Episode 191: Donna Mullen

0:14 Hello, and welcome to the Catch My Killer Podcast. Thank you for listening. My name is Mark. For nearly eight years, I've written a weekly newspaper column about true crimes and missing people for the Claremontson Newspaper in Ohio. With a column and podcast, it has always been my objective to bring attention to those cases that have not received much media attention, if any. This week's story involves the disappearance of Donna Geneve Mullen, who was thirty seven years old when she disappeared. Donald was also the mother of three daughters. At the time of Donna's disappearance, she was a citizen of the Jacksonville Beach community.

0:59 She worked at the Speech Bar and had developed many friendships. On July nineteenth, nineteen eighty six, Donna Mullin was reported missing. She had last been seen by a neighbor near her home on North Second Street in Jacksonville Beach. According to Donna's daughter, Candy Sharp, she had left her home with a gun. Over thirty seven years have passed and no one has ever seen Donna alive again. Donna Mullin was the mother of three daughters. She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November twenty ninth, nineteen forty eight, and grew up in the Wilmington, Ohio area. Donna often traveled between Jacksonville, Florida, and Cincinnati to visit family. She loved her daughters, but she also had her inner demons. She had struggled with an addiction to alcohol.

2:01 Her daughter, Candy, said that her mother was a different person when she was intoxicated. When sober, Dona would bring Candy's two sisters to visit her in Ohio. Candy didn't live with her mother, but lived in Ohio with her adopted family, who had taken her in and raised her as their own daughter. Although Candy wasn't raised by her mother, the two were close. Donna made sure that she kept in touch with her daughter, Candy. Candy said that her mother disappeared on July nineteenth, nineteen eighty six, when her mother, Donna Mullen, was reported missing. She had last been seen by a neighbor near her home on North Second Street in Jacksonville Beach. According to Candy, her mother was last seen walking out of her home with a gun. According to Candy, Donna and her boyfriend at the time spent a weekend in Ohio, before traveling to Michigan by a new Harley Davidson motorcycle.

3:01 They then traveled to Russellville, Kentucky, to visit Candy's sister April, before returning home to Jacksonville. Donna would soon disappear after her return trip back to Jacksonville, Candy and her sister April have continuously sought justice for their mother. Unfortunately, their sister, Michelle, has since passed away without ever knowing what happened to their beloved mother. During a news interview, the sisters had stated that they were having a difficult time living without their mother. Just not knowing what happened to their mother has been very difficult for the sisters. Candy has said that she thinks about her mother constantly. At the time of Donna's disappearance from Jacksonville, she was thirty seven years old, five foot one. She had brown hair and blue eyes. The mother three had affectionately been known as Duck to the way she walked. Donna had a few distinctive tattoos, including a black panther on her left shoulder and two redhearts with a black k on her right wrist. She also had pierced ears and a scar from a hysterectomy on her abdomen. She's been missing for nearly forty years. What happened to this missing mother? The family believes that her mom's boyfriend at the time knows exactly what happened to their mother. His name is mentioned, but I have blocked out his name because he has not been charged with any crime involving Donna's

4:33 disappearance. For this story, I spoke to Donna's daughter Candy about her mother's disappearance, and now on with the story of Donna Mullen, as told by her daughter, Candy Sharp. She was actually born in Cincinnati, but she grew up in a Wilmanton area. So as she grew up, she had a sister, a biological balk sister named marriage Joe, and she was her bartender, go godmpter. She had always been back and forth from here to Jacksonville, from since Nanny to Jacksonville. My oldest sister, Michelle Dahn Michelle Crampton, is decease. She died. I try not to think about it, so I can't remember the date. She died on July thirteenth. She pretty much drank herself to death a lot of it had to do with my mother's disappearance, and she did the runaway and to drug thoroughly, and that led to her doing a lot of drinking while she died at forty eighty nine of Cirricius of the liver, that being sedge. She was married where she was pregnant with my oldest sister, Michelle as we call her. We don't call her Dawn Michelle. She married a man named James Crampton who fathered Michelle as well, even though it wasn't a biological father. He took care of but they got married and then they had another daughter, or their first daughter together, which is April, which is my middle sister. Then she cheated on him and got pregnant with me. Though I was the giveaway baby.

