Donovan left her home in Galivants Ferry, South Carolina on November 14, 2002, to do some Christmas shopping in Conway, South Carolina. She was last seen in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Conway. The security cameras in the lot show that she was kidnapped during a carjacking at 2:45 p.m. Her husband reported her missing to the next morning.

Two suspects were arrested a few days after Donovan's abduction. Chadwick E. Fulks and Branden L. Basham had escaped from Hopkins County Jail in Madisonville, Kentucky on November 4 and gone on a multi-state crime spree, including numerous robberies, car thefts, and at least one burglary. They were captured separately: Basham was arrested on November 17 after a shootout with police, and Fulks was arrested along with his brother and a female companion in Goshen, Indiana on November 20.

Donovan's dark blue 1994 BMW 318i sedan was found in Goshen when Fulks was arrested. It was established that at 4:00 p.m. on the day Donovan was kidnapped, Fulks stopped at an Amoco gasoline station in Shallotte, North Carolina to put fuel in Donovan's car which he was driving, with Basham as a passenger. Fulks is believed to have then driven fifteen miles up Highway 17 before turning around and driving back to North Carolina, where he arrived by 6:00 p.m. that evening. Donovan's automatic teller machine (ATM) card was used in the North Carolina towns of Little River and Raleigh on the 14th and 15th of November. Her credit cards were also used in South Carolina. Donovan made a phone call to one of her daughters after her abduction. She said she was okay, but she was apparently under stress and unable to speak freely. That was the last time anyone heard from her.

Basham admitted to investigators his and Fulks's involvement in Donovan's disappearance. He says they kidnapped her together and Fulks raped, stabbed and strangled her. He refuses to say where they disposed of her body. Basham and Fulks were charged with carjacking resulting in death and kidnapping resulting in death in Donovan's case; they were both convicted and sentenced to death.

Basham and Fulks were charged with a myriad of other crimes, including murder in the disappearance of Samantha Nicole Burns, a 19-year-old college student who vanished on November 11, 2002 from Huntington, West Virginia. Basham pleaded guilty to the murder in July 2005. Both men are currently on death row in North Carolina. Burns and Donovan's families filed wrongful death lawsuits against them and against the Hopkins County Jail. The suit against the jail was settled for an undisclosed amount in August 2008.

Donovan was employed as a quality control supervisor at Precision Southeast Inc.'s Marion, South Carolina plant at the time of her disappearance. She and her husband were putting the finishing touches on a new home they had built themselves. She is described as a family-oriented person and her loved ones say it would not be like her to leave without warning. Basham and Fulks are awaiting trial for killing her. Foul play is suspected in her case due to the circumstances involved.