Identified! TX - Huntsville, 'Walker County Jane Doe', WhtFem 14-16, 91UFTX, Nov'80 #4 Sherry Ann Jarvis

[KLCD620]

Like everyone else, I'm surprise by her ID name and great pictures of her as smiling teen girl. It's way better than morgue pics we've seen from and have us to remember her as happy beautiful person. I thanked her family for provide them to Walker County investigators, Othram Inc and CarlK with pics and info. I know it was very difficult situation for them to give out but most of us are caring people that tried to give her name back after 41 years. We'll continue same thing for any cold cases.

We wanted to let her family know there's no fault of theirs due to limited resource in 1980. No existing DNA, no computer, no mobile, sonar equipment, etc. Most of the victims were far away from their homes when they finally identified. I pray and hope for more families/relatives with long term missing person(s) will finally submit their DNA for closure.

My prayers & thoughts are with Sherri's entire family sides. RIP, Sherri Ann Jarvis.

 

[emdukes158]

I thought Carl's depictions were done very well. I am wondering if she is younger in the long haired picture and actually older in the dark green outfit one. Carl's was spot on with dark green outfit one. I was looking at her teeth and she may have been older in the dark green outfit photo.

I agree with this. I think the photo on the left is her older and closer to what she would’ve looked like just before she passed, just with longer hair and teeth more grown in. She looks a lot younger on the right. But I can’t get over how beautiful her smile was.

 

[Tbone144]

Wow, after all this time she has been identified. RIP Sherri, may justice be served.

 

[Springrain]

I agree with this. I think the photo on the left is her older and closer to what she would’ve looked like just before she passed, just with longer hair and teeth more grown in. She looks a lot younger on the right. But I can’t get over how beautiful her smile was.

I wish we could know the dates (or approximate dates) all the photos were taken. I've heard the one on the right (the main one, my profile photo) was in 1979, so a year before she died. But the other ones I have no idea. I would love to know.

Sherri really did have such a pretty smile, and looked like she had such a big fun personality.

 

[archenemy toenail]

Do we know where her birth father lived? I wonder if she spent some time trying to locate him. Could she have for some reason believed he was in the Ellis Unit?

 

[Souldier86]

I think the differences in teeth in her life photos are just milk teeth, or new teeth that are growing in. By the time she was 14 they might have been more regular looking.

Exactly. At age 11-12 my 2 front teeth were rather large and stuck out a bit. By age 14 I had grown into them and they were perfectly shaped and straight. I even had people compliment them and ask if I had braces when I was a kid.

 

[onceuponadecember]

Do we know where her birth father lived? I wonder if she spent some time trying to locate him. Could she have for some reason believed he was in the Ellis Unit?

He was, as far as I know, never in the South. The only reason I am saying this is because I just want to clear up some confusion - he was still living in the Midwest at the time.

 

[NotSHolmes]

Are there any satisfactory explanations for why she was carrying sandals but no other personal effects? It seems quite incongruous given the circumstances of hitch-hiking to an all-male prison, (presumably) over multiple days with no provisions otherwise.

 

[Springrain]

Are there any satisfactory explanations for why she was carrying sandals but no other personal effects? It seems quite incongruous given the circumstances of hitch-hiking to an all-male prison, (presumably) over multiple days with no provisions otherwise.

I feel like she must have been staying with someone. I mean, she ran away from Minnesota in March or April and died on either October 31st or (probably) November 1st. That's at least 5 months, probably closer to 6 or 7 months, that she was unaccounted for. It is extremely unlikely IMO that 14-year-old Sherri was catching rides and roaming aimlessly around the country consistently for longer than half a year, before being murdered. I cannot imagine it. Not just because of the safety issues surrounding an 8th/9th grader hitchhiking with strangers around the country, but also because where did she sleep? She was clean, did she manage to use truck stop bathrooms to shower everyday (or at least often)? Did she sustain herself for 6-ish months with food she paid for using an abnormal amount of money for a 14-year-old to have, much less carry? Her family clearly said she left Minnesota shortly after her 14th birthday, and I believe them - they would know. I just want to know how she was able to sustain herself for that long.

I very well might be looking too much into the Denver connection, but I wonder if a "friend" arranged for her to stay with them in Denver. What I don't get it the Texas and Ellis Unit connection. I briefly wondered if she was killed by a "friend" she was staying in Denver with and drove to Texas with, but that doesn't fit in with the hitchhiking thing, and she was clearly hitchhiking. IDK. I just want her killer to be found.

 

[NotSHolmes]

I feel like she must have been staying with someone.

