Saturday Night Live writer Jimmy Fowlie’s sister, Christina Lynn Downer, claimed she was being threatened by her boyfriend’s ex 18 months before her disappearance.
And in a twist, her boyfriend filed multiple requests for domestic violence restraining orders in July and September 2025 against the same ex – and named Downer in court documents – just three months before her TV writer brother first asked for the public’s help in locating his missing sister.
Court documents obtained by Us Weekly confirmed that Downer asked Los Angeles Superior Court for a temporary civil harassment restraining order in September 2024. In the filing, Downer accused her boyfriend’s ex of harassing the couple from Christmas Day 2023 to March 2024 and then again from July 2024 through September 2024.
(There is no suggestion that the 2024 or 2025 restraining order requests have any connection to Downer’s disappearance.)
Among a litany of harassment accusations, she said the ex “threatened to beat me up, stole my spare key and copied it. Threatens to break into my home. Stole his zip drive and has been blackmailing me with the videos on the zip drive. Actually sent a topless video of me in my home to people I don’t know while attacking my reputation. Put AirTags on [my] boyfriend’s car. Calls from blocked numbers. Threatens to keep releasing personal videos from this stolen zip drive.”
Downer argued that the alleged harassment “has done irreparable damage” from a mental health standpoint because it was “nonstop on a daily basis.”
“[There are] endless messages to me, my boyfriend or others attacking my character,” she wrote in her TRO petition.
She asked the court to compel the ex to return the zip drive “to its rightful owner and delete any videos depicting me, blackmailing me and acting on it by sending personal videos of me to strangers.”
Downer also asked for protection for her orange tabby cat Pumpkin since the ex was allegedly in possession of the animal at the time.
“This is my cat with my boyfriend,” she clarified. “I found this cat and we decided during our first split that the cat would stay with him because I was traveling. He moved in with her and moved out a month ago, and she won’t give the cat back. I fear for his safety.”
The case was ultimately dismissed in October 2024 when Downer failed to attend a court hearing. Court documents had also not been served to the ex-girlfriend.
In other documents, Downer’s boyfriend filed for domestic violence restraining orders against the same ex-girlfriend – just three months before Fowlie went public that his sister was missing – with the boyfriend claiming his ex threatened to shoot him, slashed his tire and had been writing harassing emails. Downer was listed as someone who heard or witnessed what happened.
He claimed in June 2025 that his ex “mentioned that if I returned to her property uninvited that she would shoot me in the head” and that she owned a BB gun.
“We were on and off in [a] relationship and every time I wanted to move on then she would get aggressive,” he wrote.
“She was upset that I wanted to finally take [the] last of my belongings from her place because I was no longer living there and moved on with my life with Christina.”
The alleged ex-girlfriend was “mad that I was with Christina and moved out. So she was pissed that I was getting my motorcycle,” he wrote.
“Anytime I left her in the past but returned. Now I left for good,” he wrote.
In 2022, he also claimed this ex “hit me in the head with a water bottle when she was mad that I packed up and moved to another residence. She followed the truck and got the location.”
He alleged the same year she “keyed up my brand new car when I was gone to Vegas. Because she was upset that I was with Christina.”
In the 2025 docs he referred to Downer, then 37 years old, as his significant other, they lived together and someone he wanted protected under the TRO.
“She writes us harassing emails all the time. And harassing job sites to get Christina not hired,” he wrote.
“[She] has tried to take jobs away from Christina because she didn’t want her working for a similar company with me. Emails harassing her and social media messages threatening to send private videos around of her naked.”
Both TRO requests were dismissed in August and September 2025 (just two months before her brother last heard from her) because the boyfriend did not show up to court and his ex had not been served, according to docs filed.
When reached for comment, Christina’s boyfriend, who Us Weekly has chosen not to identify, told Us: “I didn’t want to file those restraining orders at all against my [ex],” he said. “She (Christina) made me do it because she said that if I ever left her again then this (restraining order) would keep me away from my [ex].”
He told Us about Christina’s disappearance, “I’m just as worried about her disappearance, just as much as everyone else. I don’t have anything else to say about her, just that I miss her wherever she may be.”
Us has also reached out to the ex-girlfriend, who Us has also decided not to identify, and we have not heard back regarding a request for comment.
Fowlie — who famously wrote SNL’s viral “Domingo” sketch — initially asked for the public’s help in finding Downer when she went missing in December 2025.
“My sister has been missing and we are worried that she isn’t safe,” he wrote via Instagram at the time. “Her married name is Downer but she may go by Christina Fowlie. Please share this so that if anyone has seen her, they can give any information to the police.”
SNL cast members Sarah Sherman and Chloe Fineman, Amy Schumer, Ariana Madix, Scheana Shay and Casey Wilson all offered Fowlie support in the wake of his sister’s disappearance.
On Christmas Eve 2025, Fowlie amplified the missing persons case once again by confirming he last spoke to Downer nearly one month earlier.
“Christina is very attached to her dog Rex. He’s a min pin and if you see her chances are he’d be with her,” he explained. “Last seen in Koreatown. I heard from her on Nov 26th. She was active on social media up to Dec 15th.”
Fowlie subsequently made the sad announcement on Wednesday, April 29, that his sister was “no longer alive.”
“The LAPD has informed our family that Christina is no longer alive, and the case has officially transitioned from a missing person to a homicide investigation,” Fowlie wrote via Instagram. “Our prayers for her to be found safely have transformed into prayers for the truth to be revealed and for those responsible to be held accountable.”
He went on, “We have reason to believe that in the weeks before she went missing, her phone and social media were compromised. The individual(s) in possession of her phone used it to hide the fact she was gone, to ask for money and to create a false narrative that she was going ‘off the grid.’”
“I am sharing this because I believe that whoever is responsible is hoping to erase her in every way possible,” Fowlie continued. “I want to amplify her story in the only way I know how. And to express that she was a beautiful person who matters in this world, especially to me.”
However, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson subsequently told Us on Thursday, April 30, that Downer’s case has not been classified as a homicide.
“Robbery-Homicide Division continues to investigate the disappearance of Christina Downer,” the LAPD said in a statement. “Although the circumstances of her disappearance are suspicious, Ms. Downer has not been located, and her case has not been reclassified as a homicide. RHD will diligently investigate this case until a resolution can be reached.”
