A Home Invasion in Colts Neck

Speaker 1 Hey, Ryan Reynolds here, wishing you a very happy half-off holiday. Because right now, Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited.
To be clear, that's half price, not half the service.

Speaker 1 And Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price.

Speaker 3 So that means a half day.

Speaker 1 Yeah? Give it a try at mintmobile.com/slash switch.

Speaker 4 Upfront payment of $45 for a three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. New customer offer for first three months only.
Speed slow under 55 gigabytes of networks busy.

Speaker 4 Taxes and fees extra.

Speaker 2 See Mintmobile.com.

Speaker 6 Don't let the holidays derail your fitness. Stay on track with hydro.
20 minutes rowing on a hydro targets 86% of your muscles as Olympians guide you from incredible locations worldwide.

Speaker 6 Running can't compete. That's why 90% stick with hydro a year later.
GQ named the Hydro Arc the best rower of 2025. And every hydro comes with free shipping, a 30-day trial, and warranty.

Speaker 6 Go to hydro.com code fit and save up to $600 on your next hydro. Hydro.com code fit.

Speaker 5 It is farm country, horse country,

Speaker 5 bucolic,

Speaker 5 upwardly mobile,

Speaker 5 wealthy type of community,

Speaker 5 affluent.

Speaker 5 It's a quiet place.

Speaker 9 Tiny, unassuming house.

Speaker 10 Just a simple farmhouse.

Speaker 12 Colchnik has a lot of these. Yes.

Speaker 5 This beautiful little farmhouse with this beautiful farm star, you know, in the middle of it.

Speaker 13 In July of 2013, I was an assistant prosecutor in Monmouth County, New Jersey.

Speaker 13 Donna Ancho was alone.

Speaker 13 She had just gone to bed for the evening.

Speaker 9 An intruder came into her house and attacked her, stabbing her repeatedly.

Speaker 14 911, where's emergency? Oh, my name is Donna on truck. I just got stabbed.

Speaker 14 Really bad.

Speaker 14 Kid just came in and stabbed me.

Speaker 14 I can feel my heart. I'm pouring gushing blood.
Okay.

Speaker 14 I'm losing consciousness.

Speaker 15 Keep your eyes open.

Speaker 15 Donna.

Speaker 15 Donna.

Speaker 16 I was driving home.

Speaker 16 It was maybe like three o'clock in the morning, 3.30.

Speaker 16 As I pulled up closer, I saw big SUVs, cop cars, lights flashing everywhere.

Speaker 16 I was like,

Speaker 16 where is my mom?

Speaker 16 And they were like, well, she has been attacked.

Speaker 16 And she's on her way to the hospital.

Speaker 16 They couldn't tell me whether she was alive or

Speaker 16 she wasn't.

Speaker 9 I was new into major crimes. I didn't have the experience at some of the older detectives, so I had never seen that much blood

Speaker 17 before.

Speaker 16 Why would somebody do this? Who did this?

Speaker 16 What did she ever do to anybody, you know?

Speaker 9 On that night, in the early morning hours, we got a 911 call from a worker from this restaurant.

Speaker 12 About how far from Donna's house are we standing right here?

Speaker 9 This is about an eight-minute drive.

Speaker 9 They called because they saw a subject walking through their drive-through.

Speaker 5 Advertising, please.

Speaker 18 One of my customers were in drive-through were approached by a man with no shirt but had a knife in his hand.

Speaker 9 Knocking on windows carrying a knife.

Speaker 9 One of the witnesses who saw the young man, she agreed to come in and give us a sketch.

Speaker 13 Everybody was asking about the police catch.

Speaker 13 It was in every store. People were frightened.

Speaker 19 Can you tell me about the tip?

Speaker 9 I get a call.

Speaker 9 The woman on the other end says that she's calling about the stabbing in Coltsnack.

Speaker 9 She said, I think my cousin may have something to do with that.

Speaker 11 Tiny Coles Neck, New Jersey sits just 50 miles from New York City.

Speaker 21 But it might as well be a world away. So in July 2013, this quiet community was rocked by news of a violent home invasion where the victim was stabbed repeatedly.

Speaker 26 The only thing more shocking?

Speaker 3 My name is Donna Angshako.

Speaker 27 The victim survived.

Speaker 3 I lost, in total, close to three-quarters of the blood in my body.

Speaker 3 There's no earthly reason why I'm alive.

Speaker 8 None.

Speaker 7 If I had asked you at the time to give me a list of 100 things you're worried about, where would have home invasion invasion been?

Speaker 29 Oh no, never.

