Community grapples with 40th anniversary of girl’s disappearance
Hundreds turned out Saturday evening to Saxonburg VFW for a vigil recognizing 40 years since 8-year-old Cherrie Mahan’s disappearance about 100 yards from her Winfield Township home.
Mahan went missing around 4 p.m. Feb. 22, 1985, after getting off the school bus near Cornplanter Road. Mahan’s mother, Janice McKinney, holds a vigil every year at Cornplanter Road but moved this year’s for the 40-year milestone.
“I decided to do it here because I want to thank everybody,” McKinney said. “It’s not just about looking for Cherrie. It’s about thanking everybody for being there with me for these 40 years.
“If we get one lead, I’ll be happy,” she said.
Corporal Max DeLuca, who had been the lead investigator on the case for about seven years, said he received about five tips in the vigil’s first hour, which have been a mix of verifiable data and random alleged sightings.
“People really feel for this community,” he said. “The idea outcome would be A, that Cherrie is found, and B, that whoever is responsible is brought to justice.”
Tips for the case start to pick up each year around the anniversary. DeLuca said tips have started to come in, but he thinks the volume will increase after the vigil.
It's a good thing he had two other officers who investigated the case at the vigil to work with. Even at the vigil, the officers were taking descriptions and matching them on their phones to vehicle databases.
Glenn Hall had the case from 1985 until his retirement in 1993. He said it got frustrating to see the case file increase to 4,000 pages before it could be solved. Hall said he followed up on too many tips to count working with police departments in multiple states during his time with the case.
Hall, who grew up in Butler County, acknowledged a change in parents since the case opened. He said in the 1980s, parents didn’t take their kids to and from the bus stop like is seen today.
Trooper Christopher Walsh took the case after Hall for two years until he was promoted to corporal. He said police have Mahan’s fingerprints as a young girl, and he received tips of alleged sightings in Pittsburgh and was able to match the fingerprints to conclude the woman wasn’t Mahan.
“Believe it or not, we actually have Cherrie’s fingerprints only because she was fingerprinted in elementary school,” he said.
Police used her fingerprints multiple times last year to debunk Mahan impersonators in Facebook and in voicemails.
“Everyone that has looked at the case, I’m sure they have a little bit different idea of what could have happened and what did happen,” DeLuca said.
Other groups such as psychics and missing persons advocates also attended the vigil and offered tips to police. Angels of Cherrie Mahan, an advocacy group, said it receives tips daily through its “Find Cherrie Mahan” Facebook and Instagram pages and passes each one along to police. Suzanne and Jean Vincent, sisters who claim to be psychic, said they also receive frequent tips and forward them to police with the goal of bringing Janice closure.
“I know Cherrie is going to be found. I just don’t know when.” Janice McKinney
