Who's Afraid of LaDonna Humphrey
harassment and intimidation allegations against true crime author LaDonna Humphrey

Key Dates

Before the Allegations

1. 1993

   LaDonna Humphrey, then 19, is hired as an assistant at Pastor Jon Allen's Arkansas church. The Allen family later accuses her of payroll irregularities, which she denies; no charges are filed.

2. Dec 1994 – Jan 1995

   19-year-old Melissa Witt disappears from an Arkansas bowling alley and is found dead weeks later, a cold case Humphrey would later become publicly involved in.

3. 2005

   Humphrey co-founds the missing-persons nonprofit Let's Bring Them Home.

4. 2007

   Per journalist James Renner's reporting and accounts from the family of missing New Hampshire woman Maura Murray, Humphrey's nonprofit offers a reward in the Murray case; the family and other advocates later raise concerns about how tips sent to the nonprofit's tip line were handled.

5. May–June 2007

   According to Margo Elston, LaDonna's sister, LaDonna told family and friends she had given birth to a baby girl who died weeks later, around the same time as their grandfather's death. Margo and their mother say no record of the birth or death exists in Arkansas and that LaDonna was never pregnant.

A Pattern Emerges (2010–2018)

1. 2010

   Kym Pasqualini, founder of the Nation's Missing Children Organization, says Humphrey proposed a merger with her own nonprofit and claimed to have secured a $1 million grant; the merger fell through, and Pasqualini says her email and LinkedIn accounts were later hacked from an Arkansas IP address.

2. 2010

   Alecia Lockhart says that while working as a young production assistant in Portland, Oregon, she was paid to appear in a video for a director with an interest in "death fetish" content, and that more was filmed than she had agreed to. She would later work with Humphrey investigating the Witt case.

3. June 2015

   Pastor Jon Allen's house in Winslow, Arkansas, burns down.

4. 2016

   May 2016: Allen is arrested and charged with felony arson. Investigators allege he set the fire, according to a probable cause affidavit reported by the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Humphrey, a former employee of his church, was among the people investigators interviewed. The charge is later dropped. PRETEND has found no evidence Humphrey was involved in the fire.

5. 2017–2018

   Humphrey is hired, and later leaves, a pediatric therapy clinic owned by Anthony Christopher. Spoofed and anonymous messages targeting Christopher and his associates begin; he sues her. A state audit of the clinic separately finds about $41,000 in payments needs to be refunded to Medicaid, though no fraud is substantiated.

The 2019 Reckoning

1. March 2019

   Patty Rush, founder of the victims'-advocacy group REVAMP, tells police that Humphrey showed her a police document from the Witt case that was never made public and sent her raw crime-scene video. Around the same time, Rush says she begins receiving threatening texts signed "Muffin Man."

2. April 2019

   In the civil case brought by Anthony Christopher, a digital forensic examiner called by Christopher's attorney testifies that, in his opinion, the spoofed messages are linked to Humphrey's accounts. Humphrey denies sending them.

3. April 29, 2019

   A Benton County Sheriff's detective investigating Humphrey's report that her phone was stolen from her vehicle finds no evidence she made a false report, after correcting a time-zone error in phone records Christopher had provided. Christopher's forensic expert later testifies that Humphrey's old SIM card was inserted into a new phone the day after the reported theft — testimony that preceded the court's own finding, in the August 14 order below, that the phone was not stolen.

4. August 14, 2019

   The court finds Humphrey in contempt, strikes her answer, and dismisses her counterclaim as a sanction for destroying evidence. Because her defense was struck, liability is never tried on the merits.

5. September 23, 2019

   After a damages hearing, the court enters a $3,570,977.88 judgment (half compensatory, half punitive) and permanent injunctions, finding she sent anonymous emails and messages about Christopher and his business knowing they were false.

6. October 2, 2019

   At a sanctions hearing, the court orders 10 days in jail, two days for each of five findings: that she falsely claimed her phone was stolen, destroyed evidence, sent spoof emails, falsely claimed her accounts were hacked, and falsely claimed her Apple account was deleted.

Recent Years (2020–Present)

1. 2020s

   Humphrey continues cold-case work on the Melissa Witt murder, including a 2022 book and a 2023 documentary, while separately operating Oasis of Northwest Arkansas, a sober-living facility former residents later publicly accuse of a pattern of threats.

2. November 2022

   Alecia Lockhart says an anonymous "Fetish Master" account begins threatening her, and that a screenshot Humphrey sent her shows Humphrey logged in under that name, which Humphrey acknowledges but attributes to the forum altering her account. Humphrey has denied being behind the account; the harassment stops the day Lockhart confronts her about it, according to Lockhart. See below for more detail.

3. December 2023

   Humphrey's nonprofit, All the Lost Girls, offers a $29,000 reward in the Witt case, in partnership with her Who Killed Missy Witt investigative team.

4. June 2024

   PRETEND's "Who's Afraid of LaDonna Humphrey" series launches. Humphrey's attorney sends PRETEND cease-and-desist and trademark-infringement letters.

5. July 29, 2025

   The Eighth Circuit rules that Humphrey's challenge to the bankruptcy sale of her appellate rights to Christopher, for $12,500, is moot because no stay was in place. The sale stands, meaning Absolute — not Humphrey — now holds the right to pursue her state-court appeal of the underlying judgment, which has been stayed since 2020 pending the bankruptcy dispute.