DonTessa Van Hart, 23 and a mother of two, was working as a pizza delivery driver on the night of January 27, 1994, when she did not return from a delivery to a remote address in Chincoteague, Virginia. Her vehicle was later found behind a vacant summer home; inside, in the backseat, her partially clothed body was discovered. She had been sexually assaulted and shot twice in the head.

The investigation produced few leads and the case went cold for more than two years. In June 1996 an inmate in the Accomack County Jail, Brian Lee Cherrix, came forward with information. After initial inconsistencies and further questioning, he confessed, led authorities to a .22-caliber rifle he had discarded in a creek, and was arrested and charged with DonTessa’s murder. He was convicted of capital murder, forcible sodomy, and related firearm charges and sentenced to death.

The community was left grappling with how a routine delivery became a violent killing and why the case remained unsolved for so long before the inmate’s tip. If anyone knew DonTessa, lived on Chincoteague then, or has information about that night, please share what is known.