Ashley Nicole Summers

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Cleveland Police Department (OH)

Missing From:

Cleveland, Ohio

Summary:

Ashley Summers was 14 years old when she was last seen in Cleveland, Ohio, in July 2007. She had a fight with her great-uncle on July 9, 2007 which resulted in him breaking her cell phone. She was last seen leaving a pool party at another great-uncle's house after saying she was going to walk to her aunt's house, but she never arrived. Law enforcement believe Ashley left on her own and she is classified as a runaway, but she hasn't been seen or heard from since 2007.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

Ashley Nicole Summers was born June 16, 1993 and grew up in the midst of a large extended family in Cleveland, Ohio. Ashley was last seen on July 9, 2007 after leaving a pool party at her uncle's house in Cleveland, Ohio near the 2100 Block of W 96th Street. She and her great-uncle, Kevin Donathan, got into an argument that day and he broke her cellular phone. She said she was going to walk to her aunt's home, less than ten minutes away, but never arrived. She had taken all of her clothes when she'd left. Her disappearance was noticed two days later as each of her family members thought she was staying with someone else.

Additional Details:

According to Ashley's family, she started rebelling shortly before her fourteenth birthday. Her mother sent her to live with her grandmother in the summer of 2007, and Ashley started spending a lot of time at Donathan's home with her cousins and other relatives. One day, Ashley came home with a tattoo of her boyfriend's name on her arm. When her mother found out, an intense argument ensued and she ultimately decided to move in with her great uncle Kevin. One month after Ashley's disappearance, her mother received a call at her work from a blocked number. Her mother couldn't identify the caller as Ashley, but said it sounded like her. In November of 2007, Ashley's step-grandmother believes she witnessed Ashley from her car, but she disappeared before she could turn her car around and speak to her. The FBI joined the investigation in 2008 when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) alerted the FBI Cleveland Field Office about Ashley's case. At the time, there was another missing girl from the west side of Cleveland—Gina DeJesus, one of three women who were held hostage by Ariel Castro. Ashley and Gina were similar in age and from the same part of Cleveland. Initially, there was speculation that Ashley may have also been one of Castro's victims. However, no evidence supported this, and Ashley's case became an independent investigation. Donathan, the great-uncle Ashley argued with on the day of her disappearance, was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2020 after pleading guilty to numerous counts of rape, attempted rape, and gross sexual imposition against multiple minors, crimes which happened over a 25-year period. He hasn't been named as a suspect in his grand-niece's case, although in 2019 the police did search his home in relation to her disappearance. In January 2015, the FBI said Ashley's step grandmother, Linda Summers, found a surveillance photo online of a woman who bears a striking resemblance to what Ashley might look like nearly a decade later. The FBI announced that the woman in the Warwick, Rhode Island, photos is not Ashley Summers. The FBI and local law enforcement worked collaboratively to identify these individuals. These individuals were determined to not be Ashley Summers. Ashley Summers was reported missing on July 11, 2007, and her case is being investigated as a separate matter from the Ariel Castro kidnapping case. The FBI still considers the investigation active.

Case Last Updated:

Nov 03, 2026