Seeking closure for family

A few years ago the family of Stacy Belcher finally learned who killed their 18- year-old daughter 22 years earlier. And they learned of a little girl who had disappeared in northern California before that.

When DNA connected Wayne Harvey Smith to Belcher's killing, he was already serving a sentence of life without parole in the death of another young woman. In the Belcher case, Smith would have been eligible for the death penalty if he was convicted.

But Belcher's mother, Mary Blystone of Rowland Heights, couldn't stand the thought of another family not knowing what became of their daughter. She knew what that was like because her daughter was missing for three days before her body was found.

"We worked with the district attorney to drop it to life if he would give up Donna," she said. "He (Smith) kept saying, 'No' and we said, 'OK, the death penalty hangs.'"

Finally, in December, Smith, 61, confessed to strangling 7-year-old Donna the day she disappeared in 1980 and leaving her body at the Weaverville Landfill. On Jan. 13 he pled guilty to murdering Belcher and received an additional sentence of life without parole.

Blystone said the plea does give the family some closure, and she hopes Donna's family has some closure as well.