2017 EDA Investigation Part 7: FRPD questions EDA employee Marla Jones

FRONT ROYAL – On May 18, 2017, McDonald the Front Royal Police Department received a call about a break-in at the Front Royal-Warren County EDA office located at 400-D Kendrick Lane. Responding officers found photographs of McDonald with the face scratched out on the board meeting room table, and another photo of McDonald’s face with a knife stuck through the forehead in the seat she normally occupied during board meetings, as well as some defaced family photos, also on the meeting room table.

According to the Front Royal Police Department investigative file, obtained through a Royal Examiner Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, McDonald also told police that May 18th morning, that a week earlier, on May 11, 2017, she arrived at work to find a knife lying in her desk chair. There was no signed of forced entry, nor was a call made to police.

Police said there was no sign of forced entry, nothing was reported missing at the time, and the case remains unsolved.

Despite the fact that McDonald reported to officers nothing was missing from her office, she later told police when they invited her in for a sit-down, recorded interview with Investigators Landin Waller and Crystal Cline that several files were missing from the office, specifically the ITFederal folder, the Regional Justice Academy folder and the Workforce Housing folder.

Using information gleaned from the interview with McDonald, the FRPD investigative team invited Marla Jones, who served as the marketing professional for the entity, in for a police interview.

Some noteworthy information from her interview:

• Jones told Investigators Waller and Cline that McDonald had shown this reporter photos from the vandalized office, though McDonald told Waller and Cline, that she had not shown me the photographs.

• Jones refuted McDonald’s claim that this reporter had not been shown the photographs of the that police found at the scene on May 18, 2017. Jones told police that McDonald stated that “Norma Jean went, ‘Oh, yeah’…. every person that has seen that picture has responded in revulsion and horror but Norma Just shrugged it off. I think that’s weird….no surprise, according to Jen.”

• McDonald told investigators that she checked for missing files after learning from local businessman John Costello that files were missing, but Jones told police that McDonald had a dream that files were missing, sat up in bed and checked the next morning, to find that files were missing.