A woman claiming to be Cherrie Mahan, the Pennsylvania girl who went missing at the age of 8, has triggered a fresh wave of investigations after sharing a post on Facebook.
Law enforcement officials are currently looking into the identity of the woman, who took to social media to announce to the world that she was the girl who went missing from a bus stop in Butler County’s Winfield Township in 1985.
Highlights
- A woman claiming to be Cherrie Mahan has triggered a fresh wave of investigations after sharing a post on a Facebook group
- She is the fourth woman to publicly claim that she is Cherrie since the 8-year-old girl's disappearance in 1985
- Cherrie’s mother, Janice McKinney, said she doesn’t believe the individual is her missing daughter
- The woman who made the claim was removed from the Facebook group for 'harassing and bullying' other members
So far, she is the fourth woman to publicly claim that she is Cherrie since the 8-year-old girl's disappearance.
Cherrie Mahan went missing in 1985 after getting off her school bus in Pennsylvania
Image credits: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
Pennsylvania State Police told Newsweek on Tuesday that they are working toward tracking down the woman who made the identity claim in a Facebook post in the month of May. The post has since been deleted after its appearance on the “Memories of Cherrie Mahan” Facebook group last month.
"We are investigating this woman's claim to be Cherrie Mahan and are currently working with an out-of-state agency to identify her," Lieutenant Adam Reed said, according to the outlet.
"The out of state agency has not yet made contact with her based on the contact information she provided," the statement added. "The investigation continues."
The missing girl would be 47 years old today and is pictured below in an age progression image
Image credits: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
Nearly 40 years have passed since Cherrie vanished after getting off her school bus on Cornplanter Road on February 22, 1985. The investigation led officials to suspect a bright blue 1976 Dodge van with a mural of a mountain and a skier on the side possibly being involved in her disappearance.
A cash reward of $5,000 is still being offered to anyone with information that leads to an arrest or to the discovery of Cherrie’s whereabouts.
Although investigators are trying to verify or refute the recent identity claims made by the woman in a Facebook post, Cherrie’s mother, Janice McKinney, said she doesn’t believe the individual is her missing daughter.
“I truly believe she thought in her mind that she was Cherrie,” the mother told Butler Eagle. “It did not look anything like Cherrie at all.”
The mother, who is still desperately hoping to get some closure after all these years, said she has become accustomed to seeing tips and random bits of information related to her missing daughter. A flurry of such tips normally appear around the anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance and also around the time of her birthday, which falls in August, the parent said.
Hence, she was completely unprepared to see a post in May from the fourth woman claiming to be her daughter.
Janice McKinney, Cherrie's mother, said she doesn't believe the woman who posted the message on Facebook is her daughter
Image credits: CBS Pittsburgh
“In February and August, I expect craziness. This just hit me different,” she said. “I didn’t even see it. Someone called me and told me about it.”
Janice spoke about how much it affects her each time someone comes forward claiming to be Cherrie.
“If you wanted your 15 minutes of fame, you’ve already blown it,” she told the outlet. “People are mean, they are cruel, but this affects me really crazy. It’s gonna be 40 years since Cherrie’s been missing.”
“If you wanted your 15 minutes of fame, you’ve already blown it,” said the mother, who is still hoping for some form of closure
Image credits: Aleks Magnusson
Following the claim made in May, the Facebook group’s administrator, Brock Organ, said the woman had been “harassing and bullying” other members of the group. He said the woman’s message was deleted, and she was blocked from the group as well.
“We have removed the member, and I apologize for the unwelcome content. The group members, especially our dear member Janice, should not have to be exposed to such content,” Brock said in a message posted to the Facebook group last week.
“Some people say, ‘But what if it was really her?’ This has an easy answer: if it was really her, she could present herself at any police office and arrange for a DNA test without reaching out to people online and making aggressive claims. That is what a reasonable person would do,” the message continued. “So, please continue to pray for the family, and thank you for your vigilance in the group! I'm not sure what happened that I, as the admin, could not see the aggressive posts. That makes me even more suspicious that this person was a predator and not genuine.”
The woman who recently claimed to be Cherrie Mahan was removed from the Facebook group for "harassing and bullying" other members
Image credits: Memories of Cherrie Mahan
Despite all the years that have passed by, the heartbroken mother still vividly remembers the day she and her husband, Leroy, waited for their daughter to come back home from the bus stop so they could all go to a friend’s house that day.
"Leroy's like do you want me to go down and pick her up and I said no, it's a beautiful day, she'll come running right up over the hill because she wants to go. But then that never happened," she told KDKA-TV in February this year.
"It's like a black hole opened up and she fell in," she added.
Janice believes her daughter, whether dead or alive, is being taken care of wherever she is
Image credits: Memories of Cherrie Mahan
Amanda Ashbee, Cherrie’s childhood best friend, is still haunted by her disappearance, and now that she is a mother, she ensures that she is always at the bus stop to drop off and pick up her own kids.
"She's still in the back of my mind, always. I'm 47 years old, and I don't think there's been a month in my life that has gone by where you haven't heard a story about a child missing or you read something. She's the first thought that comes to my mind," Ashbee told the outlet.
"It definitely played a big role on how I viewed the world. I was very much aware of my surroundings after that, even at a young age. It was devastating to everyone and I don't think we realized how traumatizing it was to us until we got older and had kids of our own," she continued.
Police are currently working to track down the woman who made the claim on Facebook
While Janice continues living life without knowing anything about what really happened to her daughter, she firmly believes that Cherrie, whether dead or alive, is being well taken care of.
“I’ve always felt that she was OK,” she told Butler Eagle. “If she was dead, she is in heaven with my parents and my brothers. If she was alive, someone was taking care of her. I don’t know why I feel that way.”
To share information about Cherrie's case, one can contact the police at 724-284-8100, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at missingkids.org, or Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers at 1-800-4PA-TIPS (8477) or p3tips.com.
Many people expressed hope after hearing the news of someone claiming to be Cherrie
