Woman Found Murdered Hours After Fake Police Officer Called Her Parents

Dana Vonde Chisholm grew up in a middle-class area of Rock Hill, South Carolina. Growing up, she was a cheerleader and sang in her school’s chorus. “She sounded just like Whitney Houston,” according to her father. However, Dana also struggled with drugs as a teenager and ran away from home once.

Her life began to turn around while studying business at King’s College in Charlotte, North Carolina. Dana eventually moved to Washington DC in hopes of a more exciting life. She had dreams of becoming a professional singer.

The 25-year-old worked as a secretary at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. Michael J. Horowitz, Dana’s boss, described her as “a bright young woman with such intelligence and a thousand-watt smile.” But Dana would sometimes show up late for work or fail to show up altogether. “At the same time, I had a sense that there was some troublesome aspect to her life,” Horowitz explained.

On February 27, 1995, Johnny and Jogary Chisholm were awakened by a phone call at 1 AM. The caller identified themselves as Lt. Lewis Douglass and informed them their daughter Dana had been arrested for prostitution.

“A man said: ‘Is this Mr. Chisholm? Is this Mrs. Chisholm? Your daughter is in jail. This is the Washington, D.C., police department. This is Lt. Lewis Douglass. Your daughter is one of the women we arrested tonight, and we locked her up.’ ”

Johnny told the Washington Post he thought the man’s tone was too “excited” and “edgy” for a police officer.

“He said: ‘She didn’t want me to call you at first, but I changed her mind. She was pretty upset, but I talked to her. We had a sting operation going at the Omni Hotel, and your daughter was one of the women we arrested for prostitution. She’ll be arraigned in the morning. She should be out sometime later tomorrow. Don’t worry. She’ll call you.’ ”

The Chisholm’s called the man back later that day, using a number he had left them. Officer Lewis Douglass answered, but he was not the same man they had spoken to earlier that morning.

Confused, Johnny told the officer he was having trouble reaching his daughter. He had called Dana’s work, but her boss rudely hung up after telling him she wasn’t there. Officer Douglass stopped by Dana’s apartment, but no one answered the door. He left his business cards on her door and car.

Cynthia Ford lived with her son on the 3800 block of Argyle Terrace in Crestwood. She was Dana’s landlord and lived upstairs from her. Seventeen hours after Dana’s parents received a call from an alleged police officer, Cynthia was contacted by the Hudson Institute. It was Monday, and Dana had not shown up for work.

One of her co-workers and close friends hadn’t been able to reach her since Friday. Dana told them she wasn’t feeling too well and was spending the weekend at home, but she didn’t answer any of their phone calls. Concerned, Dana’s office manager asked Cynthia to check on her.

It was 7 PM when Dana’s nude body was found in the hallway of her basement apartment. She was lying face-up with a cord wrapped around her neck. Dana had been strangled to death about 20 hours earlier.

The apartment had been ransacked, and there was a handwritten note on the door, “I’ll be back — MPD” (Metropolitan Police Department). Authorities believe it was from Dana’s killer, the same man who called himself “Lt. Lewis Douglass.”

Twenty-four hours after receiving a bizarre call about their daughter’s fake arrest, two police officers knocked on the Chisholms’ door. Their eldest of three children had been found dead.

Johnny last spoke to Dana on February 16. He called her work to thank her for the Valentine’s card and money she had sent. Dana told him she would visit within the following couple of weeks. There was something she wanted to tell them.

Around the same time, Dana’s co-worker found her crying at her desk. She revealed to them she was pregnant. An autopsy confirmed she had been four weeks pregnant at the time of her death.

The phone call from “Lt. Lewis Douglass” was traced to a payphone on Fourth Street and Massachusetts Avenue, a few blocks away from DC police headquarters.

Just weeks before she died, Dana had met with Officer Douglass to report the theft of her television. Authorities believe Douglass gave her his business card, which the killer must have found when they ransacked her home and decided to assume the officer’s identity.

Interestingly, the Chisholms never heard from Officer Douglass again. In 2011, the DC police department did not allow him to speak to a Washington Post reporter about the case.

Investigators, led by Sgt. Michael Farish, looked into Dana’s personal life. They interviewed several acquaintances and searched through her apartment, scouring her diaries and computer. On the evening her body was discovered, a television reporter found a key to Dana’s apartment down the road from her house.

During the investigation, Farish received a call from a man with a raspy voice.

“He said I knew why she was dead — because of her lifestyle.”

They wanted Farish to tell reporters about Dana’s lifestyle, which included hanging out at clubs, drinking alcohol, and having relationships with several men. Farish did not comply, and the unknown man called him three more times over the following couple of months until asking the officer to meet him in person.

“I waited for, like, three hours, and he never showed up.”

Authorities knew of Dana’s secret life. They had found a copy of Washington’s City Paper in her apartment in which personal ads from men were circled. Dana kept a record of all the men she had encounters with, including their phone numbers and workplace references.

As per the Washington Post, “Her dates ranged from 50-something married businessmen who lived in the outer suburbs to sports-car-driving club-hoppers to police officers.” Dana had reportedly been involved with two DC police officers.

But she was not just simply dating these men. Farish explained,

“She ran those 976-DATE-type ads. We talked to several of the men. She’d sleep with these guys then say things like, ‘My roommate moved out, and I could really use some help with the rent.’ It wasn’t blackmail, exactly, but the message was definitely that it might be in their best interests to pay her.”

Farish believes Dana was the victim of a spurned lover. In a 2011 interview, he stated the case was being re-examined. Farish told the reporter,

“If you write something, make sure to put in there that I’d still like to talk to the guy. Tell him I hope he gives me a call.

I’ve been waiting for him to call back for 16 years.”

It has now been 27 years, and Dana Chisholm’s murder remains unsolved.