September 29, 2025 • 47 mins
In February 1985, a little girl disappears just steps from home, leaving her mother with a lifetime of unanswered questions. For decades, whispers of a mysterious van, chilling letters, and long-buried secrets have fueled speculation. Now, nearly forty years later, new revelations could crack open the case once thought unsolvable. Could this be the moment the truth finally comes to light?
Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat.
Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!
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Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Decency's apply, high crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers,
and I'm brit and the story I have for you
today it begins at exactly four to ten pm in Cabot, Pennsylvania.
That's the time when eight year old Cherry Mayhan gets
dropped off by her school bus, come rain, snow or shine.
It is always there near the end of her family's
(01:49):
gravel driveway, and Friday February twenty second, nineteen eighty five
was no different. The big yellow box parked on the
side of the road right on schedule and opened it's
already endoor to deposit Cherry in her big back back
in the one place that a kid should be safest.
But something happened to Cherry after those bus doors closed,
(02:10):
and somewhere in the five hundred feet between the road
and her home, Cherry disappeared, and she hasn't been seen
in over forty years, But in the last few months,
our team has been in contact with a man in
prison who says he holds the answers, and he agreed
to meet with us to share what he knows. Only
(03:03):
one thing was different from the routine. Cherry Mayhon followed
on February twenty second, nineteen eighty five. That Friday was
the one day neither Cherry's mother or stepfather were there
to walk her from her bus down the long drive
to their front door. It was a nice day, forty degrees.
Her mom, Janis could see the road from their window.
(03:24):
She could hear the bus on the gravel as it
pulled up, like what could possibly happen in your own driveway?
So she told her husband Leroy, they could skip meeting
Cherry at the stop and every day for forty years.
I bet her stomach churns as she replays that decision.
I mean, it was so small, but it changed her
life forever. Janice hears the bus come and go, and
(03:49):
they wait, But when minutes go by and Cherry doesn't
walk through the door, Leroy heads out to the front
of the trailer to check on her. Now he doesn't
spot her out front, so he walks to the end
of the driveway, thinking maybe she's stopped there to chat
or play with a friend. But she's not there either,
and as he stares up and down the two lane
back road surrounded by woods on either side, the first
(04:12):
seed of the stomach pit that he'll come to live
with begins to grow. Now Leroy doesn't want to waste
any more time, so he gets Janis and they hop
in their car to literally chase this bus down because
maybe Cherry missed her stop, maybe she had never gotten
on the bus, like, please have one of these things
be what happened. But she didn't, the bus driver tells them.
(04:32):
Yet she was on this bus and she just got
off at her house not too long ago. They're not
talking themselves out of a panic now, Like Cherry is
the kid who lives by the rules, so this is
not like her. She wouldn't have just wandered off. And
she even had a sleepover plan for that night that
she was super excited about, like she would be here
if she could be. So they go right back to
(04:53):
their trailer to call nine one one officers get there
pretty quickly, like within ten twenty minutes, and they do
preliminary search of the area. Even though it's warm, there
is still some snow on the ground, so it's a
bit easier to see if there are any footprints or anything,
but they don't see any suspicious ones or any that
might suggest which way Cherry walked when she got off
(05:14):
the bus. They also aren't seeing any of her belongings either,
like her blue backpack that should stand out in the
winter woods, but they don't find that or any of
the clothes she was wearing, which was a denim skirt
and leg warmers with gray and beige boots. And by
the way, not even just in the preliminary search do
they not find these. From what Jana's told us, Police
end up searching the five mile radius around the home,
(05:35):
even using bloodhounds to try and track cherry scent, and
they also search the surrounding woods with helicopters. Local volunteers
join the searches as well, so it was a full
blown effort, but there were still no signs of Cherry.
Speaker 8 (05:49):
And have police already talked to all the kids on
the bus to see if they saw anything like when
she was getting dropped off.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
They don't do that immediately, and that's coming from Janice.
I would love to give you the play by police,
but Pennsylvania State Police weren't willing to talk to us
for this episode, and all of our records requests were
denied because they said it's an active investigation. But Janice's
impression was that they first thought Cherry was a runaway,
and then when they changed their minds about that, they
(06:17):
then zeroed right in on Leroy and Janis themselves, questioning
them for hours individually. And it wasn't totally unwarranted. I mean,
you have to start closest to the missing person parents
if it's a missing child, and Janis and Leroy definitely
had things to look at. Janis told our reporter that
both she and Leroy struggled with substance use disorder, and
(06:39):
Leroy has post traumatic stress disorder from the Vietnam War
along with other struggles with his mental health. And Leroy
was also part of a local motorcycle gang at the time.
So I don't know if they were thinking like the
couple did something, or maybe like just that they were
hanging around in bad crowds who might have done something
to their daughter. But to get to the bottom of it.
(07:00):
Police asked them both to take a polygraph, and they
agree and they both pass with no signs of deception. However,
according to Janice, they were still treated like suspects, though
I will say they didn't let the investigation stop there
because they start widening that circle. And the next closest
connection to Cherry is her biological dad, who Janis tells
(07:22):
us is also allegedly connected to a motorcycle gang. Oh
this is a different motorcycle gang though than leroy Ok.
But Jana says that he was like pretty high up
in this motorcycle gang and even though him doing something
to Cherry didn't really make a whole lot of sense
because truly he never even really wanted much to do
with his daughter, Like, they still got to check this out.
(07:43):
And interestingly, according to the Pittsburgh Press, when they do
go and check this, dude is super adamant that not
only did he have nothing to do with this, He's like,
I'm not even her father. Oh yeah, so I'm assuming
there are a lot of investigative steps that I'm not
privy to in order to get to this next part.
But in all police end up ruling him out because
there is nothing connecting him to her disappearance. Now, in
(08:06):
the early days of all of this, police don't name
any suspects, and Janie couldn't think of anyone she knew
who would have wanted to hurt her daughter. Cherry was
a sweet, bright, young girl. I mean, she was Janis's everything.
To kind of put it in perspective, she had her
at sixteen, so like they grew up together. They were
(08:27):
always with each other. I mean, the only times they
weren't was when Cherry was at school or when Janie
had to go to work early and she would drop
Cherry off before school with like a babysitter down the road.
But while she wasn't suspicious of anyone she knew, that
didn't mean that there wasn't someone to be suspicious of,
someone that Cherry was actually suspicious of shortly before she disappeared.
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(09:14):
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Speaker 3 (09:53):
Jannis tells police that they only lived in this home
for the last six months or so before getting this tree.
They actually lived in Janie's mom's house, which is like
twenty minutes away in a town called Saxonburg. She said,
at first, when they moved, like Cherry was super excited
to have her own room and bathroom, like I mean
the dream, the dream for a young girl. But after
(10:14):
a few months in her new room, something changed, Like
Cherry went from being excited to afraid because she told
her mom that she was afraid someone was watching her
from her bedroom window.
Speaker 8 (10:26):
Was someone watching her from her bedroom window?
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Well, Janie never saw anyone, and at the time, she
thought maybe it might have just been like new home jitters,
but it was enough for Janis to take her concerns seriously.
So she moved Cherry into a smaller room closer to
Janis and Leroy, and she bought her blackout curtains, Like
I mean, she did everything she could, but that didn't
change how scared Cherry was. Even in that small room,
(10:51):
she was sleeping on the floor, no pillows, no blankets,
almost like she was hiding. That's what I'm envisioning, right,
And it's heartbreaking because this was going on for a
couple of months and she was afraid like this up
until she disappeared. So it's at this point when police
are hearing this that they finally go talk to the
other kids on Cherry's bus. Maybe she told them more
(11:11):
than she told her mom. Now that ends up being
a nogo. None of the kids know about someone watching her,
but they are able to give police some other information
important like I bet you wish you'd talk to them
first information. One of the kids who was on the
bus tells police that there was this like blue green
van following behind the school bus the day Cherry disappeared.
(11:34):
Now I have come to learn that blue green vehicles
are like a dime a dozen in the mid eighties,
but this one was ultraspecific. This kid said that it
had a painting of a person skiing down a snowy
mountain side on the passenger side of the van.
Speaker 8 (11:51):
Uh. Yeah, you don't see paintings on the sides of
vans every day.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I've seen that. Never I heard. It's like a bit.
I was actually doing a little like chat GPT, like
googling with this, and apparently it was like a big
thing in the seventies and eighties. But like, I'm not
talking a small painting. After getting more witness confirmations of
this van, they actually have a picture drawn and they
include it in the missing person's flyers put out on Cherry.
(12:16):
But there is an interesting line in the description written
above it. So it says possible vehicles involved in abduction
blue girl. Yeah, blue or green van with mountain scene
on passenger side. Know that right, also a small blue
vehicle scene in the area.
Speaker 8 (12:33):
Scene in the area by who.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
So reporting only says that it came from a witness,
But I don't know who that witness was, though it
might have been a local woman named Debbie Burke, who
lives nearby. She was actually parked at the spot that
Cherry got off, like she was parked in her car
waiting for her own kids to come off the bus.
Speaker 8 (12:54):
Oh, I guess I was picturing Cherry getting off the
bus by herself, but there were like other people around
when she got off the bus.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Yeah, so Cherry's bus dropped off a group of kids
at one spot. Some of them would walk to their
homes nearby. Some parents waited around for them to be
dropped off and would pick them up. It was like
a bus stop situation, truly.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
So I don't know she's this witness who saw the
blue car in the area, but she says she did
see Cherry was maybe even the last to see Cheery.
Speaker 8 (13:21):
Wait, could it have been her car that people saw?
