FL FL - Fort Lauderdale, 'Donna Doe' WhtFem 13UFFL, 12-25, hit by truck, Aug'82

[Susikatze]

I’m convinced it is Diane Genice Dye, missing from San Jose, CA on 07/30/1979. Below is a map from San Jose through the stops JD made where she picked up those cards. It’s almost a straight line.

Diane is
5’2
110lbs
Brown hair
Hazel eyes
Would’ve been a couple months shy of 17 in 1982.
She was a runaway

Diane Genice Dye – The Charley Project

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She would have been on the road/transient for 3 years. Not impossible and teen runaways were known for taking odd jobs at hotel receptions, as hotel maids or as fair workers in the 70s and 80s, but Diane was very attached to her family and her parents marital problems made her run away. I doubt she would have stayed without any contact for three years.

 

[eoyste]

She would have been on the road/transient for 3 years. Not impossible and teen runaways were known for taking odd jobs at hotel receptions, as hotel maids or as fair workers in the 70s and 80s, but Diane was very attached to her family and her parents marital problems made her run away. I doubt she would have stayed without any contact for three years.

It does mention on her Doe Network page that a friend saw her 2 years after her disappearance in 1981 in San Jose (unsure if this is confirmed or just a rumor). So it's possible she wasn't in contact with her family during that time.

 

[Vee97]

She would have been on the road/transient for 3 years. Not impossible and teen runaways were known for taking odd jobs at hotel receptions, as hotel maids or as fair workers in the 70s and 80s, but Diane was very attached to her family and her parents marital problems made her run away. I doubt she would have stayed without any contact for three years.

People thought previously that she was Princess Doe (1982,NJ). I don’t think we should rule Diane out just yet

 

[EuropeanSearcher]

I am an administrator on the Find Aundria M Bowman facebook page. Last week, the page was contacted by a woman who initially said that she saw someone who looked like Aundria. We quickly concluded that this was a case of mistaken identity.

But the woman went on to say that her sister, Donna Leah Baxter-Baughman (DOB 11-Jun-1962) has been missing since about 1982. She was last seen in Jackson, Tennessee, when she was 19 years old.

I had never heard of a missing person by that name, so my antennae went up. The fact that her sister's name was Donna, and she was LKA in 1982, and missing from a Southern state where she probably spoke with a southern accent, raised a big red flag that her sister might be "Donna Doe".

Not all of the details tie perfectly to those of Donna Doe. Donna Baxter was very short (i.e., under 5 feet), and had slightly protruding upper front teeth. She walked with a slight limp, and had a horizontal scar across her left eyelid. She also had given birth to a son about a year prior to her disappearance. The son was raised by his aunt and grandmother.

The circumstances of her disappearance point to a possible domestic violence related case, as her husband was allegedly very abusive to her. He claims that she left voluntarily, but her sister says that she loved her son too much to have abandoned him. Her husband was also arrested years later after the body of an 80 year old man was found in the trunk of a car in which he was a passenger. Donna's husband was never convicted in that case, but he supposedly has convictions for other offenses.

I don't know if Donna is a real strong possible for Donna Doe, but I've created a NamUs casefile for her (still unpublished). NamUs Regional Admin Amy Dobbs has already taken note of the unpublished case file, and is being put in contact with Donna's sister. I am also in the process of trying to obtain a photo of her from the school she attended. She grew up in Bartlett, Tennessee, but didn't attend Bartlett HS. She was a special-education student at Shadowlawn Middle School right through to her senior year.

Where there news about this girl? Is she really missing?