BUTLER COUNTY, Pa. — It’s been 39 years since 8-year-old Cherrie Mahan vanished after getting off a school bus in rural Butler County.
Her mysterious disappearance has been the subject of intense local and national coverage for nearly four decades.
Chief Investigator Rick Earle has covered the case for 30 years now, even traveling to Michigan to track down a lead.
Earle recently spoke with Cherrie’s mother and investigators.
Even after all these years, Janice McKinney is still optimistic that one day she’ll find out what happened to her only daughter.
McKinney, who also has a son, hasn’t given up hope.
“Every time I come back here, I hope somebody sees me and then somebody makes a phone call and just, you know, cleanses their heart to say, ‘Yep, I did this,’ or, ‘I know what happened to her,’” McKinney said.
Cherrie Ann Mahan was an eight-year-old American girl who disappeared on February 22, 1985, after disembarking a school bus approximately fifty feet from the base of the driveway to her home in rural Winfield Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania. She was declared legally dead in November 1998.