She's like parks there waiting.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
No.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
I checked on this, So reporting didn't say what color
her car was, but I do know for a fact
that the blue car was definitely separate from hers. Now
to go back to what she saw, so, Debbie told
police at the time that she was sitting in her
car waiting for the bus. She saw Cherry get off
like she did most days, and According to an NBC
News article, she said that the kids all played for
(13:45):
a little while and then Cherry walked past her car
in the direction of her home, and then Debbie drove
off with her kids.
Speaker 8 (13:52):
Did she see the mountain skiing vans?
Speaker 5 (13:55):
She did.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
She saw the same van the kids did, and she
even saw it trailing the bus beforehand in her mirror.
I guess she was like parked on the side and
waiting and could see like the bus pulling up. But like,
it wasn't weird to her that a van was behind
the bus. I mean, it's not like it was doing
anything other than driving down the road.
Speaker 8 (14:12):
Just like whatever car is behind the bus, that's.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
And when the bus stops, everyone has to stop, right,
So like she didn't think much about it.
Speaker 8 (14:18):
So it didn't like stop or do anything that made
her think it was like after suspicion, right, it stopped
with the bus, but then it just kept going down
the road.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
No again, stopped from the bus stop and that's it.
But it didn't like pull over or anything. She didn't
see Cherry interacting with It wasn't.
Speaker 8 (14:33):
Notable other than it was just like whatever car was
behind the bus that day.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
And to be fair. I mean, this van could theoretically
have pulled off into a driveway or something before Cherry
got off and waited until Debbie left. But Debbie doesn't
mention anything like this. She just says she didn't see
Cherry get into the van, And like, when Jani's hears this,
she's like, well, what I know is that Cherry would
never have gone off willingly with strangers or left someone
(15:00):
without permission. So her mom thinks if someone did take
her van or no van, it had to have either
been someone she knew or someone who took her by force.
Speaker 8 (15:10):
Do they know someone who drives a big van with
the painting arm.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
That someone was about to say next, they don't know
anyone who drives that kind of vane.
Speaker 8 (15:17):
So then we're looking for a stranger.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Which means that the circle around Cherry is now infinitely wise. Yeah,
and that's when local police bring in the help of
the FBI, and they start by looking into other disappearances
where a blue or green van was either involved or
seen nearby.
Speaker 8 (15:37):
Okay, but what about the blue car.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
You know, I'm not sure if they pursued the blue
car or not. For some reason, it just kind of
stops being reported on. It seems like their sites are
totally set on this unique van, and maybe that's because
they do actually find disappearances and incidents involving possibly similar vans,
but they're never the van, and there are never any
(15:59):
incidents that they and the definitively linking to Cherry.
Speaker 8 (16:02):
Okay, outside of the other abductions, though, did anyone recognize
just the van? I mean, it feels like a really
unique van.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Well.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Police said at the time that they were getting thousands
of tips that they had to soar through. But out
of all of that, there was one van that was
on police's radar. Apparently it belonged to a woman named
Donna Patterson. Her van was blue with a painting of
a skier going down a mountain on the side of it.
Speaker 8 (16:27):
Uh sounds familiar, right, and she.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Lived just five miles from where Cherry disappeared. Now, according
to the Pittsburgh Press, police looked into this van, but
on the day and time of Sherry's disappearance, it was
apparently parked at a local steel corporation where Donna's brother
in law worked. I guess he used the van that
day and he was there working. So when police confirm
(16:51):
his alibi, they just rule him out and Donna and
her van, but that didn't stop people from harassing Donna.
She said that she constantly saw people like taking down
her plate number, and she says she got pulled over
by police who thought that this was the vehicle connected
to Cherry's disappearance. But Donna said that she was not
going to stop driving the van or even paint over
(17:11):
it to stop the constant attention, which I think is
what I would have done.
Speaker 8 (17:15):
Yeah, immediately. So it's not Donna's van. That means police
think there are two of these vans with these paintings
on it, I mean in town.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Or there's another one out of town, or this van's
not connected at all.
Speaker 8 (17:29):
But there does have to be another one who is
driving that road that day, because it's not just like
Donna and her family are saying they weren't involved, like
police are saying their van wasn't on the move when
Cherry's bus stopped, like at the bus stop.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
I know, I even wondered, like could someone have access
to his keys while he's working, Like unless there is
video surveillance of this van park.
Speaker 8 (17:48):
The whole time, the van there the whole time.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah, and I'm not saying there isn't like I just
don't know. And this is where like these are one
of those things where I tend to spiral. I want
to like map out the drive to work, what shift
he was on, like talk to every person who worked
with them.
Speaker 8 (18:00):
Like how long it would have taken him to get
to where Cherry's bus stop was and back.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I'm like, yeah, who had access to your keys? I
don't know. Again, all police say this is not their van,
and also I go back to, maybe the van isn't
connected at all.
Speaker 8 (18:12):
But then why isn't someone coming forward saying like, hey,
it was just my I was just driving, like that's
my route to XYZ.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
I'm just I'm grasping here. I'm trying and listen. I
don't know if they just like take the alibi for it,
or if they even process the van forensically. I would
think so if they ruled it out, and especially I
think that because I do know that they process some
vans that were kind of similar looking at that time,
even if the van wasn't spot on. But I go
(18:39):
back to they never found the van, and they never
found Cherry, even despite some pretty big campaigns like when
her picture was featured on a rerun of NBC's Atom,
which was about six year old Adam Walsh's abduction. Cherry
was actually the first missing child to have her picture
printed on a postcard and sent around the country as
(18:59):
part of the have You Seen Me direct mail flyer program,
and she was one of the first missing children who's
missing person's poster was placed on a milk carton. That
was a program that started the year she disappeared. And
according to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Nickmick is putting Cherry's
information in different hotels in Canada and Mexico, even the UK,
So they're not ruling out that she was taken out
(19:21):
of the country because again, how infinitely why does this circle?
When you don't have much to go off of, you
can't rule anything out. But by nineteen ninety eight, Cherry's
case is ice cold, and that is when Janie has
Cherry legally declared deceased. She says she isn't moving on
or giving up looking, but I mean she had another child,
(19:43):
and she says she needed to come to terms with
the fact that Cherry likely wasn't alive, and over the
next thirty years she did her best to deal with that,
but in twenty eighteen, her entire world was upended when
she received a letter in the mail on a a
single sheet of wide ruled notebook paper. Someone had handwritten
(20:04):
in block letters all the answers that she had been
seeking for over thirty years, and it was signed pastor Justice. Now,
I can't read you the note in its entirety because
it has specific names that we don't want to share,
but we will put a redacted version of this letter
up on the blog post and on social media for
(20:24):
this episode if any of the listeners want to go
take a look. Basically, it says that Cherry was killed
by friends of her biological father, and these friends are
part of a Quaker cult who helped quote make Cherry
disappear for at least the guy Janis claims is Cherry's
biodad and like the motive for this was allegedly all
(20:46):
to evade him paying child support. Now, the anonymous writer
gives specific details on where Cherry's remains are in a
place called the Lock eight Damn, which is about twenty
five miles or four forty minutes away, give or take.
And interestingly, they ended the letter saying I pray you
find some peace after you find her body. Now, Jana's
(21:08):
told our reporter that she has no idea who these
friends are that is like referenced in this letter, and
she's not even familiar with the area that they're talking about.
Speaker 8 (21:17):
Well, and also, since when are Quaker is kidnapping and
murdering people lit kids? I mean, they aren't. They're known
to be pacifist, right.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
If you say so, I don't know enough, but like
here's what I'll say. It's like. And maybe because they
haven't gotten anything in so long, police at least kind
of seemed to take this letter seriously, right, It's something
when they've had a lot of nothing for decades, because
she shows them this letter and they actually do go
out and search this area, but unfortunately nothing comes of it.
So it is another dead.
Speaker 8 (21:48):
End, I mean, or an incredibly cruel prank, which honestly
probably that because there is no evidence that anything in
that letter is true.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
But I don't know if this letter unleash something or what.
But after this, in the same year, in twenty eighteen,
she gets this phone call at work. The person on
the other end of the line thinks that she might
be Janis's long lost daughter. Now, Jerry would have been
in her early forties at this point, and so as
(22:20):
you can imagine, like Janice, she has spent so much
of her life like deciding what she has to live with,
right Like, so she's immediately skeptical. She's like not convinced.
I have to imagine she like can't even let herself believe. Right.
It sounds like a nice moment that you want to
be excited for, but you also have to steal yourself.
Speaker 8 (22:36):
You can't get your hopes up at like, yeah, anything
or everything at this point.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah, because the fall back down if it is not them,
could be worse, Like you're undoing all the healing and
forward momentum that you've made over the years. And she
had a good level of skepticism because when police compare
this caller's fingerprints to Cherry's.
Speaker 8 (22:55):
Wait, how do they have Cherry's fingerprints?
Speaker 3 (22:58):
They have them on file because they actually take you
in her elementary school, so what like, yeah, super useful.
I don't know if they do that anymore, but like
probably should. But when they do this, they determine that
this woman isn't Cherry. And even though right like, even
though she was skeptical like Janis is still devastated because
you tell yourself not to get your hopes, but you.
Speaker 8 (23:16):
Still that little like spark, right, yeah, you still get
your whole you like you wish that it could be
true that she would finally be reunited with her daughter,
but this letdown is a reminder of the fact that
she may never know what happened after her daughter got
off the school bus that February day or who was responsible.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
But let this be a lesson. Even in the coldest
of cold cases, never say never, because in twenty twenty three,
nearly forty years after her daughter went missing, Leeds come
straight to Janice in the most unexpected place.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Aps can help teenagers connect, learn and create, but not
every app is right for every teen Parents should have
choice in which online services their teenagers can access. That's
why Instagram supports the initiative for an EU Digital Majority age,
requiring parental approval before teenagers can access online services, including
(24:14):
social media. Learn more at instagram dot com slash parental Approval.
