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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
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begins at exactly 4:10 p.m. in Cabbat, Pennsylvania. That's the time when 8-year-old Cherry Maym gets dropped off
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by her school bus. Come rain, snow, or shine, it is always there near the end of [music] her family's gravel driveway.
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And Friday, February 22nd, 1985, was no different. The big yellow box parked on the side of the road, right on schedule,
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and opened its accordion doors to deposit Cherry and her big backpack on the one place a kid should be safest.
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But something happened to Cherry after those bus doors closed. And somewhere in the 500 ft between the road and her
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home, Cherry disappeared. And she hasn't [music] been seen in over 40 years. But in the last few months, our team has
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been in [music] contact with a man in prison who says that he holds the answers and he agreed to meet with us to
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share what he knows. Only one thing was different from the routine Cherry Maym followed on February
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22nd, 1985. That Friday was the one day neither Cher's mother or stepfather were there
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to walk her from her bus down the long drive to their front door. It was a nice day, 40°. Her mom, Janice, could see the
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road from their window. She could hear the bus on the gravel as it pulled up. Like, what could possibly happen in your
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own driveway? So, [snorts] she told her husband Leroy they could skip meeting Cherry at the stop. And every day for 40
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years, I bet her stomach churns as she replays that decision. I mean, it was so small, but it changed her life forever.
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Janice hears the bus come and go, and they wait. But when minutes go by and Cherry doesn't walk through the door,
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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
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end of the driveway, thinking maybe she's stopped to chat or play with a friend, but she's not there either. And
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as he stares up and down the two-lane back road, surrounded by woods on either side, the first seed of the stomach pit
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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
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they hop in their car to literally chase this bus down because maybe Cherry missed her stop. Maybe she had never
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gotten on the bus. Please have one of these things be what happened. >> But she didn't. The bus driver tells
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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
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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
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wandered off. And she even had a sleepover planned for that night that she was super excited about. Like she
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would be here if she could be. So they go right back to their trailer to call 911.
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Officers get there pretty quickly, like within [music] 10, 20 minutes, and they do a preliminary search of the area.
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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
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footprints or anything. But they don't see any suspicious ones or any that might suggest which way Cherry walked
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when she got off the bus. They also aren't seeing any of her belongings either, like her blue backpack that
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should stand out in the winter woods. But they don't find that or any of the clothes she was wearing, which was a
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denim skirt and leg warmers with gray and beige boots. And by the way, not even just in the preliminary search do
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they not find these. From what Janice told us, police end up searching the 5m radius around the home, even using blood
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hounds to try and track Cher's scent. And they also searched the surrounding woods with helicopters. Local volunteers
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joined the searches as well. So, it was a fullblown effort, >> but there were still no signs of Cherry.
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>> And have police already talked to all the kids on the bus to see if they saw anything like when she was getting
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dropped off? >> They don't do that immediately. And that's coming from Janice. I would love
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to give you the playbyplay from police, >> but but but Pennsylvania State Police
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weren't willing to talk to us for this episode, and all of our records requests were denied because they said it's an
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active investigation. But Janice's impression was that they first thought Cherry was a runaway. And
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then when they changed their minds about that, they then zeroed right in on Leroy
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and Janice themselves, questioning them for hours individually. And it wasn't totally unwarranted. I mean, you have to
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start closest to the missing person, parents, if it's a missing child. And Janice and Leroy definitely had things
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to look at. Janice told our reporter that both she and Leroy struggled with substance use disorder. And Leroy has
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post-traumatic stress disorder from the Vietnam War along with other struggles with his mental health. And Leroy was
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also part of a local motorcycle gang at the time. So, I don't know if they were thinking like the couple did something
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or maybe like just that they were hanging around in bad crowds who might have done something to their daughter.
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But to get to the bottom of it, police asked them both to take a polygraph and they agree and they both passed with no
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signs of deception. However, according to Janice, they were still treated like suspects. Though, I will say they didn't
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let the investigation stop there because they start widening that circle. And the
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next closest connection to Cherry is her biological dad, who Janice tells us is also allegedly connected to a motorcycle
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gang. >> Oh, >> this is a different motorcycle gang though than Leroy. >> Okay. >> But Janice says that he was like pretty
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high up in this motorcycle gang. And even though him doing something to Cherry didn't really make a whole lot of
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sense because truly he never even really wanted much to do with his daughter, like they still got to check this out.
