46 years. 552 months. 16,787 days.
That’s how long the Scherer family has been missing Cheryl.
The 19-year-old vanished in broad daylight on April 17, 1979, from her place of work in Scott City, Missouri.
Her family has been on a mission to find her ever since.
LIFE ON THE FARM
“We grew up on a rural farm, it was just quiet out there,” Diane Scherer-Morris told Dateline.
Raymond and Libby Scherer raised their three kids on about 45 acres of land located between Scott City and Benton, Missouri. “We did live there our whole lives,” Diane said.
Cheryl is the eldest, Anthony is the middle child, and Diane is the youngest. The siblings spent a lot of time outdoors, playing games like H-O-R-S-E and wiffleball. “We did play in the backyard,” Anthony Scherer said.
Anthony struggles to remember a lot about Cheryl, but he does recall one special thing about his older sister. “We had puppies and cats and — and all around, and she really loved animals,” he said. “The biggest thing I remember is– is just playing with the animals.”
Diane shared a room with Cheryl and remembers her doing typical ‘70s teenager things. “She liked to sew, so she just did a lot of, you know, she would make her own clothes,” Diane said. “I just remember like, you know, we would brush each other’s hair at night. We had all the 1970 heartthrobs on our wall.” Heartthrobs like David Cassidy and Ricky Nelson.
Cheryl was a prom queen and graduated from Thomas W. Kelly High School in 1977. “She had been out for about a year and a half and had worked at the [gas] station the majority of that time,” Diane said.
The Rhodes Pump-Ur-Own gas station in Scott City where Cheryl worked was only a few miles up the road from the family’s home.
“Mom and Dad always taught us, you know, if we wanted something, then you work for it,” Diane said. “She had worked during school at a little drive-in restaurant in Benton, and then she got this full-time job in Scott City at the gas station.”
Anthony and Diane told Dateline the gas station was not like a gas station in today’s world. “Wasn’t a convenience store,” Anthony said. “It was just, you pay for your gas, and she sold cigarettes,” Diane said. “No sodas, no candy bars, nothing like that.”
The station was tiny — only one person worked at a time. “They were open from like 6 to 10 — 6 in the morning until 10 at night,” Diane said. “Cheryl had worked the 2 to 10 shift.”
Their parents did not love Cheryl working that shift. “A lot of times, Dad would go out when she left at 10,” Diane said, to make sure Cheryl was safe. “Because she would have the bank bag.”
But then Cheryl moved to the early shift: 6 a.m. — 2 p.m. “Which Mom and Dad were so glad about,” Diane said. “And then that’s when something happens to her.”
ONE SPRING DAY
It was the morning of April 17, 1979.
“We shared a room. The alarm went off at 4:30,” Diane said. She was 14 years old at the time. “I remember her telling me to close my eyes because she was going to turn the light on to get her clothes out.”
“She was wearing a light blue slip-on sweater with white trim, a dark blue windbreaker with a white trimmed hood and brown corduroy pants,” Diane said. “She had on tiny pierced earrings, a silver ring with a small diamond, and a yellow gold necklace with a one-inch cross.”
Diane also recalls a sweet moment before Cheryl left for work that morning. “We always told each other that we loved each other,” she said. “She said, ‘Love you, Doon,’ as she walked down the steps and turned the light out and I told her I loved her and that was it.”
Anthony, who was 17 at the time, told Dateline he doesn’t remember anything that stands out to him about that morning. “We just went to school like it’s a normal day,” he said.
That normal day quickly became anything but normal.
“Dad was at work, Mom was at home,” Diane said. “Me and Anthony were both at school.”
But before they knew it, Anthony and Diane were getting picked up early from school. They weren’t told what was going on. “We’re thinking maybe something’s happened to Mom or Dad or our grandparents and that Cheryl’s coming to pick us up,” Diane said.
It wasn’t Cheryl coming to pick them up. It was a deputy from the Scott County Sheriff’s Office. “She didn’t say much all the way home,” Diane said. When they got home, they learned Cheryl was missing. “Mom and Dad were upset. There was already a lot of people there,” Diane said. “Law enforcement was there and they just tried to assure us that, you know, that they would — that she’ll be back and that, you know, they’ll find her.”
The support the Scherer family received was nothing short of amazing. “The support of the people that we had at that time was unbelievable,” Diane said. “I mean, overwhelming,” Anthony added.