This political ad was brought to you by Instagram.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
What I'm about to share with you has never been
reported on in this much detail before, and it names
a person who has never been connected publicly to this
case before. According to Janis, one day in the spring
of twenty twenty three, she went to her local VFW
to have a drink. It was a regular spot for her.
She knew most of the locals who came in there.
(24:45):
But on this night, when she's sitting at the bar,
she sees this man that she doesn't recognize and he's
just staring right at her. So finally she's like, hey, man,
what's the deal. And the guy just responds with her name,
but it's like a question, like he knows her, but
he wants to be sure, And it turns out he
does know her. She knows him. He's someone that she
(25:08):
grew up with, but she didn't recognize him at first
because she hadn't seen him since they were like little kids. Now,
our reporter actually spoke with this man and he asked
that we keep him anonymous because what he told us,
the bomb that he dropped on Janis that day, could
put him in danger. He said that he knows one
of Janie's neighbors, the one who lived across the street
(25:32):
from them at Janis's mom's house before they moved to
that trailer. The guy's name is John Montgomery. Now this
is a name that Janice knows well. Cherry often played
with other young kids over at their house, and after
Cherry disappeared, Janis says some of the family members would
even check in with her weekly for updates. But this
guy says that he knew John Well II, and he
(25:54):
knew that John and another man were molesting Cherry before
she went me and he believes that they might be
involved in her disappearance. And in that moment, Janis's world
is spinning because this is completely new information. I mean,
she didn't have so much as an inkling like anything
like that could have been happening to Cherry. She told
(26:17):
us that a lot of the hallmark signs of abuse,
like a sudden change in behavior or fear of being
in a room with like certain people like, she didn't
see that in her daughter. The only thing she ever
noticed was that fear that someone unknown was watching her
after she moved away from the house that was across
the street from montgomery house.
Speaker 8 (26:36):
Do you know how long it had been going on
before she moved or before she went missing?
Speaker 3 (26:41):
No, I have no idea how long the alleged abuse
was going on before she disappeared. Our source didn't have
like a timeline for.
Speaker 8 (26:48):
That, and how does he even know about this?
Speaker 3 (26:51):
So I have to keep some of the details back
to protect his identity. But I can tell you he
didn't always know this, So it's not like he's like
kept this secret for decades. And he had tried to
go to the police. But here's the scoop. So he
was from the area, but he had moved away and
around twenty ten he moved back to Pennsylvania. It was
after he moved back that he learned about John and
(27:13):
this other guy abusing not just Cherry, but he says
other kids in the neighborhood as well, and the other
guy he actually named that other guy, but that is
someone that we can't name at this point now. When
he learned about the abuse, he wasn't necessarily connecting it
to Cherry's disappearance right away. But one day he said,
(27:33):
he saw this old missing person flyer of Cherry with
the blue car and the van that we talked about,
and that's when he realized that John Montgomery would have
had access to a similar blue car around the time
that Cherry disappeared. And so this is when he said
he went to police because this is obviously a major revelation,
(27:54):
and according to him, they took him seriously, even set
him up with a wire to go confront John, but
he said while he was wearing the wire, John denied
involvement and he basically blamed the other guy. He also
told us that police talked to John and this other guy,
but I can't confirm any of that from police directly, because,
like I said, they wouldn't talk to us. Though I
(28:17):
will say that authorities did tell a WPXI reporter Rick
Earle that they did interview neighbors about Cherry's disappearance, but
no one has ever confessed to anything related to Cherry.
Speaker 8 (28:29):
So what about the other kids though? Did they investigate
any of that?
Speaker 3 (28:33):
That's the thing I don't think so. It seems like
when our sores talked to police, it was the first
they were hearing of any of these allegations, so they
hadn't been independently reported like these kids even as adults,
hadn't come forward to them. And we even went and
checked court records and we didn't find any record for
John or this other guy, So nothing went through on
(28:54):
the legal side, and I don't know how much police
went looking for victims right now. John died in twenty
twenty two, so I can't ask him, and our attempts
to reach this other guy were unsuccessful.
Speaker 8 (29:07):
So do we think it's true and no one ever
reported anything or I don't know. I mean, for the
guy to have no record and this bet in his
history is kind of wild to me.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
It's wild, but it's not unbelievable if this is true.
I mean, we know that some adults don't report their abuse,
and for children those number. Skyroftis sure. I mean, there's
often a lack of understanding of like what is happening
to them, or like they're afraid of getting in trouble,
because even if they realize like what is happening is wrong,
often they blame themselves or they get convinced that it's
(29:41):
their job to protect their abuser, right right, and especially
if it's someone they know, Their abuser will often tell
them like, oh, I'm gonna get in trouble, or like
this is gonna happen to me or to you, And like,
I think that could fall in line with what police
ended up telling CNN in twenty eleven that they ended
up saying that Cherry was likely abducted by someone she
knew really well, I mean literally, A Pennsylvania state trooper said, quote,
(30:04):
I believe this person had the ability to basically lure
Cherry to their vehicle without her giving it a second
thought prior to her disappearance. End quote. So it's totally
possible for someone to operate like this and not have
a record.
Speaker 8 (30:20):
Right, possible? But did he Like, how do you even
go about trying to run this down to find the
truth of what happened?
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Well, you need cooperation, right, which finally came this year.
That's why we're able to report this. So when Janie
found this out, that was twenty twenty three. I remember,
like she didn't know what to do. Yeah, I mean,
she didn't have a good relationship with investigators on the case,
so she felt isolated from what police had going on,
and so she didn't even tell anyone else. Plus we
(30:49):
know that the guy who's telling her this already tried
to go to police, so like, what's she gonna do? Right,
So she kind of just held it in for a
couple of years, But in twenty two, twenty five, Janice
confided in her friend Bailey. She basically told her, like,
I'm at my wits end, like all I want is
answers at this point, and I feel like I am
(31:10):
so close but still just out of reach and bless
best friends. Like Bailey, she sees this as a cry
for help, and she just jumps into action. Bailey starts
pushing law enforcement to look into Leeds. She creates a
Facebook page called find Cherry Mayhan and even starts a
team called Cherry's Angels that ends up working with a
(31:32):
private investigator, this guy named Steve Ridge, and Steve pledges
one hundred thousand dollars for anyone who helps with finding
Cherry's remains. And so while Steve is doing his thing,
Bailey starts looking into John Montgomery, trying to just find
anything linking him or this other guy to child sex abuse.
(31:53):
So she's searching all avenues and one of those is
on Megan'slaw dot com, which is a website that keeps
track of sex offenders. And to be honest, she doesn't
really know what she's looking for, but I think she's
like trying anything, and it almost is like this feeling
for her of like I'll know it when I see it, right,
so she's looking around, like in the area of both
(32:14):
the house that Cherry disappeared from and her grandma's house
that she lived in in Saxonburg, and suddenly she sees
the name William Montgomery, John Montgomery's son. Now he goes
by Buddy, and he'd already done time in prison by
the time she came across him, And that actually is
(32:34):
where he is right now for failing to register as
a sex offender. He was locked up in twenty twenty two,
and we don't know when he's getting out, but the
max sentence for the failure to register is fifty four months,
so it's likely that he'll be out some time by
the end of next year. And we actually found his
previous record. So in two thousand and four he put
(32:55):
guilty to sexual assault, corruption of miners, endangering the welfare
of children, and indecent assault. He cut a deal with
prosecutors and according to news reports, instead of seventy five
years in prison, I'm not gonna like this, he got
about two years behind bars and ten years probation.
Speaker 8 (33:17):
Okay, yeah, I'm gonna have to skip past that. So
I don't see red. Did he live at the house
across from Cherry's grandma. At the time, Cherry was living.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
There, so I am not exactly sure where he lived
at that time. What I can say is that we
interviewed several people who lived in the area at the
time who say that Buddy was definitely around then. So
I don't know where he lived, but he was definitely
around there, and he was in his early twenties when
Cherry disappeared. So Bailey finds this, she of course gives
(33:48):
it over to police, but she and Jani's haven't seen
much come of them running down any potential leads. So
that's when Janie decides to take matters into her own hands,
and at the beginning of April this year, she just
wrote to Buddy in prison. She asks if she can
come and talk to him about Cherry because she is
trying to figure out what happened and she wants closure
(34:10):
after forty years, and she acknowledges that his dad wasn't
the greatest guy and says, listen, I'm sorry for all
that you have been put through and have seen. And
it worked because less than two weeks later, Buddy actually
responds to.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Her Instagram supports the initiative for an EU digital majority age,
requiring parental approval before teenagers can access online services, and
so do experts. Leading teenage safety organizations across Europe, such
as parent Zone, say that a digital majority age could
support and increase parental involvement across digital services, empowering parents
(34:46):
to help keep teenagers safer. Learn more at instagram dot
com slash parental approval. This political ad was brought to
you by Instagram.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Buddy's first letter back to Janis is pretty vague. He
basically just says he wants to help, So Janis writes
him back, asking like, Okay, put me on your visitation list,
because again, she just wants to get in front of
this guy. But it's weeks before he responds. A letter
does eventually come in mid May, and he apologizes for
the delay. He said he actually had a heart attack
(35:18):
and he's been in the hospital, but he still wants
to talk to her, and so she just keeps sending
him short messages asking Okay, great, I want to talk
to you too, but when can I come see you
or when can we at least talk on the phone. Yeah,
But she says that Buddy just keeps like dodging her,
so At the end of June, Janis schedules a visit
to the prison anyway, but when she gets there, Buddy
(35:40):
won't come out, and I guess Janis tries to schedule
another visit, but before that one happens, Buddy writes her
this message, and he sends it to the person that
is helping Janis communicate with him in prison, and I'll
read what I can from him. I just received word
that Janis had made arrangements for a contact visit on Saturday,
So please let her know that I will not accept
(36:02):
it until I have a chance to set things up
the way I want it set up.
