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

[Springrain]

Here's my thoughts on the Ellis Unit connection. I might have to do some calling but for the last 25 years (at least) visitations have been only on the weekends, basically 7-5. And you have to be on an approved list. So....if she was at the gas station, it was too late to visit and someone would have to get her on their list of approved visitors. She couldn't just walk up to the gate with a minor ID. Like I said, I would need to do some asking but the only way she was seeing anybody would be if they were getting off their shift. And with Ellis being Death Row at the time, you're definitely not getting in without prior authorization. PRIOR meaning weeks in advance. Now, someone could have listed her under her fake ID name but the time of day she was there....she would have needed somewhere to stay the night to show up on Saturday. And I'm pretty sure they don't do inmate releases on Saturday but it might have been different back then. So that leads me back to an employee connection. I'll do some research and get back to y'all.

Great thoughts. I personally go back and forth on if I think Sherri was going to see a prisoner or an Ellis employee. However, I do think it is possible that she did want to visit someone in prison, but hadn't realized that she couldn't get in, being only 14, and/or had to be on the list.

 

[Friday Fan]

Here's my thoughts on the Ellis Unit connection. I might have to do some calling but for the last 25 years (at least) visitations have been only on the weekends, basically 7-5. And you have to be on an approved list. So....if she was at the gas station, it was too late to visit and someone would have to get her on their list of approved visitors. She couldn't just walk up to the gate with a minor ID. Like I said, I would need to do some asking but the only way she was seeing anybody would be if they were getting off their shift. And with Ellis being Death Row at the time, you're definitely not getting in without prior authorization. PRIOR meaning weeks in advance. Now, someone could have listed her under her fake ID name but the time of day she was there....she would have needed somewhere to stay the night to show up on Saturday. And I'm pretty sure they don't do inmate releases on Saturday but it might have been different back then. So that leads me back to an employee connection. I'll do some research and get back to y'all.

Saw this from Sep 13 2019:

Finally just spoke to my dad, so in the 70s and 80s they were more laid back about visitation. He doesn't think a minor that was 17 would've been questioned too much and would've been allowed in to visit. Now they do back ground checks and you have to be on an Approval list, that wasn't the case then. He feels like she most likely would've been allowed in as long as she knew the name and inmate number of the inmate unless he was in the hole. He can't remember if you had to be family to visit in 1980 but said people would just lie and say they were a cousin or sister. My dad was in the Holiday Unit in Huntsville and then shipped to Livingston at the Polunsky unit. He only did 3 years state time in 1979-1982, so he was around the prison system when WCJD died... Said he never heard of her until today. WOW. That tells me they only went to the Ellis Unit. I asked if he thinks he would remember being asked about a dead girl in a photo and he said he thinks he would. My dad also told me that in 1980 a lot of young kids hitchhiked and nobody thought twice about it...

TX - TX - Huntsville, 'Walker County Jane Doe', WhtFem 14-16, 91UFTX, Nov'80 #2 *NAME NOT RELEASED*

Further down it says to contact a "lifer", but everyone was either eligible for parole, had maxium sentences of 35 years or were on death row back then.

 

[Nell91]

She wasn't on the road from March to October without help- SOMEONE knows something but it's again all about it reaching the right person

 

[Beekarina]

It is also possible she was in Denver most of the time she was missing, and traveled to Texas days prior to being murdered. She might not have intended to stay in Texas. The theory about running a message or something else to Ellis could be correct, but maybe she did so from a greater distance?

 

[fhesse]

I assume that she spent some time in the Aransas Pass area before her death.

First, when she arrived in Huntsville, she most likely approached the city from further south, as indicated by her drop-off point. This would place her earlier location already in the Houston metropolitan area or south of that. Furthermore, stating that one comes from Aransas Pass is highly unusual if not true. This has been pointed out many times, but now that we know she is originally from Minnesota, it is even more unusual. Aransas Pass is not a place you would make up on the spot. I get the impression that she thought of Aransas Pass as a kind of home at the time. And finally, the person she was going to visit was in a Texas state prison. That means he had committed his crimes in Texas. Recently, there has been speculation that she was used by some gang members as a means of communication with a fellow gang member who was incarcerated there. I think that is possible but less likely for a number of reasons. Instead, I think she really thought he was her boyfriend and that she wanted to visit him, possibly to help her out with some problems that would have naturally arisen after he got arrested. I strongly doubt that he shared her assessment of the situation, but that is not important here.