They began to piece together what happened to Cheryl, and the search was on.
“I know a lot of people like Cheryl’s friends, especially her boyfriend and his family, they would go out looking,” Diane said. “I wanted to go, but Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me go.”
They were able to help from home, though. “One thing that we did get to do was stuff envelopes with Cheryl’s missing person flyer,” Diane said. “Communication was very limited back then. I mean, no cameras. No cell phones. No internet. A bunch of us sat around the table and we had flyers and addresses and we would just stuff the envelopes and then write out the addresses.”
A 10-MINUTE WINDOW
Dateline spoke with Sergeant Michael Williams of the Scott County Sheriff’s Office. He’s been working on Cheryl’s case since 2021. “I’ve been in law enforcement for a long time and had worked cold cases, not quite this cold,” he said. He says the department got involved the day Cheryl vanished. “The reports that we have on that are very limited,” he said. “They did everything they could.”
The department has brought the case files into the 21st century. “We digitized it, reorganized it the best that we can,” he said. “We’re trying to make it as modern as possible.”
Williams says it’s evident the investigators took Cheryl’s case seriously from the start. “They got right after it,” he said. “It’s been listed as a kidnapping, I think, ever since it started.”
Authorities have identified a 10-minute window in which Cheryl could have been taken from the Main Street Rhodes Pump-Ur-Own in Scott City.
While working at the gas station, Cheryl would often call home whenever she got bored. “She had called Mom right before she was taken and talked about what was for supper. She was going to do some more sewing when she got home,” Diane said. “There was nothing unusual about that call.”
The call was at about 11:30 a.m. “They got off the phone maybe five or ten minutes later,” Diane said. “So it’s anywhere between 11:40 and 11:50 that they believe was the time frame that she was taken.”
Sergeant Williams says witness reports confirm this time frame. “We have reports of multiple people driving by and seeing her there,” he said. “And then they had an employee that went there and then come back that noticed she was gone during that time period."
That employee was scheduled to report to work at 2 p.m., but passed the station when she was out running errands in the morning and noticed Cheryl wasn’t in the booth. When she passed by again, Cheryl still wasn’t there so she pulled in to check on her. Cheryl was nowhere to be found. According to Sgt. Williams, the employee contacted authorities who were dispatched to the scene.
Some of Cheryl’s belongings were found in the booth. “Her purse and her checkbook, all of that was left,” Diane said. “Her car was left, and the keys were there.” Sergeant Williams confirmed those details. “There were several belongings left behind,” he said. “There was a ring left behind.”
Something was missing, though. “There was cash in the register, but money missing out of the money bag,” Williams said.
Extensive searches were conducted for Cheryl, but nothing of note was ever found.
THEORIES ABOUND
Over the last 46 years, there have been plenty of theories — but not a lot of answers.
“Everybody’s got their theories,” Diane said. But she won’t let herself get wrapped up in that. “Unless there’s something concrete,” Diane said, “everything is a possibility.”
Sergeant Williams says authorities believe foul play was involved in Cheryl’s disappearance. Suspects were developed and investigated. “We have several people here in the local area that we’re interested in,” he said. They’ve also looked into some people not from the area. “We’ve looked into numerous serial killers.”
In the ‘80s, the department looked into convicted killers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole, sometime partners in crime who claimed to have killed more than 100 people between them. Sergeant Williams told Dateline the Scott County Sheriff’s Office went to speak with them. “They admitted to taking a female off what they thought was Interstate 55 during that time period that matched the description,” he said. “We know they were pretty close to this area during that time period.”
Williams says Lucas and Toole told authorities where they placed the woman’s remains. “They did extensive searching,” he said, but “nothing was located.” Lucas and Toole did not pick Cheryl out of a photo lineup, according to the sergeant, and reports later came out that they were “actually somewhere else” at the time. Both men died in custody.
Sergeant Williams says authorities also considered serial killer Timothy Krajcir, who confessed to killing nine women between the years of 1977 and 1982. Several of his victims were in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, which is 10 miles from Scott City. “So he was interviewed back then,” Williams said. “He was asked about [Cheryl] and he said he did not.” Krajcir, 80, is currently incarcerated at the Pontiac Correctional Center in Illinois.