Speaker 30 Donna worked for a company that brokered fuel for ships on the nearby Jersey shore.

Speaker 30 She and her daughter Kirsten lived in this farmhouse on the edge of flower fields.

Speaker 16 She was 20 when she had me, so we're only 20 years and one day apart.

Speaker 30 Friend Sharon Sharp hired Donna decades ago.

Speaker 7 Kirsten had just been born?

Speaker 5 Yeah, Kirsten was a baby. I thought she was really brave being a single mom, very young.

Speaker 16 I was by her side all the time.

Speaker 11 Kirsten, who now works as a welder,

Speaker 30 recalls what life was like just prior to her mother's attack.

Speaker 16 We were going to the gym. multiple times a week.
Not only was she like mentally strong, but she was physically strong.

Speaker 5 She was so fit. She did tough mutters with Kirsten.

Speaker 3 I like that competition. I like to show strength, physical strength.
Things couldn't have been any better at that time.

Speaker 35 That's when Saturday of July 4th weekend rolled around.

Speaker 23 Monmouth County detective Andrea Tazzi says they were having a heat wave.

Speaker 9 It was humid, but we had no rain or anything like that. I mean, it was a dry night.

Speaker 12 So Donna...

Speaker 9 Had her windows open.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 9 She had her windows open just to circle, obviously to circulate air.

Speaker 3 Kirsten was out at a party.

Speaker 29 So

Speaker 3 I was home doing laundry. I'd say about 11, 11.30.

Speaker 3 I decide I'm going to get ready for bed.

Speaker 3 I let the cat out. I went and brushed my teeth.

Speaker 26 But just as she was drifting off to sleep.

Speaker 3 I heard what I thought was the cat. I heard something and I remembered.
Oh, I forgot to let the cat in.

Speaker 24 Without turning on any lights, Donna headed downstairs to open the front door for her cat.

Speaker 3 But instead, when I opened the door, I saw someone standing there.

Speaker 3 In the split second after seeing this person on my porch, I saw the knife.

Speaker 3 He was trying to cut into the screen of the window that was right next to the front door.

Speaker 24 She says she didn't recognize the young white male standing right in front of her, holding a large knife.

Speaker 3 I tried to slam and shut the door.

Speaker 3 My fingers were protruding out. He stuck the knife through the opening and cut my finger, so that I immediately let go of the door, and then he pushed his way in.

Speaker 3 Backing into my kitchen, we're face to face.

Speaker 3 It didn't register to me that he was actually going to stab me.

Speaker 27 But without a word, that's exactly what the stranger did.

Speaker 3 He slashed my cheek, and you can see that here. And actually, it starts back here.

Speaker 3 There was no way to process that that happened.

Speaker 20 Donna's attacker came at her with the knife again.

Speaker 3 He then slashed three times on the side of my neck.

Speaker 30 She tried grabbing the knife, but only cut her own hand in the process.

Speaker 7 Did you feel like you were dealing with somebody who was really strong?

Speaker 3 No, but I felt like he was very sure.

Speaker 3 Like he was very in control of himself.

Speaker 39 Donna was starting to weaken from the injuries.

Speaker 3 I felt like my legs were going to give out. So I braced myself against the corner of my bathroom right next to the front door.

Speaker 21 Sure enough, she slid down to the floor.

Speaker 3 I was in fetal position and I'm bleeding. And he came over and it was kind of like he was playing, you know, with the knife and just started jabbing at me.
So that's when he caught me here.

Speaker 3 And he got me in the back of my neck here.

Speaker 32 Finally, Donna's attacker spoke to her.

Speaker 3 This was when he decided to ask me for my car keys and if I had a lighter.

Speaker 29 A lighter?

Speaker 3 I just answered him.

Speaker 3 There's a lighter in my purse, and my purse was on the table back in the kitchen. So he went over and was rummaging through my purse and got the keys, got the lighter.

Speaker 40 Donna's assailant ended up taking her entire purse with him, but not before returning one last time to Donna, still bleeding on the floor.

Speaker 3 He said, you dead bitch, and plunged the knife into my chest.

Speaker 7 Once he plunges the knife in and then removes it, what does he do then?

Speaker 3 He just walked out the door.

Speaker 20 With no neighbors in earshot, Donna knew she must get help somehow.

Speaker 7 Your phone isn't in reach.

Speaker 3 No, my phone was upstairs in my bedroom charging.

Speaker 23 Donna had no landline in the house, but even as the blood was draining rapidly from her body, she had one pressing concern above her own survival.

