Justice for Donna Barnhardt, Concord NC

A multi-page article in this morning's Concord Standard, a local weekly newspaper, featured an article dedicated to the lives and memories of the victims of the Sun-Drop murders. We cannot thank the writer, Beth Feeback, enough for her sensitive and thorough effort to summarize Donna and Darrell in this beautiful tribute to their lives.

Below are a few of the highlights about Donna from the article:

• She grew up near Hollywood, and babysat the children of celebrities like Bob Hope and Jim Backus (Thurston Howell the Third on Gilligan’s Island’). She went to church with Red Skelton, and met John F. Kennedy before he was president.
• While in high school, she won a Teen Angel Pageant, and Tony Dow (Wally from “Leave it to Beaver”) crowned her and kissed her, and he later showed up at a pool party at Donna’s house.
• After high school, she answered the call of “Join the Navy; see the world,” where she graduated at the top of class in radioman school.
• The family would travel for weeks at a time exploring the country during the summers, and Donna would talk on the CB radio, known by truckers as "Carolina Chuck" or "Silver Bullet."
• Donna loved going to Dollywood, and the family went every Halloween to the “Ghost Town at Tweetsie” events.
• Donna snapped pictures of everything, had as many as 50 photo albums, plus two big crates full of thousands and thousands of loose pictures.
• All three of Donna's children live close together because she wanted to give her children roots in one place, unlike her upbringing as the daughter of a Marine.
• She regularly gave to CVAN, Paralyzed Veterans, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, and others, and she always adopted families at Christmas.
• Donna’s e-mail signature phrase, with a bright yellow smiley face, was “Don’t cry because it’s over. SMILE because it happened.”
• Donna had just marked her 18-year anniversary with Sun Drop the day before her death.