Sherry Melissa Eyerly

• Missing Since 07/04/1982
• Missing From Salem, Oregon
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Date of Birth 12/06/1963 (61)
• Age 18 years old
• Height and Weight 5'2, 100 pounds
• Clothing/Jewelry Description A red, white and blue Domino's Pizza shirt and blue jeans.
• Associated Vehicle(s) Domino's Pizza delivery van (accounted for); Lime green pickup truck
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, blue eyes. Eyerly has a one-inch scar on her right eyebrow, a one-inch scar under her chin, an eight-inch surgical scar on her lower spine, and the initials "TB" tattooed between her left thumb and forefinger.

Details of Disappearance

Eyerly had a part-time job delivering pizzas for a Domino's Pizza franchise in Salem, Oregon in 1982. She had just graduated from Sprague High School and was living with a cousin in an apartment in south Salem. She was called into work in on July 4, 1982.

Eyerly left work at 9:30 p.m. that day to deliver a pizza to an address on Riverhaven Drive south, near Brown Island Road, in a remote area of Salem. She has never been heard from again.

Eyerly's pizza delivery van was found abandoned later that evening. The parking brake was set, the door was open, three large boxes of pizza lay on the ground, and Eyerly's hat lay nearby. There was no sign of a struggle, however.

Police determined that the address Eyerly was supposed to go to was fictitious. The person who called in the delivery had also given a false name. The call had been placed from a hotel in Salem.

The day after Eyerly's disappearance, someone placed a call to the Domino's Pizza where she worked, demanding a ransom for her safe return. The caller did not communicate with them again, however, and nobody ever attempted to collect any money.

Darrell J. Wilson was classified as a suspect in Eyerly's case for many years. He committed suicide a month after her disappearance, just hours after being questioned by police about it. He had at first denied knowing Eyerly but later admitted being acquainted with her. He drove a lime-green pickup truck similar to a vehicle that was seen near the site of Eyerly's disappearance shortly before she vanished.

After her disappearance, Wilson painted the truck brown. He was camping at Elkhorn Lake, thirty-four miles east of Salem, the night Eyerly disappeared, but he was gone from the campsite between 6:30 p.m. on July 4 and 3:30 a.m. on July 5. Authorities searched his vehicle for physical evidence connecting him to Eyerly's case, but found nothing.

Later events convinced police he was not involved in her disappearance.

In December 2007, authorities announced William Scott Smith had pleaded guilty to murder in Eyerly's case. A photograph of Smith is posted with this case summary. He is already serving two life terms in prison for the abduction, rape and strangulation murders of two Salem women; his guilty plea in Eyerly's presumed death means another life sentence will be added.

He said that he and an accomplice, Roger Noseff, had planned to abduct another female Domino's Pizza worker and hold her for ransom, but the woman was not working that night and they kidnapped Eyerly instead. He stated he strangled her to death afterwards.

Smith said it was Noseff who made the ransom call to Domino's. Noseff died of cancer in 2003 and was never charged in Eyerly's case.

Smith said he dumped Eyerly's body the Pudding River, which is also where he placed the remains of his other two victims. Searches of the area turned up nothing, but the Pudding River has flooded many times since 1982 and any evidence may have been lost.

Eyerly's body has never been located, but foul play is suspected in her case due to the circumstances involved.