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>> And interestingly, according to the Pittsburgh Press, when they do go and check, this dude is super adamant that
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not only did he have nothing to do with this, he's like, I'm not even her father.
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>> Oh, >> yeah. So, I'm assuming there are a lot of investigative steps that I'm not
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privy to in order to get to this next part. But all in all, police end up ruling him out because there is nothing
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connecting him to her disappearance. Now, in the early days of all of this, police don't name any suspects, and
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Janice couldn't think of anyone she knew who would have wanted to hurt her daughter. Cherry was a sweet, bright
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young girl. I mean, she was Janice's everything. To kind of put it in perspective, she
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had her at 16. So like they grew up together. They were always with each other. I mean, the only times they
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weren't was when Cherry was at school or when Janice had to go to work early and
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she would drop Cherry off before school with like a babysitter down the road. >> But while she wasn't suspicious of
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anyone she knew, that didn't mean that there wasn't someone to be suspicious of. Someone that Cherry was actually
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suspicious of shortly before she disappeared. >> [music] [music] [music] [music]
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>> Janice tells police that they only lived in this home for the last 6 months or
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so. Before getting this trailer, they actually lived in Janice's mom's house, which is like 20 minutes away in a town
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called Saxonburg. She said at first when they moved, like Cherry was super excited to have her own room and
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bathroom. Like, I mean, >> the dream >> the dream for a young girl. But after a few months in her new room, something
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changed. Like, Cherry went from being excited to afraid because she told her mom that she was afraid someone was
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watching her from her bedroom window. was someone watching her from her bedroom window?
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>> Well, Janice never saw anyone. And at the time, she thought maybe it might have just been like new home jitters,
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but it was enough for Janice to take her concerns seriously, so she moved Cherry
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into a smaller room closer to Janice and Leroy. And she bought her blackout curtains. Like, I mean, she did
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everything she could. But that didn't change how scared Cherry was. Even in that small room, she was sleeping on the
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floor. No pillows, no blankets. >> Oh, almost like she was hiding. That's what I'm envisioning, right? And it's
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heartbreaking because this was going on for a couple of months and she was afraid like this up until she
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disappeared. So, it's at this point when police are hearing this that they finally go talk to the other kids on
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Cher's bus. Maybe she told them more than she told her mom. Now, that ends up being a no-go. None of the kids know
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about someone watching her, but they are able to give police some other information. important like I bet you
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wish you talked to them first information. One of the kids who was on the bus tells
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police that there was this like blue green van following behind the school bus the day Cherry disappeared. Now I
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have come to learn that blue green vehicles are like a dime a dozen in the mid80s. But this one was ultra specific.
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This kid said that it had a painting of a person skiing down a snowy mountain side on the passenger side of the van.
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>> Uh yeah, you don't see paintings on the sides of vans every day. >> I've seen that. Never. [laughter]
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I I heard it's like a I was actually doing a little like chat GPT like googling with this and apparently it was
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like a big thing in the 70s and 80s. But like I'm not talking a small painting. After getting more witness confirmations
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of this van, they actually have a picture drawn and they include it in the missing person's flyers put out on
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Cherry, but there is an interesting line in the description written above it. So,
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it says possible vehicles involved in abduction. Yeah. Blue or green van with mountain scene on passenger side. Know
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that, >> right? >> Also, a small blue vehicle seen in the area. >> Seen in the area by who? So, reporting
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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
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named Debbie [music] Burke who lives nearby. She was actually parked at the spot that Cherry got off. Like, um, she
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was parked in her car waiting for her own kids to come off the bus. [snorts] >> Oh, I I guess I was picturing Cherry
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getting off the bus by herself, but there were like other people around when she got off the bus.
