Mom of three allegedly murdered by man who lured her to West Virginia with job offer

A Virginia mother of three was allegedly lured to her death by a man she was romantically involved with, who dangled a job offer that convinced her to uproot her life and move more than 100 miles to West Virginia.Angel Whitaker, 37, left her Bristol, Va., home in January 2026 for a new job in Bluefield, W.Va., after former work associate Donald Pennington, 59, allegedly offered her an assistant manager position at an O’Reilly Auto Parts in Bluefield, according to a criminal complaint obtained by WVNSTV.Whitaker, who allegedly met Pennington at a Bristol auto shop in 2018 and began a relationship with him shortly after, moved in with him after relocating to West Virginia.However, by April, her family had lost all contact with her, and on May 4, her sister Angela reported her missing.Investigators said the relationship had grown strained after Whitaker moved in with Pennington, and in the weeks before her disappearance, her sister told police Whitaker had moved into a Princeton hotel to distance herself from the situation.Whitaker was last seen on April 17, 2026, when she allegedly showed up to work intoxicated — Pennington told police he drove her home, but when he returned from work later that day, she was gone.More than a week after Whitaker was reported missing, Pennington’s ex-girlfriend met with investigators on May 12 and told them, “You’re not going to find her, he murdered her.”She also told investigators the two had been constantly arguing in the weeks before Whitaker vanished.Investigators said Pennington had previously called his ex-girlfriend and told her he left work on April 17 to break up an argument between Whitaker and a family member, and that Whitaker had made threatening claims against him, according to WVNSTV.He allegedly met his ex-girlfriend at a mall that same day and told her Whitaker had threatened to kill him — and that’s when he “snapped,” the complaint states.The ex-girlfriend told investigators Pennington picked Whit...