennifer Leonard: It wasn't a thought at the time, that, that something bad happened, just that, you know, where is she?
Twenty-four hours later, when Lori never called or returned home, Jennifer notified Chittenango police.
Wade Irwin: Patrol started looking into her whereabouts at that time.
Lead investigator Wade Irwin searched Lori's rental apartment.
Wade Irwin: She had just moved into the home. … There were still lots of boxes, items being unpacked. Didn't appear that there were any signs of a break-in, or a crime that occurred at the home. … But her car was there.
And he said there was something else unsettling about the scene.
An odd clue – a single shoe atop Lori Leonard's bed
Washington County District Attorney's Office
Wade Irwin: There was one shoe in the center of the bed. It was odd.
Investigator Irwin says he was determined to speak to one person.
Wade Irwin: The last person that — that we were able to determine that saw her, was Shawn Doyle.
But before investigators could reach out to Doyle, Jennifer says she tracked down Doyle's number and called him herself.
Jennifer Leonard: "Shawn, have you talked to Lori?" And, uh, he goes, "no I haven't talked to her in a couple of days. Um, wasn't she supposed to get tickets the other night?" And I'm like, "yeah, she was, we haven't heard from her since. I'm like, you know, if she calls you let us know because the phone's off" … and he's like, "oh yeah, definitely let you know …" …When I hung up, I was like I had chills and I'm like, he's full of it. He knows something.
A KEY CLUE IN THE CASE
As days went by, Chittenango investigators reached out to everyone who had contact with Lori Leonard prior her to her disappearance— including the man she was supposed to get Yankees tickets from in Albany.
Wade Irwin: He was an executive for a company. … We were able to track him down. He was interviewed.
Detective Wade Irwin says the executive waited for Lori in Albany and when she never showed up, he called her and even left a message.
Wade Irwin: He was … calling with concern of … where she was. "We're supposed to meet up. I got the tickets. I'm here, are you OK? I hope an accident didn't happen."
His alibi checked out, but Lori's phone records would reveal a lot more about another person who hadn't called.
Wade Irwin: What became concerning for myself is … the person that cared about her, supposedly.
Anne-Marie Green: Shawn Doyle.
Wade Irwin: Shawn Doyle. Never called, never left a message.
When Chittenango police went to interview Lori's former boyfriend, he told them that on the day she disappeared, he left her apartment "about 3 p.m." and then drove three hours home to Hudson Falls.
Wade Irwin: He just always, had said all along… that he left her and she was alive at the apartment.
When they checked out his alibi, Irwin says they couldn't clear him. Yet, Doyle was cooperative and even allowed investigators to search his truck and take photos. When they searched Doyle's glove compartment, they found something curious.
When police searched Shawn Doyle's glove compartment, they found a key with a serial number on it. At the time it did not mean anything to investigators. But it would later become important to the case.
Kevin Kortright
Wade Irwin: There was a key with a serial number on it.
As investigators kept an eye out on Doyle and continued to search for Lori, Jennifer says her family struggled to explain Lori's disappearance to her two young sons.
Austin Feltrinelli: After several days to several weeks you know something's up. Your mother's not home. … The question is, you know, where is she? What's — what's she doing?
Jennifer Leonard: We would say things like she got lost … you know, we'll get her. We'll find her.
To make matters worse, Austin and Zackary were now separated, staying with their fathers, and only seeing each other on weekends.
Austin Feltrinelli: We'd lived together our whole lives. … That was obviously different, you know, waking up every day with one — your mom's not there, uh, but two — now your brother isn't.
Jennifer Leonard: We were suffering and every day our family was doing something to find her. … We were looking for her. We were a well-oiled machine.
"We were looking for her. We were a well-oiled machine," Jennifer Leonard says of the search for her sister.
CBS6 Albany
Jennifer suspected Shawn Doyle had something to do with her sister's disappearance. So, weeks after Lori vanished, she headed to Hudson Falls and held a demonstration, hoping someone there would know something about Doyle that could help investigators.