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>> Yeah. So Cher's bus dropped off a group of kids at one spot. Some of them would
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walk to their homes nearby. Some parents waited around for them to be dropped off
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and would pick them up. >> It was like a bus stop situation. >> Truly. Yeah. So I don't know if she's
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this witness who saw the blue car in the area. But she says she did see Cherry was maybe even the last [music] to see
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Cherry. >> Wait, could it have been her car that people saw if she's like parked there
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waiting? >> No, I checked on this. The reporting didn't say what color her car was, but I
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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
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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
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and according to an NBC News article, she said that the kids all played for a little while and then Cherry walked past
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her car in the direction of her home and then Debbie drove off with her kids. Did
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she see the mountain skiing van situation? >> She did. She saw the same van the kids
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did. And she even saw it trailing the bus beforehand in her mirror. I guess she was like parked on the side and
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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
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mean, it's not like it was doing anything other than driving down the road. >> It's just like whatever car is behind
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the bus that day >> and when the bus stops, everyone has to stop, right? So like she didn't think
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much about it. So, it didn't like stop or do anything that made her think it was like after
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>> suspic Right. It stopped with the bus, but then it just kept going down the road.
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>> No, again, stopped on the bus stop and that's it. But it didn't like pull over
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or anything. She didn't see Cherry interacting with anything. >> It wasn't notable other than it was just
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like whatever car was behind the bus that day. And to be fair, I mean, this van could theoretically have pulled off
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into a driveway or something before Cherry got off and waited until Debbie left, but Debbie doesn't mention
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anything like this. She just says she didn't see Cherry get into the van. And like when Janice hears this, she's like,
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"Well, what I know is that Cherry would never have gone off willingly with strangers or left with someone without
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permission." So her mom thinks if someone did take her, van or no van, it had to have either been someone she knew
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or someone who took her by force. >> Do they know someone who drives a van with a painting on it?
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>> That's what I was about to say next. They don't know anyone who drives that kind of van.
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>> So then we're looking for a a stranger, >> which means that the circle around
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Cherry is now infinitely wide. >> Yeah. >> And that's when local police bring in
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the help of the FBI. And they start by looking into other disappearances where a blue or green van was either involved
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or seen nearby. >> Okay, but what about the blue car? >> You know, I'm not sure if they pursued
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the blue car or not. For some reason, it just kind of stops being reported on. It
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seems like their sights are totally set on this unique van. And maybe that's because they do actually find
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disappearances and incidents involving possibly similar vans, but they're never the van. And there are never any
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incidents that they end up definitively linking to Cherry. >> Okay. Outside of the other abductions
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though, did anyone recognize just the van? I mean, it's feels like a really unique van.
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>> Well, police said at the time that they were getting thousands of tips that they
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had to sort through, but out of all of that, there was one van that was on police's radar. Apparently, it belonged
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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.
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>> Uh, sounds familiar. >> And she lived just 5 miles from where Cherry disappeared. Now, according to
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the Pittsburgh Press, police looked into this van, but on the day and time of Sherry's disappearance, it was
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apparently parked at a local steel corporation where Donna's brother-in-law worked. I guess he used the van that day
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and he was there working. So when police confirm his alibi, they just rule him out and Donna and her van. But that
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didn't stop people from harassing Donna. She said that she constantly saw people
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like taking down her plate number. And she says she got pulled over by police who thought that this was the vehicle
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connected to Sherry's disappearance. But Donna said that she was not going to stop driving the van or even paint over
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it to stop the constant attention, which I think is what I would have done. >> Yeah. Immediately. So, okay, it's not
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Donna's van. That means police think there are two of these vans with these paintings on it in town.
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>> Or there's another one out of town or this van's not connected at all. >> But there does have to be another one
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who was driving that road that day because it's not just like Donna and her family are saying they weren't involved.
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Like police are saying their van wasn't on the move when Tererry's bus stopped like at the bus stop.
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>> I know. I even wondered like could someone have access to his keys while he's working? Like unless there is video
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surveillance of this van parked the whole time. >> Was the van there the whole time?
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>> 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
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where I tend to spiral. I want to like map out the drive to work. What shift he was on. Like talked to every person who
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worked with him to see like >> how long it would have taken him to get to where where Cher's bus stop was and
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back and like >> Yeah. who had access to your keys. >> Yeah. >> I don't know. Again, all police say this
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is not their van. And also I go back to maybe the van isn't connected at all. >> But then why isn't someone coming
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forward saying like, "Hey, it was just me. Like I was just driving like that's my route to XYZ."