I totally agree, but I'm not sure this explains the sandals but not all her other possessions. If she had decided to leave for whatever reason, why only take sandals?

 

[Cupofcare]

It's a good question why she had no suitcase with her with toothbrush, pyjamas and that usual stuff. But if she had that, where would she have slept anyway? She probably couldn't afford motel stays ( no income ) and it's unlikely a hotel would let a 14 year old check in alone. Maybe she planned to just hitch-hike right back to Denver etc in the night, as truckers were always on the road. We also don't know that she slept in her day clothes the previous night...maybe with her lifestyle she just didn't have the usual laundry facilities. I have a relative who used to run away all the time in her teenage years. She was in rehab for very severe addiction, and often broke out of rehab and ran away with boyfriends from the same rehabs. Of course she ran away from rehab exactly because she wanted to continue using. Sometimes the police would find her and take her back to home or rehab, sometimes she returned home herself, I guess to shower or get money. It was always very crucial to locate her because of her addiction which eventually did cause her to need emergency surgery. I have no idea how she survived by herself in those years, I guess some teens are just so tough.

 

[sketchyjen33]

I feel like she must have been staying with someone. I mean, she ran away from Minnesota in March or April and died on either October 31st or (probably) November 1st. That's at least 5 months, probably closer to 6 or 7 months, that she was unaccounted for.

Surely she stayed with someone, at some point. The fact that this person has never said anything about her missing is puzzling. Obviously it wasn't someone that was expecting her to come back otherwise I feel like they would have reported it. Or they didn't want to get in trouble for having a runaway/14 year old in their home. I also wonder if she was being trafficked and that's how she wasn't completely disheveled looking. Maybe someone will come forward now and give us some answers.

For someone from Minnesota to reference Ellis, at that period in time, she knew someone there. There was no googling and most of our units weren't especially famous (at that time). And if the picture that L.O. showed around was the one that was on file, of course no one would recognize her.

 

[CADwrest]

I very well might be looking too much into the Denver connection, but I wonder if a "friend" arranged for her to stay with them in Denver. What I don't get it the Texas and Ellis Unit connection. I briefly wondered if she was killed by a "friend" she was staying in Denver with and drove to Texas with, but that doesn't fit in with the hitchhiking thing, and she was clearly hitchhiking. IDK. I just want her killer to be found.

BBM
Yes, this is the question I keep going over. I thought maybe the person she was traveling with got arrested and sent to Ellis, but Ellis is the 'strictest prison in the system' (according to Wikipedia), and housed the male death row at the time. I have a hard time believing someone she was with (likely mid to late teens themselves) got themselves sentenced there within the 7 months from March to October.
I also thought maybe she was going to see her biological father there, but the family has said they have no idea why she was there, so that seems to rule that idea out (I have no idea if he was there or even in prison at any point.)
She seems to have had a plan to remain on her own, more or less, until she was at least 18, and I'm having trouble seeing how an inmate at Ellis helps with that.

 

[Friday Fan]

If she was indeed the girl at the Hitching Post, she was probably bunking or "couch surfing" with "friends in low places" in Rockport/Aransas at the time.

She probably didn't need much money.

A hypothetical could be from a room mate: "Hey we let you stay here for free, but we can't go to the Ellis Unit, but will you go for me/us? We need you to give a message to so and so"....The roommates could not go the Ellis Unit because of their own legal issues....(This is a total hypothetical, but that is how some of these types are)

She probably would stay with people for awhile, then when the relationship soured, she would move on.

These people weren't real "friends", but people who use people...
I ran with a rough crowd in high school and everyone just "used everyone"...By that I meant they weren't real friends, but would stab you in the back. I would do homework for a guy and he paid me in booze, but that was what I wanted. I didn't need money. Most of my "friends" wanted alibis, "Hey don't tell them it was me". You would lie for them, then they would turn on you...

 

[CADwrest]

If she was indeed the girl at the Hitching Post, she was probably bunking or "couch surfing" with "friends in low places" in Rockport/Aransas at the time.

She probably didn't need much money.

A hypothetical could be from a room mate: "Hey we let you stay here for free, but we can't go to the Ellis Unit, but will you go for me/us? We need you to give a message to so and so"....The roommates could not go the Ellis Unit because of their own legal issues....(This is a total hypothetical, but that is how some of these types are)

She probably would stay with people for awhile, then when the relationship soured, she would move on.

That would explain why no one at Ellis recognized her. And her friends from Rockport probably wouldn't have thought a whole lot about it when she didn't come back.

