Missing
Donna Lee Fowler
Donna, approximately 1980
Date and time person was reported missing : 11/10/1980
Missing location (approx) :
Weaverville, California
Missing classification : Endangered Missing
Gender : Female
Ethnicity :
White
DOB : 07/05/1973 (48)
Age at the time of disappearance: 7 years old
Height / Weight : 3'0, 43 pounds
Description, clothing, jewerly and more : A brown multi-colored smock shirt, brown jeans and brown suede shoes.
Distinguishing characteristics, birthmarks, tattoos
: Caucasian female. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Donna has a one-inch scar between the second and third toes on her right foot. She has a healed skull fracture that occured when she was two and a half months old in 1973. Donna's upper baby teeth were in place in 1980. Her permanent lower teeth had grown in by the time of her disappearance.
Information on the case from local sources, may or may not be correct : Donna was last seen in Weaverville, California on November 10, 1980. She had been kept home from school that day for unspecified reasons, and told her grandfather she was running away from home. He believed she was only pretending and helped her pack her bags.
Donna disappeared afterwards. She was last seen near the Joss House Historical Museum on Main Street downtown at 2:30 p.m. Her mother reported her disappearance to police at 11:30 p.m.
In October 2008, Wayne Harvey Smith confessed to Donna's murder. He lived near her home and had known her family for years. He was a suspect in her case from the beginning, but he left the county a few days after her disappearance and investigators never had enough evidence to file charges.
Smith is presently serving a life sentence for another murder; he robbed and killed a young woman in Los Angeles, California in 1985. He agreed to discuss Donna's case as part of a plea deal for an unrelated third homicide, the shooting death of a Los Angeles teen in 1983.
Smith said Donna went to visit his house and refused to leave, and he became angry and strangled her. He stated he disposed of her body in the local landfill. In exchange for his confession, Smith won't face the death penalty in the 1983 case. Investigators think it's possible he was responsible for more deaths than he admits to.
Smith will not face charges in Donna's presumed death, as he is already in prison for life. Investigators stated they would not attempt to recover her body, because she's been missing so long it would be difficult or impossible to find her remains in the landfill.
In the aftermath of Smith's confession, Donna's family prepared to hold a memorial service for her. Her case is now considered closed, but her remains have never been found.
Other information and links : ncy
Trinity County Sheriff's Department
530-623-2611
September 2021 updates and sources
California Attorney General's Office
The Redding Record Searchlight
The Doe Network
CBS 12 Action News
The Trinity Journal
Unsolved in the News
Interactive Missing Person Search Map