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>> I'm just I'm grasping here. I'm trying. And listen, I don't know if they just
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like take the alibi for it or if they even process the van forensically. I would think so if they ruled it out,
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>> right? >> And especially I think that because I do know that they processed some vans that
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were kind of similar looking at that time, even if the van wasn't spot-on. But I go back to they never found the
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van and they never found Cherry. Even despite some pretty big campaigns, like when her picture was featured on a rerun
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of NBC's Adam, which was about six-year-old Adam Walsh's abduction, Cherry was actually the first missing
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child to have her picture printed on a postcard and sent around the country as part of the Have You Seen Me direct mail
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flyer program. And she was one of the first missing children whose missing person's poster was placed on a milk
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carton. >> That was a program that started the year she disappeared. And according to the
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Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Nickmick is putting Sherry's information in different hotels in Canada and Mexico,
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even the UK. So they're not ruling out that she was taken out of the country because
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>> again, how infinitely wide is a circle when you don't have much to go off of?
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You can't rule anything out. But by 1998, Cherry's case is ice cold. >> And that is when Janice has Cherry
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legally declared deceased. She says she isn't moving on or giving up looking, but I mean, she had another child and
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she says she needed to come to terms with the fact that Cherry likely wasn't alive.
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>> And over the next 30 years, she did her best to deal with that. But in 2018, her
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entire world was upended when she received a letter in the mail. And on a single sheet of wide ruled notebook
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paper, someone had handwritten in block letters all the answers that she had been seeking for over 30 years. And it
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was signed Pastor Justice. Now, I can't read you the note in its entirety because it has specific names
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that we don't want to share, but we will put a redacted version of this letter up
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on the blog post and on social media for this episode if any of the listeners want to go take a look. Basically, it
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says that Cherry was killed by friends of her biological father. And these friends are part of a Quaker cult who
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helped quote make Cherry disappear for at least the guy Janice claims is Cher's biod.
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>> And like the motive for this was allegedly all to like evade him paying child support. Now, the anonymous writer
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gives specific details on where Cher's remains are in a place called the Lock 8 dam, which is about 25 miles or like 40
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minutes away, give or take. >> And interestingly, they ended the letter saying, "I pray you find some peace
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after you find her body." Now, Janice told our reporter that she has no idea who these friends are that is like
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referenced in this letter, and she's not even familiar with the area that they're
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talking about. Well, and also since when are Quakers kidnapping and murdering people, let alone kids. I mean, they
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aren't >> right >> like they are known to be pacifists, right? >> You if you say so. I don't I don't know
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enough. But like >> here's what I'll say is like and maybe because they haven't gotten anything in
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so long, police at least kind of seem to take this letter seriously, right? It's
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something when they've had a lot of nothing for decades because she shows them this letter and they actually do go
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out and search this area, but unfortunately nothing comes of it. So, it is another dead end.
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>> I mean, or an incredibly cruel prank, >> which honestly probably that because
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there is no evidence that anything in that letter is true. But I don't know if this letter unleashed something or what.
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But after this, in the same year in 2018, she gets this phone call at work. The person on the other end of the line
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thinks that she might be Janice's longlost daughter. Now, Jerry would have been in her early 40s at this point. And
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so, as you can imagine, like Janice, she has spent so much of her life like like
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deciding what she has to live with, right? Like, so she's immediately skeptical. She's like not convinced. I
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have to imagine she like can't even let herself believe it. >> It sounds like a nice moment that you
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want to be excited for, but you also have to like steal yourself. >> You can't get your hopes up at like
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>> Yeah. >> anything or everything at this point. >> Yeah. Because the fall back down if it
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is not them could be worse. Like >> you're undoing all the healing and forward momentum that you've made over
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the years. And she had a good level of skepticism because when police compare this caller's fingerprints to Cher's
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>> Wait, how do they have Cher's fingerprints? >> They have them on file because they were
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actually taken at her elementary school. So like yeah, super useful. I don't know
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if they do that anymore, but like probably should. But when they do this, they determine that this woman isn't
00:21:03
Cherry. >> And even though, right, like even though she was skeptical, like Janice is still
00:21:07
devastated because you tell yourself not to get your hopes up, but you still that
00:21:12
little like spark, right? >> Yeah. You still get your whole you like you wish that it could be true that she
00:21:17
would finally be reunited with her daughter, but this let down is a reminder of the fact that she may never
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know what happened after her daughter got off the school bus that February day or who was responsible.