Speaker 8 (36:07):
And how exactly is.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
That she found out? So he lays out those terms
in more letters. He says he wants his story televised
for his own protection. Now, mind you, we started communicating
with Janis, like, wow, this was all unfoold say.
Speaker 8 (36:24):
Just as a reminder, this is happening a few months ago.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Yeah, so Buddy wants a news organization happy to help,
like put us to work Janis. So we even sent
Buddy a letter of our own in April, though I'm
not sure if he received that one because he didn't
respond to it. So in late July, we decided to
try again and we wrote to him on the prison
email system asking if he would speak to us about
the case because his name had come up. And we
(36:50):
sent him a list of questions like a few times
actually about the things that we've heard, and he finally
responded with this, after reading your questions, I am so
disgruntled over the fact that you are hearing these lies
and would want nothing other than an opportunity to sit
down with you and talk.
Speaker 8 (37:10):
Great.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
So we kept pressing for that opportunity to talk for
a phone call, but he kept avoiding us like he
did with Janis. So in the meantime, we tried to
verify a specific lead that we heard about and we
wanted to talk to somebody who knew Buddy. So first
was the lead. So the PI Steve Ridge, had gotten
(37:31):
a tip from someone locally who knew the Montgomerys. They
told him that a backpack that may or may not
have been Cherry's was allegedly submerged in a pond somewhere
on the twenty eight acre Montgomery property sometime after Cherry's disappearance.
Interesting if true, so we tracked down the person who
(37:51):
gave Steve Ridge that tip. They did say some similar
things to us, but the details they gave us about
what actually happened were pretty hazy and for legal reasons
for now, I can't talk about it, okay, And I'm
not sure if the Montgomery property was ever searched in
connection with Cherry's disappearance, which I think is like an
(38:11):
interesting fact. Yeah, so TBD on the backpack, we're still
looking into that. I can tell you a little bit
more about what we found when we tracked down a
former friend of Buddy's. His name is Mike now he
lives in the area. Says he's known Buddy for a
really long time, and he'd gone to meet Buddy at
his house one day and he walked up on him
having a conversation that I don't think Mike was supposed
(38:33):
to hear. I can't tell you the full details of
this alleged conversation, but in it, Buddy was mentioning Cherry
on the phone with someone, and when Mike confronted him
about it, he says that Buddy told him his dad,
John quote chose her, and then went on to say
that his dad was involved in her disappearance. Now there
(38:54):
are a lot more details that Mike provided, and he
says that he told police about this incident as well,
but again I have not been able to confirm this
with cops myself.
Speaker 8 (39:05):
Because they didn't want to talk to us gout it.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
We did, though, ask Buddy about all of this, first
about the backpack and if he knows anything about it.
He said e F no in not so bleeped out terms.
And in another more recent letter, we actually asked him
about the Mike allegations, whether he was involved in Cherry's
disappearance and everything that came up in our reporting of
(39:28):
Cherry's case, and he basically in a letter said he
was going to send us a letter that he was
going to be very direct in Okay, And we were
like waiting, holding our breath, like even put off doing
this recording because that's what I was waiting for. I
literally just got it in the mail yesterday. It is
like eight pages long, so I'm going to give you
the highlights, but for my nosey Nelli's I will be
(39:50):
posting it on the blog post. Probably heavily retacted, but
here's the gist. He says, quote. I also want to
make it very clear to you, especially those who are
formulating such moronic lies and whoever else thinks Slash believes
that I may have had anything to do with the
disappearance of Cherry Mahon to go straight to the enslavements
(40:12):
of hell. Quote and then in another part he says
that we will find the truth when quote the right
questions are asked to those within his my father's little circle.
I was never part of this circle end quote. So
a lot of the letter was really vague. Like the
(40:33):
gist of it though, is that he says he never
met or spoke to Cherry, and he didn't even know
that Janie had moved from across the street of the
Montgomery house, so he's like, I wouldn't even have known
where to get her, yeah, where she was being dropped
off after school. So I still don't feel like I
have a full grasp on what it is he really knows,
(40:57):
if anything, but he says he didn't go to police
or Janis with the information. He still says he has
because he doesn't want to spread a false narrative, which
understand that I don't understand what that means either, And
he added in the letter that he will talk to us,
but he still has terms. He says he wants to
be interviewed on live television while hooked up to a
(41:18):
polygraphic sam and listen. I'm like still trying to make
this happen. I like I does like a live stream count.
I don't know, but like I am still unable to
like nail this guy down and actually set a time
with him. And we had to move forward and put
this out there. And this is where we actually need
help from our crime junkies. Someone out there knows more
(41:42):
about Cherry's disappearance and can maybe help corroborate some of
the stuff that I've heard that our reporters have gotten
that we haven't been able to share in this episode,
even if you shared it with police before, reach out
to us, like we're doing our own investigation. So if
that's you, please email us at tips at Audiochuck dot com.
(42:03):
We want to help Janni's find closure. She just wants
to know what happened to her daughter and where she is.
And obviously, you guys, we've talked about some heavy topics
in today's episode, child molestation, sexual assault. I know it's
hard to digest, but what I hope that we can
take away from this beyond finding closure for Janis, is
that we need to protect our kids from strangers, from
(42:25):
the people they know. I mean, Cherry was always with Janis,
she always checked in, and she was still taken so
close to home. If you are a victim of child
sexual abuse or any kind of sexual abuse, I want
you to know that there are resources available for you.
Rain has a national Sexual Assault hotline available twenty four
to seven. You can call, text, online chat, even send
(42:47):
them a WhatsApp message, Free confidential always available. We're gonna
have those resources linked out in our show notes, and
if you need immediate help, text Hope to six' four
six seven. Three you can find all the source material
(43:14):
for this episode on our website crime junkie dot, com.
Speaker 8 (43:17):
And you can follow us On instagram At Crime Junkie.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Podcast we'll be back next week with a brand new.
Episode but stick around because today we have the.
Speaker 8 (43:26):
Good, Okay, ashley this is like your, favorite, yes your
(43:52):
favorite thing to do when we're sitting on this, couch
listen to our. Microphone it is time for the. Good,
Hello ashley And. Britt my name Is live And i've
been a listener since twenty.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Nineteen early, Days Oh Jinxon.
Speaker 8 (44:09):
I'm writing to you BECAUSE i believe your podcast saved my.
Life the other, DAY i was flying Into connecticut From virginia.
Alone my flight was delayed AND i didn't land until two.
Am it's a small, airport so at two am there
are almost no staff members. AROUND i was walking to
get to my rental car WHEN i noticed a man
was following. Me he started making small talk as he
(44:29):
noticed my, backpack which INDICATED i worked in. Healthcare he
started asking me questions like where do you, work where
are you, from are you? Visiting or do you live?
Here they all seem so, mundane, Right but as we
crying junkies, know this could be dangerous because of WHAT
i learned from your. PODCAST i never gave him any.
INFORMATION i kept my answers vague and moved to places
(44:51):
where people WERE i got my husband on the phone
and put him on, speakerphone but the man kept following.
Me WHEN i found out they gave away my rental,
car man who was still following, me asks, absolutely, no
where are you trying to get to? Now that's WHEN
i became. RUDE i told, him you are making me.
Uncomfortable get away from. ME i have my husband on
(45:13):
the phone and multiple people tracking my location and waiting for.
ME i was loud and caused a scene to get
people to. Notice he then backed up and, said, OH
i didn't realize you had someone on the, phone and he.
LEFT i had airport workers stay with me UNTIL i
got a. Ride true crime is so much more than.
Storytelling it keeps us alive and. Safe because of, YOU
(45:34):
i have learned so much about how to keep myself
safe and to watch for all the warning. Signs maybe
this guy was, innocent BUT i had to keep asking,
myself what if he. WASN'T i truly believe your podcast
kept me alive that. Day i'm so thankful for what
you do for women and the. Community because of, YOU
i can write to you. TODAY i was, WEIRD i was,
(45:56):
rude and because Of Crime, Junkie i'm.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
ALIVE i love it you. LIVE I those are the, stories,
Right the best ones are, like, oh nothing, happened and
probably nothing would.
Speaker 8 (46:05):
Happen the best stories we ever hear are the ones
that don't make it on our, show, Right like we
say that all the.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Time DID i tell you about the CONCERT i was
at WHERE i was being like extra crime.
Speaker 8 (46:12):
Drunkie, no but now you have.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
TO i. WAS i was with my. Husband we went
and Saw Chris stapleton and we were. Leaving we were
leaving a little early Because i'm one hundred years old
AND i was, tired and my ate sleep let me
know that it was like cooling down my bed for.
Me SO i was, like gotta. Go and there was
like this like we were in the uber area waiting
and there were like these two girls And i'm, like
overhearing this. Conversation this like much older, guy much, older
(46:36):
like ten years who's wearing like a boot and he's, like,
Oh i'm From california or In. Indiana and he's, LIKE
i just like pick a city to go to a.
Concert And i'm, like nobody picks.
Speaker 8 (46:45):
It no one Picks.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Indiana AND i told my, Husband i'm, like really sneak
taking Photos and my husband was, like what do you?
Do he's got a boot. On i'm, like have you
never heard of Ted Teddy?
Speaker 8 (46:55):
Bundy had the? Fake?
Speaker 3 (46:56):
Yeah c thank. You so watch out for, yourself. Ladies
but if you're every, One i'll also be watching out for.
You know That i'm out there patrolling. Constantly so if
you were the two girls talking to The guy From
california And indianapolis and The christapleton. CONCERT I Got You.
