Donna was last seen at her home on the second floor of the D Building at Candleglow Apartments in the 1000 block of Candlelight Boulevard in Brooksville, Florida on the evening of February 1, 1994. She called her mother in Alabama and asked her to come and get her as soon as possible. She said her husband, Monroe Champion Sumners, was trying to cut the phone line. The line then went dead and Donna's mother called the police, who responded to her apartment at 8:10 p.m. Donna told them she was fine and would probably go out for the rest of the night. She has never been heard from again. Monroe said she'd taken $1,000 and left him about twenty minutes after the police left. Their relationship was troubled and, in the two weeks prior to Donna's disappearance, police responded to their home three times for domestic disturbances. Donna told police on January 17, 1994 that Monroe had beaten her the week before. Her face was bruised when she made the report and she said she'd become deaf in left ear as a result of the assault. Donna took her five-year-old son and went to Alabama, where she is originally from and where she has family. She returned to Florida a few days before her disappearance to work on her marriage. She left her son behind in Alabama, but called him several times a day. Early on in the investigation, police focused on Monroe as a suspect. Authorities discovered Monroe, an Army recruiter, was having an affair with one of his recruits. Monroe's girlfriend came to his and Donna's apartment the night Donna disappeared and she told Donna about the affair. Donna begged her not to leave, saying Monroe would beat her once she was gone. The girlfriend left when the police arrived. In July 1994, Monroe left the Army on a hardship discharge and got a job as a hotel bartender in Virginia. A year later, three days after his and Donna's eighth wedding anniversary, he shot himself to death near his workplace. He left a note apologizing to his son, who was living with Donna's relatives in Anniston, Alabama. Monroe was twenty-five years old at the time of his death. Her disappearance is considered suspicious, but the investigation has stalled since Monroe's death.