Suspect In Sherrill Hoax May Have Called After Announcement

THORNTOWN, Ind. -- A woman accused of lying about possibly being a person who disappeared from Indiana in 1986 may have left a phone message for a town marshal shortly after a warrant for her arrest was announced, police said Thursday.

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Police said Wednesday Donna L. Walker, 35, of Kansas, falsely claimed to believe she might be Shannon Sherrill, who vanished at the age of 6 while she was playing outside her mother's Thorntown home.

Police say Walker (pictured, left) may have last called authorities on Wednesday, about an hour after officials held a press conference to announce that she was wanted on charges of identity deception and false informing, RTV6's Julie Pursley reported.

Police say someone left a message for Thorntown's marshal, telling him that "Donna" called.

Walker sometimes had been using a name of Donna Lewis during her conversations with authorities, according to police. Lewis was a character invented to bolster Walker's claims that she might be Shannon Sherrill (pictured, below left), police said.

Police said Walker first contacted Shannon Sherrill's parents, who live apart in Indiana, on Saturday. Walker claimed she was a Virginia resident named Beth Harris, and that she believed she may be their missing daughter, according to police.

Police said Walker would, at separate times, speak to police in three different voices, posing as three different people. Walker used two of the personalities -- including Donna Lewis -- to try to support the Beth Harris story, Indiana State Police 1st Sgt. Dave Bursten said.

According to a transcript of a probable cause hearing held Tuesday in Boone Superior Court, police believe Walker has done the same type of thing with other high-profile cases in Virginia, California, and Oregon. She would pose as one person, and then pretend to be other people to bolster her claim, according to the transcript.

In these cases, Walker acted "as though she's the abducted child, and then (played) the role of the abducted child's spouse, and then (played) a disinterested third party who is able to confirm a lot of what she is saying as the spouse and as the abducted child," Boone County Prosecutor Todd Meyer told Pursley.

According to the transcript, an investigator testified that Walker's three ficticious characters -- Beth Harris, Harris' husband, and Donna Lewis -- at various times called police or the Sherrill family from Walker's Topeka, Kan., apartment. Other calls were made with a phone card, which is difficult to trace.

The apartment has been searched, but Walker's whereabouts were unknown Thursday.

Walker has a criminal record, according to the probable-cause transcript. Authorities say Walker was charged in Virginia in connection with writing bad checks, a bomb threat, and false informing.