6:05 She put me up for adoption to a family that she knew. They were family, distant family already though my mom and dad's names were Lois and George Begley. Okay, so that's how the three kids came about. She would bring my two sisters to come and see me when I was really little. She would cook me up for the weekend. She would have to promise my parents that she wasn't blinking or doing any kind of drug or anything while she had all of the skirl together. So I found out at a very young age if these two girls that were coming to see me were acting my sisters. And the lady I was calling aunt Donna was my biological mother. She was very thick when I was born and she couldn't forgive me, so she gave me to the family where she would always be able to come and jast me that. They ended up being very close, and like I said, they world related somehow anyway to like this and cousins or something like that of my mother's were so in her adult years. I knew her too. She in nineteen eighty six when she did the tiered I was only sixteen years old when I was living in Amelia, Ohio. Form she had came up Kip Goze with her then and thebe six. I'm not sure Kamimo was still married but was still good, but she was going by his last name, So she was going by Donna Suckers at the time, and her boyfriend was who

7:36 was in the Navy station on Jacksonville. I'm just saying that's how they met. So she came up for the weekend. So when she came up missing what have been July nineteenth of nineteen eighty six, she supposedly left her apartment in Jacksonville with a gun and and she was going to go kill someone. This is from a friend, but ended up reporting for missing. At this time, my older sister, Michelle, I just spent two years and the when correctional fability and it's raally North Carolina for being accessory to a burglary.

8:18 And as my mother had it appeared for only weeks at this time. Michelle and her boyfriend moved right into my mom's apartment. Of course was there and her key were there. So when they moved out, I get they took what they wanted and a little about later I get the landlord finally decided that he's been a clear out the apartment, called my grandmother and my aunt to come and clean out for a belonging. Still to this day, no one has ever been questioned in this case. Does that just not found? Right? Okay? And just to clarify, when your mother disappeared, she was living in Florida at the time, is that correct? Injectionville? Yeah, And she said that your oldest sister and her boyfriend had both moved into your mom's apartment after she disappeared. Yeah. Yes, because she had just gotten out of prison and she pretty much didn't have nowhere to go. She was very young at the time she see I was sixteen, she was twenty and had already spent two years in prison, so she didn't have anywhere to go.

9:35 Though she had this boyfriend. I'm assuming that she was maybe seeing him before she went to prison. I'm not sure, but yes, it was after she disappeared as they moved in. When you mentioned that part of the story, I had thought that that seemed kind of odd. I mean, your mom disappeared and then your sister and her boyfriend just taken upon themselves to just move in your mom had disappeared. Who authorized them to just move in? Did your mom allow this before she disappeared? Or did another relative or someone else just say, hey, it's okay for you to move in, although the woman who lives here is gone missing, it's okay for you to live here. Who okayed this? I don't believe anyone, but this is nineteen eighty six. Remember, laws weren't dads they are today, So I don't believe the landlord probably didn't question her being her daughter and being an apartment.

10:31 Like I said, the rent was paid up for the month or whatever. And I'm not sure exactly how long Michelle stayed there. I'm just going to call her a biker. And this is truly what happened. Michelle would call up the police department down there and literally cush these men and women out, and my aunt would do pretty much the same thing. My aunt married Joe, and so these people literally got tired of listening to this crack that my sister was supposedly spooing at them, sending them letters and making phone calls and just being belligerent. And the captain even told me this that it got pushed back to the back of the desk, the kate, and it just got pushed back. Finally that was someone new on the kit who might look over it in question of you being then in turn led to I believe her name was Kingsberry, and she really was doing some digging and trying to find things out, and then she retired, And I mean, it just got pushed back, and no one was ever questioned about her disappearance, not the people that worked for her. Storked at the writ and the employees there that she worked with every day. No one was questioned about anything, not her boyfriend. So now it's been thirty plus years, we still know nothing.

