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MISSING: Cherrie Mahan

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?
Duration
48m
Broadcast on
29 Sep 2025
Audio Format
other

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?

  • Click HERE to view William “Buddy” Montgomery’s most recent letter.
  • If you or someone you know has any information about Cherrie’s disappearance or can corroborate things in this episode, please email [email protected].

If you are a victim of child sexual abuse or any kind of sexual abuse, you can contact RAINN’s national sexual assault hotline by calling 800-656-HOPE (4673), by texting HOPE to 64673, or by online chatting at hotline.RAINN.org. Their services are free, confidential, and available 24/7.

 

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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 Brit. And the story I have for you today, it begins at exactly 4 10 p.m. in Cabot, Pennsylvania. That's the time when eight-year-old Cherry Mayhand gets dropped off by her school bus. Come rain, snow, or shine, it is always there near the end of her family's gravel driveway. And Friday, February 22nd, 1985 was no different. The big yellow box parked on the side of the road right on schedule and opened its accordion door to deposit Cherry and her big backpack in the one place that a kid should be safest. But something happened to Cherry after those bus doors closed, and somewhere in the 500 feet between the road and her home, Cherry disappeared, and she hasn't been seen in over 40 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. [Music] Only one thing was different from the routine Cherry Mayhand followed on February 22nd, 1985. 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, 40 degrees. Her mom, Janice, could see the road from their window. 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 40 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 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 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 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 Janice 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, 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 planned for that night that she was super excited about. Like, she would be here if she couldn't. So they go right back to their trailer to call 911. Officers get there pretty quickly, like within 10, 20 minutes, and they do a 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 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 Janice told us, police end up searching the five mile radius around the home, even using bloodhounds to try and track Cherry's scent. And they also search the surrounding woods with helicopters. Local volunteers joined the searches as well, so it was a full blown effort. But there were still no signs of Cherry. 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? They don't do that immediately, and that's coming from Janice. I would love to give you the play-by-play from police. But, 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 then zeroed right in on Leroy and Janice 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 Janice and Leroy definitely had things to look at. Janice told our reporter that both she and Leroy struggled with substance use disorder, and 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, police asked them both to take a polygraph, and they agreed, and they both passed 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 Janice tells us is also allegedly connected to a motorcycle gang. This is a different motorcycle gang, though, than Leroy. But Janice says that he was 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, they still got to check this out. 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 all in all, police end up ruling him out, because there is nothing connecting him to her disappearance. Now, in the early days of all of this, police don't name any suspects, and Janice 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 Janice's everything. To kind of put it in perspective, she had her at 16, so, like, they grew up together.

Transcription truncated.

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?