Prisoner faces murder charge in 1978 slaying of Las Vegas teen
Updated October 4, 2019 - 5:47 pm

John Doane (Nevada Department of Corrections)

The headstone of Carol Lyn Lum, a 14-year-old girl who was killed in 1978, and her mother, Mona Darnell, is seen at Palm Eastern Cemetery in Las Vegas on Friday, Oct. 4, 2019. (Chitose Suzuki / Las Vegas Review-Journal) @chitosephoto

The headstone of Carol Lyn Lum, a 14-year-old girl who was killed in 1978, and her mother, Mona Darnell, is seen at Palm Eastern Cemetery in Las Vegas on Friday, Oct. 4, 2019. (Chitose Suzuki / Las Vegas Review-Journal) @chitosephoto

An undated photo of Carol Lyn Lum originally published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal in November 1978. Carol was found dead on Nov. 26, 1978, in a desert area of Las Vegas. The case remained unsolved until late September 2019, when John Eugene Doane was identified as a suspect in the killing. (Las Vegas Review-Journal file)

John Eugene Doane is pictured during an arraignment at Las Vegas Justice Court in 1979. Doane was identified in September 2019 as a suspect in the unrelated 1978 killing of Carol Lyn Lum. (Las Vegas Review-Journal file)
Recent DNA testing has identified a Nevada prisoner dubbed the “screwdriver rapist” in the late 1970s as the suspect in a 14-year-old girl’s killing more than 40 years ago in Las Vegas.
The recent case against John Eugene Doane, 64, was opened on Sept. 24 in Las Vegas Justice Court, and a warrant for his arrest was issued the next day, according to court records.
He faces one count of open murder in the strangulation of Carol Lyn Lum, whose body was found on the morning of Nov. 26, 1978, by two dirt bike riders in a desert area on Vegas Valley Drive, days after she had been reported missing.
Metropolitan Police Department homicide Lt. Ray Spencer confirmed Friday that a DNA sample saved from the 1978 investigation led investigators to Doane, a Northern Nevada Correctional Center inmate serving 10 consecutive life sentences in an unrelated case involving the rape and botched killing of another girl. A carpenter originally from Wyoming, he has been in prison since he was 23.
Spencer did not have further information Friday.
According to Las Vegas Review-Journal reports at the time, Carol, a Basic High School student, had last been seen on a Friday evening, two days before her body was discovered, leaving her family’s east Las Vegas home on Tamalpias Avenue to go to a house party in Henderson.
Her mother, Mona Darnell, reported her missing the next day, and by Sunday morning, Carol’s body had been found fully clothed in the desert. She died of strangulation and asphyxiation, according to the Clark County coroner’s office, which ruled her death a homicide.
Metro homicide detectives at the time said they believed Carol may have been hitchhiking on Boulder Highway after the party, and that she had been dead about 24 hours by the time her body was found.
Review-Journal clippings show that three days after the discovery, with no solid leads in the case, police told reporters they “may question the entire Basic High School student body.”
Newspaper articles from that time indicate the case soon went cold.
Carol and her mother, who died in January 2007, are buried together at the Palm Eastern Cemetery in southeast Las Vegas, about 6 miles from their home. Their grave marker, engraved with two roses, reads: “Of Tender Heart and Generous Spirit.”
Three months after Carol’s death, on Feb. 20, 1979, another 14-year-old Basic High School student encountered Doane while waiting for the school bus. She testified during Doane’s preliminary hearing that he had offered her a ride, but when she got inside his car, he put a screwdriver to her stomach and said, “You do as I say or I’ll kill you.”
Doane drove to a desert area in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, where, according to his written confession, he raped her, struck her in the head with a large rock and tried “prying open her face” with a screwdriver.
She was left for dead in the patch of remote desert but was found wandering shortly thereafter near Boulder Beach by a National Park Service maintenance crew. One of the crew members drove her to St. Rose Dominican Hospital, de Lima campus, in Henderson.
The girl, who underwent at least two facial reconstruction surgeries, memorized her attacker’s license plate number, which Metro traced back to Doane. He was convicted in late 1979 of sexual assault, attempted murder and kidnapping in that case.
Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.