Who was Donna Doll, the college student murdered in 1970 with six pounds of potatoes in her body?

In 1970, Donna Chiarelott arrived at the Northern Illinois University library to pick up her friend, Donna Doll, from work. Doll never showed, and nine days later Doll’s body was found in a nearby cornfield. She had been suffocated, and in a bizarre twist, she’d eaten as much as six pounds of potatoes before her death.

Doll not showing up to meet Chiarelott was the first sign something was wrong. Doll was a 21-year-old NIU senior when she died, and studied Russian with hopes of becoming a teacher. She was seen leaving her job at the school’s library, but she never returned home that night, the Chicago Tribune reported. She didn’t show up for work the next day, either, and she missed her younger sister’s 10th birthday, too, which was out of character.

What happened to Donna Doll?

After no one heard from her for two days, Doll was reported missing. Her personal belongings, including an uncashed paycheck and allergy medications she needed, were found in her room. Investigators discovered she was seeing a man in Pittsburgh, and in the days before cell phones, assumed she’d gone to see him. But once contacted, he, too, said he hadn’t seen her. Meanwhile, another man with whom she was romantically involved, Charles Burke, helped search for her in the NIU area.

Doll disappeared on October 2 that year, and on the 11th, teenagers found her body only about a mile from the NIU campus, with no signs of struggle at the scene. Authorities determined she had lived for about 48 hours after she was last seen, and while she had been suffocated — by a bag, possibly — no fibers were found in her lungs, as often happens in such cases. There were also “mystery substances” in her body, never identified with 1970s technology. And then there were the potatoes, one of the strangest and unexplained aspects of the case.

Donna Doll potato theories

Theories explaining the potatoes include a crime of jealousy linked to both potato vodka, and Doll’s Russian studies. Some think she had met the man in Pittsburgh on a Russian exchange, and recently cut things off with Charles Burke. Others say she could have had solanine poisoning, a substance found in potatoes that’s toxic and fatal to humans in large quantities, depending on body weight.

Doll had known allergies, but it’s unclear whether she was allergic to potatoes. Serious potato allergies can, however, result in anaphylaxis, causing shortness of breath. Anaphylaxis is sometimes fatal when untreated, according to Mayo Clinic. Doll’s cause of death was ruled suffocation, but could it have been death by potato poisoning, instead? We may never know.

Burke identified Doll’s partially decomposed body. He lived near where Doll was found, was said to be possessive, and she had broken up with him recently for the man in Pennsylvania. Burke, who cooperated with the authorities, attempted suicide when police declared they had a person of interest in the case, but the police never said who that person was. There was never enough evidence to charge Burke, however, and Doll’s murder remains unsolved to this day.