Family members joined the State Patrol and the Mille Lacs County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday to announce a $10,000 reward in hopes the money will lead to the discovery of the driver who hit and killed a longtime family doctor one month ago.
The hit-and-run crash occurred about 4:50 p.m. Nov. 13 on northbound Hwy. 169 about halfway between Vineland and Onamia near the southern shore of Lake Mille Lacs, while Cathy Ann Donovan, 56, and her dogs were out for a walk.
Donovan died at the scene. One of her dogs did not survive the crash; the other was not hurt, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Donovan was a doctor for the past 27 years in Onamia with Mille Lacs Health System, where she served as vice chief of staff for the health system and as medical director of its clinics.
“Mom was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Donovan’s 23-year-old son, Shan Donovan, said during a news conference in St. Paul announcing the reward.
“I started out my life [at] a little bit of a disadvantage,” he said, explaining that he was born in China with one arm, abandoned as a 1-year-old, and placed in an orphanage with thousands of other kids.
“And then along came my mom,” he said. “She adopted me. She showed me what it was like to be loved, accepted and what a family was.”
On the day he learned of his mother’s death, Shan Donovan revealed, he quit his his job as a Fargo emergency medical technician and gave up his dream of working in health care beside his mother. He said the grief was more than he could bear.
“I’m struggling a lot right now,” he said at the one-month mark of his mother’s death.
In late November, the patrol released on social media a fuzzy image of the vehicle it has been looking for and described it as darker in color, either blue or metallic gray, with full-width taillights.
The patrol’s chief, Col. Matt Langer, followed Donovan’s son to the podium and said, “Someone out there knows something. … If it was you who was driving, and you were involved, the right thing to do is get this off your chest and come forward.”
Langer also directed his plea to anyone with an inkling of the driver responsible for Donovan’s death.
“So, if doing the right thing doesn’t motivate you, and money motivates you on top of it,” Langer continued, “thanks to the generosity of the family and others, there’s a $10,000 reward available if it puts us on the path to finding out who is responsible.”
The patrol said its contact on the case is Sgt. Jason Brown, who can be reached at (218) 316-3026 or [email protected].