11:58 But we did go to Okay, So when she disappeared, we'll go back to this. When I was sixteen, she came up here with her boyfriend in the Lincoln. I believe she chose her car up here and they were going to Michigan to pick up a Harley Davidson to drive it back to Florida. They came up and they stayed the weekend with me at my parent apartment in a Million where we live. But I'm only sixteen, and during that visult, she made plan with me that in August, you know, I was going to come down there and stay for a couple of months see if I liked it. It was very tough being adopted, knowing your biological mother and not being able to be with her and struggling between two families. So I was going to go down there with her for a few months and see if I liked it, and maybe transfer school if I did. On that kind of thing. So they go to Michigan, Okay, they stopped to see me. On the way up, they go to Michigan, they drive a Harley back the Harley they stopped at my sister. My sister, April has always lived in southern Kentucky, down in the Bowling Green area, so they talked to my chists or April on the way. On the way back through to Jacksonville, something came up about there being some's cocaine in the bike.

13:18 I don't know how much. I don't know if it's true. April had three little kids at the time, and she asked my mother and to leave. Obviously they had some sort of drawing down them, and April didn't wanted around her kid, so she leaves. They go back back fon Bill and it's just literally not even two or three weeks later, on July nineteenth, excuse reported by her friend Jack can golle PB and a file five inches thick. Even there, they've never questioned anyone and don't have any of that kind of information to the fort. It was a lot of letters from Mike sister Michelle to the Fleet department begging them to do this and do that.

14:05 Are you doing anything? But like I said, since she both flligerent and rude, and cuffing at these people. It just got pushed the guide then, So that's where we are today. Although ay for all and I we went to Jacksonville and we did a news interview and we had to wear a mask. So we did that between me and you and a guardrail when we were at that visit a couple of years ago in jackson though, I think we went there two years in a row and then we haven't been back in a couple of years. But we found out that Donna had in turn her family doctor to borrow ten thousand dollars, which we never knew about before.

14:50 But I think it all thinks in two stories of the bike then full of cocaine, but she's leaving her house with her gun. She's asking her doctors for ten thousand dollars. Who's now deceased, by the way, and was never questioned. It seems to me that something happened to the coke. Either somebody ripped them off, or they some kind of deal went bad. Maybe she was leaving with the gun trying to get money because they ripped them all. I'm not sure what exactly happened that made me have different thoughts, you know, find it out that she had literally asked her doctor Tom Barrow two thousand tall her. I mean, who does that? But again, this was nineteen eighty six. She was a bartender. She was a very cute older lady. Well she wasn't older then, but yeah, it just leads me to believe that that bike was packed full coke. Something happened, Dad, she went out to try to get her money back or threaten somebody, because she wasn't a violent person that I ever knew of. I mean, yes, she owned a gun, but Gosha a bartender, Harley Ryder or she lives the Russian gruff. So two weeks after this, we found out that two weeks before she came up missing, broke up with her. Right now, he lives in North Carolina, and to this day, even though the Jacksonville PD, no, they still have not reached out to question him

16:22 about anything. Now, have you ever contacted this guy and personally had a discussion with him about the whereabouts of your mother? We have not. He would not return any kind of phone calls when we did have an address. His family is from Michigan, so then I'm assuming that there's a possibility that he may know exactly what happened to your mother all those years ago? Is that an accurate statement? Oh? Absolutely, bike full of coke with you in the first play. So where's the bike at today? Whatever happened to it? Do you know? I have no clue? They wrote it back to Jack then though far a guy knew it was here the matter cycle.

17:08 He should have been the first, you know, it's the only one questions should have been him, And even they said they by one point they could have got the Navy involved, but they still haven't. Still two years later and there's a new guy on the case. I believe his name is Justin Thumpin. Still nothing. And I understand there's a lot of cases down there, Jeff, like my mom's. I understand that. But you know, it's been thirty thirty some years after Donna's tripp to purchase a Harley Davidson motorcycle, she would disappear. I had asked Candy about life without her mother, as she was a teenager when her mother disappeared. We will take a short break in return with Candy's thoughts about her mother's disappearance. Let me go back to when your mother and her boyfriend visited you in Amelia, Ohio when you

18:38 were a teenager. How long did she stay with you? And do you remember anything that stuck out in the back of your mind from that visit? Was there anything unusual about your mom's behavior or just anything that struck you as odd about her visit? Nothing worth out of the ordinary for the visit, she was just loving, happy to see me, happy to see us. We were all her family, even my adopted parents. We all loved her. So we had a nice visit. They only stayed I think one night. I think they left the next day. And I'm guessing that after she left you, being a sixteen year old teenager living in Ohio, you were probably excited thinking, Wow, I may be going from living in Amelia, Ohio to Jacksonville, Florida in a few months. Yeah, exactly, exactly, Yeah, Yeah, I hate jack Thenville. Now that I'm an adult and I know what's there and I've been there a couple of times, now, I don't like it. But still, yeah, sixteen years old, and you gotta understand too, there's a little rebellion going on because I've always known that these people that adopted me are not my real parent. You know what, I'm saying I had siblings. Luckily, I have an older sister and then two brothers and then me. I wasn't like them, I didn't look like them. My grandmother treated me like I was garbage because I didn't