Speaker 3 Kirsten could come home and find me. I just didn't want her to have to experience any level of the horror that I had just gone through or any other levels in finding me there dead.

Speaker 7 So this is a mother's instinct as pure as it gets.

Speaker 29 Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 7 You know you have to get upstairs if you're going to be able to make a call for help.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 29 How do you get up those stairs?

Speaker 3 That I don't know.

Speaker 3 There was divine intervention that helped me up those stairs. No doubt.
No doubt in my mind.

Speaker 41 This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game?

Speaker 41 Well, with the name Your Price Tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at progressive.com.

Speaker 41 Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law.
Not available in all states.

Speaker 45 This is the story of the one. As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast.

Speaker 45 It's why he partners with Granger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers.

Speaker 45 All so that he can help students, staff, and teachers stay healthy and focused. Call 1-800-GRA, clickgranger.com or just stop by.
Granger for the ones who get it done.

Speaker 29 She's a tiny little woman.

Speaker 13 You have to imagine that many stair wounds. And she just willed it.
She was not going to die there.

Speaker 27 Former Monmouth County Assistant Prosecutor Lori Gerhardt says Donna Unkshako was determined her daughter Kirsten would not come home to find her dead.

Speaker 39 She knew she had to get to her cell phone upstairs.

Speaker 3 I don't remember my feet or my hands actually touching the stairs.

Speaker 3 The energy that it took for me to get up off the ground and up those stairs. I was definitely guided.

Speaker 16 The amount of strength that goes into that is just unimaginable.

Speaker 7 But the motivation was you. Yeah.

Speaker 7 Yep.

Speaker 16 Maybe I was there guiding her in spirit.

Speaker 25 Once Donna made it upstairs, she faced a new challenge after peering out her bedroom window.

Speaker 12 She had a car sitting right here.

Speaker 9 Right, she had a car sitting right in this

Speaker 3 I could still see the car was there and I could see the car was on and he was in it. If I take my phone off the charger, it's going to light up.
He's going to see the light.

Speaker 35 Afraid her attacker would come back for her.

Speaker 21 Donna did her best to hide the light of the phone.

Speaker 40 Then just getting it to work became the next hurdle.

Speaker 3 My hands are covered in blood, my touchscreen. I was trying to swipe and swipe.

Speaker 3 So I ended up having to wipe my hands off, wipe the phone off, wipe it down on the bed, and then I was able to do the touch screen and get through to 911.

Speaker 14 Oh, my news down on check. I just got stabbed really bad.
Some kid just came in and stabbed me and he stole my car.

Speaker 15 Okay, okay, okay. Just stand up on me, okay? Where did he get stabbed?

Speaker 14 In the next blood, it's cushing out and in the chest.

Speaker 21 Detective Andrea Tazi says Donna's ability to place that call despite her injuries was amazing.

Speaker 34 But then Donna did something even more extraordinary.

Speaker 35 She gave a detailed description of her attacker.

Speaker 15 Okay, do you know what he looked like?

Speaker 14 Yeah, he was probably about 17.

Speaker 14 White,

Speaker 14 real skinny, curly hair.

Speaker 14 Blonde, dirty blonde hair. Backpack.

Speaker 9 It was pretty chilling to listen to Donna and be able to hear her accurately talk about this is what happened. This is what he looks like.

Speaker 14 I'm losing consciousness.

Speaker 9 And then hear her fade out.

Speaker 46 Donna.

Speaker 46 Donna.

Speaker 15 Hello, Donna. I'm in Taiwan.

Speaker 46 Donna.

Speaker 47 Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 14 I'm going to just turn down for a minute.

Speaker 32 Police and paramedics arrived less than eight minutes after Donna dialed 911, but her attacker had already fled.

Speaker 31 Donna was rushed to Jersey Shore University Medical Center and into trauma surgery.

Speaker 30 It would be a few more hours before Kirsten arrived home from her party to a house surrounded by flashing lights.

Speaker 16 I saw the caution tape and that her car was gone.

Speaker 27 Police told Kirsten what happened to her mother.

Speaker 7 You were deeply shaken.

Speaker 16 Oh yeah. I remember at one point my knees buckled.
They had the SUV, the undercover cop car, the trunk was open. So I was like, can I sit here? Because I feel like I'm going to pass out.

Speaker 32 As Kirsten was processing the news, an all-out manhunt had already begun for Donna's assailant. Detective Tazi says another 911 call had come in shortly before Donna's attack.

Speaker 18 That was going to pick up my daughter and there was a kid hitchhiking.

Speaker 10 From a driver who saw someone walking along the road near Donna's house.

