Donna Michele Barnhill was 13 when she left her family’s home in Lexington, North Carolina, about 8:30 p.m. on March 18, 1981 to walk to a nearby friend’s house. She was last seen on Hemstead Street wearing an orange sweatshirt, jeans and a dark blue jacket. Donna is biracial, of Caucasian and Native American descent, with brown hair and brown eyes and a distinctive birthmark on her right arm. She called her friend shortly after leaving but never arrived and has not been heard from since.

Investigators later reviewed a prior family tragedy: Donna’s two-year-old sister Anita Carol Barnhill died in 1966. Initially ruled an accidental fall from a high chair, Anita’s death was reclassified in 1999 as a homicide due to child abuse, though no charges were filed. Searches of Donna’s former residence using ground-penetrating radar in 2009 found nothing. Foul play is considered possible in Donna’s disappearance.

The CUE Center for Missing Persons has helped keep the case active; in April 2025 it posted a billboard on Highway 64 in Lexington offering a $5,000 reward and coordinated flyer drops with law enforcement and family. Does anyone who lived near Hemstead Street in March 1981 remember seeing Donna or anything unusual that evening?