West Virginia man charged with murder after missing woman found dead

A missing-person report on Angela Rose Whitaker turned into a homicide case after investigators recovered a body near Bastian, Virginia, and charged Mercer County man Donald Ray Pennington with second-degree murder and concealment of a deceased human body.

Detectives first received word on May 4 that Whitaker had not been seen or heard from since April 14. Investigators later pieced together a timeline that placed Whitaker in the Bluefield area after she allegedly moved there in January 2026 to live with Pennington. Court records said Whitaker and Pennington had met in 2018 at an auto shop in Bristol, Virginia, where Pennington was working, and that the relationship later deteriorated.

Whitaker’s sister told police that Whitaker had checked into a Princeton hotel from April 9 through April 13 to get away from Pennington. Investigators also confirmed that Pennington said the last verified sighting of Whitaker came on April 17, when she allegedly showed up to work intoxicated. Family members told investigators Whitaker had been struggling financially before the move, and that she had temporarily stayed at the Quality Inn in early April because she was afraid to return to the residence she shared with Pennington. Lootpress reported Whitaker allegedly sent messages in mid-April saying she needed to get away because staying would be bad.

The case escalated after an ex-girlfriend of Pennington told investigators on May 12 that they would not find Whitaker because Pennington had killed her. Court documents further allege Pennington confessed after an argument, saying he “snapped” and choked Whitaker until she stopped breathing. Investigators said Facebook messages, surveillance footage, cellphone data and witness statements helped connect Pennington to Whitaker’s death and to the disposal of her body in a wooded area near Bastian, about 18 miles from Bluefield. Bland County investigators recovered the body and took it for an autopsy.

The body was reportedly taken to Round Mountain Road, drawing in the Bland County Sheriff’s Office and turning the case into a cross-border investigation. Sgt. John Mabry said the alleged disposal and transportation of the body across state lines are class six felonies in Virginia, each punishable by one to five years in prison. Pennington remained jailed on a $500,000 bond and was being held at Southern Regional Jail in Raleigh County.

For Whitaker’s family, the missing-person filing in early May marked the start of the search, but the arrest changed the case’s center of gravity. What began as uncertainty over where Angela Rose Whitaker had gone had become a murder charge, and investigators were still working through whether Virginia prosecutors would add more.