Friday, Nov. 13, 2009

Donovan laid to rest at last

Angie Warner Gilchrist won't forget that her mother, Alice Donovan, was raped and murdered and left in the woods seven years ago Saturday.

She won't forget that it took almost that long to find and identify her mother's remains.

She won't forget that she, her stepfather and sister were awash in panic when Donovan didn't show up at home or work after a day of shopping, or that they began a frantic search before law enforcement officials stepped in.

She won't forget sitting in court for weeks hearing testimony describing how the two men who murdered her mother snatched her from a Wal-Mart parking lot.

She won't forget the seven years of searching and the days of getting hopes raised and dashed at every report of recovered bones.

She won't forget. But tomorrow finally - finally - her family can begin the never-ending process of moving beyond a crime that has held them captive since 2002, a crime that stretched and broke family bonds and led to too much drinking, drugging and crying.

"To be able to have her funeral finally is comforting to me, but at the same time I am scared," Gilchrist said. "I am finally going to be able say goodbye to her after all these years and I am not sure how to take it all in."

She's not sure how to take it all in because one of the men, Chadrick Fulks, who took her mother away, was the one who gave her back. From his cell on federal death row, he responded in a letter to questions from The Sun News and provided a map and his best recollection of where Donovan's remains were. That led to more letters and details shared between Fulks and a professional search group, which finally led to Donovan.

"I am not sure if grateful is the word," Gilchrist said. "He should have done this seven years ago. My feelings on him are still very torn and confusing. I intend to make peace with him after my mother's funeral is over and I have absorbed all of that. I want to forgive him and be able to look at his face or hear his name and not want to vomit, but it is so hard. I don't want to feel that way, but I do."

But Saturday, on the seventh anniversary of her mother's kidnapping, at 3 p.m. at Hillcrest Cemetery in Conway, Gilchrist's focus won't be on Fulks or his co-conspirator. It will be on giving her mother a proper resting place.

"I want people to know that there is hope in finding your loved one who may be lost, missing or murdered," Gilchrist said