Cherrie Mahan’s mother still searching for answers
Janice McKinney doesn’t get many updates these days about the potential whereabouts of her daughter, Cherrie Mahan, but when a rare message does come along, she can get emotional.
Recently, McKinney saw a rendering of what the adult Cherrie, who was 8 at the time of her disappearance Feb. 22, 1985, might look like today, 38 years later.
“I was at work and the woman came in with the picture of her and I just started crying because it looked just like Cherrie,” McKinney said. “When they’re growing up you never realize what they’re going to look like. I pray that it looks like her.”
On Wednesday, Feb. 22, McKinney performed her ritual commemorating the anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance at 1136 Cornplanter Road in Winfield Township. She walked up and down the street where she and Cherrie used to live, and then gathered in a circle with her close friends to pray for the best.
On that Friday in 1985, Cherrie got off the school bus near 1136 Cornplanter Road, according to the bus driver and students who were on the bus at the time. There were reports that Cherrie was taken into a van painted with a decal of a skier on a mountain.
Law enforcement refers to Cherrie’s disappearance as a kidnapping, as does her mother. Cherrie was declared legally dead in 1998 and the judge set her death date as Feb. 22, 1992, seven years after her disappearance. Yet, McKinney is still hoping someone will come forward with information about her.
“Every single day I think about Cherrie,” McKinney said. “Truthfully, I’m feeling hopeful, and I’m always going to be hopeful that somebody says something.”
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