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But let this be a lesson. Even in the coldest of cold cases, never say never. Because in 2023, nearly 40 years after
00:21:41
her daughter went missing, leads come straight to Janice in the most unexpected place.
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What I'm about to share with you has never been reported on in this much detail before, and it names a person who
00:21:56
has never been connected publicly to this case before. According to Janice, one day in the spring of 2023, she went
00:22:05
to her local VFW to have a drink. It was a regular spot for her. She knew most of
00:22:10
the locals who came in there. But on this night, when she's sitting at the bar, she sees this man that she doesn't
00:22:15
recognize, and he's just staring right at her. So, finally, she's like, "Hey, man. What's the deal?" And the guy just
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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
00:22:32
does know her. She knows him. He's someone that she grew up with, but she didn't recognize him at first because
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she hadn't seen him since they were like little kids. Now, our reporter actually
00:22:42
spoke with this man and he asked that we keep him anonymous because what he told
00:22:47
us, the bomb that he dropped on Janice that day could put him in danger. He said that he knows one of Janice's
00:22:55
neighbors, the one who lived across the street from them [music] at Janice's mom's house before they moved to that
00:23:02
trailer. The guy's name is John Montgomery. Now, this is a name that Janice knows well. Cherry often played
00:23:09
with other young kids over at their house. And after Cherry disappeared, Janice says some of the family members
00:23:15
would even check in with her weekly for updates. This guy says he knew Jon well,
00:23:20
too. And John and another man were abusing Cherry before she disappeared. And he believes that they might be
00:23:28
involved in her disappearance. And in that moment, Janice's world is spinning because this is completely new
00:23:36
information. I mean, she didn't have so much as an inkling like anything like that could have been happening to
00:23:42
Cherry. She told us that a lot of the hallmark signs of abuse, like a sudden change in behavior or fear of being in a
00:23:48
room with like certain people, like she didn't see that in her daughter, the only thing she ever noticed was that
00:23:54
fear that someone unknown was watching her after she moved away from the house that was across the street from the
00:24:01
Montgomery house. >> And do you know how long it had been going on before she moved or before she
00:24:06
went missing? >> No, I I have no idea how long the alleged abuse was going on before she
00:24:11
disappeared. the our source didn't have like a timeline for that. >> And how does he even know about this?
00:24:17
>> So, I have to keep some of the details back to protect his identity, but I can
00:24:21
tell you he didn't always know this. So, it's not like he's like kept this secret
00:24:25
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
00:24:32
away. And around 2010, he moved back to Pennsylvania. It was after he moved back
00:24:37
that he learned about John and this other guy abusing not just Cherry, but he says other kids in the neighborhood
00:24:43
as well. And the other guy, he actually named that other guy, but that is someone that we can't name at this
00:24:49
point. Now, when he learned about the abuse, he wasn't necessarily connecting it to Cherry's disappearance right away.
00:24:57
But one day, he said he saw this old missing person flyer of Cherry with the blue car and the van that we talked
00:25:04
about. And that's when he realized that John Montgomery would have had access to
00:25:09
a similar blue car around the time that Jerry disappeared. And so this is when he said he went to police because this
00:25:17
is obviously a major revelation. And according to him, they took him seriously, even set him up with a wire
00:25:24
to go confront John. But he said while he was wearing the wire, John denied involvement and he basically blamed the
00:25:31
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
00:25:38
directly because like I said, they wouldn't talk to us. Though, I will say that authorities did tell a WPXI
00:25:44
reporter, Rick Earl, that they did interview neighbors about Cherry's disappearance, but no one has ever
00:25:51
confessed to anything related to Cherry. >> So, what about the other kids, though?
00:25:56
Did they in investigate any of that? >> That's the thing. I don't think so. It seems like when our source talked to
00:26:02
police, it was the first they were hearing of any of these allegations. So, they hadn't been independently reported.