Girls Crime junkie is an Audio chuck. PRODUCTION i Think
(47:17):
chuck would.
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And so do experts.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Leading teenage safety organizations across Europe, such as parent Zone
say that a digital majority age could support and increase
parental involvement across digital services, empowering parents to help keep
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Decency's apply, high crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers,
and I'm brit and the story I have for you
today it begins at exactly four to ten pm in Cabot, Pennsylvania.
That's the time when eight year old Cherry Mayhan gets
dropped off by her school bus, come rain, snow or shine.
It is always there near the end of her family's
(01:49):
gravel driveway, and Friday February twenty second, nineteen eighty five
was no different. The big yellow box parked on the
side of the road right on schedule and opened it's
already endoor to deposit Cherry in her big back back
in the one place that a kid should be safest.
But something happened to Cherry after those bus doors closed,
(02:10):
and somewhere in the five hundred feet between the road
and her home, Cherry disappeared, and she hasn't been seen
in over forty years, But in the last few months,
our team has been in contact with a man in
prison who says he holds the answers, and he agreed
to meet with us to share what he knows. Only
(03:03):
one thing was different from the routine. Cherry Mayhon followed
on February twenty second, nineteen eighty five. That Friday was
the one day neither Cherry's mother or stepfather were there
to walk her from her bus down the long drive
to their front door. It was a nice day, forty degrees.
Her mom, Janis could see the road from their window.
(03:24):
She could hear the bus on the gravel as it
pulled up, like what could possibly happen in your own driveway?
So she told her husband Leroy, they could skip meeting
Cherry at the stop and every day for forty years.
I bet her stomach churns as she replays that decision.
I mean, it was so small, but it changed her
life forever. Janice hears the bus come and go, and
(03:49):
they wait, But when minutes go by and Cherry doesn't
walk through the door, Leroy heads out to the front
of the trailer to check on her. Now he doesn't
spot her out front, so he walks to the end
of the driveway, thinking maybe she's stopped there to chat
or play with a friend. But she's not there either,
and as he stares up and down the two lane
back road surrounded by woods on either side, the first
(04:12):
seed of the stomach pit that he'll come to live
with begins to grow. Now Leroy doesn't want to waste
any more time, so he gets Janis and they hop
in their car to literally chase this bus down because
maybe Cherry missed her stop, maybe she had never gotten
on the bus, like, please have one of these things
be what happened. But she didn't, the bus driver tells them.
(04:32):
Yet she was on this bus and she just got
off at her house not too long ago. They're not
talking themselves out of a panic now, Like Cherry is
the kid who lives by the rules, so this is
not like her. She wouldn't have just wandered off. And
she even had a sleepover plan for that night that
she was super excited about, like she would be here
if she could be. So they go right back to
(04:53):
their trailer to call nine one one officers get there
pretty quickly, like within ten twenty minutes, and they do
preliminary search of the area. Even though it's warm, there
is still some snow on the ground, so it's a
bit easier to see if there are any footprints or anything,
but they don't see any suspicious ones or any that
might suggest which way Cherry walked when she got off
(05:14):
the bus. They also aren't seeing any of her belongings either,
like her blue backpack that should stand out in the
winter woods, but they don't find that or any of
the clothes she was wearing, which was a denim skirt
and leg warmers with gray and beige boots. And by
the way, not even just in the preliminary search do
they not find these. From what Jana's told us, Police
end up searching the five mile radius around the home,
(05:35):
even using bloodhounds to try and track cherry scent, and
they also search the surrounding woods with helicopters. Local volunteers
join the searches as well, so it was a full
blown effort, but there were still no signs of Cherry.
Speaker 8 (05:49):
And have police already talked to all the kids on
the bus to see if they saw anything like when
she was getting dropped off.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
They don't do that immediately, and that's coming from Janice.
I would love to give you the play by police,
but Pennsylvania State Police weren't willing to talk to us
for this episode, and all of our records requests were
denied because they said it's an active investigation. But Janice's
impression was that they first thought Cherry was a runaway,
and then when they changed their minds about that, they
(06:17):
then zeroed right in on Leroy and Janis themselves, questioning
them for hours individually. And it wasn't totally unwarranted. I mean,
you have to start closest to the missing person parents
if it's a missing child, and Janis and Leroy definitely
had things to look at. Janis told our reporter that
both she and Leroy struggled with substance use disorder, and
(06:39):
Leroy has post traumatic stress disorder from the Vietnam War
along with other struggles with his mental health. And Leroy
was also part of a local motorcycle gang at the time.
So I don't know if they were thinking like the
couple did something, or maybe like just that they were
hanging around in bad crowds who might have done something
to their daughter. But to get to the bottom of it.
(07:00):
Police asked them both to take a polygraph, and they
agree and they both pass with no signs of deception. However,
according to Janice, they were still treated like suspects, though
I will say they didn't let the investigation stop there
because they start widening that circle. And the next closest
connection to Cherry is her biological dad, who Janis tells
(07:22):
us is also allegedly connected to a motorcycle gang. Oh
this is a different motorcycle gang though than leroy Ok.
But Jana says that he was like pretty high up
in this motorcycle gang and even though him doing something
to Cherry didn't really make a whole lot of sense
because truly he never even really wanted much to do
with his daughter, Like, they still got to check this out.
(07:43):
And interestingly, according to the Pittsburgh Press, when they do
go and check this, dude is super adamant that not
only did he have nothing to do with this, He's like,
I'm not even her father. Oh yeah, so I'm assuming
there are a lot of investigative steps that I'm not
privy to in order to get to this next part.
But in all police end up ruling him out because
there is nothing connecting him to her disappearance. Now, in
(08:06):
the early days of all of this, police don't name
any suspects, and Janie couldn't think of anyone she knew
who would have wanted to hurt her daughter. Cherry was
a sweet, bright, young girl. I mean, she was Janis's everything.
To kind of put it in perspective, she had her
at sixteen, so like they grew up together. They were
(08:27):
always with each other. I mean, the only times they
weren't was when Cherry was at school or when Janie
had to go to work early and she would drop
Cherry off before school with like a babysitter down the road.
But while she wasn't suspicious of anyone she knew, that
didn't mean that there wasn't someone to be suspicious of,
someone that Cherry was actually suspicious of shortly before she disappeared.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Ops can help teenagers connect, learn and create, but not
every app is right for every teen. Parents should have
a choice which online services their teenagers can access. That's
why Instagram supports the initiative for an EU Digital Majority Age,
requiring parental approval before teenagers can access online services, including
(09:14):
social media. Learn more at Instagram dot com. Slash parental approval.
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Speaker 3 (09:53):
Jannis tells police that they only lived in this home
for the last six months or so before getting this tree.
They actually lived in Janie's mom's house, which is like
twenty minutes away in a town called Saxonburg. She said,
at first, when they moved, like Cherry was super excited
to have her own room and bathroom, like I mean
the dream, the dream for a young girl. But after
(10:14):
a few months in her new room, something changed, Like
Cherry went from being excited to afraid because she told
her mom that she was afraid someone was watching her
from her bedroom window.
Speaker 8 (10:26):
Was someone watching her from her bedroom window?
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Well, Janie never saw anyone, and at the time, she
thought maybe it might have just been like new home jitters,
but it was enough for Janis to take her concerns seriously.
So she moved Cherry into a smaller room closer to
Janis and Leroy, and she bought her blackout curtains, Like
I mean, she did everything she could, but that didn't
change how scared Cherry was. Even in that small room,
(10:51):
she was sleeping on the floor, no pillows, no blankets,
almost like she was hiding. That's what I'm envisioning, right,
And it's heartbreaking because this was going on for a
couple of months and she was afraid like this up
until she disappeared. So it's at this point when police
are hearing this that they finally go talk to the
other kids on Cherry's bus. Maybe she told them more
(11:11):
than she told her mom. Now that ends up being
a nogo. None of the kids know about someone watching her,
but they are able to give police some other information
important like I bet you wish you'd talk to them
first information. One of the kids who was on the
bus tells police that there was this like blue green
van following behind the school bus the day Cherry disappeared.
(11:34):
Now I have come to learn that blue green vehicles
are like a dime a dozen in the mid eighties,
but this one was ultraspecific. This kid said that it
had a painting of a person skiing down a snowy
mountain side on the passenger side of the van.
Speaker 8 (11:51):
Uh. Yeah, you don't see paintings on the sides of
vans every day.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I've seen that. Never I heard. It's like a bit.
I was actually doing a little like chat GPT, like
googling with this, and apparently it was like a big
thing in the seventies and eighties. But like, I'm not
talking a small painting. After getting more witness confirmations of
this van, they actually have a picture drawn and they
include it in the missing person's flyers put out on Cherry.
(12:16):
But there is an interesting line in the description written
above it. So it says possible vehicles involved in abduction
blue girl. Yeah, blue or green van with mountain scene
on passenger side. Know that right, also a small blue
vehicle scene in the area.
Speaker 8 (12:33):
Scene in the area by who.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
So reporting only says that it came from a witness,
But I don't know who that witness was, though it
might have been a local woman named Debbie Burke, who
lives nearby. She was actually parked at the spot that
Cherry got off, like she was parked in her car
waiting for her own kids to come off the bus.
Speaker 8 (12:54):
Oh, I guess I was picturing Cherry getting off the
bus by herself, but there were like other people around
when she got off the bus.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Yeah, so Cherry's bus dropped off a group of kids
at one spot. Some of them would walk to their
homes nearby. Some parents waited around for them to be
dropped off and would pick them up. It was like
a bus stop situation, truly.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
So I don't know she's this witness who saw the
blue car in the area, but she says she did
see Cherry was maybe even the last to see Cheery.
