Police: Claim In Missing-Person Case Was Hoax

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THORNTOWN, Ind. -- Police are looking to arrest a woman on accusations she falsely claimed that she might have been an Indiana girl who disappeared in 1986, authorities announced Wednesday afternoon.

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An arrest warrant has been issued for Donna L. Walker (pictured, left), 35, whose last known address was in Topeka, Kan., police said at a news conference. Walker, starting on Saturday, falsely told the family of Shannon Marie Sherrill and police over the phone that she may be the missing person, Indiana State Police 1st Sgt. Dave Bursten said.

Shannon Sherrill (pictured, right) was 6 when she vanished while playing outside her mother's home in Thorntown.

Police believe Walker also was responsible for making calls to the news media to publicize the possible break, Bursten said. Investigators believe Walker's calls to Shannon Sherrill's family and police were made from the Midwest or West.

Bursten said that when Walker first contacted Shannon Sherrill's mother, Dorothy Sherrill, she said she was a woman named Beth Harris, and that she believed she may have been the girl who disappeared from Indiana nearly 17 years ago. The woman also talked to Shannon Sherrill's father, Mike Sherrill, and made the same claim.

The woman purporting to be Beth Harris said she was a Virginia Beach, Va., resident, and police contacted her to try to verify the claims. Bursten said Walker would, at various times, speak to police in three different voices, using three different names. All the names were determined to be fictitious or belong to people who had no connection to the case, and Walker used two of the personalities to try to support the Beth Harris story, Bursten said.

"The only connection to Virginia Beach was that this person identified as Donna Walker used to live there," Indiana State Police Lt. Jeff Heck said.

Walker's motive for making the claim is unknown, Bursten said. He said Walker may have educated herself about the Shannon Sherrill case through previously published reports.

"The only good that can come out of this is to stir someone's conscience that knows true, valid information about the disappearance of Shannon Marie Sherrill," Bursten said.

Mike Sherrill (pictured, left), who attended Wednesday's news conference with other members of Shannon's family, was able to say only a few things before breaking down in tears. Authorities had told him about Walker shortly before the press conference began.

"I wasn't expecting this at all," Mike Sherrill said. "When they called me with the information that we were going to have a news conference, I thought they were going to bring Shannon in here."

Walker is wanted on charges of identity deception, a class D felony, and false informing, a class A misdemeanor, authorities said.