[susan53]

As bread Baker said, because the sentences are statements, not questions, they follow subject - verb phrase order - so : I don't know where she was and not the question form Where was she?

But in the second sentence What is itself the subject of the verb. So this time the order doesn't change whether it's a statement or a question :
I don't know what is happening.
What is happening?

If it's this which isn't clear, see the thread Inversion in questions