Speaker 8 (13:21):
Wait, could it have been her car that people saw?
She's like parks there waiting.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
No.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
I checked on this, So reporting didn't say what color
her car was, but I do know for a fact
that the blue car was definitely separate from hers. Now
to go back to what she saw, so, Debbie told
police at the time that she was sitting in her
car waiting for the bus. She saw Cherry get off
like she did most days, and According to an NBC
News article, she said that the kids all played for
(13:45):
a little while and then Cherry walked past her car
in the direction of her home, and then Debbie drove
off with her kids.
Speaker 8 (13:52):
Did she see the mountain skiing vans?
Speaker 5 (13:55):
She did.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
She saw the same van the kids did, and she
even saw it trailing the bus beforehand in her mirror.
I guess she was like parked on the side and
waiting and could see like the bus pulling up. But like,
it wasn't weird to her that a van was behind
the bus. I mean, it's not like it was doing
anything other than driving down the road.
Speaker 8 (14:12):
Just like whatever car is behind the bus, that's.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
And when the bus stops, everyone has to stop, right,
So like she didn't think much about it.
Speaker 8 (14:18):
So it didn't like stop or do anything that made
her think it was like after suspicion, right, it stopped
with the bus, but then it just kept going down
the road.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
No again, stopped from the bus stop and that's it.
But it didn't like pull over or anything. She didn't
see Cherry interacting with It wasn't.
Speaker 8 (14:33):
Notable other than it was just like whatever car was
behind the bus that day.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
And to be fair. I mean, this van could theoretically
have pulled off into a driveway or something before Cherry
got off and waited until Debbie left. But Debbie doesn't
mention anything like this. She just says she didn't see
Cherry get into the van, And like, when Jani's hears this,
she's like, well, what I know is that Cherry would
never have gone off willingly with strangers or left someone
(15:00):
without permission. So her mom thinks if someone did take
her van or no van, it had to have either
been someone she knew or someone who took her by force.
Speaker 8 (15:10):
Do they know someone who drives a big van with
the painting arm.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
That someone was about to say next, they don't know
anyone who drives that kind of vane.
Speaker 8 (15:17):
So then we're looking for a stranger.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Which means that the circle around Cherry is now infinitely wise. Yeah,
and that's when local police bring in the help of
the FBI, and they start by looking into other disappearances
where a blue or green van was either involved or
seen nearby.
Speaker 8 (15:37):
Okay, but what about the blue car.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
You know, I'm not sure if they pursued the blue
car or not. For some reason, it just kind of
stops being reported on. It seems like their sites are
totally set on this unique van, and maybe that's because
they do actually find disappearances and incidents involving possibly similar vans,
but they're never the van, and there are never any
(15:59):
incidents that they and the definitively linking to Cherry.
Speaker 8 (16:02):
Okay, outside of the other abductions, though, did anyone recognize
just the van? I mean, it feels like a really
unique van.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Well.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Police said at the time that they were getting thousands
of tips that they had to soar through. But out
of all of that, there was one van that was
on police's radar. Apparently it belonged to a woman named
Donna Patterson. Her van was blue with a painting of
a skier going down a mountain on the side of it.
Speaker 8 (16:27):
Uh sounds familiar, right, and she.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Lived just five miles from where Cherry disappeared. Now, according
to the Pittsburgh Press, police looked into this van, but
on the day and time of Sherry's disappearance, it was
apparently parked at a local steel corporation where Donna's brother
in law worked. I guess he used the van that
day and he was there working. So when police confirm
(16:51):
his alibi, they just rule him out and Donna and
her van, but that didn't stop people from harassing Donna.
She said that she constantly saw people like taking down
her plate number, and she says she got pulled over
by police who thought that this was the vehicle connected
to Cherry's disappearance. But Donna said that she was not
going to stop driving the van or even paint over
(17:11):
it to stop the constant attention, which I think is
what I would have done.
Speaker 8 (17:15):
Yeah, immediately. So it's not Donna's van. That means police
think there are two of these vans with these paintings
on it, I mean in town.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Or there's another one out of town, or this van's
not connected at all.
Speaker 8 (17:29):
But there does have to be another one who is
driving that road that day, because it's not just like
Donna and her family are saying they weren't involved, like
police are saying their van wasn't on the move when
Cherry's bus stopped, like at the bus stop.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
I know, I even wondered, like could someone have access
to his keys while he's working, Like unless there is
video surveillance of this van park.
Speaker 8 (17:48):
The whole time, the van there the whole time.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah, and I'm not saying there isn't like I just
don't know. And this is where like these are one
of those things where I tend to spiral. I want
to like map out the drive to work, what shift
he was on, like talk to every person who worked
with them.
Speaker 8 (18:00):
Like how long it would have taken him to get
to where Cherry's bus stop was and back.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I'm like, yeah, who had access to your keys? I
don't know. Again, all police say this is not their van,
and also I go back to, maybe the van isn't
connected at all.
Speaker 8 (18:12):
But then why isn't someone coming forward saying like, hey,
it was just my I was just driving, like that's
my route to XYZ.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
I'm just I'm grasping here. I'm trying and listen. I
don't know if they just like take the alibi for it,
or if they even process the van forensically. I would
think so if they ruled it out, and especially I
think that because I do know that they process some
vans that were kind of similar looking at that time,
even if the van wasn't spot on. But I go
(18:39):
back to they never found the van, and they never
found Cherry, even despite some pretty big campaigns like when
her picture was featured on a rerun of NBC's Atom,
which was about six year old Adam Walsh's abduction. Cherry
was actually the first missing child to have her picture
printed on a postcard and sent around the country as
(18:59):
part of the have You Seen Me direct mail flyer program,
and she was one of the first missing children who's
missing person's poster was placed on a milk carton. That
was a program that started the year she disappeared. And
according to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Nickmick is putting Cherry's
information in different hotels in Canada and Mexico, even the UK,
So they're not ruling out that she was taken out
(19:21):
of the country because again, how infinitely why does this circle?
When you don't have much to go off of, you
can't rule anything out. But by nineteen ninety eight, Cherry's
case is ice cold, and that is when Janie has
Cherry legally declared deceased. She says she isn't moving on
or giving up looking, but I mean she had another child,
(19:43):
and she says she needed to come to terms with
the fact that Cherry likely wasn't alive, and over the
next thirty years she did her best to deal with that,
but in twenty eighteen, her entire world was upended when
she received a letter in the mail on a a
single sheet of wide ruled notebook paper. Someone had handwritten
(20:04):
in block letters all the answers that she had been
seeking for over thirty years, and it was signed pastor Justice. Now,
I can't read you the note in its entirety because
it has specific names that we don't want to share,
but we will put a redacted version of this letter
up on the blog post and on social media for
(20:24):
this episode if any of the listeners want to go
take a look. Basically, it says that Cherry was killed
by friends of her biological father, and these friends are
part of a Quaker cult who helped quote make Cherry
disappear for at least the guy Janis claims is Cherry's
biodad and like the motive for this was allegedly all
(20:46):
to evade him paying child support. Now, the anonymous writer
gives specific details on where Cherry's remains are in a
place called the Lock eight Damn, which is about twenty
five miles or four forty minutes away, give or take.
And interestingly, they ended the letter saying I pray you
find some peace after you find her body. Now, Jana's
(21:08):
told our reporter that she has no idea who these
friends are that is like referenced in this letter, and
she's not even familiar with the area that they're talking about.
Speaker 8 (21:17):
Well, and also, since when are Quaker is kidnapping and
murdering people lit kids? I mean, they aren't. They're known
to be pacifist, right.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
If you say so, I don't know enough, but like
here's what I'll say. It's like. And maybe because they
haven't gotten anything in so long, police at least kind
of seemed to take this letter seriously, right, It's something
when they've had a lot of nothing for decades, because
she shows them this letter and they actually do go
out and search this area, but unfortunately nothing comes of it.
So it is another dead.
Speaker 8 (21:48):
End, I mean, or an incredibly cruel prank, which honestly
probably that because there is no evidence that anything in
that letter is true.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
But I don't know if this letter unleash something or what.
But after this, in the same year, in twenty eighteen,
she gets this phone call at work. The person on
the other end of the line thinks that she might
be Janis's long lost daughter. Now, Jerry would have been
in her early forties at this point, and so as
(22:20):
you can imagine, like Janice, she has spent so much
of her life like deciding what she has to live with,
right Like, so she's immediately skeptical. She's like not convinced.
I have to imagine she like can't even let herself believe. Right.
It sounds like a nice moment that you want to
be excited for, but you also have to steal yourself.
Speaker 8 (22:36):
You can't get your hopes up at like, yeah, anything
or everything at this point.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah, because the fall back down if it is not them,
could be worse, Like you're undoing all the healing and
forward momentum that you've made over the years. And she
had a good level of skepticism because when police compare
this caller's fingerprints to Cherry's.
Speaker 8 (22:55):
Wait, how do they have Cherry's fingerprints?
Speaker 3 (22:58):
They have them on file because they actually take you
in her elementary school, so what like, yeah, super useful.
I don't know if they do that anymore, but like
probably should. But when they do this, they determine that
this woman isn't Cherry. And even though right like, even
though she was skeptical like Janis is still devastated because
you tell yourself not to get your hopes, but you.
Speaker 8 (23:16):
Still that little like spark, right, yeah, you still get
your whole you like you wish that it could be
true that she would finally be reunited with her daughter,
but this letdown is a reminder of the fact that
she may never know what happened after her daughter got
off the school bus that February day or who was responsible.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
But let this be a lesson. Even in the coldest
of cold cases, never say never, because in twenty twenty three,
nearly forty years after her daughter went missing, Leeds come
straight to Janice in the most unexpected place.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Aps can help teenagers connect, learn and create, but not
every app is right for every teen Parents should have
choice in which online services their teenagers can access. That's
why Instagram supports the initiative for an EU Digital Majority age,
requiring parental approval before teenagers can access online services, including
(24:14):
social media. Learn more at instagram dot com slash parental Approval.