00:26:09
Like these kids, even as adults, hadn't come forward to them. And we even went and checked court records and we didn't
00:26:14
find any record for John or this other guy. So, nothing went through on the legal side. And I don't know how much
00:26:21
police went looking for victims. >> Right. Now, John died in 2022, so I can't ask him. And our attempts to reach
00:26:31
this other guy were unsuccessful. So, do we think it's true and no one ever reported anything or
00:26:42
I don't know. I mean, for the guy to have no record and this be in his history is kind of kind of wild to me.
00:26:49
>> It's wild, but it's not unbelievable if this is true. I mean, we know that some
00:26:53
adults don't report their abuse. And for children, those numbers skyrocket. I mean, there's often a lack of
00:26:59
understanding of like what is happening to them or like they're afraid of getting in trouble because even if they
00:27:05
realize like what is happening is wrong. Often they blame themselves or they they
00:27:10
get convinced that it's their job to protect their abuser. >> Right. >> And especially if it's someone they
00:27:14
know, their abuser will often tell them like, "Oh, I'm going to get in trouble or like this is going to happen to me or
00:27:19
to you." And like I think that could fall in line with what police ended up telling CNN in 2011 that they ended up
00:27:26
saying that Cherry was likely abducted by someone she knew really well. Literally, a Pennsylvania trooper said,
00:27:33
quote, "I believe this person had the ability to basically lure Cherry to their vehicle without her giving it a
00:27:40
second thought prior to her disappearance." End quote. So, it's totally possible for someone to operate
00:27:47
like this [music] and not have a record, >> right? Possible. But did he like how do you even go about
00:27:55
trying to run this down to find the truth of what happened? >> Well, you need cooperation,
00:28:00
>> right? Which finally came this year. That's why we're able to report this. >> So, when Janice found this out, that was
00:28:08
2023, remember? Like, she didn't know what to do. I mean, she didn't have a good relationship with investigators on
00:28:13
the case, so she felt isolated from what police had going on. And so, she didn't
00:28:18
even tell anyone else. Plus, we know that the guy who's telling her this already tried to go to police.
00:28:24
So, like, what's she going to do, right? So, she kind of just held it in for a couple of years. But in 2025, Janice
00:28:34
confided in her friend Bailey. She basically told her like, "I'm at my wit's end. like I all I want is answers
00:28:40
at this point and I feel like I am so close but still just out of reach. And bless friends like Bailey, she sees this
00:28:51
as a cry for help and she just jumps into action. Bailey starts pushing law enforcement to look into leads. She
00:28:58
creates a Facebook page called Find Cherry Mayhem and even starts a team called Cher's Angels that ends up
00:29:04
working with a private investigator, this guy named Steve Ridge. And Steve pledges $100,000 for anyone who helps
00:29:12
with finding Cher's remains. And so while Steve is doing his thing, Bailey starts looking into John Montgomery,
00:29:19
trying to find anything linking him or that other guy to child sex abuse. So she's searching all avenues. And one of
00:29:28
those is on meganlaw.com, which is a website that keeps track of sex offenders. And to be honest, she doesn't
00:29:35
really know what she's looking for, but I think she's like trying anything. And it almost is like this feeling for her
00:29:40
of like, I'll know it when I see it. Right? >> So, she's looking around like in the
00:29:46
area of both the house that Cherry disappeared from and her grandma's house that she lived in in Saxonburg.
00:29:53
And suddenly, she sees the name William Montgomery, John Montgomery's son. Now, he goes by
00:30:02
buddy, and he'd already done time in prison by the time she came across him. And that actually is where he is right
00:30:09
now for failing to register as a sex offender. He was locked up in 2022, and we don't know when he's getting out, but
00:30:16
the max sentence for the failure to register is 54 months. So, it's likely that he'll be out sometime by the end of
00:30:23
next year. And we actually found his previous record. So in 2004, he plead guilty to sexual assault, corruption of
00:30:30
minors, endangering the welfare of children, and indecent assault. He ended up cutting a deal with prosecutors, and
00:30:37
according to news reports, >> I'm not going to like this. >> Instead of getting 75 years in prison,
00:30:43
>> okay, >> he got about 2 years behind bars and 10 years probation. >> Okay, I'm going to have to skip past that so I
00:30:54
don't see red. Did he live at the house across from Cher's grandma at the time Cherry was living there? So, I am not
00:31:03
exactly sure where he lived at that time. But what I can say is that we interviewed several people who lived in
00:31:10
the area at the time who say that Buddy was definitely around then. So, I don't know where he lived, but he was
00:31:15
definitely around there and he was in his early 20s when Cherry disappeared. >> So, Bailey finds this. She of course
00:31:22
gives it over to police, >> but she and Janice haven't seen much come of them running down any potential
00:31:28
leads. >> So that's when Janice decides to take matters into her own hands. And at the
00:31:33
beginning of April this year, she just wrote to Buddy in prison. She asks if she can come and talk to him about
00:31:41
Cherry because she is trying to figure out what happened and she wants closure after 40 years. and she acknowledges
00:31:47
that his dad wasn't the greatest guy and says, "Listen, I'm sorry for all that you have been put through and have
00:31:51
seen." And it worked because less than two weeks later, Buddy actually responds to her.
