Christina Darnell, 18, female, White, shared a small Indianapolis apartment with her boyfriend, Eric Dawon Matthews, and cared for their toddler while trying to keep the fragile peace of a young family. By late summer 1994, friends and relatives sensed growing danger. Darnell had already sent her 2-year-old daughter to live with grandparents in Alabama after escalating abuse, but she herself stayed behind, phoning home daily to reassure her mother.
The calls stopped after an argument on August 29, 1994. When three silent days passed, her mother reported her missing. Police questioned Matthews; he admitted the fight but insisted Christina had taken cash and simply left. With no body, no crime scene, and only his story to work against, the case stalled.
Years bled by with little more than suspicion to animate the file. Matthews moved on—literally—leaving Indiana behind for Louisiana. In May 1998, after his wife was found bound and killed in Hammond, Louisiana, Matthews abducted her children and fled across state lines. He was arrested near Chicago within days, a man in flight from a new horror he could not outrun. Under pressure in custody, he began to talk. He confessed not only to the Louisiana crimes but also to two Indianapolis cases from 1994: the disappearance of co-worker Kenya Willis and the vanishing of his 18-year-old girlfriend, Christina Darnell. He said he had disposed of Christina's body in a trash bin but could not lead detectives to her remains. Her body has never been recovered.
Matthews was prosecuted in Louisiana, where physical evidence and his confessions secured a life sentence without the possibility of parole. As for Christina's case, his admission linked him decisively to her disappearance, yet absent a recovered body or corroborating forensic proof in Indianapolis, authorities did not bring a separate Indiana murder conviction tied specifically to her. Today, Matthews remains imprisoned for the Louisiana murders, while Christina's case endures in Indiana records as a disappearance believed to be a homicide—its final proof buried with the body the killer says he threw away.
