Cherrie Mahan still is missing.

State police in Butler said today they have disproved a tip that the Winfield Township girl, who disappeared in 1985 at age 8, is alive and living in Michigan.

Cherrie disappeared from her school bus stop Feb. 22, 1985.

Witnesses who recalled seeing her get off the bus, also claimed seeing a bluish-green van with a painting of a mountain and a skier behind her bus as well as a small blue compact car nearby.

The latest tip came from a Pittsburgh television station

The television station reported interviewing a woman who said she’d seen a van with a ski scene at a high school track meet the day Cherrie went missing.

The television report, which did not name the woman who was suspected of being Cherrie, acknowledged that she denied that identity.

Yet still state police investigators, with the cooperation of the Antrim County (Mich.) Sheriff’s Office, used interviews, photographs, records and the Michigan Department of Vital Statistics to determine the subject of the tip is definitely not Mahan.

In October 1998, the Butler County Courts declared Cherrie legally dead. But the investigation into her whereabouts is active.