Speaker 9 They saw a young man with a backpack and khaki pants. He was walking close to the fog line and kind of stepping into traffic and she felt that he was kind of a hitchhiker.

Speaker 18 He was on the northbound side walking southbound and I'm afraid he's he's gonna get hit by a car.

Speaker 46 How old about?

Speaker 49 I'm gonna say like 18, 19, 20,

Speaker 47 something like that.

Speaker 9 She was concerned because she just thought that maybe he needed help in some way.

Speaker 7 And was a car dispatched?

Speaker 9 Yes, yes. They didn't find him though.

Speaker 26 Still, the good Samaritan driver had inadvertently given the investigation its first lead.

Speaker 9 I felt that the hitchhiker was my person. It was too coincidental for that time of the night in that area for somebody to be walking.

Speaker 9 And then 15 minutes later, Donna's calling say that she was stabbed.

Speaker 24 And there was about to be another tip not long after Donna's 911 call from a fast food restaurant five miles from her house.

Speaker 9 They saw a subject walking through their drive-through, knocking on windows carrying a knife. And it looked like it had blood on it.

Speaker 23 Employees from the Taco Bell quickly called police.

Speaker 47 Do you have any description of him?

Speaker 18 Yeah, he was wearing, you know, like filtered army pants, and he had no shirt. He was white with like really like bushy hair, but it was like long, like the skater-type hair.
How old was he?

Speaker 18 I don't know. He looked like he was like 18.

Speaker 21 Police rushed to the Taco Belt and started canvassing the nearby shopping center.

Speaker 33 They didn't find their suspect, but they did find something else.

Speaker 9 So there had been a bolo put out on Donna's vehicle.

Speaker 8 Be on the lookout. Right.

Speaker 9 And in the process of looking for this person here, they found the car.

Speaker 32 Donna's stolen car, this BMW, had been ditched behind a movie theater.

Speaker 9 It was lights on and it was running. So it clearly was an abandoned vehicle.

Speaker 21 Tazzi says the car would become crucial.

Speaker 17 There was blood all over it.

Speaker 9 And so we were hoping that we would get some kind of DNA evidence of our suspect.

Speaker 26 Did you?

Speaker 10 We did.

Speaker 51 Hey there, we're Corinne Vienne and Sabrina D'Anaroga here to introduce our newest podcast, Crimes of A Crime House Original.

Speaker 52 Crimes of is a weekly series that explores a new theme each season, from Crimes of the Paranormal, Unsolved Murders, and more.

Speaker 52 Our first season is Crimes of Infamy, the true crime stories behind Hollywood's most iconic horror villains.

Speaker 51 Listen to and follow Crimes of, available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 21 Sharon Sharp will never forget the dread she felt when she arrived at the hospital to see her friend Donna on Shaco, only to be told she wasn't there.

Speaker 7 I'm picturing the color draining from your face and the air leaving your lungs like. Totally.

Speaker 5 No, this cannot be. There's no way she has to be here.

Speaker 53 Did you think maybe she had died?

Speaker 29 Yes.

Speaker 33 It turned out, with her attacker still on the loose, the hospital had admitted Donna under an alias to protect her.

Speaker 32 Sharon was allowed to see Donna the next day.

Speaker 5 An intensive care room I've never seen before.

Speaker 5 It looked like an enlarged, massively enlarged cockpit wall because there were tons of machines behind her and she looked almost like a puppet.

Speaker 3 Surgery was seven hours, I believe.

Speaker 20 Despite losing three-quarters of the blood in her body, trauma surgeons had saved Donna's life, but at a tremendous cost.

Speaker 26 You may find the pictures you're about to see disturbing.

Speaker 3 I pretty much looked like a living cadaver.

Speaker 3 I had 37 stitches on my face and neck, 38 staples in my chest, seven stitches in my hand, and now internally my sternum is wired shut.

Speaker 42 And as for that final stab to Donna's chest just before her assailant left.

Speaker 3 It missed my heart by the edge of a dime, is what I remember them telling me.

Speaker 48 The edge of a dime.

Speaker 7 When she talks about

Speaker 7 the margin that the knife missed her heart by.

Speaker 16 Yeah, if she was any slouched over any more,

Speaker 16 that would have been it.

Speaker 44 Kirsten says, as soon as her mother was able to talk, she had one simple request.

Speaker 16 I remember her saying, all I smell is this blood in my hair.

Speaker 16 Can somebody please wash my hair?

Speaker 20 Sharon says they got permission, and then she and two of Donna's family members did their best to wash Donna's hair as she lay in her hospital bed.

