Seventeen-year-old Donna Healey made her living as a sex worker in Harehills, Leeds, England. Though she was quite close with her family, she had evidently fallen in with the wrong crowd.
The day before her eighteenth birthday in March of 1988, Donna spent some time with her mother and stepfather, but after she left them that day, she was never seen alive again. Because of her lifestyle, however, she was not immediately reported missing.
Donna’s whereabouts were unknown for years. Then, in 1991, a builder discovered a partially nude and mummified body on the grounds of the former Falloden Nursing Home in Allerton Park. The body had not been there the day before.
It wasn’t until 2004 that the remains were identified as belonging to Donna Healey. A post-mortem revealed that the young woman’s body had been kept in a dry, airtight container, probably a freezer, for an extended period of time before it was dumped. Authorities speculated that whoever had killed Donna had had some change in circumstances—perhaps moving from their residence, or having someone else moving in with them—that necessitated them getting rid of the body they’d kept for so long.
Police also suspected that whoever the killer was, he probably had some connection to the nursing home where the remains were found, perhaps as an employee or someone who lived close by.
In 2019, detectives floated the idea that Donna Healey may have fallen victim to child killer John Taylor, who aside from a series of sexual assaults was also convicted of murdering sixteen-year-old Leanne Tiernan in 2000. Like Donna, Leanne’s body had been kept in a freezer for nine months before the killer dumped it after the freezer broke.
As of this writing in September 2024, the slaying of Donna Healey is still an open investigation.
Crime Immemorial 