20:11 belong to my dad biologically a real mom. For my adopted mom had two miscarriages as well as the three children, so she was happy to have me. I was born because Donna tried to abhord me twice. I was born with the beer food allergy, and I was purple. Though just though happen. The parents that took me, George and Loweck. He worked at Ford Mighter Company at the time in Sharonville, and that was a great job with great insurance, and they were able to get me right in the doctors who looked me up with braces for my legs and all that kind of stuff. Though she really put me with a good family. But still there was rebellion.

20:53 Sixteen years. I'd come on, fifteen fourteen, You're like, I don't have to listen to you. You're not my real mom, or you're not my real band, or you know what I mean. Mean things that I never ever should have done, and I totally regret now, But I was a kid. You just don't know until you're older and look back at how you treat it your parents, you know, But me and my parents were very close to My dad ended that all was ninth heart attack when I was eighteen years old. Just two years after she disappears, I lost the only father I had ever known, and I eventually did. She always told me who my real father was, and I did track him down, and I did find my biological father and I knew him for ten years and him and my adopted mother died in the same year. Yes, then I have four parents and then they're all dead. Still, what brought your mom to Jacksonville? Why did she move there? I don't really know. She would hitchhike from here to Jacklynville and back and she would just I don't know.

22:00 She just loved it down there once she was there, want and kind of like April and I once we've been there once. Now we go on a sister's trip every year, but we don't go to doc and will we go to the other coast, which is where we just were. I really don't know what a doc had we're now, What do you know about this friend, the one who had last seen your mother. When did this person realize that something bad may have happened to your mother? I guess it was a friend that reported her missing. Maybe she didn't show up her work or something. But I'm not understanding how someone fell her leaving with a gun. That's the part that I don't get, because nineteen eighty sick people didn't have cameras on their houses and stuff like we do now. I mean, she wasn't the same person that saw her. Maybe a with her neighbor. I mean, she lived in this little house, you know, that was apartment.

22:55 Maybe it was the neighbor that told the friend I saw her walking out the door with a gun in her hand or something to that effect. Supposedly was she alone when she left, Yes, And like I said, she didn't take her life, and she didn't have her keys. She literally left her electrical on, lights on, the TV was on out the door, saying I'm going to go kill someone, kill that bastard or something is what she said. But I don't know that for sure. Now see, we've never even talked to the friend that filed the police report. She's never been questioned about anything. Is this person still alive as far as I know yet, I definitely think that this person would be someone good to speak to about whatever happened to your mother. I mean, if she can remember anything nearly forty years ago. Yeah, and neither you nor your sister have ever spoken to this friend, is that correct? No. When my aunt and my grandma Beer went down and cleaned out her house, they brought a back a few little things. So one of the things that I got was this little addressed book, and I literally wrote letters to everyone in this addressed book. I didn't get not one letter back, but I didn't get not one response either, and some of them were business there, which we couldn't even get dental records from the dentist office, or maybe fifteen or twenty. Okay, But when I was younger, she told me that if I really wanted to leave,

24:26 that we could go away to the Pilotines and no one would ever find that. And so she and Jacklynville, there's a navy base right there, and she was into meeting the navy men, and she had my sister April, I am so bad with me, and we were just talking about those slow we were going there because she had oh, maybe his name was Ray and he was a little pilotinal guy. And see, I always wondered if she just didn't up and off and go to the Philippines and there's living her in best life. But we have no way to or to find out because something about they don't go bike her security numbers or something. There would be no real weight to identify her if she did new to the Philippine, but her subsecurity number had not been you its nineteen eighty six. Either, we could do from check to the security department. I don't know, I got be There's a lot of twists and turned. My sister really believed that this guy named who I owned an apartment building, had killed her and buried her under the building in the concrete. There's people that told my fifth are all kinds of things. I don't know if it was because she were an alcoholic and they were taking advantage of her. Some people told her she was in the ocean. There's just been all kind of little stories, but nothing compares to the fact that that bike was full of cocaine. And obviously that is what has contributed to her disappearance. I mean, because even though she was