Sergeant Williams says his department also considered that Cheryl could have been the victim of a killer who may have targeted redheads. According to People, several women with red hair in the late ‘70s and ‘80s “were found dumped along major highways in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia.” Missouri borders several of the states where other potential victims were found. Authorities believe the killer was probably a trucker, and they’ve identified a suspect.
Despite all these theories and possible suspects, authorities have never been able to make an arrest in Cheryl’s case.
“WE JUST WANT HER.”
At this point, Chery’s family just wants to bring her home. “We would like her alive,” Diane said, but they know that is unlikely. “We’ve accepted the fact that that’s probably not what’s going to happen.”
“We just want her. We want her — it’s taken me years to say the word remains, but we just want her remains,” Diane said.
Sergeant Williams says he is working tirelessly to try to find Cheryl. “We want to bring her home,” he said. “She’s a local girl, and she needs to be brought home.” Since he got involved, he has worked with both the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). “Throughout the years, I mean, [NCMEC has] dedicated investigators, they have dedicated time,” he said. Williams says he has used NamUs to go through unidentified remains to see if they might belong to Cheryl. “I went through and looked for possible matches and worked with them to get comparisons and everything,” he said. Through that research, they’ve been able to eliminate some of those remains as belonging to Cheryl. “That’s helpful for the family,” he said.
The sergeant is also hopeful that DNA collected from the scene in 1979 will be able to be tested with the more advanced technology that is available today.
Raymond and Libby Scherer passed away without ever finding out what happened to their daughter. “I mean, everybody thinks their parents are wonderful, but our parents really were,” Diane said. “The strength and example that they had is what carries Anthony and I through.”
The Scherers had a marker made for Cheryl. “We’ve got a tombstone,” Diane said. “Mom and Dad are on both sides and Cheryl’s name’s in the middle.”
“Diane came up with that when Dad passed away,” Anthony said. “She said that if we never find her, there’s nothing on this earth that says she — she lived.”
The Scherer family has relied heavily on their faith to deal with the pain of not knowing where Cheryl is. “We have a good faith life, and, uh, you know, believe that, you know, it’s in God’s hands,” Diane said. They don’t think they would have made it this far without their faith, prayers, and the support of the community over the years.
“We’re not alone in this,” Diane said. Cheryl’s high school classmates still provide support. At their last reunion, they displayed her picture. “They thought she was just the sweetest, happiest-go-lucky, um, understanding, kind-hearted, you know, always there to help” type of person, Diane said. “One of the classmates said that this incident has bonded them for life.”
Sergeant Williams says one of his goals is to make sure Cheryl’s name stays out there. “We need to keep this out there as much as possible. We need to keep this going because each time we do something on this, we get a little bit more,” he said. “We’re going to find the thread to pull to find her.”
ALL MISSING PERSONS MATTER
Scott County has ensured Cheryl’s name will not be forgotten. “We’re in a great– a very great community,” Sgt. Williams said. “I mean, the support for her is outstanding.” The Scott County Sheriff’s Office has Cheryl’s case listed on their missing persons page. Last year, the Scott County Commissioners made a proclamation to recognize the week of April 17th each year as “Cheryl Anne Scherer and Scott County, Missouri Missing Persons Week.”
“They encourage the display of yellow ribbons to commemorate this week, so that’s what we’re gearing up for,” Diane said. “We’ve made bows to hang, we have yellow ribbon lapel pins, and missing person key chains.” They’ve posted about some of the events, which include parades and a “car cruise,” on the Cheryl Scherer Facebook page.
And while Cheryl’s name is what the week is named after, both the Scott County Sheriff’s Office and Cheryl’s family are working to bring attention to other missing people in the county.
Their message is clear: All missing persons matter.
In addition to Cheryl, there are six other missing persons in Scott County. “It just was baffling to us,” Anthony told Dateline. “There’s a lot more out there than I ever realized,” he said. “We need to be their voice.” You can learn about those cases on the Missouri State Highway Patrol website.
Sergeant Williams believes they will be able to close Cheryl’s case.
“Every time we get a good lead, we’re out there working on it. I’m very hopeful that, uh, we’re going to get something soon that would, uh, allow us to bring Cheryl home,” he told Dateline. “But we still need tips. We still need people involved.”
Anyone with information about the 1979 disappearance of Cheryl Scherer is asked to contact the Scott County Sheriff’s Office at 573-545-3525.
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