This political ad was brought to you by Instagram.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
What I'm about to share with you has never been
reported on in this much detail before, and it names
a person who has never been connected publicly to this
case before. According to Janis, one day in the spring
of twenty twenty three, she went to her local VFW
to have a drink. It was a regular spot for her.
She knew most of the locals who came in there.
(24:45):
But on this night, when she's sitting at the bar,
she sees this man that she doesn't recognize and he's
just staring right at her. So finally she's like, hey, man,
what's the deal. And the guy just responds with her name,
but it's like a question, like he knows her, but
he wants to be sure, And it turns out he
does know her. She knows him. He's someone that she
(25:08):
grew up with, but she didn't recognize him at first
because she hadn't seen him since they were like little kids. Now,
our reporter actually spoke with this man and he asked
that we keep him anonymous because what he told us,
the bomb that he dropped on Janis that day, could
put him in danger. He said that he knows one
of Janie's neighbors, the one who lived across the street
(25:32):
from them at Janis's mom's house before they moved to
that trailer. The guy's name is John Montgomery. Now this
is a name that Janice knows well. Cherry often played
with other young kids over at their house, and after
Cherry disappeared, Janis says some of the family members would
even check in with her weekly for updates. But this
guy says that he knew John Well II, and he
(25:54):
knew that John and another man were molesting Cherry before
she went me and he believes that they might be
involved in her disappearance. And in that moment, Janis's world
is spinning because this is completely new information. I mean,
she didn't have so much as an inkling like anything
like that could have been happening to Cherry. She told
(26:17):
us that a lot of the hallmark signs of abuse,
like a sudden change in behavior or fear of being
in a room with like certain people like, she didn't
see that in her daughter. The only thing she ever
noticed was that fear that someone unknown was watching her
after she moved away from the house that was across
the street from montgomery house.
Speaker 8 (26:36):
Do you know how long it had been going on
before she moved or before she went missing?
Speaker 3 (26:41):
No, I have no idea how long the alleged abuse
was going on before she disappeared. Our source didn't have
like a timeline for.
Speaker 8 (26:48):
That, and how does he even know about this?
Speaker 3 (26:51):
So I have to keep some of the details back
to protect his identity. But I can tell you he
didn't always know this, So it's not like he's like
kept this secret for decades. And he had tried to
go to the police. But here's the scoop. So he
was from the area, but he had moved away and
around twenty ten he moved back to Pennsylvania. It was
after he moved back that he learned about John and
(27:13):
this other guy abusing not just Cherry, but he says
other kids in the neighborhood as well, and the other
guy he actually named that other guy, but that is
someone that we can't name at this point now. When
he learned about the abuse, he wasn't necessarily connecting it
to Cherry's disappearance right away. But one day he said,
(27:33):
he saw this old missing person flyer of Cherry with
the blue car and the van that we talked about,
and that's when he realized that John Montgomery would have
had access to a similar blue car around the time
that Cherry disappeared. And so this is when he said
he went to police because this is obviously a major revelation,
(27:54):
and according to him, they took him seriously, even set
him up with a wire to go confront John, but
he said while he was wearing the wire, John denied
involvement and he basically blamed the other guy. He also
told us that police talked to John and this other guy,
but I can't confirm any of that from police directly, because,
like I said, they wouldn't talk to us. Though I
(28:17):
will say that authorities did tell a WPXI reporter Rick
Earle that they did interview neighbors about Cherry's disappearance, but
no one has ever confessed to anything related to Cherry.
Speaker 8 (28:29):
So what about the other kids though? Did they investigate
any of that?
Speaker 3 (28:33):
That's the thing I don't think so. It seems like
when our sores talked to police, it was the first
they were hearing of any of these allegations, so they
hadn't been independently reported like these kids even as adults,
hadn't come forward to them. And we even went and
checked court records and we didn't find any record for
John or this other guy, So nothing went through on
(28:54):
the legal side, and I don't know how much police
went looking for victims right now. John died in twenty
twenty two, so I can't ask him, and our attempts
to reach this other guy were unsuccessful.
Speaker 8 (29:07):
So do we think it's true and no one ever
reported anything or I don't know. I mean, for the
guy to have no record and this bet in his
history is kind of wild to me.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
It's wild, but it's not unbelievable if this is true.
I mean, we know that some adults don't report their abuse,
and for children those number. Skyroftis sure. I mean, there's
often a lack of understanding of like what is happening
to them, or like they're afraid of getting in trouble,
because even if they realize like what is happening is wrong,
often they blame themselves or they get convinced that it's
(29:41):
their job to protect their abuser, right right, and especially
if it's someone they know, Their abuser will often tell
them like, oh, I'm gonna get in trouble, or like
this is gonna happen to me or to you, And like,
I think that could fall in line with what police
ended up telling CNN in twenty eleven that they ended
up saying that Cherry was likely abducted by someone she
knew really well, I mean literally, A Pennsylvania state trooper said, quote,
(30:04):
I believe this person had the ability to basically lure
Cherry to their vehicle without her giving it a second
thought prior to her disappearance. End quote. So it's totally
possible for someone to operate like this and not have
a record.
Speaker 8 (30:20):
Right, possible? But did he Like, how do you even
go about trying to run this down to find the
truth of what happened?
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Well, you need cooperation, right, which finally came this year.
That's why we're able to report this. So when Janie
found this out, that was twenty twenty three. I remember,
like she didn't know what to do. Yeah, I mean,
she didn't have a good relationship with investigators on the case,
so she felt isolated from what police had going on,
and so she didn't even tell anyone else. Plus we
(30:49):
know that the guy who's telling her this already tried
to go to police, so like, what's she gonna do? Right,
So she kind of just held it in for a
couple of years, But in twenty two, twenty five, Janice
confided in her friend Bailey. She basically told her, like,
I'm at my wits end, like all I want is
answers at this point, and I feel like I am
(31:10):
so close but still just out of reach and bless
best friends. Like Bailey, she sees this as a cry
for help, and she just jumps into action. Bailey starts
pushing law enforcement to look into Leeds. She creates a
Facebook page called find Cherry Mayhan and even starts a
team called Cherry's Angels that ends up working with a
(31:32):
private investigator, this guy named Steve Ridge, and Steve pledges
one hundred thousand dollars for anyone who helps with finding
Cherry's remains. And so while Steve is doing his thing,
Bailey starts looking into John Montgomery, trying to just find
anything linking him or this other guy to child sex abuse.
(31:53):
So she's searching all avenues and one of those is
on Megan'slaw dot com, which is a website that keeps
track of sex offenders. And to be honest, she doesn't
really know what she's looking for, but I think she's
like trying anything, and it almost is like this feeling
for her of like I'll know it when I see it, right,
so she's looking around, like in the area of both
(32:14):
the house that Cherry disappeared from and her grandma's house
that she lived in in Saxonburg, and suddenly she sees
the name William Montgomery, John Montgomery's son. Now he goes
by Buddy, and he'd already done time in prison by
the time she came across him, And that actually is
(32:34):
where he is right now for failing to register as
a sex offender. He was locked up in twenty twenty two,
and we don't know when he's getting out, but the
max sentence for the failure to register is fifty four months,
so it's likely that he'll be out some time by
the end of next year. And we actually found his
previous record. So in two thousand and four he put
(32:55):
guilty to sexual assault, corruption of miners, endangering the welfare
of children, and indecent assault. He cut a deal with
prosecutors and according to news reports, instead of seventy five
years in prison, I'm not gonna like this, he got
about two years behind bars and ten years probation.
Speaker 8 (33:17):
Okay, yeah, I'm gonna have to skip past that. So
I don't see red. Did he live at the house
across from Cherry's grandma. At the time, Cherry was living.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
There, so I am not exactly sure where he lived
at that time. What I can say is that we
interviewed several people who lived in the area at the
time who say that Buddy was definitely around then. So
I don't know where he lived, but he was definitely
around there, and he was in his early twenties when
Cherry disappeared. So Bailey finds this, she of course gives
(33:48):
it over to police, but she and Jani's haven't seen
much come of them running down any potential leads. So
that's when Janie decides to take matters into her own hands,
and at the beginning of April this year, she just
wrote to Buddy in prison. She asks if she can
come and talk to him about Cherry because she is
trying to figure out what happened and she wants closure
(34:10):
after forty years, and she acknowledges that his dad wasn't
the greatest guy and says, listen, I'm sorry for all
that you have been put through and have seen. And
it worked because less than two weeks later, Buddy actually
responds to.
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(34:46):
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Speaker 3 (34:56):
Buddy's first letter back to Janis is pretty vague. He
basically just says he wants to help, So Janis writes
him back, asking like, Okay, put me on your visitation list,
because again, she just wants to get in front of
this guy. But it's weeks before he responds. A letter
does eventually come in mid May, and he apologizes for
the delay. He said he actually had a heart attack
(35:18):
and he's been in the hospital, but he still wants
to talk to her, and so she just keeps sending
him short messages asking Okay, great, I want to talk
to you too, but when can I come see you
or when can we at least talk on the phone. Yeah,
But she says that Buddy just keeps like dodging her,
so At the end of June, Janis schedules a visit
to the prison anyway, but when she gets there, Buddy
(35:40):
won't come out, and I guess Janis tries to schedule
another visit, but before that one happens, Buddy writes her
this message, and he sends it to the person that
is helping Janis communicate with him in prison, and I'll
read what I can from him. I just received word
that Janis had made arrangements for a contact visit on Saturday,
So please let her know that I will not accept
(36:02):
it until I have a chance to set things up
the way I want it set up.