In any event, all of these factors combined make it likely that she was in the Aransas Pass area for some time (possibly a few months) before her death, that she was associated with a group of individuals who may have been engaged in illegal activities there, and that she felt close to one of them whose activities landed him in the Ellis Prison.

 

[Earth]

I'm glad that Sherri is home, but there are far too many cases involving families choosing to not pursue any help from law enforcement because they believe their loved one is alive.

I know everyone wants to hope for the best, but sometimes we need to prepare for the worst. If anyone out there reading this has a missing loved one, especially a young female, who disappeared years or decades ago, you need to report their disappearance. you may have already reported them, but this is not a guarantee that law enforcement will keep an eye on your case. The files may have been lost or the case expunged once a missing child reaches their eighteenth birthday. Runaways were written off all the time and in some places they still are.

It's better to be too careful than to spend the rest of your life without peace.

 

[CADwrest]

Great thoughts. I personally go back and forth on if I think Sherri was going to see a prisoner or an Ellis employee. However, I do think it is possible that she did want to visit someone in prison, but hadn't realized that she couldn't get in, being only 14, and/or had to be on the list.

I agree. Remember too that she clearly didn’t know where the prison was. She probably just knew it was “in Huntsville” or something general like that.
The entire prison visit just screams poor planning to me.

 

[Beekarina]

She also could have been coached to say she was from a certain place if asked since she looked so obviously young. i.e her story could have been she was 19, from Aransas Pass, her name was __ and she worked as a __ depending on how hard she was pressed for info/the situation. As young and sweet as she looks, she was also obviously street smart in order to survive as long as she did, IMO, especially because she looks so very young.

 

[worldwatcher]

"We actually have some positive leads right now. We're very excited about some of these and definitely are following up with our law other law enforcement partners, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Texas Rangers ," Whitecotton said."

BBM
Officials have "positive leads" in girl's 1980 slaying after remains found in Texas identified

 

[rosesfromangels]

"We actually have some positive leads right now. We're very excited about some of these and definitely are following up with our law other law enforcement partners, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Texas Rangers ," Whitecotton said."

BBM
Officials have "positive leads" in girl's 1980 slaying after remains found in Texas identified

This sounds very hopeful!

amateur opinion and speculation

 

[doyoulovemepfg]

Very glad to see TX Rangers actively working on this.

 

[rosesfromangels]

Very glad to see TX Rangers actively working on this.

I take it as a good sign indeed. When the Rangers "saddle up", things happen.

Amateur opinion and speculation

 

[Beekarina]

Wonderful news!

 

[doyoulovemepfg]

I take it as a good sign indeed. When the Rangers "saddle up", things happen.

Amateur opinion and speculation

The combo of agencies working on this right now makes me feel really confident that Sherri’s killer(s) could be identified and hopefully prosecuted within the next year.

 

[Springrain]

Maybe overly optimistic, but perhaps, with the publicizing of Sherri's identification and her story, someone will come forward and say they know something, if not a deathbed confession.

 

[doyoulovemepfg]

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?

Bringing this back down because I did do some digging on it and I am fairly certain he was in one of four different places - two of those being in northern WI where Sherri was born - I just am trying to pinpoint and verify the exact town - and two of them being MN/WI border towns like Stillwater. I would think that she likely knew where he was at the time or had a rough idea, but MLB is pretty easy to track with his whereabouts if she was familiar with the fact that her mother KCZ grew up in Washburn, graduated from high school in Medford and got married in Pine County MN close to Washburn. All these places plus Stillwater/FL/Wyoming are within about an hour and a half span of each other. Haven’t gotten too into the search for bio dad at the moment but will update y’all if anything seems super pertinent - that particular area of WI is known for absolutely horrific public records on top of WI itself being a mostly closed records state.

I think these are the general areas that PI’s had been searching in addition to Colorado, so if there was anything of merit with regards to her being there, Texas LE and the FBI would have information on it now.

Also - for the person who was asking about family origins when talking about the postmortems - I do have that information from at least one side of the family. She has one grandparent from Poland and one from the former USSR that both had very “ethnic” sounding surnames that were anglicized and changed during her mother’s lifetime. Bio dad is either mostly German or Eastern European. So whoever said Mediterranean, some facial features from Eastern Europe are not too far off from that!


If anyone has any general questions about the Stillwater area, the Washington County justice system or public records based info on the family’s whereabouts during that time, I would be happy to answer to the best of my knowledge. These are all areas that I have pretty lengthy experience with and I have relatives in every town that’s been mentioned on the records except Medford.

