Facing a Monster at Trial

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Thank you for subscribing to 48 Hours Plus.

**Kevin Courtright** (0:03)
Enjoy this episode of 48 Hours Uninterrupted.

**Anne-Marie Green** (0:05)
[♪upbeat music playing in background with engine revving and engine starting up, then stopping.] So, Captain, just where are we? What is this place?

**Tony LeClair** (0:23)
So we're in the town of Kingsbury, at the bridge that goes over the canal on New Swamp Road.

**Anne-Marie Green** (0:28)
July 24th, 2005, investigators are called out here. What brought them out here?

**Tony LeClair** (0:35)
So we had a report that a fisherman had been going by. He saw what he thought to be a toolbox that goes in the back of a pickup truck floating.

**Anne-Marie Green** (0:42)
What did investigators find inside that toolbox?

**Tony LeClair** (0:45)
They found a woman's body that was duct taped and handcuffed and wrapped in a comforter. It was terrible. It was a terrible thing to see.

**CeCe Openowski** (0:57)
In January of 1996, I just finished my first semester of college in upstate New York. My ex-boyfriend, Sean Doyle, and I had been broken up for approximately four months. My name is CeCe Openowski.
My mother was going away for the weekend. So I had this whole big house to myself and my friend Shannon and we were very close. I said, well, let's stay at my house because there's no one around.

**Shannon McAuliffe** (1:23)
It was just a girl's night. We just wanted to chill out.

**CeCe Openowski** (1:26)
You know, it's winter, it's cold, we built a fire. My parents had a great stereo system, so we put on some music and danced around and just did girl stuff.

**Shannon McAuliffe** (1:36)
We both went to Sage Junior College, Balbany. I'm really introvert. And she was very bubbly and happy and chipper. And she just, she brought me out of my shelf.

**Anne-Marie Green** (1:47)
When you were first meeting her, was Sean Doyle around at the time?

**Shannon McAuliffe** (1:51)
Yes.
He was obnoxious. She would argue with him a lot on the phone.

**Anne-Marie Green** (1:55)
And then in January is when this incident happens at her house.

**Shannon McAuliffe** (2:01)
We were having a good time. It was just the two of us.

**Anne-Marie Green** (2:04)
But he keeps calling.

**Shannon McAuliffe** (2:06)
Wanting to know what we were doing, wanting to know if he can come over. She had a cell phone and I was like, just turn it off. She's like, no, because if I turn it off, he's going to come here.
We finally wake up and all we wanted was coffee. I had the mindset, I'm like, oh, I can't go out in public looking like I'm a mess. Let me go home and get dressed.

**CeCe Openowski** (2:26)
So Shannon leaves, and I get up and go around the house doing whatever, watching TV, being a lazy teenager. And I get a knock at the door, and I open it, and it's him.
And he said, I just want to 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.

**Shannon McAuliffe** (3:01)
After I got done in the shower and getting ready, I called, nobody answered.

**CeCe Openowski** (3:08)
My hair was in a pony trail, and he picked me up, held me up, and cut my hair off. He had already been choking me, and I thought he was going to stab me.

**Shannon McAuliffe** (3:21)
I called her back a half an hour later, she still didn't answer. And that's when my eyebrows kind of went up.

**CeCe Openowski** (3:28)
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.
I explained to her, 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 McAuliffe** (3:47)
I said, hey, are you okay?

**CeCe Openowski** (3:50)
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.

**Shannon McAuliffe** (4:08)
And I hung up the phone, and I called the cops.

**CeCe Openowski** (4:12)
Believe me, I do realize how lucky I am.

**SPEAKER_7** (4:14)