The News Journal from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 6

Unsolved: Mystery 'hitchhiker' sought COMEDY ON THE EDGE FROM PAGE A1 (15- To report information about this crime call state police at Troop 3, Woodside, 739-4865, or at the homicide unit, 739-5939. To report information about this or any other crime in Delaware call Crime Stoppers, anonymously, 24 hours a day, at (800) 847-3333. From The my Award Winning Series "In Living Color" CAUSEY The News Journal would like suggestions about unsolved crimes in the area. Send your idea, including as many crime details as you know, along with your name, address and phone number to Ann Stewart, The News Journal, Box 15505, Wilmington 19850. weren't very good," Alexander said.

"But we never thought of it before. We just never expected anything bad to happen." Donovan's children were grade-schoolers when their father, Wallace Holden, died in 1958. When their mother married Ralph Donovan a few years later, they all moved to the farmhouse and spent the rest of their childhoods there. Dorothy Donovan stayed on after her second husband died in 1987. For her children, the house always held happy memories.

"To me, that was always a safe place," Rhinehardt said. "I never thought anything bad could happen there. That was my home, and I loved it Now I can hardly stand to think about it." Like his sisters, Holden finds himself thinking of his mother at unexpected times. In his wallet, he carries a small snapshot of her taken on her 70th birthday. "I was in the yard once, and I thought for a minute I heard her voice," he said.

"But it was just a bird or something." Donovan's children and grandchildren comfort themselves a little with the thought that she was probably killed in her sleep. Because the house was not ransacked, they believe she might never have heard the intruder. Frequently, they pause to pray that she died without ever realizing what was happening to her. And even more frequently, they think of how much they miss her. "She called me every day of her life," said Alexander.

"I feel like I lost such a good friend not just a mother but a wonderful friend." Jim Carrey is known for his bizarre arsenal of characters, like the horribly disfigured Fire Marshal Bill, the steroid-pumped female bodybuilder Vera De Mio, or Dickie Henderson, the nerdy, jut-jawed Guardian Angels reject. TWO SHOWS MARCH 13 7 PM 9:30 PM All Seals Reserved $23.00 Ihnnrf Mun( fkjf" md iiliMr lit ihr mmtkui In 4 dnU This is a likeness of the hitchhiker as described by the victim's son and others. Police would like to question the hitchhiker about the Donovan slaying. calls how her 13-year-old son had been planning to stay with his grandmother June 22 and go to church with her the next day. If he had, she thinks, maybe her mother's death would somehow have been prevented.

Or, she shudders, maybe her son would be dead, too. Donovan's other daughter, Brenda Alexander, 40, of Camden, remembers that no one ever worried about the lack of security at her mother's house. "After this happened, we started to think maybe she should have had floodlights or a watch dog, and we realized the locks iht t'-lMljt inn D.ini."n lilminitit Prkin ulhnt analyzed and because they continue to publicize the sketch of the hitchhiker and occasionally get a tip from it. The detectives' disappointment so far is more than matched by that of Donovan's family. "I know that the police are doing what they can, but it's still very frustrating," Rhinehardt said.

"After all this time, we still don't know what happened." The family had a psychic walk through Donovan's house, but no leads resulted, Rhinehardt said. Donovan's children have been plagued by "what ifs" ever since her death. Rhinehardt often re- 818 Market Street Wilmington, DE 19801 Call or Fax ihe Box Office 302-652-5577 OR 1-800-37-GRAND Fax 302-657-5692 24 Hour Ticket Service The Connection 1-800-333-3000 Thu progrom mode possible The Delaware Division of the Arts and if somehow they could have done something that would have prevented her death. The person who perhaps wonders most is Donovan's son, Charles Holden, 41, who was living next door to his mother at the time she was killed. He has since moved to Bridgeville.

