Girl's disappearance remains a mystery 20 years later

Shirley Mahan has one wish she would like granted before she dies: To know what happened to her granddaughter, Cherrie Mahan.

“If I just knew if she was dead or alive, it would help,” said the 77-year-old grandmother who lives in Clinton Township.

Cherrie was 8 years old when she disappeared while walking home from her Winfield bus stop on Feb. 22, 1985. She was never found.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of her disappearance. Her family knows about as much now of her whereabouts as they did that afternoon.

“I just wish I had some closure,” Shirley Mahan said. “But I don't.”

Family members have conceded the likelihood that Cherrie is dead, but vow they won't stop looking for her or hoping that she's alive and well.

Mahan said she's dealt with death of many family members, including her father, a son and her husband. But the loss of Cherrie is something she hasn't come to terms with.

“Sometimes I wish I could sit on a couch and pull a blanket over my head and just not wake up,” Mahan said.

Mahan said she's consulted psychics over the years, most of whom offered conflicting stories and advice. Some said Cherrie was dead, some said she was alive.

She once got a tip that Cherrie was buried near a well on an old farm on Cornplanter Road, the road Cherrie was last seen walking down before she disappeared. But the tip didn't pan out.

“One told me I'd know what happened before I died, but I don't know,” she said.

Mahan's daughter and Cherrie's mother, Janice McKinney, said she keeps hoping someone will confess or give police the clue that turns the tide.

“Somebody out there knows something,” McKinney said. “They might not even know they know it.”

McKinney said she wishes she'd driven her daughter home from the bus stop that day, rather than let her walk.

Cherrie's stepfather, Leroy McKinney, usually drove her the 50 yards from the bus stop at the intersection of Cornplanter and Winfield roads to the family's mobile home, which was at the end of a steep, wooded driveway and wasn't visible from the road. But that day they decided to let Cherrie walk.

It's a decision Janice McKinney regrets.

“Every day I feel more and more guilty for not picking her up,” she said. “That's a lot of guilt to carry around for 20 years.”

The McKinneys contacted police within an hour and hundreds of volunteers combed the surrounding woods and searched roadsides for some sign of Cherrie.

Children who rode the bus with Cherrie and a mother who picked up several kids at her bus stop recalled seeing a blue or green van with a large mural that featured a skier and a snowy mountain scene.

The van's description soon was circulated regionally and then nationally, although police were never certain it was connected to her disappearance.

But the van, like Cherrie, was never found.

“There've been hundreds and hundreds of vans that have been photographed and history checked,” said Butler State Police Trooper Frank Jendesky, who is in charge of Cherrie's case.

Jendesky said Cherrie's case remains open and he periodically checks out reported sightings of her and the van. He sends out releases on the anniversary of her disappearance to keep her name and face in the public eye.

“We just pray that we'll get a break,” he said. “It's really a bizarre case.”

Cherrie's mother and grandmother, along with some family and friends, met at Saxonburg Memorial United Presbyterian Church on Sunday to remember their brief time with Cherrie and celebrate her life.

“She was such a loving little girl when she lived with us,” Shirley Mahan said, recalling when her daughter and granddaughter lived with her in Clinton.

Mahan remembered the Cabbage Patch Kid doll she gave Cherrie.

“She carried it with her everywhere she went,” Mahan said.

Cherrie would turn 29 years old on Aug. 14. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has a computer-generated photo of what she might look like now.

McKinney had a judge declare Cherrie legally dead in 1998 so money from a car accident settlement could be placed in trust for McKinney's son, Robert, who now is 15 years old and was born four years after Cherrie went missing. Generally, a missing person can be declared dead seven years after their disappearance; McKinney waited 13 years.

“We're trained that when someone dies you have a body, a kiss on a cheek, you put them in the ground, and you say good-bye,” McKinney said at the time. “This will never be the type of closure I want.”

“The not knowing is the worst thing,” McKinney said last week. “I just don't know if she's dead or alive.”

McKinney, who now lives in Mars, said she planted a tree at her workplace and places an angel statue near it to commemorate her daughter.

She also set up an angel on Cornplanter Road several years ago, but said she hasn't gone back to see if it's still there. It's too hard.

Mahan said that about a year ago, she went drove to the spot where Cherrie was last seen.

“I pulled over and sat there and cried, and wished I hadn't gone,” she said.

Mahan said she erected a cherub statue in a Saxonburg cemetery, but Cherrie doesn't have a grave or a gravestone there.

Until they know she's dead, Mahan isn't certain she'll ever have one.

“I just feel that I've prayed and prayed, and so many people tell me they've prayed for her,” Mahan said. “If we get so many prayers, why don't we know?”

“Whether it be good or bad,” McKinney said, “I'd just like to know so it can end.”

Liz Hayes is a staff writer for the Valley News Dispatch, Tarentum.