Cheryl Anne Scherer

• Missing Since 04/17/1979
• Missing From Scott City, Missouri
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Date of Birth 08/19/1959 (65)
• Age 19 years old
• Height and Weight 5'0 - 5'1, 100 pounds
• Clothing/Jewelry Description A light blue pullover sweater with white trim, a dark blue zip-up windbreaker with a thin white lining and the hood trimmed in white, brown corduroy pants, tiny earrings, a silver ring with a tiny diamond, and a yellow gold necklace with a one-inch cross pendant.
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Red hair, blue eyes. Scherer has a mole half an inch from her navel and a dime-sized dark brown birthmark between her shoulder blades. Her ears are pierced.

Details of Disappearance

Scherer was last seen working her shift at Rhoades Rhodes Pump-Ur-Own Station self-service gasoline station in Scott City, Missouri on April 17, 1979. The gas station didn't have an attached convenience store; other than gas, it sold only cigarettes. That day Scherer was working to the 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. shift. She disappeared from the station sometime between 11:40 and 11:50 a.m.

Two hours before her shift ended, she called her mother, something she often did from work when she was bored. Her mother later said the conversation was normal and Scherer was in a good mood, talking about plans for cooking dinner and doing some sewing that evening. Twenty minutes later, her cousin drove past the station and thought he saw someone inside, but couldn't tell whether it was Scherer. Five minutes later, another station employee found the station unattended.

Scherer's purse, checkbook, and one of her rings were inside her booth at her workplace, and her car was parked in the parking lot with the car keys inside. Although there was cash in the register, approximately $480 was missing from the station's money bag. Authorities believe that Scherer was abducted by person(s) unknown after a robbery. There were no witnesses to her apparent kidnapping.

Serial killers Otis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas, who traveled together and separately across the United States in the 1970s and 1980s randomly killing people, told police that they kidnapped and killed a girl in the area around the time Scherer disappeared.

Lucas was shown a photograph of Scherer and says she was not the girl he abducted, but police suspect she was because she was the only girl reported missing in the area at that time. A photo of him is posted with this case summary. He is also considered a possible suspect in the disappearances of Eva DeBruhl and Elizabeth "Terri" Bishop, and he confessed to involvement in the unsolved disappearances of Janet Callies and a married couple, John and Faye Whatley.

There was never enough evidence to charge Lucas and Toole in connection with Scherer's case, though it was established that they were indeed in Scott City when she disappeared, along with Toole's niece and nephew. Both men have since died in prison. It should be noted that they each had a history of making confessions to crimes they did not commit.

Authorities also looked into the possibility that serial killer Timothy Krajcir, who confessed to murdering nine women between 1977 and 1982, was involved in Scherer's case. Several of his victims were from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, a town only ten miles from Scott City. When he was asked, Krajcir denied killing Scherer. He is still alive and incarcerated in Illinois.

Another theory is that Scherer was the victim of a serial killer who targeted women wth red hair. The bodies of several red-haired women were found dumped along major highways in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia in the 1970s and 80s; Missouri borders several of those states. Investigators think this serial killer was a truck driver and have identified a suspect.

Scherer was considered an excellent employee; she had been working at the station for about fifteen months prior to her abduction and always arrived on time. She resided in Illmo, Missouri and was working to put herself through college. She paid her automobile insurance before her disappearance, and it is not believed that she staged the robbery in any way. Her case remains unsolved.