Jennifer Leonard: We had posters. We had signs, we had Shawn's name up on signs, if anybody will speak to us.
Dorothy Tucker says when she heard Lori's family was in town, she immediately called Doyle.
Dorothy Tucker: I was like, "Shawn, what's going on?" You know, "did you do something?" (mimics his voice) "I didn't do anything to her. She's probably off on a beach somewhere with some guy."
Anne-Marie Green: But you believe Shawn at the time?
Dorothy Tucker: Oh, definitely.
Later that day when Dorothy passed Lori's family rallying on the streets, she says she did something she has come to deeply regret.
Dorothy Tucker: Like an idiot, I yelled out the window. … telling them to go home. Shawn didn't do anything and they needed to leave.
As months passed with no sign of Lori, the family's hopes began to dwindle.
Wade Irwin: I made a promise … to find a resolution to this for them and give them the closure and answers that they needed. … It was disheartening because every night … I'd call them and give them an update regardless of whether there was positive or negative information. (tears in his eyes)
And then, on July 24, 2005, three months after Lori went missing —
Capt. Tony LeClaire: We had a report that a fisherman had been going by in this area here.
Captain Tony LeClaire is with the Washington County Sheriff's Office.
Capt. Tony LeClaire: He saw, uh, what he thought to be a toolbox that goes in the back of a pickup truck floating. Thought it may be useful for him. So he grabbed onto it … towed it with his boat about a mile-and-a-half (points) … And then they dragged it outta the water there.
The box was locked and emitting a foul odor, So police were called, and when they broke open the lock, authorities discovered a body inside.
Lori Leonard's ID, a photo of her sons, and other personal belongings were also found in the toolbox.
Wade Irwin
Wade Irwin: And there was contents, pillows, bedding, purse, but right on top was Lori's ID. (emotional)
Also in the box was a photo of Lori's two sons.
Wade Irwin: She was handcuffed behind her back. … There was duct tape around the handcuffs. Her feet were bound together and duct taped. .. Her face, from chin to forehead, um, had duct tape. And then once that duct tape was removed there was a bandana tied in her mouth.
The Medical Examiner would rule that Lori died of asphyxiation.
Jennifer Leonard: I couldn't wrap my head around what they were saying. "What do you mean she was found in the toolbox in the water?" I — I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't accept it.
Irwin says that's when Shawn Doyle went from a person of interest to a suspect in the case.
Wade Irwin: Everything started to come together real quickly. We got a search warrant within hours to go to his residence.
During their search, police found sand tubes in his garage that matched the sand tubes inside the toolbox used to weigh it down.
Wade Irwin: We were able to track down in the home, similar handcuffs, bandanas, duct tape other means that he used that matched what was used on Lori.
Remember that key investigators had discovered in Doyle's truck? It matched the lock of the toolbox, tying Doyle directly to the crime.
Scratches on a canal bridge railing in Kingsbury, New York, pictured, matched scratches on the bottom of Shawn Doyle's toolbox.
Kevin Kortright
When investigators checked the bridge near the canal where the toolbox was found, they discovered scratches on the bridge railing that matched scratches found on the bottom of the toolbox.
Anne Marie Green: Just tell me about what investigators think happened? What was the theory?
Capt. Tony LeClaire: The theory is that he came here with his pickup truck, came to the bridge, um, somewhere in the center of the canal and took the toolbox and basically just pushed it over the edge … and as he did, it scraped across.
Just one day after the discovery of Lori's body in the toolbox, investigators arrested Shawn Doyle.
Anne Marie Green: What was that moment like for you?
Det. Wade Irwin: Overwhelming.
Jennifer says it was time to break the news to Lori's two young sons. Zackary remembers the moment even though he was only 5 years old.
