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WARNING: Roger Hueber

In August 2005, a woman disappeared just days before she was supposed to testify against her boyfriend, a corrections officer accused of sexually abusing minors. For years, her family says she was treated like a fugitive instead of a missing person. But when we looked deeper, we found a witness who has never spoken publicly before — and a sighting from the night she vanished that could change the way this case has been understood for more than twenty years.
Duration
53m
Broadcast on
13 Jul 2026
Audio Format
other

In August 2005, a woman disappeared just days before she was supposed to testify against her boyfriend, a corrections officer accused of sexually abusing minors. For years, her family says she was treated like a fugitive instead of a missing person. But when we looked deeper, we found a witness who has never spoken publicly before — and a sighting from the night she vanished that could change the way this case has been understood for more than twenty years.

  • If you know anything about the disappearance of Sheryl Rucci, please contact the Niagara County Sheriff's Office at 716-438-3393. If you’d prefer to remain anonymous, you can submit a tip on their website.

 

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Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. 

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Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host Ashley Flowers, and I'm Brett, and the story I have for you today is true to the title, a warning for our viewers, especially the ones in New York, but a reminder for all crime junkies, to be careful who you trust. So let's dive in. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]
Our story begins on January 6, 2005, in Lockport, New York, which is this small city about 40 minutes outside of Buffalo. There is this 16-year-old special education student who I'm going to call Emily. She has been working with a school administrator on ways to better express herself, because she's going through a lot at home at the time. She's been dealing with a lot of trauma, and her multiple disabilities make it really hard for her to work through that and process things like all the things going on around her. So working with this person, this administrator, and a psychologist, she begins to journal to try and get out the things that she's going through and feeling on paper. Maybe that would be an easier way for her to share information with them. And it is. She writes about her home life, about the books that she reads, and about one of her few friends named Megan. She's actually another female student in the high school special education program. But what Emily is writing about her is deeply concerning, because Emily writes that 17-year-old Megan is in a relationship with someone named Roger, an adult man who works in law enforcement. And they have been doing things that apparently make Emily uncomfortable. And whatever it is was clearly intended to be kept secret, because Roger specifically told Emily that this school administrator better not find out about him, which, as you can imagine, makes this administrator determined to find out not just about what's going on, but who exactly this Roger is. And she knows exactly who to ask, because her husband is a deputy with the Niagara County Sheriff's Office, and he helps her connect the dots. Roger was apparently not a very common name in the area at that time. Law enforcement Roger is 41-year-old Roger Huber, who is employed by the same department, but he actually works as a correctional officer at the local jail. So she calls the jail superintendent and keeps it simple. Tell Roger Huber to leave my students alone. Now, at first, this administrator doesn't expect it to go any further than that. She assumes that the department will deal with it quietly. But someone at the jail takes it up the chain, because pretty soon an investigator from the Sheriff's Office, this guy named Joe Taylor, contacts her and says that he is formally investigating the allegations against Roger. Thank God. And good, because realistically, I mean, she was a mandatory reporter. Like it should have been more official than that. And I actually checked with my sister-in-law, who's a vice principal, and she's like, "Absolutely. You're not supposed to, like, go investigate or see what's what. You just, like, you need your support." And that's, yeah. Yeah, so at least when it gets told to them, it got up the chain. Now, here is where it gets tricky. The age of consent in New York is 17, so it's actually not illegal for Roger to be in a sexual relationship with 17-year-old high school student Megan. I mean, not even if she's a special needs student? No, that is not a factor. It is only about age. So really, the investigation that ensues is just trying to determine if the relationship started before Megan was 17. Now, Joe Taylor tries to go right to the source with Megan. He reaches out to a woman that he describes as the mother figure of Megan's house. But that woman says that talking to Megan is probably going to be a waste of his time, because according to her, Megan would never be honest about what is going on between her and Roger. She would protect him. Yeah, based on the little snippet we got from Emily's diary, I'm sure that he has made it very clear to Megan, because he made it clear to Emily, that people shouldn't know about their relationship. So, investigator Taylor decides to go directly to Roger with the allegations instead. Now, when he asked the jail supervisor to send Roger over to the criminal bureau, it's casual. Like, Taylor doesn't have enough to charge him or arrest him, or even Miranda is him. Like, this is just a check. But he asks Roger how he knows Megan. And Roger says that, you know, he's doing it for like six or seven years, since back in 1998, when she would have been about 10 or 11 years old. And she's really close with the family now, because she is friends with Roger's 13-year-old son. And she's over at his house almost every day babysitting his eight-year-old daughter. Wait, is there a Mrs. Huber in the picture? Not technically then, so he had been married before, though. Like, that is who he had three of his four kids with. Then his fourth kid, the eight-year-old, he had with this long-term girlfriend who did live with him when this was all going down in 2005.

Transcription truncated.

In August 2005, a woman disappeared just days before she was supposed to testify against her boyfriend, a corrections officer accused of sexually abusing minors. For years, her family says she was treated like a fugitive instead of a missing person. But when we looked deeper, we found a witness who has never spoken publicly before — and a sighting from the night she vanished that could change the way this case has been understood for more than twenty years.