 

[doyoulovemepfg]

Are there any satisfactory explanations for why she was carrying sandals but no other personal effects? It seems quite incongruous given the circumstances of hitch-hiking to an all-male prison, (presumably) over multiple days with no provisions otherwise.

My thought was that maybe some of her stuff had been stolen, or that she had a "home base" somewhere that we still don't know about.

 

[onceuponadecember]

I feel like she must have been staying with someone. I mean, she ran away from Minnesota in March or April and died on either October 31st or (probably) November 1st. That's at least 5 months, probably closer to 6 or 7 months, that she was unaccounted for. It is extremely unlikely IMO that 14-year-old Sherri was catching rides and roaming aimlessly around the country consistently for longer than half a year, before being murdered. I cannot imagine it. Not just because of the safety issues surrounding an 8th/9th grader hitchhiking with strangers around the country, but also because where did she sleep? She was clean, did she manage to use truck stop bathrooms to shower everyday (or at least often)? Did she sustain herself for 6-ish months with food she paid for using an abnormal amount of money for a 14-year-old to have, much less carry? Her family clearly said she left Minnesota shortly after her 14th birthday, and I believe them - they would know. I just want to know how she was able to sustain herself for that long.

I very well might be looking too much into the Denver connection, but I wonder if a "friend" arranged for her to stay with them in Denver. What I don't get it the Texas and Ellis Unit connection. I briefly wondered if she was killed by a "friend" she was staying in Denver with and drove to Texas with, but that doesn't fit in with the hitchhiking thing, and she was clearly hitchhiking. IDK. I just want her killer to be found.

I hate to say this, but could it be that she was being pimped? Maybe she was involved in prostitution, perhaps explaining the painted toenails and fashion forward outfit.

 

[Adrian_Almost_Sleuth]

I know this is currently being discussed, but the fact that a 13/14 year old had the capability to hitch hike from Minnesota to Texas successfully is beyond me. I could barely go to the store three blocks away at 13. And, yeah she definitely had some help because to be gone that long and still look put together and healthy (ie. the good teeth, winged hairstyle, and clean appearance), there must be someone out there that knows her when they helped her, and I'm guessing it's multiple people unless she had a sole companion that left her when they got to Texas. There's a lot to be investigated here.

 

[doyoulovemepfg]

I am not sure how helpful this is or will be, but I do have a bit of context on Stillwater during the time when Sherri would have left - I mentioned in a previous post that this is where my aunt lived and raised her kids, but they were around the age of Sherri's younger sisters.

It's a mostly upper middle class town right on the WI border, and is not a straight shoot on I-35 like many people have suggested, the closest interstate would be I-90. If she left from the courthouse, she wouldn't be leaving from Minneapolis or St. Paul as many people have implied; the Washington County courthouse is right in Stillwater.

This being said, it's pretty likely that she would have still been attending Stillwater Middle/Stillwater Junior High even after she was taken into state custody - this is what happened to some of my cousin's friends, they stayed at the same school when they entered foster care. There are not a lot of schools in the area and that district spans quite a lot of space.

It's definitely highly likely she had "friends" in St. Paul though, many of the drug dealers my cousins knew in the subsequent 5-7 years after Sherri disappeared were either in the city of St. Paul or in South St. Paul and would regularly sell to young teens. It's not an unreasonably far drive - 19 minutes to St. Paul proper and 27 minutes to South St. Paul.

 

[Rbkidk]

I am not sure how helpful this is or will be, but I do have a bit of context on Stillwater during the time when Sherri would have left - I mentioned in a previous post that this is where my aunt lived and raised her kids, but they were around the age of Sherri's younger sisters.

It's a mostly upper middle class town right on the WI border, and is not a straight shoot on I-35 like many people have suggested, the closest interstate would be I-90. If she left from the courthouse, she wouldn't be leaving from Minneapolis or St. Paul as many people have implied; the Washington County courthouse is right in Stillwater.

This being said, it's pretty likely that she would have still been attending Stillwater Middle/Stillwater Junior High even after she was taken into state custody - this is what happened to some of my cousin's friends, they stayed at the same school when they entered foster care. There are not a lot of schools in the area and that district spans quite a lot of space.

It's definitely highly likely she had "friends" in St. Paul though, many of the drug dealers my cousins knew in the subsequent 5-7 years after Sherri disappeared were either in the city of St. Paul or in South St. Paul and would regularly sell to young teens. It's not an unreasonably far drive - 19 minutes to St. Paul proper and 27 minutes to South St. Paul.

Apparently, she was from Forest Lake, MN, and attended Forest View Elementary School / Forest Lake Middle or High School
(she doesn't appear on any yearbook tho)