Zackary Wicklund: I felt it as soon as I walked into the room. And I think my dad was the one that said that she's not coming home and I just kind of fell into him and just didn't know how to react.
Jennifer Leonard: I watched a little boy break. He said not a word.
Then it was time to tell 9-year-old Austin.
Austin Feltrinelli: You know I let out kind of like a shriek and, and kind of just collapsed, uh, in my dad. And I can still kind of feel it.
Jennifer Leonard: And he wailed. It wasn't a cry. It was, it was a pained guttural wail. … I'll always have that sound in my head.
Jennifer says she couldn't truly mourn her sister because she had to prepare for Doyle's upcoming trial.
Jennifer Leonard: I was gonna make sure that he got what he deserved.
A SURVIVOR'S BREAKING POINT
In late summer of 2005, C.C. Opanowski received a phone call from her father: her ex-boyfriend Shawn Doyle had been arrested for murder.
C.C. Opanowski: I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I couldn't believe it. … You don't want it to be true … and it's terrible.
When C.C. learned that the victim was 33-year-old Lori Leonard, a single mom of two young boys, she says she was overwhelmed with extreme guilt.
C.C. Opanowski: That was a breaking point for me. I felt for her whole entire family and her two young children.
C.C. says she was haunted by the choice she made as a traumatized and scared teenager.
C.C. Opanowski: And all I can think about is … If I could go back, I would have done it differently. … I would have pressed my charges much further.
"I need to make sure that he is put away for — for murdering Lori," C.C. Opanowski says about her decision to testify against Shawn Doyle.
CBS News
So just weeks later, when investigators reached out to C.C. and asked if she would testify at Doyle's trial, she was determined to help.
C.C. Opanowski: I need to make sure that he is put away for — for murdering Lori. … At this point now, I'm angry. I'm not fearful.
But C.C. was not Doyle's only ex-girlfriend who investigators hoped would testify against him. Five years after Doyle attacked C.C., he allegedly tried to kill 23-year-old Sarah Volmar.
"48 Hours" reached out to Volmar and received no response, but she did speak with the CBS affiliate in Albany about the attack in 2005.
In 2005, Sarah Volmer told a WRGB reporter how Shawn Doyle allegedly tried to kill her.
CBS6 Albany
SARAH VOLMAR/ CBS6 ALBANY NEWS REPORT: He had tied me up with shoelaces and, um, put the duct tape back over my mouth and then just began strangling me until I passed out. And then my mother walked in on it.
Doyle was charged with unlawful imprisonment in the second degree and assault in the third degree. But again, a deal was made. Doyle pleaded guilty only to the charge of unlawful imprisonment. A judge sentenced him to three years' probation.
On Jan. 23, 2006 Shawn Doyle's trial began. It was a day that Lori's sister Jennifer Leonard had waited for.
Jennifer Leonard: I was gonna be her advocate. I was gonna speak for her. I was gonna speak for the boys.
When Doyle entered the courtroom, Jennifer Leonard says she was caught off guard because his appearance had changed.
Anne-Marie Green: What'd he look like?
Jennifer Leonard: Choir boy. He'd grown his hair. He had a sweater on.
Kevin Kortright, now retired, had only been district attorney for less than a month. He says key to his case was making sure Doyle's other victims – C.C. and Sarah — would be allowed to testify. Oftentimes, judges do not allow a defendant's prior bad acts to be brought into trial.
Anne-Marie Green: Why were the women so crucial?
Kevin Kortright: It shows what he is capable of.
Kevin Kortright: He'd done it almost exactly the same in the past. … It's his modus operandi. It's strong proof.
Despite the defense's objections, the judge ruled that C.C. and Sarah could testify. But first, Kortright presented the jury with all the pieces of physical evidence that pointed to Shawn Doyle — like the items they found in Doyle's garage and home: the sandbags and handcuffs.
Shawn Doyle
Wade Irwin
Anne Marie Green: And what about that bandana?
