Search ends for possible Alice Donovan remains

The fourth search for human remains thought to be that of missing Galivants Ferry woman, Alice Donovan ended in Horry County Wednesday afternoon.

Searchers spent more than six hours searching with cadaver dogs and using shovels to dig in search of human skeletal remains on Watertower Road.

In the first search on Jan. 19, search crews from the CUE Center for Missing Persons found a human skull in a field off Watertower Road near Longs.

On Jan. 25, searchers found a human arm bone in the same section of woods.

CUE searchers went back out with cadaver dogs on Jan. 27 and uncovered more human bones, partially buried in the mud, according to FBI agent Jeff Bruning.

“I got down on my knees and started to dig in a spot where the dogs hit on earlier in the day and found more bones,” Bruning said Wednesday.

“We found too little unfortunately, but we think we’ve found enough for confirmation. The land is very torn up; both by time and by the logging that took place,” Bruning said.

The renewed search started after one of the men convicted of carjacking, kidnapping, and killing Donovan from the Conway Wal-Mart in November 2002, sent a letter to CUE founder, Monica Caison.

In the letter, Chadrick Fulks drew a map of the Watertower Road area and circled areas on the map where he remembered dumping Donovan’s body, along with colored pictures Fulks’ attorney took of the area.

Fulks and Brandon Basham are both serving life sentences on federal death row for Donovan’s murder after pleading guilty to the charges in 2004.

The pair of killers was given the death penalty for killing a West Virginia college student after the pair broke out of a Kentucky prison in 2002, and then went on a multi-state crime spree.

Bruning and the FBI took Fulks to the same area where skeletal remains were found before his trial in 2004 after Fulks told investigators he would lead them to Donovan’s body, according to Bruning.

After a full day of searching the area, Bruning said agents found nothing and Fulks was returned to the Florence County jail.

Fulks sent several maps out to local law enforcement agencies since his conviction, and brief searches were carries out, but Donovan’s body has remained missing since. 

The Horry County Police Department’s Crime Scene Unit delivered the skull, arm bone, and the bones found Tuesday to the state crime lab in Columbia for DNA testing.

The HCPD also took oral DNA swabs from Donovan’s daughters at the search scene Tuesday for comparison and possible DNA identification of the remains.