Speaker 8 (36:07):
And how exactly is.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
That she found out? So he lays out those terms
in more letters. He says he wants his story televised
for his own protection. Now, mind you, we started communicating
with Janis, like, wow, this was all unfoold say.
Speaker 8 (36:24):
Just as a reminder, this is happening a few months ago.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Yeah, so Buddy wants a news organization happy to help,
like put us to work Janis. So we even sent
Buddy a letter of our own in April, though I'm
not sure if he received that one because he didn't
respond to it. So in late July, we decided to
try again and we wrote to him on the prison
email system asking if he would speak to us about
the case because his name had come up. And we
(36:50):
sent him a list of questions like a few times
actually about the things that we've heard, and he finally
responded with this, after reading your questions, I am so
disgruntled over the fact that you are hearing these lies
and would want nothing other than an opportunity to sit
down with you and talk.
Speaker 8 (37:10):
Great.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
So we kept pressing for that opportunity to talk for
a phone call, but he kept avoiding us like he
did with Janis. So in the meantime, we tried to
verify a specific lead that we heard about and we
wanted to talk to somebody who knew Buddy. So first
was the lead. So the PI Steve Ridge, had gotten
(37:31):
a tip from someone locally who knew the Montgomerys. They
told him that a backpack that may or may not
have been Cherry's was allegedly submerged in a pond somewhere
on the twenty eight acre Montgomery property sometime after Cherry's disappearance.
Interesting if true, so we tracked down the person who
(37:51):
gave Steve Ridge that tip. They did say some similar
things to us, but the details they gave us about
what actually happened were pretty hazy and for legal reasons
for now, I can't talk about it, okay, And I'm
not sure if the Montgomery property was ever searched in
connection with Cherry's disappearance, which I think is like an
(38:11):
interesting fact. Yeah, so TBD on the backpack, we're still
looking into that. I can tell you a little bit
more about what we found when we tracked down a
former friend of Buddy's. His name is Mike now he
lives in the area. Says he's known Buddy for a
really long time, and he'd gone to meet Buddy at
his house one day and he walked up on him
having a conversation that I don't think Mike was supposed
(38:33):
to hear. I can't tell you the full details of
this alleged conversation, but in it, Buddy was mentioning Cherry
on the phone with someone, and when Mike confronted him
about it, he says that Buddy told him his dad,
John quote chose her, and then went on to say
that his dad was involved in her disappearance. Now there
(38:54):
are a lot more details that Mike provided, and he
says that he told police about this incident as well,
but again I have not been able to confirm this
with cops myself.
Speaker 8 (39:05):
Because they didn't want to talk to us gout it.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
We did, though, ask Buddy about all of this, first
about the backpack and if he knows anything about it.
He said e F no in not so bleeped out terms.
And in another more recent letter, we actually asked him
about the Mike allegations, whether he was involved in Cherry's
disappearance and everything that came up in our reporting of
(39:28):
Cherry's case, and he basically in a letter said he
was going to send us a letter that he was
going to be very direct in Okay, And we were
like waiting, holding our breath, like even put off doing
this recording because that's what I was waiting for. I
literally just got it in the mail yesterday. It is
like eight pages long, so I'm going to give you
the highlights, but for my nosey Nelli's I will be
(39:50):
posting it on the blog post. Probably heavily retacted, but
here's the gist. He says, quote. I also want to
make it very clear to you, especially those who are
formulating such moronic lies and whoever else thinks Slash believes
that I may have had anything to do with the
disappearance of Cherry Mahon to go straight to the enslavements
(40:12):
of hell. Quote and then in another part he says
that we will find the truth when quote the right
questions are asked to those within his my father's little circle.
I was never part of this circle end quote. So
a lot of the letter was really vague. Like the
(40:33):
gist of it though, is that he says he never
met or spoke to Cherry, and he didn't even know
that Janie had moved from across the street of the
Montgomery house, so he's like, I wouldn't even have known
where to get her, yeah, where she was being dropped
off after school. So I still don't feel like I
have a full grasp on what it is he really knows,
(40:57):
if anything, but he says he didn't go to police
or Janis with the information. He still says he has
because he doesn't want to spread a false narrative, which
understand that I don't understand what that means either, And
he added in the letter that he will talk to us,
but he still has terms. He says he wants to
be interviewed on live television while hooked up to a
(41:18):
polygraphic sam and listen. I'm like still trying to make
this happen. I like I does like a live stream count.
I don't know, but like I am still unable to
like nail this guy down and actually set a time
with him. And we had to move forward and put
this out there. And this is where we actually need
help from our crime junkies. Someone out there knows more
(41:42):
about Cherry's disappearance and can maybe help corroborate some of
the stuff that I've heard that our reporters have gotten
that we haven't been able to share in this episode,
even if you shared it with police before, reach out
to us, like we're doing our own investigation. So if
that's you, please email us at tips at Audiochuck dot com.
(42:03):
We want to help Janni's find closure. She just wants
to know what happened to her daughter and where she is.
And obviously, you guys, we've talked about some heavy topics
in today's episode, child molestation, sexual assault. I know it's
hard to digest, but what I hope that we can
take away from this beyond finding closure for Janis, is
that we need to protect our kids from strangers, from
(42:25):
the people they know. I mean, Cherry was always with Janis,
she always checked in, and she was still taken so
close to home. If you are a victim of child
sexual abuse or any kind of sexual abuse, I want
you to know that there are resources available for you.
Rain has a national Sexual Assault hotline available twenty four
to seven. You can call, text, online chat, even send
(42:47):
them a WhatsApp message, Free confidential always available. We're gonna
have those resources linked out in our show notes, and
if you need immediate help, text Hope to six' four
six seven. Three you can find all the source material
(43:14):
for this episode on our website crime junkie dot, com.
Speaker 8 (43:17):
And you can follow us On instagram At Crime Junkie.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Podcast we'll be back next week with a brand new.
Episode but stick around because today we have the.
Speaker 8 (43:26):
Good, Okay, ashley this is like your, favorite, yes your
(43:52):
favorite thing to do when we're sitting on this, couch
listen to our. Microphone it is time for the. Good,
Hello ashley And. Britt my name Is live And i've
been a listener since twenty.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Nineteen early, Days Oh Jinxon.
Speaker 8 (44:09):
I'm writing to you BECAUSE i believe your podcast saved my.
Life the other, DAY i was flying Into connecticut From virginia.
Alone my flight was delayed AND i didn't land until two.
Am it's a small, airport so at two am there
are almost no staff members. AROUND i was walking to
get to my rental car WHEN i noticed a man
was following. Me he started making small talk as he
(44:29):
noticed my, backpack which INDICATED i worked in. Healthcare he
started asking me questions like where do you, work where
are you, from are you? Visiting or do you live?
Here they all seem so, mundane, Right but as we
crying junkies, know this could be dangerous because of WHAT
i learned from your. PODCAST i never gave him any.
INFORMATION i kept my answers vague and moved to places
(44:51):
where people WERE i got my husband on the phone
and put him on, speakerphone but the man kept following.
Me WHEN i found out they gave away my rental,
car man who was still following, me asks, absolutely, no
where are you trying to get to? Now that's WHEN
i became. RUDE i told, him you are making me.
Uncomfortable get away from. ME i have my husband on
(45:13):
the phone and multiple people tracking my location and waiting for.
ME i was loud and caused a scene to get
people to. Notice he then backed up and, said, OH
i didn't realize you had someone on the, phone and he.
LEFT i had airport workers stay with me UNTIL i
got a. Ride true crime is so much more than.
Storytelling it keeps us alive and. Safe because of, YOU
(45:34):
i have learned so much about how to keep myself
safe and to watch for all the warning. Signs maybe
this guy was, innocent BUT i had to keep asking,
myself what if he. WASN'T i truly believe your podcast
kept me alive that. Day i'm so thankful for what
you do for women and the. Community because of, YOU
i can write to you. TODAY i was, WEIRD i was,
(45:56):
rude and because Of Crime, Junkie i'm.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
ALIVE i love it you. LIVE I those are the, stories,
Right the best ones are, like, oh nothing, happened and
probably nothing would.
Speaker 8 (46:05):
Happen the best stories we ever hear are the ones
that don't make it on our, show, Right like we
say that all the.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Time DID i tell you about the CONCERT i was
at WHERE i was being like extra crime.
Speaker 8 (46:12):
Drunkie, no but now you have.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
TO i. WAS i was with my. Husband we went
and Saw Chris stapleton and we were. Leaving we were
leaving a little early Because i'm one hundred years old
AND i was, tired and my ate sleep let me
know that it was like cooling down my bed for.
Me SO i was, like gotta. Go and there was
like this like we were in the uber area waiting
and there were like these two girls And i'm, like
overhearing this. Conversation this like much older, guy much, older
(46:36):
like ten years who's wearing like a boot and he's, like,
Oh i'm From california or In. Indiana and he's, LIKE
i just like pick a city to go to a.
Concert And i'm, like nobody picks.
Speaker 8 (46:45):
It no one Picks.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Indiana AND i told my, Husband i'm, like really sneak
taking Photos and my husband was, like what do you?
Do he's got a boot. On i'm, like have you
never heard of Ted Teddy?
Speaker 8 (46:55):
Bundy had the? Fake?
Speaker 3 (46:56):
Yeah c thank. You so watch out for, yourself. Ladies
but if you're every, One i'll also be watching out for.
You know That i'm out there patrolling. Constantly so if
you were the two girls talking to The guy From
california And indianapolis and The christapleton. CONCERT I Got You.
Girls Crime junkie is an Audio chuck. PRODUCTION i Think
(47:17):
chuck would.
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