EVERETT — Donna Mills smiles above her sisters.
She wasn’t there to sit shoulder to shoulder with them but they didn’t forget her.
Donna belongs with her sisters.
The years can’t change that. The violence that ended her life can’t either.
She’s the baby sister. The one who lit up a room with a smile. The one who could sweet talk her sisters into doing her chores.
Donna’s three sisters recently sat for a portrait, a gift to their parents for the couple’s 50th wedding anniversary in June. The sisters imposed a photograph of Donna above them. The picture is more than two decades old.
“It’ll be 28 years in October. That’s a long time but it seems like yesterday,” Mattie Mills said of her daughter’s death. “I miss her every day. I love my daughter.”
Donna, 16, was strangled and left nude in a wooded area in south Everett. The killer never was caught.
The slain teen is featured on the Jack of Diamonds on the state’s first deck of cold-case playing cards. Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives provided thousands of decks of the cards to jail and prison inmates in hopes someone will step forward with information to help them solve homicides and missing persons cases.
Donna’s picture on the card is the same one in the family portrait.
Rick Bart, former Snohomish County sheriff, was a homicide detective when Donna’s body was found Oct. 16, 1980, near her home in the Mukilteo area.
He hasn’t forgotten the girl either.
Investigators were told Donna left to recover a jacket at the Hidden Forest Apartments on 49th Avenue W. She later was seen walking toward home.
“The case went completely cold. Every one had an alibi,” Bart said. “Either people were lying or it was a total stranger.”
Donna’s mother, Mattie Mills, 66, would like answers. After all these years, she still tries to piece together what happened.
The Concrete woman said she doubts the killer will ever be caught.
She and her husband, Grady, who died in June, turned their grief over to God, she said.
“God knows who done it. They have to face the Master one way or the other,” Mills said. “If it’s not solved on earth, it will be.”
Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@heraldnet.com.
About this series
Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives created the state’s first deck of cold-case playing cards. Each Sunday for a year, The Herald is publishing a story about a case featured on one of the cards. The 52 cards can be viewed at www.heraldnet.com.
Anyone with information about unsolved homicides or missing persons cases is asked to call 800-222-TIPS (8477). Up to a $1,000 reward is offered.
Tips also can be left on the sheriff’s tip line at 425-388-3845. Callers may remain anonymous, although tips have been more successful when callers speak with detectives, police said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
