Bethesda man sought cab ride to Trail day he went missing

Yellow Cab of Shenandoah owner Tony Elar has confirmed that John Patrick Donohoe walked into his company’s Front Royal cab stand on December 13 to get a ride to a connecting point of the Appalachian Trail off Route 522 in southern Warren County.

Above, the Yellow Cab of Shenandoah office at the intersection of South Royal Avenue and South Street in Front Royal – Photo/Roger Bianchini; below, missing person photo of John Patrick Donohoe.

Elar says the driver told him he was not dressed appropriately for the colder, approaching winter conditions that day, but that Donohoe insisted he wanted to take a hike into the trail.  Elar estimated Donohoe walked into Yellow Cab’s South Royal Avenue office in early afternoon, not much after noon.

Donohoe’s parents reported him missing on December 14, two days after his release from Suburban Hospital and one day after he left their home in his black 2011 Chevrolet Equinox the morning of Dec. 13.  Due to HIPPA regulations, no information has been released on the nature of Donohoe’s hospitalization.

However, at the time they reported their son missing, Donohoe’s parents told authorities they were “concerned about his mental wellness” and had been unable to contact him after he left their home in his vehicle around 10:30 a.m. Dec. 13.

That car was discovered on Fourth Street in Front Royal, behind the town post office on March 3, according to Front Royal Police.  The car was parked on the south (post office) side of the street, facing east toward Commerce Avenue.

On March 3, Donohoe’s 2011 Black Chevrolet Equinox was found parked on this block of 4th Street in Front Royal behind the U.S. Post Office; below, online photo of a gray 2011 Chevy Equinox. Photos/Roger Bianchini

FRPD Sgt. Crystal Cline said the vehicle was locked with no apparent damage to its interior or exterior.  She added that the vehicle appeared “neat and tidy with no personal belongings inside.”  Neither was any written message that might be interpreted as a farewell or suicide note discovered, Cline said.

Donohoe’s father is prominent D.C. Metro area developer Bob Donohoe, the chairman and CEO of The Donohoe Companies.  Bethesda media reported that the elder Donohoe’s development company completed construction on the Gallery Bethesda apartment building in 2014, and is currently developing a second apartment building adjacent to the initial project.

Royal Examiner was alerted to Donohoe’s December 13 cab ride by a “Comment” posted to our initial (April 5, 2:28 p.m.) story on the identity of the person whose remains were discovered by the hiker.  Local Yellow Cab owner Elar posted, “We transported him in a Yellow Cab that day.  It was cold and our driver did caution him about going on the Trail in bad weather but he still wanted to go and hike on the trail.  He had no winter coat, hat or gloves but he did not listen to our driver, sadly!”

National Weather Service map for Dec. 13, 2016 – blue-arrowed line dipping into central portion of US map indicate an arctic front moving south; behind it temperatures were in the low 20s and teens; below the front, including the Northern Shenandoah Valley, temperatures ranged from upper 20s to mid 30s.

A search of the archives of the National Weather Service indicated relatively clear weather with temperatures from the mid-30s to upper-20s in the Northern Shenandoah Valley on December 13, 2016.  The involved dispatcher would not comment on her discussion with Donohoe, citing instructions from Warren County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Brad Pugh concerning the open nature of the investigation.

Contacted on April 8, Investigator Pugh verified that he could not release additional information on the cab ride at this time due to its importance to the investigation into Donohoe’s disappearance.  However, he did give us additional detail on the discovery of Donohoe’s body.  That discovery was made around 4 p.m., April 2, about three-quarters-of-a-mile up the southbound Appalachian Trail off Route 522, south of Front Royal.

Appalachian Trail southbound off Route 522 in Warren County – John Donohoe’s body was found about a half-mile further up on the left side of trail. Photo/Roger Bianchini

Pugh said hiking up the trail from the state road, the body was found in a heavily wooded area to the left of the trail. – “That’s all we’re saying right now,” Pugh responded when asked for additional detail on how long the body may have been there; distance from the trail; personal belongings or weapons that might also have been found.

While no official estimate on the length of time Donohoe’s body may have been there has yet been made, a hint may have been offered in the Warren County Sheriff Office’s April 5 press release on the State Coroner’s Office identification of “what appeared to be human remains.”

Credit card turns up

Montgomery County Police have verified that on December 29 a woman was charged on four counts of credit card fraud after being caught on security videos running up $700 in charges on John Donovan’s credit card in Prince George’s County on Dec. 22 and 23.  Chernor Sheriff, 25, turned herself in after security video of her making purchases with John Donohoe’s credit card was publicly released by law enforcement.

After initially telling authorities “a man standing outside Premium Beauty Supply in Hyattsville” gave her the card, Sheriff admitted her boyfriend Victor Sesay gave her Donohoe’s credit card.  She said she did not know how he got it and did not know John Patrick Donohoe.

Sesay is identified in Maryland court documents as a 37-year-old who shares the same Upper Marlboro address as Sheriff.  Sesay was questioned and never charged.  The charges against Sheriff were eventually dropped by Maryland prosecutors for a “lack of prosecutable evidence.”

(As previously attributed in our initial April 5 story on the identification of Donohoe’s body, much of the detail on his disappearance and the credit card fraud case was initially reported by “Bethesda Beat” on January 5. “Bethesda Beat” is a daily local news briefing of “Bethesda Magazine”.)