Like his sisters, he said he can barely stand the sight of his mother's house. The night of June 22, Holden said, his usual routine was broken by a strange and unsettling encounter with the man who is now wanted for questioning in Donovan's death. This is his account of that Saturday night and the early hours of Sunday, June 23: On his way home from working the second shift, Holden "stopped at the Hardee's in Harrington like I always do and got a cup of 'coffee and a hamburger." He noticed a young man asking people for rides and agreed to take him part of the way to Milford. they rode in Holden's pickup Struck along Delaware 14, the hitchhiker said he was on his way to visit his sister at Milford Memorial Hospital, where she had just had a baby. Holden stopped after a few miles and told his passenger he would be turning down the side Sussex 384, and could take him no farther.

He pulled alongside the yellow block building that houses Blake's Garage and pointed to a phone booth, suggesting that the man call for a ride. "He acted normal until then," Holden said. "But then he argued with me and got crazy and violent. He picked up a long screwdriver and said he was going to kill me." Holden, who had gotten out of the truck with his passenger, fought him off and got back behind the wheel. He drove off frantically, his face bruised from the scuffle and his wrist burned where his take-out coffee had sloshed out of its foam cup.

Holden drove around for a short time in case the man was watching. He didn't want to lead him to his house, about a half-mile down Sussex 384. When he eventually pulled up to his home, Holden saw a shadowy figure on the lawn. He called troopers, who checked the house arid found nothing amiss. they went to my mother's house and saw glass on the step where the window had been broken," he said.

"They checked inside and found her in the beds' room. She died about 1 a.m. I about an hour before her body twas found, they say." Holden and his sisters think the man who argued so violently with him that night must have been responsible for their mother's death. But they are puzzled by his motive and how quickly the break-in and apparently frenzied stabbing seem to have occurred. They speculate that he forced his way in looking for a phone or transportation and went berserk.

"He had been so violent with Charles," Rhinehardt said. "I think he's just a crazy person and he likes to kill." 1 said the figure he saw outside the house might have been the hitchhiker, but he couldn't see clearly. "It must have been him," Holden said. "But I can't figure out how he got there so fast." police investigators have been puzzled, too. They admit that, at least initially, they questioned Holden's story.

first we wondered about it," said state police detective Sgt. Michael Warrington. "It seems awfully coincidental that this man who confronted Holden ends up at his mother's a half-mile away. But it seems that's what happened." -ITroopers questioned employees and customers at Hardee's and found that almost everyone had noticed the man with dark-framed glasses pestering people for a ride that night. With so many observers, detectives came up with what they believe is an accurate sketch of the man who left with Holden.

confident this is an person and possibly the perpetrator," Warrington said. "We're not calling him a suspect, but he's someone who was in the area, and we definitely would like to talk to him." When the sketch was first shown, detectives got dozens of calls and checked out more than 30 men who resembled it. None the man from Hardee's. now, the tips have dwindled, and Warrington and Detective Greg Nolt are frustrated. They call the case "lukewarm." been strange," Warrington "said.

"We really felt confident that we'd identify this person in short order. Harrington's that kind of community," where people know one another. detectives have had to concede that the man might have been just passing through. His story about a sister having a baby in the Milford hos- pital did not check out. "We feel confident that we've followed every lead down," Nolt said.

"And when something new comes in, we follow it down. We'd rea! like to solva this one." Investigators had out hope because some evidence is still being "Xj 1 A atters. Giving At Delaware Trust, we have given ourselves a special gift every holiday season for the past ten years. The gift of knowing that the stockings our employees stuffed with toys and surprises have helped brighten the holidays for needy children right here in Delaware. Once again this year, thanks to the coordinated efforts of the Salvation Army and the Wilmington and New Castle County Police Departments, we've been able to reach out to the less fortunate in our own communities.

We're proud to help our neighbors in any way we can, during the holidays and all year long. Not because it's good for business. But because it's good for Delaware, and everyone who lives here. That's what matters to us. I DELAWARE TRUST Where People Make the Difference' Mcmbt'i.