Speaker 5 We were determined to see if we could make her smile. So we turned it into a ridiculous idiot session with three of us like a factory line.

Speaker 5 We laughed through our tears and anytime anybody would get too serious we would make it funny.

Speaker 32 But her hair was far from Donna's biggest concern.

Speaker 21 She was sure her attacker would find her and finish the job.

Speaker 5 She was convinced that he was in the hospital, and we kept telling her, No, you're here under an alias.

Speaker 3 I survived. I stood face to face with him.
I could 100% positively identify him. He's coming back for me.

Speaker 23 Detective Tazi says they were pretty sure the young man knocking on windows at the Taco Bell drive-through shortly after Donna's attack was their suspect.

Speaker 9 Within two days, a customer who saw him met with a police sketch artist and was able to provide pretty great details on the person she saw that night.

Speaker 21 Investigators then took the sketch to the hospital.

Speaker 12 What did Donna say when she saw that sketch?

Speaker 9 She said, yeah, that

Speaker 9 was incredibly accurate. She tweaked it a little bit.
She said that, yes, that looks like the person who stabbed me.

Speaker 3 His curly blonde hair. He was like a surfer kid or a skateboarder or something like that.

Speaker 54 Former assistant prosecutor Laurie Gerhardt says the sketch of the suspect was soon plastered all over Monmouth County and on law enforcement social media.

Speaker 13 So people are obviously talking and trying to figure out, do we know him? Where is he from? Who is this kid? And it's scary because you like to have a sense of security in your community.

Speaker 55 Investigators reviewed the cameras of stores in the shopping center near the Taco Bell to see if they'd get lucky and spot their suspect, hoping the more images they had, the more likely the chance of identifying him.

Speaker 9 We were trying to go back and look at video from various businesses to see the description and really to put out the bolo, like this is who we're looking for.

Speaker 44 Security cameras had captured the suspect once again.

Speaker 9 The surveillance we got from the store over there was from the inside the store, but it was pointing outwards.

Speaker 12 I see. And it definitely caught him.

Speaker 9 Oh, yeah, you could see him walking. Wow.

Speaker 27 As police kept looking for the suspect, Donna was turning a corner, at least physically.

Speaker 30 Amazingly, after just four days, Donna Angshako was released from the hospital.

Speaker 33 Sharon says that was all due to the training Donna had done prior to the attack.

Speaker 5 Clearly, she's very physically fit. She couldn't have survived this if she wasn't.

Speaker 55 It's an amazing thing you were out in four days.

Speaker 43 But

Speaker 7 as you leave the hospital, you are also walking back into a world where whoever did this to you is still out there.

Speaker 29 Right.

Speaker 3 But also, I wasn't going back to the farm. I wasn't going back to my house.
No, there was no way.

Speaker 11 In fact, Donna would never step foot in her house again.

Speaker 31 She and Kirsten moved in with family living in New Jersey.

Speaker 21 Then, just eight days after the attack, not long after the police sketch began circulating, Detective Tazi's phone rang.

Speaker 9 I take the call and the woman on the other end says that she's calling about the stabbing in Coltsnack.

Speaker 9 I said, okay. I said, how can I help you? And she said, I think my cousin, Brennan Doyle, may have something to do with that.

Speaker 32 It was the first time Tazzi had heard the name Brennan Doyle.

Speaker 20 He was just 16 years old.

Speaker 34 His cousin told Tazi word was going around her family that Brennan was involved in the colts neck stabbing.

Speaker 30 The cousin had seen Brennan just days prior to Donna's attack.

Speaker 9 Between July 3rd and 6th, because he was up in Connecticut for her wedding. with his family.

Speaker 48 He had attended her wedding.

Speaker 9 He attended her wedding and she was able to provide us a picture of what he looked like during the time he was up there for the wedding.

Speaker 13 The photo she sends is Brennan with long curly hair wearing camouflage shorts, looking very much like the kid in the sketch and more importantly on the videotapes.

Speaker 2 Brennan's resemblance to the sketch all around town was about to become even more important because of what the cousin told Detective Kazi happened a few days later.

Speaker 9 She was staying at Brennan's family's lake house in New Hampshire as a wedding gift. And Brennan, his brother, and the mother showed up there unexpected.

Speaker 8 Hang on.

Speaker 7 This woman is in Lake Winnipesaukee.

Speaker 48 She's on her honeymoon?

Speaker 13 Yes.

Speaker 7 And all of a sudden, there's Brennan, Brennan's mother, Brennan's brother, crashing her honeymoon?

