Killer Hitchhiker: The Murder of Dorothy Donovan
A curious cold case was finally solved in 2005.
When Delaware factory worker Charles Holden finished an evening shift one night in June 1991, he just wanted to grab some fast food and get back home. But that simple stop-off would lead to a situation straight out of a horror film — and 14 years of suspicion that Charles brutally murdered his mother.
Stranger danger
It was around midnight in the town of Harrington, and Charles Holden had just picked up a burger and returned to his car in the parking lot when he was approached by a stranger looking for a ride.
The man said he needed to get to a hospital in nearby Georgetown because his sister was having a baby and had been admitted. Charles was hesitant, but didn’t want to simply leave the man alone in his predicament and so reluctantly agreed.
The man got in and Charles drove him around three miles to the junction between the highway and Killen Pond Road before telling him that was as far as he was going. However, to his horror, the hitchhiker began to attack him and grabbed Charles’s own screwdriver that had been lying inside the vehicle to assault him with.
Fearing for his life, Charles jumped out of his car and fled towards a store to get…