00:32:00
Buddy's first letter back to Janice is pretty vague. He basically just says he wants to help. So Janice writes him back
00:32:06
asking like, "Okay, put me on your visitation list." Because >> again, she just wants to get in front of
00:32:11
this guy. >> But it's weeks before he responds. A letter does eventually come in miday and
00:32:18
he apologizes for the delay. He said he actually had a heart attack and he's been in the hospital, but he still wants
00:32:23
to talk to her. And so she just keeps sending him short messages asking, "Okay, great. I want to talk to you,
00:32:28
too, but when can I come see you or when can we at least talk on the phone?" >> Yeah.
00:32:33
>> But she says that Buddy just keeps like dodging her. So at the end of June, Janice schedules a visit to the prison
00:32:40
anyway, but when she gets there, Buddy won't come out. And I guess Janice tries to schedule another visit, but before
00:32:47
that one happens, Buddy writes her this message. And he sends it to the person that is helping Janice communicate with
00:32:54
him in prison. And I'll read what I can from it. I just received word that Janice had made arrangements for a
00:33:01
contact visit on Saturday. So, please let her know that I will not accept it until I have a chance to set things up
00:33:08
the way I want it set up. >> And how exactly is that? she found out. So he lays out those terms in more
00:33:16
letters. He says he wants his story televised [music] for his own protection. Now mind you, we started
00:33:23
communicating with Janice like while this was all unfolding. >> I was going to say just as a reminder,
00:33:28
this is happening a few months ago. >> Yeah. So Buddy wants a news organization. Happy to help. Like put us
00:33:36
to work, Janice. So, we even sent Buddy a letter of our own in April, though I'm
00:33:40
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
00:33:47
wrote to him on the prison email system asking if he would speak to us about the
00:33:51
case because his name had come up. And we sent him a list of questions, like a few times actually, about the things
00:33:58
that we've heard. And he finally responded with this. After reading your questions, I am so
00:34:05
disgruntled over the fact that you are hearing these lies and would want nothing other than an opportunity to sit
00:34:11
down with you and talk. Great. So, we kept pressing for that opportunity to talk for a phone call,
00:34:19
but he kept avoiding us like he did with Janice. So in the meantime, we tried to
00:34:26
verify a specific lead that we heard about and we wanted to talk to somebody who knew Buddy. So first was the lead.
00:34:34
So the PI, Steve Ridge, had gotten a tip from someone locally who knew the Montgomery's.
00:34:40
They told him that a backpack that may or may not have been Cherries was allegedly submerged in a pond somewhere
00:34:48
on the 28 acre Montgomery property sometime after Cher's disappearance. Interesting if true. So, we tracked down
00:34:55
the person who gave Steve that tip. They did say some similar things to us, >> but the details they gave us about what
00:35:04
actually happened were pretty hazy and for legal reasons. For now, I can't talk about it. And I'm not sure if the
00:35:12
Montgomery property was ever searched in connection with Cher's disappearance, which I think is like an interesting
00:35:17
fact. >> Yeah. >> So, TBD on the backpack, we're still looking into that. I can tell you a
00:35:23
little bit more about what we found when we tracked down a former friend of Buddies. [music] His name is Mike. Now,
00:35:28
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
00:35:35
and he walked up on him having a conversation that I don't think Mike was supposed to hear. I can't tell you the
00:35:42
full details of this alleged conversation, but in it, Buddy was mentioning Cherry
00:35:48
on the phone with someone. And when Mike confronted him about it, he says that Buddy told him his dad John quote chose
00:35:57
her and then went on to say that his dad was involved in her disappearance. Now,
00:36:01
there are a lot more details that Mike provided and he says that he told police about this incident as well, but again,
00:36:09
I have not been able to confirm this with cops myself >> because they didn't want to talk to us.
