Volusia Sheriff's Office unravels mystery of missing Ormond Beach girl believed murdered

Editor’s note: The Daytona Beach News-Journal was neither invited to, nor informed of, this press briefing. Multiple attempts to reach the sheriff’s media department were made to obtain information about when and where it would take place. None of the messages were returned. WESH-TV, channel 2, streamed the press conference on its Facebook page. A feed of the press conference was posted roughly three hours later on the sheriff’s office Facebook page.

A grant of immunity to a witness helped the Volusia Sheriff's Office find what investigators believed to be the remains of a 16-year-old Mainland High School girl who disappeared in 2004 and was buried beneath a modular home and driveway in Ormond Beach.

Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood said Tuesday during a briefing that 99.9% of the remains believed to belong to Autumn Lane McClure were recovered this week from a grave off Hand Avenue in Ormond Beach. The sheriff's office is awaiting confirmation from the Medical Examiner's Office.

Here is an account of the case from Chitwood:

The suspect in her murder, Brian Christopher Donley, died in 2022. He was 49.

Before reaching the girl's grave, detectives had to work with crews to move the modular home and tear through a concrete driveway.

Autumn was 16 and living in Ormond Beach when she disappeared May 10, 2004, investigators said.

Autumn’s grandmother called the sheriff’s office to report her missing. The sheriff’s office contacted Autumn's boyfriend who told investigators that he had dropped her off at the Volusia Mall and had not seen her since then.

Autumn's grandmother told detectives sometime afterward that Autumn called her from a 321 area code and that she had received some letters from Autumn postmarked from Melbourne.

In 2004, detectives get information that Autumn was staying with a Brian Donley and a Jessica Freeman in a trailer at 1320 Hand Ave., Lot 32, in Ormond Beach. Donley and Freeman told detectives that Autumn didn’t get along with her grandmother and they had been letting her stay at the trailer for a couple of days but did not know anything else.

Chitwood said Autumn had never run away before. The case then went cold. But detectives kept working the case, obtaining DNA from family members and entering her in a national database of missing children.

In 2016, detectives contacted her boyfriend again. He then admitted that he lied in 2004 and that he did not drop her off at the mall but instead took her to the Seabreeze Bridge where she got in a car with Freeman.

Detectives tracked down Freeman, who was in Nevada, and she claimed not to know anything about McClure's disappearance.

In 2021, detectives got a call from a Chris Miller who is related through marriage and/or friendship to Donley and Freeman.

Miller told detectives that a missing teenage girl was dead and buried in Volusia County. Miller said Donley and Freeman had something to do with it.

Detectives had Miller call Freeman who basically said she saw Donley kill Autumn.

“And then he told a myriad of stories that he chopped her up, he set her on fire, he buried her off Flomich Avenue, he just tells her a whole bunch of different things,” Chitwood said about Donley.

Donley died May 26, 2022, almost 18 years to the day that detectives believe Autumn was killed, Chitwood said.

In the meantime, Freeman had moved back to Florida. Chitwood said he believed she was living in the Crescent City area. Freeman refused to talk to investigators until she was granted immunity, which detectives requested and obtained from the State Attorney’s Office.

A break in the case

Once she had immunity, Freeman told detectives that she worked with Autumn at a Winn-Dixie and she and Donley allowed her to stay with them at the trailer.

“They were involved in a sexual relationship with Autumn,” Chitwood said. “Now keep in mind Brian was 31 at the time. Autumn was 16.”

Freeman told detectives she saw Donley attack Autumn.

"She also goes on to tell us that she came home one afternoon and saw Brian choking Autumn in the bathroom,” Chitwood said. “By the time she intervened, she saw that Autumn was lifeless.”

Freeman said that she left the trailer and when she returned two weeks later she noticed new plywood on the bedroom floor. She asked Donley what happened to Autumn and her belongings.

“And his response to her is shut up or the same thing will happen to you. She's dead. If you don't want that to happen to you, shut up and mind your business,” Chitwood said.

Freeman said that Donley visited the lot where he once lived in late 2021 or early 2022 and was relieved to see a new manufactured home and a driveway being built there.

At the time, Freeman did not tell detectives the exact location.

But in late 2023, Freeman went ahead and told detectives Autumn was buried beneath the trailer. Detectives then obtained search warrants but had to work with the homeowner who had just put in a new modular home and driveway.

This week, investigators worked with crews to move the modular home and tear up the concrete. Investigators were able to recover what is believed to be Autumn’s remains.

The sheriff's office also got help in the case from Dr. Lerah Sutton at the University of Florida's Maples Center for Forensic Medicine. Sutton's team used ground-penetrating radar to help pinpoint areas to search.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Detectives unravel mystery of Ormond Beach girl believed murdered