Morgan Hill Police confirmed they found a dead body inside a
grey Honda Accord this afternoon. The car closely matched the
description of the vehicle driven by a Gilroy woman who has been
missing since Monday.
Morgan Hill Police confirmed they found a dead body inside a grey Honda Accord this afternoon. The car closely matched the description of the vehicle driven by a Gilroy woman who has been missing since Monday.
“It’s very preliminary in the investigation,” Cmdr. David Swing said at the scene. Police said the death appeared to be from a gunshot wound. They would not say whether or not they believed it was a suicide or confirm the sex of the person found in the car. Nor would they say whether or not the license plate matched that of the car driven by Donna House, the 44-year-old mother and businesswoman who left her home at 5 a.m. Monday headed for the San Jose Airport.
A employee at the Vanity Hair Salon reported the vehicle to police, saying that the car had been parked in a lot at a strip mall at 15145 Monterey St. for “a couple days.” The call came in about 2:50 p.m., according to Swing. The mall is at the southwest corner of Monterey Street and John Wilson Way.
Colleen Parish, a stylist at Vanity Hair Salon, said the body was that of a woman. Parish saw the woman lying down in the driver’s seat as she walked by the car while rolling the shop’s recycling bin to the curb about 2:45 p.m. She ran back into the hair salon, but was too rattled to call police and asked a co-worker to call 911.
“I had never seen a dead body,” Parish said. “My stomach kind of just knew something was wrong and I thought I should immediately call 911.”
Parish only glanced at the woman for “about half a second” before she knew she was dead, but didn’t process many details of the scene. She said she didn’t notice any blood or any of the woman’s facial features or hair color.
The woman was lying down on her back in the fully reclined seat, Parish said. She didn’t immediately see a bullet hole in the car’s rear driver’s-side door, but noticed it later as police arrived.
Parish and other employees at the strip mall had seen the car in the lot since Monday, but Parish didn’t get close enough to see inside until she brought the recycling out.
Police covered the vehicle’s license plate and blocked passing motorists’ view of the car with movable black screens Wednesday afternoon. The car was parked slightly outside the lines in a marked spot.
The Santa Clara County Coroner was en route to the scene about 4:30 p.m.
On Monday, Donna House shared a quick cigarette and cup of coffee with her husband, Jim, told him she loved him and set off for the airport. She said she would call when she got to the airport, but she never did – making her husband suspicious.
Jim House went to bed Monday night in their Devon Place home but started awake about 11 p.m. “with a real weird feeling,” he said. He drove up to the San Jose Airport and scoured the parking lot his wife usually parks in but found no sign of her car.
Airport records show that Donna House’s car – a grey 2008 Honda Accord with license plate no. 6EWZ345 – never entered the airport and that she never boarded the plane. Her bank and credit cards also show no activity since before she set off. She was supposed to fly to San Diego for a business trip, then return Tuesday night.
Donna House had never gone missing before, said Marilyn House, the missing woman’s mother-in-law. Donna House takes nearly two dozen pills a day to prevent seizures and keep her blood pressure low, but her medication never caused disorientation in the past and she had no vision problems, Marilyn House said.
“I feel like somebody had to have grabbed her,” Marilyn House said.
Donna House is white with brown hair and hazel eyes. She stands 5-feet-tall and weighs 125 pounds.
On Tuesday, police tried to track Donna House’s cell phone by pinging the global positioning device in the phone, said Amanda Wilborn, a relative by marriage. Most modern smart phones with GPS can respond to this emergency request even if they are off, provided they still have battery life. However, Donna House’s phone – which had been charged prior to her departure – did not respond. Marilyn House called her daughter-in-law several times Tuesday but her phone went immediately to voice mail.
In addition, a family friend has access to a helicopter and has been scouring Monterey Road and U.S. 101, but has not found Donna House’s vehicle, Wilborn said. The family also hung fliers with a photo of the missing woman around south Gilroy.
“I can’t imagine what would have happened,” Marilyn House said, adding that her son has been driving around aimlessly searching for his wife.
“I just want her back,” Jim House said Wednesday afternoon. “The unknown kills you. I just can’t sit still.”
Donna House – a regional remodeling specialist for Target – flies regularly for business, Marilyn House said. She is the mother of a grown daughter and a preteen, Wilborn said. She and her husband were high school sweethearts, have been happily married for 25 years and recently welcomed their second grandchild into the world. The couple also owns a coffee shop, Caffe Florian, in Los Gatos.
“She’s the absolute rock of our family,” Marilyn House said. “She’s a wonderful mother and wife.”
Even after spending four days in bed with the flu, Donna House hosted a “wonderful” Thanksgiving dinner at her home, Marilyn House said.
“You can’t stop her at all,” she said. “We call her the Energizer Bunny.”
Wilborn said Donna House did not have a history with mental illness. She also did not have any enemies or business disputes, Wilborn said.
Parties with information may call the Gilroy Police Department at 846-0350.
