Law enforcement and Butler’s psychic sisters are frustrated by a 38-year search for a suspect in the abduction of Cherrie Mahan from a rural bus stop in Winfield Township.
But they are trying harder and upping their efforts to find answers around the anniversary of the 8-year-old’s disappearance Feb. 22, 1985. Although Mahan was legally declared dead in 1998, police and family still hold out hope.
Mahan’s case is open.
State police welcomed two investigators from Team Adam of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to the Butler station last week. They are reviewing some of the files of the case, a voluminous dive into 5,000 typewritten reports, plus notes, attachments, photos and more, said Trooper Max DeLuca, who has been leading the investigation.
“I hope someone comes through with some good firsthand knowledge,” DeLuca said. “Someone has to know something.”
He said he doesn’t want to speculate whether Mahan’s disappearance was caused by someone who knew her.
“It’s a unique case in the fact that it happened in an area that is so rural,” he said.
From 2020:
Police can only hope to receive more viable, solid tips from someone with direct knowledge.
“Hopefully, over time, it has started to eat away at them or someone they confided in,” DeLuca said.
The Vincent sisters, psychics from Butler County, will walk and pray with Mahan’s mother, Janice McKinney, to memorialize Cherrie and observe her disappearance at 4:05 p.m. today at McKinney’s former home along Cornplanter Road in Winfield.
A Winfield Elementary School bus dropped off Cherrie and some other students about 500 feet from her driveway along Cornplanter Road 38 years ago. A blue van with a mountain and skier on the side was parked near her driveway, according to eyewitness reports.
Cherrie’s disappearance became national news. The young, doe-eyed girl with an impish grin became the first person featured on the famous “Have you seen me?” circulars produced by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
McKinney believes someone is alive who can tell the story about what happened to Cherrie.
“I just pray all the time that they would find it in their heart to just tell somebody,” she said. “I truly believe there are people out there who know what happened to Cherrie. Either they are afraid, or … I don’t know.”
Police looking for knowledgeable tips
Although police continue to run down every tip received, they need something more solid, DeLuca said.
Tips come in locally, as well as through Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers, which offers a $5,000 reward.
Police are looking for more than “someone gives me the creeps” tips, DeLuca said.
While there have been rumors and focus on Cherrie’s family and acquaintances, DeLuca doesn’t want to rule anyone out.
Related:
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• From 2014: Investigation continues in case of Cherrie Mahan, missing for decades
• From 2005: Girl’s disappearance remains a mystery 20 years later
“Over time and all of the stuff we looked into, including family members, the case is open and no one is clear beyond a reasonable doubt until this thing is solved,” DeLuca said.
There are limitations in following up on the decades-old abduction. There were no license plate readers or home surveillance cameras at the time.
Without photos, for example, police followed up on hundreds of vans with illustrations of mountain scenes, skiers and even some cowboys.
“There is no evidence received that puts her in the van,” DeLuca said.
Team Adam investigators are Shawn Kofluk, a retired state police corporal, and Tom Maurer, a retired sheriff from Wayne County, Ohio.
“Maybe they will pick up something myself or my predecessors didn’t,” DeLuca said.
The team has access to technological resources the state police don’t have, Kofluk said. In addition, Kofluk said, he and Maurer are “starting at square one with the old police report, evidence and crime scene information.”
Maurer added that he appreciates the media keeping the story alive for the families and communities, as well as helping with the investigation.
The goal is to find Mahan.
“We don’t give up hope,” Kofluk said. “We are always looking, and that person is never forgotten. That is why we keep pushing.”
Strong but broken-hearted mother
When McKinney, 62, wants to think about her lost child, all she has to do is look at the tattoo she got last year on her left hand. The purple ink is stenciled from a note in Cherrie’s handwriting when she was 6 that says “I love you, Cherrie.”
McKinney of Jefferson Township is the director of the housekeeping department at Washington Place in Richland Township.
“I worked 40 years in a nursing home. Death and dying is something I know about,” she said. “But not knowing where she is, whether she’s dead or alive, it’s like a never-ending story. It sucks the life out of me.”
McKinney has made statements over the years about possible suspects, including an acquaintance of Cherrie’s biological father, who McKinney said raped her when she was 15 and has never been identified publicly.
McKinney said Cherrie’s father still lives in Butler County and was local to where she grew up in Clinton Township.
“The person who I said was her father never wanted to admit to it,” she said.
McKinney said the father knew a biker gang she felt was dangerous, but she doesn’t know if they were violent. A pedophile still is a possibility, McKinney said.
“People didn’t talk about it then. It’s not like the sex offenders we know today through Megan’s Law,” she said.
“I don’t think that I ever knew somebody or anybody who knew me had that streak in them to do something this crazy,” McKinney said.
The psychic sisters
The Vincent sisters don’t think Cherrie is alive but they hold out hope for the family.
The sisters from Butler County have been psychic sleuthing for decades and continue to be featured in national television programs, including one helping police crack the 2006 murder of Blairsville dentist Dr. John Yelenic. These psychic detective mediums volunteer their services to families of victims and police.
DeLuca said state police take tips from the sisters and run them down as they do with all the tips they receive.
Jean Vincent said in talking and holding readings with Cherrie’s family and others since she went missing, she thinks the young girl was taken by a local pedophile from a family with a history of pedophilia.
“Cherrie was a tough little girl, she was growing up and fought (with the pedophile),” Vincent said.
The women believe that there were two men involved in Cherrie’s abduction.
The men have connections to the Saxonburg, Cabot, Freeport, Harrison, Tarentum and Sharpsburg area, the sisters believe. The sisters believe Cherrie’s remains are buried somewhere in Butler County.
“I feel we have a good chance of solving this,” the women said. “We feel this is the right time and someone is feeling remorse or guilt. They have held this secret all these years and it’s eating away. They’ll want to get it off their chest.”
Mary Ann Thomas is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Mary by email at mthomas@triblive.com or via Twitter .