Kevin Kortright: He wore a bandana 24 hours a day … He had bandanas in his bedroom. He had bandanas in his truck. The bandana in Lori's mouth was the one that I believe he was wearing that day.
And then there was that toolbox. Kortright called to the stand a clerk from a local AutoZone store who says she sold Doyle the toolbox just one week before Lori disappeared.
Kevin Kortright: She identified him perfectly. … She even identified his shirt he was wearing.
And the most important piece of evidence: that key found in his glove compartment that tied Doyle directly to the box.
Don Lehman: That was as strong as evidence as you could get.
Retired journalist Don Lehman covered the trial for the Post Star newspaper.
Don Lehman: The key to the toolbox was … there was no way around that …
Then Kortright called Dorothy Tucker, Shawn's once close friend, to the stand. He says she was a major witness because she provided information as to how they believe Doyle transported Lori's body from Chittenango — three hours over to Hudson Falls — after he murdered her.
Dorothy Tucker: He just kept calling me.
Tucker told the jury that the day that Lori disappeared, Doyle stopped by her house. In the back of his truck, she says, was a very large cardboard box.
Dorothy Tucker: I said, "Shawn, what do you got there?" … Oh just garbage. Junk I had at Lori's. … and take it to the dump.
DA Kortright believes Lori's body was in the box and that at some point, Doyle transferred her body to the toolbox. Tucker testified that just days after his first visit, Doyle showed up at her house again and the cardboard box had been replaced by a large toolbox.
Dorothy Tucker: I walk out and I said "hey Shawn … what do you need a toolbox for? You don't have any tools to put in it." And he laughed and yeah, yeah, you know. So then he started saying about a friend … was going to meet him. They were gonna go fishing.
Tucker said Doyle told her he was going to fish by the Champlain Lock canal area – a place he knew well and frequented often. Doyle had even taken C.C. there many times when they dated.
Kevin Kortright: Lori was in the box that day. And he was taking her to dump her in the canal where she was later found.
District Attorney Kortright called C.C. Opanowski as his last witness.
Kevin Kortright: You always put the best for the last.
C.C. Opanowski: I was very, very nervous.
C.C. told the jury about the attack and the long-lasting mental anguish Shawn Doyle caused her.
Anne-Marie Green: What did you want Shawn Doyle to see?
C.C. Opanowski: That I wasn't afraid. That you're not my scary anything anymore.
When it was the defense's turn, Lehman says they tried to poke holes in the prosecution's case.
Don Lehman: There just was not – not a lot of holes to poke.
"48 Hours" reached out to Shawn Doyle and members of Doyle's family, but they declined to be interviewed.
After three long days of testimony, the case went to the jury. Lori Leonard's family members held their breath.
Jennifer Leonard: I felt like I hadn't exhaled in months and that's what I needed. I needed to exhale.
SHARING IMPORTANT LESSONS
Despite the all the evidence against Shawn Doyle, retired journalist Don Lehman says no one knew which way the jury would rule.
Don Lehman: There have been times that we've seen many cases where the jury does things that just kind of defy the evidence.
On Jan. 26, 2006, after just two-and-a-half hours of deliberations, the jury came back with a verdict: guilty of second-degree murder.
CBS6 ALBANY NEWS REPORT: When the guilty verdict was read, Lori Leonard's family burst into cheers and sobs, but Shawn Doyle showed little reaction.
Anne-Marie Green: Guilty.
Kevin Kortright: Um hmm.
Anne-Marie Green: What went through your mind when you heard that word?
Kevin Kortright: Thank God.
Anne-Marie Green: Why does it still affect you?
Kevin Kortright: Because bad things happen to good people.
C.C. Opanowski: I was relieved and happy that he was going to be punished for what he did.
For C.C., it was difficult to process the fact that a person she once loved was convicted of murder.
C.C. Opanowski: To me, it almost felt like there wasn't a man left inside of him. But more like a monster. For your crimes to become worse as you go … to almost perfect them, to think about them in that serial fashion.