Speaker 4 Yes. And the dog.

Speaker 30 But what was even more surprising was Brennan's appearance.

Speaker 9 Brennan's hair was cut.

Speaker 7 The next time she sees him,

Speaker 48 he's cut his hair.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 44 So that's a big red flag.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 42 Brennan Doyle's cousin told investigators that Brennan showed up just days after Donna's attack, hundreds of miles from home, with his hair suddenly cut short.

Speaker 21 Similar to this.

Speaker 30 Like Donna, the Doyle family resided in Colts Neck.

Speaker 39 Former assistant prosecutor Laurie Gerhardt.

Speaker 13 We lived in a very nice house. Two sons, a mom and a dad.

Speaker 17 The life of a typical Colts Neck teenager.

Speaker 13 It's a life of wealth. It's a life of privilege.

Speaker 33 Doyle was a student athlete on wrestling and hockey teams.

Speaker 53 Detective Tazzi started digging into his background.

Speaker 9 He had never been arrested. There was never any charges filed against him prior to our investigation.

Speaker 21 According to the prosecutor's records, police had been called to the Doyle house for what they referred to as family conflicts.

Speaker 43 The location of the home would turn out to be very important.

Speaker 24 Where did Brennan live?

Speaker 9 So if you make a right up here and you go up maybe a quarter of a mile on the left.

Speaker 12 So that's close. Yeah.

Speaker 21 The teen and his family lived within walking distance of Donna's house.

Speaker 20 Up the very road that driver had reported seeing someone she described as a young hitchhiker just prior to Donna's attack.

Speaker 49 I'm afraid he's going to get hit by a car.

Speaker 7 When does the Doyle family return to Coltsnack?

Speaker 9 Later in July.

Speaker 43 With Brennan and his family back in town, Tazi reached out to the family saying investigators were canvassing the neighborhood.

Speaker 29 What happened when you went to the house?

Speaker 9 We spoke with Mrs. Doyle.
She was nervous. Her voice was cracking.

Speaker 7 Did this raise an eyebrow for you?

Speaker 2 It did.

Speaker 9 We asked if Brennan and his brother could come and look at the composite sketch and if they had any idea who that person might be on the sketch did brennan come out he did

Speaker 20 tazzi says she wanted to see brennan's hair to confirm what his cousin had told her that it had been cut much shorter it seemed the teen tried to stay a step ahead when he came out to greet the detective He was wearing a hat.

Speaker 9 He was wearing a baseball hat.

Speaker 13 I think wearing a baseball cap was a calculated move.

Speaker 38 It might have been, but it didn't work.

Speaker 9 You could tell his hair was cut short.

Speaker 20 Next, Tazzi showed Brennan the police sketch of the suspect, the same one Donna helped tweak to look just like her attacker.

Speaker 10 How did he react?

Speaker 9 He looked away. He looked at it, looked away, and said, I don't know.

Speaker 8 I don't know.

Speaker 9 He was nervous and he was scared, and he got very quiet.

Speaker 56 There is a reaction. Eyes are down, no eye contact.
People are nervous. Mom starts redirecting the conversation.

Speaker 40 Doyle's family and his attorney denied our request for an interview.

Speaker 48 We asked CBS News consultant, Defense Attorney Matt Troiano, to study the case file.

Speaker 56 And I think that that probably confirms what they believed going in.

Speaker 20 Brennan's odd behavior and resemblance to the sketch and video evidence may have been striking.

Speaker 28 But with nothing else to go on yet, Tazzi thanked the Doyles for their time and left.

Speaker 7 Did you know that was your guy?

Speaker 9 I was pretty confident that we were on the right track with him. But we also have a duty.
We had other leads that were coming in, so we were doing a lot of follow-ups.

Speaker 50 As investigators worked the case, Donna was struggling.

Speaker 33 Weeks after the attack, the reality of what had happened to her had taken hold.

Speaker 3 I lost everything that night. I lost my home, had nowhere to go.
I lost my car.

Speaker 3 They took it into evidence.

Speaker 7 Donna, you lost lost more than half your blood.

Speaker 3 Exactly.

Speaker 3 I lost a lot.

Speaker 30 Donna says that's when, in addition to her physical recovery, she faced a new challenge.

Speaker 3 Symptoms of PTSD started to show up. I'm not eating.
I'm not sleeping. I don't care about anything.
I'm angry. I'm sad.
I'm happy. I'm, you know, every emotion under the sun at any minute.

Speaker 3 I felt like I was going crazy.

