A few weeks later, on Christmas Day, when the Rubios called from their home in Missouri to wish the Morrows a happy holiday, Joe told them Donna had stormed out of the house after an argument around 10:00 p.m. on December 19, taking her keys and purse, and that he hadn’t seen her since.

In an interview with Menlo Park police, Joe Morrow maintained that Donna had voluntarily left him and their four children to start a new life. But Donna’s family and friends are convinced she fell victim to foul play at the hands of her husband, who they say had a violent temper and was, they suspect, physically abusive of his wife. And, they say, Donna would have never left her children with a man she planned to leave in a few weeks.

The Morrow’s eight-year-old daughter told detectives that at 9:30 p.m. on December 19th, 1991, she awoke to her parents screaming at each other, and, after that, she heard one set of footsteps going out the front door. She couldn’t tell if it was her mother, leaving as Joe Morrow claimed, or her father, but later that night she looked into her parent’s room and saw Joe sleeping in the bed alone.

A police search of the Morrow residence turned up a suspicious blood splatter on the side of a plastic bucket in the garage, blood that didn’t match Joe Morrow or any of the children. But without a sample of Donna’s blood to compare it to, it could not be conclusively proven as hers. Three weeks later, Joe Morrow was discovered in a motel room, unconscious from an overdose of barbiturates and surrounded by numerous suicide notes, none of which was addressed to his missing wife. He recovered from the suicide attempt and continued to deny any involvement in Donna’s disappearance.

Two years later, Donna’s family, on behalf of her children, sued Joe Morrow in civil court for wrongful death. About the same time Morrow pled guilty to an unrelated fraud charge. He was scheduled to surrender on June 24th, but never showed up. After Joe’s disappearance his estate settled the wrongful death suit for $2 million, and guardianship of his children was given to Joe’s brother and sister-in-law. Finally, in 1997, an arrest warrant citing probable cause was issued for Joseph Morrow for the murder of his wife.

UPDATE: In January of 2003, ten years after Joe Morrow fled the United States, he was arrested in the Philippines.  Morrow was brought back and jailed on an unrelated fraud charge.  In September, police searched property the Morrows once owned and found Donna Morrow’s remains.  Joseph Morrow was indicted for murder with special circumstances and will stand trial sometime next year.  He could face the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

MISSING 37-year-old wife and mother Donna Morrow disappeared on December 19, 1991 and is presumed dead.