Forty-seven years ago a young nurse from Montana was viciously murdered 160 miles northeast of Twin Falls. To date, no one has been held accountable for the horrific crime, and it remains one of Idaho's oldest active cold cases.

On July 9, 1973, the badly decomposed body of a 20-year-old nurse from Bozeman, Montana, was found by a passerby in some brush near the Snake River, in the city of Idaho Falls. Her name was Donna Lemon, and her story was recently shared on the Idaho Cold Cases Facebook page.

No one has been able to explain why she ended up in Idaho Falls. Its been reported that on July 5, 1973, she failed to meet a friend for a planned horseback ride in the community of Big Sky. Just days later, her green Mustang was found abandoned near the present day city's public library. Details of the case were also recently shared in a February, 2020, true crime podcast.

Its been said (but not verified) that partial DNA was found at the murder site on Milligan Road, very close to the Snake River. This type of testing of human remains wasn't introduced until a few years after the murder of Lemon. It makes me wonder that if there were DNA traces not consistent with the victim's, when was the last time someone attempted to find a match.

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Google Maps; Milligan Road, Idaho Falls
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Lemon was 5'7", and weighed just 110 pounds at the time of her death. So, she might have been easy prey for her murderer. There is a very good chance this pathetic individual is still alive, and is possibly in his or her early to middle sixties.

If you have any information on the July, 1973 stabbing murder of Donna Lemon, near Milligan Road in Idaho Falls, please call the tip line at (844) TIP-4040.

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