TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — Cherokee County investigators say Donna Kingston vanished into thin air.
She disappeared from the Tahlequah area in 1984.
District Attorney Jack Thorp said Kingston left in her grandmother’s red and white 1980 Mercury Monarch and told her family she'd contact them when she got to Tulsa. Kingston’s family told investigators they didn’t know the man allegedly with her. No one ever found the car either.
“At that time, it seemed like it was secretive. There appeared to be a significant person, a male, but nobody really knew anything about that person. They just knew that she was going to Tulsa to see him,” said Thorp.
Thorp said the case is classified as a homicide even though Kingston is still missing. 2 News asked him why.
“Well, it was suspicious because she had always stayed in pretty good contact with her family and they never heard from her again,” said Thorp.
With cold cases this old, Thorp said they rely on the public’s help.
“That’s the best thing about when you have some type of publicity about a cold case because somebody out there knows something, and if they know something, they need to tell us so we can do something about it so we can find out what happened so we can get this closure for the family,” said Thorp.
Another obstacle investigators are running into with this case is the lack of technology.
“That’s what makes it tough, especially when you look at a case from 1984 where there is really no technology that we have now like with cell phones. We can track individual cell phones, the towers that they ping off of, they give us a good idea about where they’ve gone. Even the toll booths on our turnpike. We can track almost every vehicle whether it had a pike pass or not, it can still be tracked by license plate readers, but in this case, it’s a mystery,” said Thorp.
Anyone with information about the disappearance of Donna Kingston can contact the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office at (918) 456-2583.
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