00:36:14
Got it. >> We did though ask Buddy about all of this [music] first about the backpack
00:36:19
and if he knows anything about it, he said f no in not so bleeped out terms. And in another more recent letter, we
00:36:29
actually asked him about the Mike allegations, whether he was involved in Cher's disappearance and everything that
00:36:35
came up in our reporting of Cher's case. And he basically in a letter said he was
00:36:40
going to send us a letter that he was going to be very direct in. >> Okay. >> And we were like waiting, holding our
00:36:46
breath, like even put off doing this recording cuz that's what I was waiting for.
00:36:50
>> I literally just got it in the mail yesterday. It is like eight pages long. So, I'm going to give you the
00:36:58
highlights, but for my nosy nellies, I will be posting it on the blog post, probably heavily redacted. But here's
00:37:04
the like hottake part. He says, quote, "I also want to make it very clear to you, especially those who
00:37:13
are formulating such moronic lies and whoever else thinks slash believes that I may have had anything to do with
00:37:21
the disappearance of Cherry Mayhem to go straight to the enslavements of hell." End quote. And then in another part, he
00:37:29
says that we will find the truth when quote, "The right questions are asked to those within his my father's little
00:37:36
circle. I was never part of this circle." End quote. So, a lot of the letter was really
00:37:45
vague. Like, the gist of it, though, is that he says he never met or spoke to Cherry and he didn't even know that
00:37:55
Janice had moved from across the street of the Montgomery house. >> So, he's like, I wouldn't even have
00:38:00
known where to to get her. Yeah. Where she was being dropped off after school. So, I still don't feel like I have a
00:38:08
full grasp on what it is he really knows, if anything. >> But he says he didn't go to police or
00:38:15
Janice with the information he still says he has because he doesn't want to spread a false narrative,
00:38:21
>> which >> I don't understand that. >> I don't understand what that means either. And he added in the letter that
00:38:26
he will talk to us, but he still has terms. He says he wants to be interviewed on live television while
00:38:33
hooked up to a polygraph exam. And listen, I'm like still trying to make this happen. I like I does like a live
00:38:40
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.
00:38:49
[music] And we had to move forward and put this out there. And this is where we actually need help from our crime
00:38:55
junkies. someone out there knows more about Cher's disappearance and can maybe help corroborate some of the stuff
00:39:03
>> that I've heard that our reporters have gotten that we haven't been able to share in this episode. So, this is where
00:39:08
we need your help, crime junkies. Someone out there knows more about Cher's disappearance and maybe you can
00:39:15
help corroborate some of the stuff that we weren't able to share in this episode, right? Like even if you've
00:39:19
talked to police before, we are trying to figure out what happened. There's a lot that we've been told that our
00:39:24
reporters have found that we couldn't put in this episode without corroboration. So, if that's you, if you
00:39:30
know something, even if you've talked before, please email us tips at audiochuck.com.
00:39:36
We want to help Janice find closure. I mean, she just wants to know what happened to her daughter and where she
00:39:42
is. And I know we talked about some heavy topics in today's episode, child molestation, sexual assault, and it's
00:39:49
all hard to digest, but what I hope we can take away from this beyond finding closure for Janice is that we need to
00:39:56
protect our kids from strangers, but also from the people they know. I mean, Cherry was always with Janice, always
00:40:02
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
00:40:10
abuse, I want you to know that there are resources available for you. RAIN has national sexual assault hotline
00:40:16
available 24/7. You can call them, text, online chat, even send them a WhatsApp message. It's free, confidential, and
00:40:24
always available. So, we're going to have those resources linked out in our show notes. And if you need immediate
00:40:29
help, remember to text hope to 64673. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website,
00:40:39
crimejunkiepodcast.com. >> And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkie podcast. We'll be back next
00:40:45
week with a brand new episode. [music]