Speaker 3 I was always thinking, I don't know who this kid is, but he climbed through the window in that second that I fell asleep, and now he's hiding in the closet, you know, kind of crazy thoughts.

Speaker 19 Sharon Sharp says Donna's fear meant even friendly visits required a new protocol, including announcing her arrival every step of the way so as not to trigger Donna.

Speaker 5 I'm going to come around the hedges now, and I'm going to enter the backyard. I'm going to be touching the gate in three, two, one.

Speaker 5 I would shake my keys keys first, which had bells on them, say, it's me, Sharon, I'm coming.

Speaker 21 The investigation lasted through the summer of 2013.

Speaker 33 Brennan Doyle remained the only likely suspect.

Speaker 44 Detective Tazi says investigators took the next step in September.

Speaker 9 We got a warrant to obtain his DNA, his fingerprints, photographs of him, just things that are...

Speaker 10 personal to him.

Speaker 34 When the results came back.

Speaker 56 There's a fingerprint match, then ultimately there's a DNA match.

Speaker 48 Brennan Doyle's DNA was a spot-on match to unknown DNA found in Donna's car in a number of places.

Speaker 56 11 different DNA samples and pieces of evidence found in that vehicle. And really, there's no reason why Brennan Doyle's DNA should be in this woman's vehicle.
He's a stranger to her.

Speaker 53 One more crucial piece of evidence was found in early October in the most unexpected spot.

Speaker 9 Repairmen were servicing an air conditioning unit that was on the top of the strip mall. They found the knife on the roof right near the air conditioning unit.

Speaker 20 A knife looking weathered as though it had been there for months found on a bowling alley roof in the very same shopping center where the Taco Bell was located and where Donna's car had been abandoned.

Speaker 48 How important was the knife?

Speaker 9 It ended up being very important because the knife was from a set. We determined that that knife matched another knife that we knew came from the Doyle household that had been taken months earlier.

Speaker 21 Through a twist of timing and fate, the Colts Neck Police already had another knife from the Doyle home, taken after police were called to the house a few weeks prior to Donna's attack, following an altercation between Brennan and his brother.

Speaker 56 There's a knife that's apparently used by the younger brother in a threatening manner. Police are called.
Police take the knife and the situation ends.

Speaker 9 There was no charges or anything that came of it, but they secured the knife in their evidence vault. It was the same brand name, the same look.
It was a silver knife.

Speaker 7 It was from the same collection.

Speaker 17 Correct.

Speaker 9 That was kind of the icing on the cake to get a search warrant.

Speaker 9 They had moved during the course of this investigation, so we got a search warrant for their new home.

Speaker 40 The search of the new Doyle residence, also in Colts Neck, turned up the rest of the knife set matching the one found atop the shopping center.

Speaker 35 In late October 2013, Brennan Doyle was arrested.

Speaker 7 What kinds of charges was he facing?

Speaker 56 Serious ones: attempted murder, carjacking, weapons possession. These are the most serious of crimes that we have.

Speaker 7 What do you make of the evidence against Brennan Doyle? Take a look at the complete investigation at 48hours.com.

Speaker 21 Months after Donna's brush with death, her alleged attacker, Brennan Doyle, was in custody, facing six counts, including attempted murder and carjacking.

Speaker 33 He pleaded not guilty.

Speaker 13 You have to look at the seriousness of the offense.

Speaker 11 The prosecution felt the crime warranted trying Doyle as an adult, even though he was 16 at the time.

Speaker 13 And in juvenile court, Brennan is looking at four years maximum in a youth detention facility. In adult court, he's looking at up to 30 years.

Speaker 21 A judge would rule in assistant prosecutor Gerhardt's favor, but there was a catch.

Speaker 19 Doyle would now be entitled to post-bail, set at $760,000,

Speaker 31 which he did.

Speaker 7 When When you heard he was out, did all of the fear come rushing back?

Speaker 3 It wasn't so much fear as it was anger that he was even allowed to be bailed out.

Speaker 24 The thought of running into Doyle terrified Kirsten.

Speaker 20 She says he even haunted her dreams.

Speaker 16 I didn't realize how much it was affecting me. I had no idea until I was like falling asleep and all I see is his face.

Speaker 21 As prosecutors developed their case, the details of what happened that horrific night began to emerge.

Speaker 7 What does Brennan Doyle say happened the night of July 6th, heading into the morning of July 7th, 2013?

Speaker 56 Mushrooms.

Speaker 56 He says he was under the influence of hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Speaker 42 According to investigative reports he examined, Matt Troiano says that on the night of Donna's attack, Doyle claimed he was losing touch with reality and had gotten into a fight with his father.

