Walker appears in court to face criminal impersonation charges

LEBANON, Ind. -- A woman accused of impersonating an Indiana couple's long-missing daughter was formally charged Thursday with identity deception, hours after her extradition from Kansas.\nDonna Lynette Walker, 35, listened quietly as a judge read the charges that accuse her of pretending to be the grown child of a divorced couple whose 6-year-old daughter has been missing since 1986.\nBoone County Superior Court Judge Matthew Kincaid entered an innocent plea for Walker and set a tentative trial date for March 1.\nWalker, who lives in Topeka, Kan., politely answered questions from the judge about her age and finances and asked whether her trial could be sooner and her bond could be lowered. The judge replied that the March date was the earliest available but said the trial schedule and bond issue could be discussed at later hearings.\nAfter Walker said she was unable to pay for an attorney, the judge appointed attorney Michael Gross to represent Walker and scheduled a pretrial hearing for Dec. 10. Gross was not present for the hearing.\nWalker was charged with identity deception and attempted identity deception, both felonies, and false reporting, a misdemeanor. If convicted of all charges, she faces a maximum of seven years in prison.\nShe was being held on $50,000 cash bond Thursday at the Boone County Jail in Lebanon after being flown aboard an Indiana State Police plane earlier in the day from Kansas, where she had been jailed for nearly two months.\nBoone County Prosecutor Todd Meyer said he might consider a plea agreement to avoid the expense of a trial, provided the parents of Shannon Sherrill agree with the terms.\n"I want swift justice to be brought to this woman, and I want the Sherrill family to heal as quickly as possible," Meyer said.\nDorothy Sherrill, the missing girl's mother, said she did not look directly at Walker as the suspect entered the courtroom but glimpsed her out of the corner of her eye. "Other than that, I just didn't want to look at her."\nWalker is accused of posing as Shannon Marie Sherrill, who was 6 when she disappeared in 1986 from Thorntown, about 30 miles northwest of Indianapolis, while playing hide and seek with neighborhood children.\nNo trace of her has ever been found.\nAuthorities said Walker called the girl's parents and police investigators in July and used different names and voices as she tried to convince them she was the missing girl, who would be 23 if she is still alive.\nWhen asked how it felt to be in the courtroom with Walker, the girl's father, William Michael Sherrill, said, "It was an eerie feeling."\nWalker's Topeka attorney, Billy Rork, said Thursday that he planned to continue challenging Walker's extradition in Indiana and Kansas courts.\nThe Kansas Supreme Court on Wednesday denied a bail request from Walker, who had been held at the Shawnee County Jail since July 31. That followed a judge's decision on Tuesday that Walker's extradition to Indiana could proceed.\nRork said he had filed a second appeal with the state Supreme Court and was considering filing a federal lawsuit.\nHe maintains that Walker did not intentionally try to deceive the missing girl's parents or police. He contends Walker is mentally ill and thought there was a possibility she could be Shannon Sherrill.