 

[Rbkidk]

Bringing this back down because I did do some digging on it and I am fairly certain he was in one of four different places - two of those being in northern WI where Sherri was born - I just am trying to pinpoint and verify the exact town - and two of them being MN/WI border towns like Stillwater. I would think that she likely knew where he was at the time or had a rough idea, but MLB is pretty easy to track with his whereabouts if she was familiar with the fact that her mother KCZ grew up in Washburn, graduated from high school in Medford and got married in Pine County MN close to Washburn. All these places plus Stillwater/FL/Wyoming are within about an hour and a half span of each other. Haven’t gotten too into the search for bio dad at the moment but will update y’all if anything seems super pertinent - that particular area of WI is known for absolutely horrific public records on top of WI itself being a mostly closed records state.

I think these are the general areas that PI’s had been searching in addition to Colorado, so if there was anything of merit with regards to her being there, Texas LE and the FBI would have information on it now.

Also - for the person who was asking about family origins when talking about the postmortems - I do have that information from at least one side of the family. She has one grandparent from Poland and one from the former USSR that both had very “ethnic” sounding surnames that were anglicized and changed during her mother’s lifetime. Bio dad is either mostly German or Eastern European. So whoever said Mediterranean, some facial features from Eastern Europe are not too far off from that!


If anyone has any general questions about the Stillwater area, the Washington County justice system or public records based info on the family’s whereabouts during that time, I would be happy to answer to the best of my knowledge. These are all areas that I have pretty lengthy experience with and I have relatives in every town that’s been mentioned on the records except Medford.

From my research, I can say her father (MLB) was from WI, german descendant. He never went TX or CO. He died at OR. Married KJZ and 6 years later had Sherri, then divorced (couldn't find any registry) and remarried with another woman (so did KJZ, with Mr. Jarvis, then divorced and remarried multiple times, at WI, MN and NE).

I have mixed memories about a data stating he was at CA at a certain point in his life (by a census, probably during or after enlistment, had a roommate as far as I remember), but I can't precisely recall it and couldn't find that source again, so I'd rather pass on this one

 

[iamnotagolem]

I’ve been thinking that possibly whoever was helping Sherri was involved in her death, but have kind of changed my thinking. It’s possible that whoever helped her get to Texas just assumed she left and went on her way. Especially since she was a Jane Doe, they may not have had any reason to think the girl they knew was the Jane Doe. So hopefully now that she’s been identified it’ll bring people out with more information.

 

[Beekarina]

Maybe overly optimistic, but perhaps, with the publicizing of Sherri's identification and her story, someone will come forward and say they know something, if not a deathbed confession.

If she was traveling, or stayed short-term with other young runaways, or even other young people, they may have never known about this case. They could have simply thought Sherri moved on. Especially if she was trying to pass herself off as older.

I think there is a good chance with all of the publicity that someone has recognized her and remembers something. I really hope so.

 

[squish]

Bringing this back down because I did do some digging on it and I am fairly certain he was in one of four different places - two of those being in northern WI where Sherri was born - I just am trying to pinpoint and verify the exact town - and two of them being MN/WI border towns like Stillwater. I would think that she likely knew where he was at the time or had a rough idea, but MLB is pretty easy to track with his whereabouts if she was familiar with the fact that her mother KCZ grew up in Washburn, graduated from high school in Medford and got married in Pine County MN close to Washburn. All these places plus Stillwater/FL/Wyoming are within about an hour and a half span of each other. Haven’t gotten too into the search for bio dad at the moment but will update y’all if anything seems super pertinent - that particular area of WI is known for absolutely horrific public records on top of WI itself being a mostly closed records state.

I think these are the general areas that PI’s had been searching in addition to Colorado, so if there was anything of merit with regards to her being there, Texas LE and the FBI would have information on it now.

Also - for the person who was asking about family origins when talking about the postmortems - I do have that information from at least one side of the family. She has one grandparent from Poland and one from the former USSR that both had very “ethnic” sounding surnames that were anglicized and changed during her mother’s lifetime. Bio dad is either mostly German or Eastern European. So whoever said Mediterranean, some facial features from Eastern Europe are not too far off from that!


If anyone has any general questions about the Stillwater area, the Washington County justice system or public records based info on the family’s whereabouts during that time, I would be happy to answer to the best of my knowledge. These are all areas that I have pretty lengthy experience with and I have relatives in every town that’s been mentioned on the records except Medford.

Having one grandparent from Poland and the other from the USSR, and then anglicizing their names, makes me think of Jewish heritage. Also, the fact that both the Z and the B surnames can be Jewish.

I supposed it's not important now Sherri has her identity back. But then you never know, it could be relevant.