One month later, before Doyle was sentenced, a judge listened to testimony and read over victim impact statements from Lori's friends and family.
LORI LEONARD'S FAMILY MEMBER (in court) | CBS6 ALBANY: Prison isn't even the right place for someone like him. It's not punishment enough.
Austin and Zackary, Lori's sons, were too young to attend trial, but both wrote letters to the judge.
Zackary Wicklund (reading his statement): She let me sleep with her when I was scared. … And when I see something scary and hear something scary … we used to sing songs we liked the most together.
Austin Feltrinelli reads the letter he wrote to the judge as a 9-year-old.
CBS News
Austin Feltrinelli (reading his statement): I think my mom was the greatest mom in the world. … My mom, my brother and I had really great times together. … I'm also sad because (pauses) I will never see my mom anymore now because of what happened …
Shawn Doyle was sentenced to the maximum — 25 years to life, with the possibility of parole.
Anne-Marie Green: Was that enough?
Jennifer Leonard: I didn't think so.
Anne-Marie Green: You don't want him getting out?
Jennifer Leonard: No. There's no forgiveness. No way man. No. none.
Dorothy Tucker: He's a danger to society. And I — I hope he never gets out.
Dorothy Tucker, who initially stood by Doyle, says she feels betrayed by him.
Dorothy Tucker: He lied straight to my face and here is someone that I trusted thought I knew, never saw that side of him.
Tucker hopes Lori's family will forgive her for how she previously treated them when they came to rally against Doyle in Hudson Falls.
Dorothy Tucker: I wanted to tell them how sorry I was and I still am. … that was totally uncalled for and it was unacceptable behavior on my part.
Lehman, who has covered many domestic violence cases in his almost 30 years as a reporter, says there are important lessons that can be learned from C.C. and Sarah's attacks and Lori's murder.
Don Lehman: Every case of domestic violence is a potential homicide. … They all have to be taken seriously. They all have to be handled in a way to protect these victims.
Don Lehman: You know, as a young woman with two young kids … that's just mind-boggling that these kids lost their mom … to a guy like this …
C.C., who bravely came forward to tell her story, hopes that others can learn from her.
C.C. Opanowski: Be vigilant. Look at what's happening in front of you and make sure someone knows. Don't keep it quiet. … Pay attention and … when you have that feeling, that one that doesn't go way — you know, the one that you try to push down — that's the one you should listen to the most.
She says she is ready to let go of the guilt she has felt for what happened to Lori.
C.C. Opanowski: I've waited so long and I've had to live with it for all of these years.
Jennifer Leonard: It's not her fault. It's the system that failed. … She did what she had to do. … I don't blame her. I feel sad that she's felt guilt all this time.
Anne-Marie Green: How do you want your sister to be remembered?
Jennifer Leonard: Lori Ann. She … so fun. So funny. So loving …
For Jennifer Leonard, she longs for the life she always thought she would have with Lori.
Jennifer Leonard: We were supposed to be … living in the same place and going out and raising our kids and having parties and that's what it was supposed to be. That's what we were supposed to have … And I'm it … just me and the kids trying to get along without her.
Anne-Marie Green: What do you miss the most about Lori?
Zackary Wicklund as an infant in the safety of his mother's arms.
Jennifer Leonard
Zackary Wicklund: In moments where I'm really sad, where I'm like I just need her to hold me and she hasn't been able to do that in 20 years.
Shawn Doyle is eligible for parole in 2030.
If you or someone you know needs help, the National Domestic Violence Hotline has counselors available around the clock at 1-800-799-7233 [SAFE].
Produced by Chris Young Ritzen. Elena DiFiore and David Dow are the development producers. Michael Loftus and Chelsea Narvaez are the associate producers. Anthony Venditti is the content research manager. Michael McHugh is the producer/editor. Ken Blum is an editor. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.