Donna Sue Davis
22 months of age
715 Isabella Street
Sioux City, IA
July 10, 1955
On July 10, 1955, at approximately 9:30 p.m., Mary Davis put her 22-month-old daughter, Donna Sue, to bed in her crib after giving her a bath. Shortly thereafter, a white male partially removed the storm screen from the bedroom window, entered the residence and abducted Donna Sue from her crib. About that same time, several witnesses in the neighborhood observed a man acting suspiciously who appeared to be carrying something in his arms, and alerted local police.
The next afternoon, a local farmer found Donna Sue's diaper, plastic pants and pajamas in a rural ditch alongside a gravel road on the outskirts of South Sioux City, Nebraska. Her body was found a short time later near the road in the first two rows of a cornfield, three-quarters of a mile from where the clothing had been found and about eight miles from the Davis home. Donna Sue had been raped, sodomized, badly beaten, had a severe skull fracture, a lower-left fractured jaw, and had numerous burns on her body likely caused from cigarettes or a lighter.
Though Sioux City Police questioned hundreds of individuals and had numerous suspects, no one ever was formally charged with the crime.