26:00 the biker type and the barmaid type. She wasn't a violent person in any way. I mean, she might have threatened to beat your ass, but she never wouldn't have. Today, Candy is convinced that her mother's criminal activity may have led to her disappearance. She also thinks that her boyfriend at the time may know more about what happened to her mother than what he has ever said publicly. We will take a final break in return with Candy's final thoughts on her mother's disappearance. So, based on everything that you have told me, it does sound like she was possibly involved in some type of criminal activity, right right, But whether or not that she knew that the bike was full of coke or whether they just had a little bit of coke that I don't know. So I can't say that she was actually involved in the criminal activity. Well I'm not going to say that she wasn't. I don't know.

27:14 I wasn't around her. And again, going back to the boyfriend, it sounds like he probably knows what happened to your mother all those years ago, right, probably everything that needs to be known, if he will admit to anything. If it's the thing, it's been so many years now he's just thinking he's got away with murder. Where is he? Where is she? I just heard on the news like day before yesterday they just pulled like sixties b hicles out of lakes and ponds and stuff in Florida. Oh thinking, oh my god, could she'd be in one of them? And then they just directed about me who killed over a hundred women several months ago.

27:56 He killed women just literally from all over everywhere, but he didn't kill any in Florida. And then there's this George Thorpe. They did follow up a little bit of investigation on him, he ended up dying, but nothing ever came of it. That we are just stuff with no answers nowhere, And it would be just be nice if the Jacklinville pete would get off their button, do something, just question somebody before literally everyone is dead because somebody still knows something. And you're using social media to bring attention to this case, correct, Yeah, we share with things on Facebook. Do you have a page dedicated to your mom's story? No, no, we don't. We just share it on our pages. And what law enforcement agency is handling your mother's case? Jacklinville Beach, Jacksonville Beach breet the cart, And when's the last time that you've spoken to anyone from their apartment? Two years ago.

29:03 We've been on vacation two times. Technically, I guess that's been on nest three years. And I'm assuming that there's been no updates. Yep, nothing, And that's how I know they They still haven't questioned the people that we brought up that they should question, like her boyfriend, right, have you ever been questioned if the apartment owner dead is the owner of the rich dead? I mean, I know some of them are dead. Her doctor who dentists, her best friend. Like I told you earlier, I think that the bike with bulletcoke, something happened. She went to try to write a wrong and got wronged instead. Truly, that's what I think, and I've only thought that then I found out that she I knew that she had asked April's dad for money. That was her first husband and they stayed close for all these years, you know, having the two kids. So that was red flag number one. Not that they was out of the ordinary for her to call anyone and asked to borrow money. At certain times. She was a bar tenure, like I said, she wasn't rich. And this was back in the eighties too, you know people did that. She hitch back and forth when she didn't have a car, and then she met this guy who shot her the silver Link and continental when she came and picked us all up one weekend and me and my two sisters in her and we went out to my grandparents' house who lived in Wilmington, and we went to my uncle's banks fall games and we just had so much fun. We camped down on

30:33 lingram floor. And when I had a step grandma too, that was always very nice with That's how I have April Michelle, and I have uncles that are all of our ages. My grandpa after he divorced his first wife and his second wife got with a younger woman and had she had one kid, and then he had two more kids who were fifty six, fifty four and fifty two years old. Who says they made it was me and my two six sisters. But she just wasn't a violent person. And for her to go off leaving with the gun in the first place, that's another red flag.

31:14 You know. The ten thousand dollars that she asked her doctor for boom, that's a huge red flag. Who even in nineteen eighty six, who's going to ask her doctor for ten thousand dollars? I mean, this wasn't hey, can I borrow one hundred bucks for gah? This is ten grand And as far as I know, he didn't loan it to him, but we know that you might have. She came up missing. I don't know she they could want the doctor. My honest ceiling is that, yeah, it was a bike was full of coo. I don't know what happened. But because up until two years ago when I found that out, or three years ago, I really felt in my mark that it could really be that she just went to the Philippine. But maybe that was just told. Now hope too that she's alive and happy somewhere because strangers that may theme. I have my very best trend. Her mother actually disappeared too for twenty two years, but then they found her. She's alive and well and living in Texas.