Speaker 56 He has a knife in his hand. Dad kicks him out, and he kind of loses his mind, makes bad decisions.

Speaker 20 Police thought it was likely that Doyle, who lived a short distance away, approached Donna's home looking to steal her car.

Speaker 9 I don't know if his intent was to kill Donna. Certainly when he started stabbing her, that became his attent.

Speaker 13 To me, what he's doing is he's getting rid of the witness.

Speaker 54 Gerhardt believes Doyle did not act like someone incapacitated by drugs.

Speaker 19 Doyle drove five miles to that shopping center after leaving Donna's house.

Speaker 13 This kid manages to ditch a knife. He abandons the car and that's not a kid who's so high on mushrooms he doesn't know what he's doing.

Speaker 40 Triano says while a lot of the evidence against Brennan Doyle was strong, the knife, the security camera videos, one thing put this case over the top.

Speaker 56 What is going to seal the fate of this boy, this kid, is that there's DNA in her vehicle that links to him. It's indefensible.

Speaker 25 But as it turned out, there would be no need for a defense.

Speaker 21 In August of 2015, Brennan Doyle agreed to a plea deal.

Speaker 35 In return, the prosecution dropped all but the two most serious charges, carjacking.

Speaker 22 and attempted murder.

Speaker 3 It was very important for me that he admit his guilt. If he took the plea, he would have to confess his guilt to the court.

Speaker 50 In October 2015, Brennan Doyle, now 18 years old, appeared in Monmouth County Superior Court for sentencing.

Speaker 35 Donna, who'd attended every court appearance, was there to face him one last time.

Speaker 3 Even though I felt

Speaker 3 overpowered by fear, I wanted him to see me as strong

Speaker 3 and as a survivor.

Speaker 21 It was an emotional day for Kirsten there to support her mother.

Speaker 7 When you would look at him in court, what do you remember feeling?

Speaker 16 Anger.

Speaker 29 Just very angry.

Speaker 29 Sorry.

Speaker 57 The drugs turned me into the monster that night.

Speaker 23 Doyle was permitted to address the court.

Speaker 57 I pray and hope her wounds will lessen and she will recover eventually.

Speaker 57 I am asking you to forgive me.

Speaker 57 Going to prison will be the hardest thing I will ever have to face in my life. I'm afraid.

Speaker 26 Brennan Doyle was sentenced to 15 years in state prison.

Speaker 35 The law requires him to serve at least 85% of that time.

Speaker 13 Justice has to be done on both sides, and we have to be sensitive to that. We have a 16-year-old kid who, for the most part, had absolutely no prior history.
The court has a balancing act to do it.

Speaker 44 Did it feel like justice?

Speaker 10 It did not.

Speaker 7 What would have felt like justice to you?

Speaker 3 More like 30 years, 40 years, 50 years,

Speaker 3 if not longer.

Speaker 30 Even with Doyle off the streets, Donna was still struggling.

Speaker 20 She had found PTSD and domestic violence support groups, but says there were none for victims of random attacks.

Speaker 43 So in 2015, she decided to create her own, Survivors of Violent Crimes.

Speaker 16 The reason we took to the support group was to help each other cope.

Speaker 43 Donna connected with fellow survivors, Tiffany Yacht and Dana Richards.

Speaker 19 Together, they held meetings and felt gratified they could help when more survivors joined.

Speaker 16 They're finding relief in knowing that they're not alone.

Speaker 48 But Donna says her work isn't done.

Speaker 21 Her future plans include helping victims connect with trauma therapists and offering self-defense classes.

Speaker 30 As she grows her support group, she's also educating others.

Speaker 48 She travels to prisons, meeting with inmates, and addresses police cadets so they can understand the victim's point of view.

Speaker 3 I got up, I made it up the stairs to my bedroom where my cell phone was, but I got through the 911.

Speaker 5 She survives, and she's building a life. How could anyone not applaud that?

Speaker 38 Donna says the physical scars that remain are a reminder of the surgeons who saved her life.

Speaker 3 This is artwork. They're beautiful artwork.

Speaker 3 You could either get sucked into the darkness

Speaker 3 or you just keep going.

Speaker 3 I did what I had to do to

Speaker 3 be here today and go another day.

Speaker 25 A couple disappears. We're in a million different directions trying to find her and him.

Speaker 12 A lot of people trusted him with a lot of money.

Speaker 17 He told me that he was adopted by Ronald Reagan's son.

Speaker 7 Who was the man last seen with Diana Duve? Follow and listen to the 48 Hours Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.