Last Chance For Justice

September 11, 2001 will forever be etched in America's consciousness -- the day when nearly 3,000 lives were stolen in a horrific act of terrorist violence.

For Navy Captain John O'Brien (ret.) September 11th holds a double-edged source of pain.  On that same day, in 1980, his only daughter Kathleen was found viciously raped and murdered in her home. 

Today, John O'Brien is 74, but during the past 25 years he has never given up hope that he will one day find justice for his Kathleen. But he is also a realist and knows if the answer doesn't come soon, few will take up his cause when his memory begins to fade.

The Murder Of Kathleen Doyle

On August 31, 1980, 25-year old Kathleen O'Brien Doyle, an aspiring author started a journal.  Perhaps a bit self conscious Kathleen wrote, "I will most likely write so that anyone looking over my shoulder would neither raise an eyebrow nor really raise too much interest."

Kathleen was writing about her past in order to understand herself and where she fit into the future. 

She was living as a Navy wife in Norfolk, Virginia. Kathleen's husband of nine months,  Lt. Stephen Doyle, was away at sea on the USS Eisenhower and Kathleen was living with "Ike" their orange tabby in a small framed house on Granby Road.  It was in an upper middle class neighborhood and several Navy families lived in the vicinity. It was not a place where violent crime often visited.

Nine days after her first journal entry, Kathleen was found lying on the floor of her bedroom. She'd been beaten, bound and gagged, punched, kicked, stabbed, raped and strangled.

It was a brutal overkill.

A Case Of Frustration

Norfolk detectives began interviewing Kathleen and Stephen's friends, colleagues and neighbors. They questioned the roofers working at the Methodist church next door. They investigated an attempted break-in at a nearby home. But nothing panned out.

In 1983, the case seemed to take a giant leap forward. Henry Lee Lucas, the self proclaimed serial killer had been arrested and was confessing to killing 600 women during a cross-country crime spree. He claimed he'd been through the Norfolk area in 1980.

Norfolk police dispatched a detective to interview Lucas in a Texas prison. Lucas studied a photo of Kathleen and said she looked familiar. He studied the crime scene photos and said it looked like his handiwork, but he couldn't remember strangling or gagging her. That he pinned on his partner Ottis Toole.

The Norfolk crime lab determined that hair found at the crime scene was consistent with hair samples from Lucas and his partner Ottis Toole. In 1984, the two killers were charged with the rape and the murder of Kathleen Doyle.

Less than a year later, Lucas recanted all but three of his confessions and said he perpetrated this hoax to "show that law enforcement doesn't do its job."

While Norfolk PD stood steadfast in their belief that Lucas was indeed their killer, Capt. O'Brien was doubtful and began his own investigation. In 1995, Capt. O'Brien dug up information that cast doubt on whether Lucas had in fact even been in Norfolk on the day of Kathleen's murder.

Norfolk police have since reopened the case and forensic evidence was re-evaluated and processed for DNA. So far there have been no matches in the national DNA data base and any possible leads from Lucas and Toole died with them in prison.

Right now, Capt. O'Brien is hoping for a miracle that would once and for all help find justice for Kathleen.