32:17 And Joe I was twenty two years she didn't have her mom. So your mother has been missing for nearly forty years, and you've been spending a lot of your time, as well as your sister, trying to figure out what happened to your mother? What is driving you both to pursue this. Wouldn't it just be easier to just say she's gone, We'll let her rest in peace and just kind of move on. I'm sure that would be the easiest thing to do. What is keeping you from doing that? I don't feel elect and so we can put her to rest that she's resting in peace. She was murdered. Having the wreck in peace when you're murdered, you know what I'm saying, Just that not knowing that's it's horrible. It's really an undescribable feeling that you get. You have to know. I don't want to go to my grave not knowing what happened to it. And just recently I saw your mom's story on the back of a playing card. Now I know that's something that seems to be a good tool for law enforcement. There are unsolved homicides and missing people cases that are placed on these playing cards and then they are distributed throughout prisons. So tell me about that. How did your mom's story end up on the back of a playing card? So a Project Cold Keith, you know what that is. Yes, I'm familiar with that agency. So we went to Jacksonville when we met with Ryan and Frieda

33:50 who are Ryan with the founder, and a similar story happened to his dad. He's murdered and that's how he found it. Project case. So they do spotlight on her anniversary every year and they constantly run. She'll just pop up every once in a while. They're always project spotlighting new cases on their page. So I'm not sure how the playing cards came about, but we were just notified last year that they did playing cards with cold cases on them, and they distribute them to praise ends and different things like that, and so this year they finally put her in and I haven't received my back yet.

34:31 I think they distribute them to all these places where they could get a kick just from other people, you know, like you said, in Provence and THERFP centers, wherever they can distribute them. Yeah, I actually think that those cards is that's a pretty good idea. I have heard about these cards for a while and from what I understand, law enforcement has actually gotten tips from those playing cards. Right. Yeah, they run the story even acton though all the time. You know, occasionally I'll get a call from my uncle fan nights. They I just saw the new cliff or the missing person you know story. They don't do it very often, but maybe once or twice a year. I think she flumped up and that's in Jacklinville.

35:16 I'm up here and she's in Kentucky. Though anything we share it or don't really go to Jacklonville. We don't have friends there who can share the story, you know what I'm saying. I mean, even though people do share it, it doesn't get shared enough. If not. Her face isn't plastered all over Jacklonville like it should be. And I do need to call that. They can't give down there and find out what it's going on because it has been three years and like I said, my sisters, she just really like to talk about oh that much. The most amazing thing to me is they never question that one damn person. That is what gets me all these years. So they still not question anyone. I just don't understand. I know they're busy. There's lots of missing people from jack Then though. I understand this for thirty six years old and probably never going to be solved, but there's still people out here who love her and miss Or. I want to know what happened to her okay, and I have one final question for you. For anyone out there that's listening to this podcast episode that can hear the sound of your voice, if they know anything about what happened to your mother all those years ago, what would you say to that person or person's please report what you know. I mean, any little pip or little thing could be it that could break the case open. The smallest little siding or anything of anyone you know could break the case wide open, and then we wouldn't be sitting here wondering. We would like to bury her remains and put

36:51 her direst in our eyes anyway, So that's what I would say, Please anything, And that concludes the story of Donna Mullen. On July nineteenth, nineteen eighty six, she vanished from Jacksonville, Florida, after last being seen with a gun, stating that she was going to shoot someone. Donna's two surviving daughters have been on a quest to find out what exactly happened to their mother. The only thing that they know is that she just vanished into thin air, as if she had never even existed. No one just disappears without someone else knowing what happened to that person, can you help Candy and her sister April get answers for their mother who is missing and presumed dead. And if you have a valuable tip, you can contact the Jacksonville Beach Police Apartment at nine zero four two seven zero one, six six one, or if you wish to remain anonymous, you can report your tip to First Coast Crime Stoppers at eight six six eight four five tips and I will be sure to provide this information and in the case story notes. And if you are a parent, law enforcement official, friend, or relativity injustice for an unsolved thomicide case, please visit my website and complete the contact for me. Thank you for listening.